×

You are Saved by Works.

If you are saved then you are saved by works.

No, I am not retreating or backsliding or apostatizing into Roman Catholicism or other synergistic form of salvation. I am simply restating the truth that the Bible declares. You are saved by works.

Let me elaborate and clarify the statement: You are saved by works, just not your works. If you are saved, you are saved based upon the works, the merits, the doing and dying of Jesus. This is the truth of the gospel.

Often times people talk about the gospel in very reductionistic terms. They speak of grace, saved, and faith as if they are floating doctrines untethered to anyone or anything. I know we don’t mean this (at least I hope not), but it is how we often talk. The truth of the matter is, if we are saved (from God’s wrath) then we are saved by the works of God’s Son.

THE REQUIREMENT: Perfect Obedience

In the Garden of Eden, Adam was given his responsibility. He was to obey God perfectly. Any lack of obedience would result in death (Gen. 2:17). In order to continue to enjoy God’s blessings and not endure God’s judgment, perfect obedience was required.

THE PROBLEM: Sin

In Genesis 3 we read that Adam and Eve sinned. They did not honor God as God, they exchanged his truth for a lie, and they demoted God by exalting themselves (cf. Rom. 1:18-25). This brings forth the good, right, and just punishment of death. This is sin’s wages (Rom. 6:23).

THE SOLUTION NEEDED: Atonement & Righteousness

In Adam we are all sinners by nature and choice. We are altogether unrighteous (Rom. 3:10-18) falling woefully short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23) and left deserving of God’s righteous judgment (Rom. 6:23). What we need is to have wrath removed and a standing of righteousness secured (so we won’t again fall and need wrath removed).

THE SOLUTION PROVIDED: The Doing & Dying of Jesus

In Christ, God provides both. Jesus is willing and able to save helpless sinners like us.

Jesus, as God, took on humanity. Why did he do this? Well, for a myriad of reasons, but chief among them was his need, as our Savior, to be born under the Law (Gal. 4:4). Jesus did not come, as he said, to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (Mt. 5:17). He told John the Baptist to baptism him to fulfill all righteousness (Mt. 3:15). As the substitute for his people he had to live in obedience to God because we did not. In other words he had to fulfill the Law, earning our righteousness. This is why Jesus could not have been killed by Herod at age 2. He had to grow as a man, love God, love neighbor, and fulfill the Law. He had obligation to earn the basis for our righteousness. He had to fill, as it were, that spiritual bank account with the infinite righteousness earned through his obedience. It is this righteousness that God imputes or charges to the believer upon their faith in Christ. When we are justified (declared righteous) we are imputed (charged, reckoned) with the everlasting righteousness of Christ (Rom. 3:21-26, 4:4-6, 5:1-2). God declares us righteous (legally perfect) based upon the perfect obedience to the Law of God by the Son of God (2 Cor. 5:21).

Jesus also died. His obedience for us culminates in his atoning sacrifice. Upon the cross Jesus was standing in our place. He was to bear the just penalty for our sins. He was suffering for us (1 Pet. 3:18). As the hymn says, “In my place, condemned he stood.” He was charged to be sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). God was treating him as though he had disobeyed God’s law so that he could treat those who have faith in him as if they had perfectly obeyed. There upon the cross as Jesus hung in the shame of crucifixion he was clothed with our sin and visited by God’s wrath. Just as God attended the plagues in Egypt with darkness so too on the cross God was there, visiting the cross in noon-day darkness. His judgment and wrath enveloped his Son as he was made sin for us.

Our faith is not in faith but in Christ! As one puritan said, “faith is always the beggar’s outstretched hand, never the rich man’s gold; always the cable never the anchor…without worthiness in itself it knits us to the infinite worthiness of him in whom the Father delights…” We are saved through by grace through faith in Christ (Rom. 3:24-25; Eph. 2:8).

CONCLUSION

If you are saved, you are saved by works, just not your own. You are saved by the works of Christ for you. It is the doing and dying of Christ that saves us. We lay hold of this by means of faith. May we not speed over this truth with indifference that feeds on familiarity.

Lo! The Incarnate God, ascended;
Pleads the merit of His blood.
Venture on Him; venture wholly,
Let no other trust intrude.
None but Jesus, none but Jesus
Can do helpless sinners good.

–(Come Ye Sinners)

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh may I then in Him be found.
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

–(The Solid Rock)

 

 

LOAD MORE
Loading