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God's Masterpiece (Ephesians 2:4-10)
Speaking with Mormon missionaries on one occasion, inevitably, the subject of works came up. They insisted that you needed works in order to be saved, and couldn't understand how Christians not only had assurance of salvation, but enjoyed licence to do as they pleased for the rest of their lives without losing their "ticket to heaven".
This is a common misunderstanding of grace. When I explained to them
that works have a positive place in the Christian message, that Christians
dedicate themselves to "good works" because they are saved, one
of them responded, "No Christian has ever explained it to me that way
before. They always say it is only grace."
When thinking about the place of works in salvation the world, and most religions, put the cart before the horse. They say:
"If I am good enough, if I work hard enough,
God will rescue me for heaven."
There are two major problems with this approach.
1. You can never know until the end whether you have done enough to merit salvation, you can only hope for the best. This may seem "fair enough" until you realise that the promise of Scripture is that of a sure hope. In 1 John 5:13 we read;
I write these things to you who believe in the
name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
How can you have such sure knowledge if you can only hope for the best?
2. The inherent sinful nature of man means we cannot do works that please God. Writing to the Ephesians about our condition without God's grace, Paul describes us in this way:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions
and sins, in which you used to live…Like the rest, we were objects of
wrath (Eph.2:1-3).
Against such inherent sinfulness what could we possibly find in ourselves that would bring us to the place of assurance described by John?
Grace, as the Bible teaches it, recognises our failure and fallen state and offers us a guarantee of heaven, not because of what we have done but because of what God has done. The problem with this is that those who have not experienced true grace can take grace to mean we get off scot-free and don't have to do anything.
In Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Robinson explains the gospel
to Man Friday and then goes off on a trip across the island. He returns
to find none of the work done and Man Friday taking his ease. When Robinson
asks why no work has been done, Man Friday explains that he doesn't
feel he needs to worry because God will forgive him. He soon discovers
that this might be his view of God but Robinson wasn't impressed and
worked him hard to teach him a lesson.
So where do works fit in? Paul, having described the plight of the unbeliever, explains:
(a) Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions -
it is by grace you have been saved.
We were dead and unable to please God, work our ticket to heaven, or
do good works. Then God, "because of his great
love for us" made us alive. In other words, God breathed new
life into dead corpses. This is grace. This is why the apostle was able
to write:
(b) For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this
not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no
one can boast (vv8-9)
Even the faith with which we believe and receive this gift of grace
was itself a gift, i.e. "not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God". How else could a dead person, that is
dead to the things of God, exercise faith?
Finally, Paul describes the new life in terms of a life of works performed by a new creature in the power only found in those who are "God's workmanship".
(c) For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good
works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (v 10)
The Greek word translated workmanship here sometimes carries the connotation
of a work of art. Every Christian is a work of art, God's masterpiece
- a work in progress granted - but a work of new life "created
in Christ Jesus to do good works".
Works are the fruits of a saved life and not the means to a saved life. May the fruits of salvation, the fruits of the Spirit, mark our walk, our conversation, our witness this week.