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Post by Admin on Feb 22, 2024 20:29:01 GMT -5
The High Obligation under which Believers Lie to Yield Even Perfect Obedience to the Law as a Rule of Life
All who are united to Christ, and justified for His righteousness imputed to them, are dead to the law as a covenant; not that they may be without law to God, but that they may be under the law to Christ; not that they may continue in disobedience, but that they may be inclined and enabled to perform sincere obedience in time, and
perfect obedience through eternity, to the law as a rule of life. One design of their being delivered from the obligation of the law in its federal form is that they may be brought under the eternal obligation of it as a rule of duty in the hand of the adorable Mediator. Divested of the form of a covenant of works to believers, and invested with that of the covenant of grace, it stands under the covenant of grace as the law of Christ, and as the instrument of government in its spiritual kingdom, enforced by all its original and immutable authority. It loses nothing of its original authority by its being conveyed to believers in such a blessed channel as the hand of Christ since He Himself is God over all, and since the majesty, sovereignty, and authority of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are in Him as Mediator (Exodus 23:21).
Indeed, it behooved the law of the Ten Command-merits, inasmuch as it is the substance of the law of nature, a delineation of God’s moral image, and a transcript of His unspotted holiness, to be a perpetual and unalterable rule of conduct to mankind in all the possible states and circumstances in which they might be placed. Since God is unchangeable in His moral image, nothing but the entire annihilation of every human creature can divest His holy law of that office. Its being an immutable rule of duty to the human race does not in the least depend on its having become the matter of the covenant of works. Whatever form it might receive, whether that of the covenant of works or that of the covenant of grace, still it could not but continue an authoritative rule of conduct. No form, no covenant whatever, could at any time lessen its high obligation as a rule of duty on the reasonable creature. As the form of the first covenant was merely accessory to the moral law, so the law continues, and will forever continue under that form as the rule of duty to sinners, even in the place of torment. And as the form of the
second covenant is also accessory to it, so it will remain eternally under this form, the rule of life, to saints in the mansions of glory. The sovereign authority of the divine law continues eternally the same; and it can never be in the least impaired by any of the forms under which that law is promulgated to us. And seeing God the Father has so consulted the necessity of His redeemed, in subordination to His own glory, as to put His law into the hands of His eternal Son as Mediator, from these hands they receive it invested with all the sovereign authority that ever belonged to it, together with all that God the Son as their great Redeemer has added to it. That believers ought not to receive, nay, and cannot receive, the law otherwise than from the hand of the infinitely glorious Mediator, is so far from being injurious to the infinite Majesty of God, the sovereign Creator, or to the high obligation of His holy law, that the infinite honor of His glorious majesty and His holy law is thereby most illustriously displayed. As the law as a covenant of works was honored in an infinite degree by its having been obeyed and satisfied by the eternal Son of God in our nature, so, as a rule of life to believers, it is magnified in no less a degree by its being conveyed to them in His hand. Their obligation to perform not only sincere, but
even perfect obedience to it, is on these accounts confirmed and increased. Now the obligation under which all true believers are to yield such obedience to the law as a rule of life proceeds chiefly from the following sources:
1. It arises from God’s being the Lord, or from His being the sovereign, super-eminent, and supremely excellent Jehovah. The obligation under which believers lie to yield obedience to His law arises from His universal supremacy and sovereign authority over them as rational creatures. ‘Ye shall, therefore, keep My statutes and My judgments—I am the LORD”(Leviticus 18:5).Ye shall keep My statutes and do them; I am the LORD which sanctifies you”(Lev. 20:8).
Because God is Jehovah, “the eternal, immutable, and almighty God, having His being in and of Himself, and giving
being to all His words and works” (Larger Catechism, question 101), all obedience is due to Him. The infinite greatness, excellence, and amiableness of the perfections of Jehovah make it the duty of all men, and especially of all believers, to love Him supremely, to obey Him in all things, and to make His glory the chief end of all their obedience to Him. The infinite supereminence and amiableness of Jehovah lay them under inconceivably high obligations to love Him above themselves, and to live to Him ultimately and not to themselves. And as His greatness, excellence, and loveliness are infinite, immutable, and eternal, and as the highest possible degree
of love and obedience is therefore due to Him, so the obligation under which believers lie to love and obey Him even in a perfect degree is infinite, immutable, and eternal. They are thus bound to love and obey Him with all their hearts because He is the LORD, or because He is what He is. On this account principally, and antecedently to every other consideration of Him, He is inexpressibly amiable; and therefore they are under the firmest obligation to love and obey Him, and that in the highest possible degree. This obligation, arising from that infinite greatness, excellence, and loveliness of God which result from His natural and moral perfections, is binding upon believers previously to any consideration of rewards or punishments, or even of the revealed will of God; and it is that from which all other ties to duty derive their obligatory force. It is from the infinite excellence and amiableness of the divine nature that every additional obligation under which they lie to perfect love and perfect obedience derives its binding force.
2. The obligation under which believers are to yield perfect obedience to the law as a rule flows also from God’s being their Creator and their being His creatures. It is He who made them and not they themselves (Psalm 100:3). They receive life, breath, and all things from His creating hand. His right therefore to them, and to their perfect and perpetual obedience, is not only original, underived, and perfect, but infinite. The power which He employed
in creating them was infinite; and therefore He has an infinite right to all that they are, have, and can perform. By right of creation, the Lord has an irreversible and perpetual claim to their supreme love and their cordial and grateful obedience. The relation subsisting between Him as their Creator and them as His creatures lays them under the firmest bond of subjection and obedience to Him; and the grace of the gospel, instead of diminishing, increases the force of that natural obligation. The sovereign Creator is far from having resigned His right of dominion over His saints by His having afforded them, independent of their own works, a title to eternal life. For as they cease not to be creatures by being made new creatures, so they are bound, and shall eternally continue bound, by the sovereign authority of the triune God as their Creator to yield personal and perfect obedience to His law as a rule of life. The divine law, as I have already observed, loses nothing of its original obligation by being divested of its covenant form, and conveyed to believers in the hand of Christ; for “by Him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible” (Colossians 1:16). And the sovereignty, authority, and all
other excellencies of the Father, are in the Son; yea, “in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Indeed, that high obligation cannot cease to retain its original force as long as the immutable and eternal Jehovah cannot cease to be the Creator, and the saints to be His creatures.
3. Their obligation to obey the divine law as a rule of duty arises from God’s being their continual Preserver. “In Him,” says the Apostle Paul, “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). And, says the holy Psalmist, “Lord, Thou preserves man and beast” (Psalm 36:6). His eyes are upon all His works, so that even a sparrow cannot
fall to the ground without Him. By the word of His power, He upholds all His creatures in their being and operation. Every living creature lives upon His goodness and subsists by His bounty. His infinite power every moment upholds all; His unsearchable wisdom governs all, and His unbounded goodness cares and provides for all.
“He opened His hand, and satisfies the desire of every living thing” (Psalm 145: 16). But in a special manner “He preserves the souls of His saints” (Psalm 97:10). “The Lord preserves all them that love Him” (Psalm 145:20). “The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy
coming in, from this time forth, and even forevermore” (Psalm 121:7- 8). Since believers, then, are every moment dependent on God for the continuance and comfort both of their natural and spiritual life, they are bound, in obedience to His law as the rule of their life, to love Him supremely, to serve Him constantly, and to glorify Him in their body and spirit, which are His. The necessary relation in which they stand to Him as their constant Preserver obliges them to devote cheerfully all that they are, have, and do to His service and glory.
Their being and their welfare are continually upheld and defended by His omnipotent arm; and therefore these ought at all times to be employed for Him. And because His manifested glory is His chief end in preserving His saints, they are bound to make it their chief end also in all that they do (1 Corinthians 10:31).
4. The obligation under which the spiritual seed of Christ lie to perform perfect and perpetual obedience to the law of God flows also from His being their God in covenant. He is their God in Christ, and in the covenant of grace and this obliges them to perform universal obedience to His righteous law as it is in the hand of Christ, and as it stands under the covenant of grace. He is also their God in grant or offer. He offers Christ, the blessed Mediator to them, in common with all the other hearers of the gospel; and He also offers Himself to them, to be, in Christ, their God. In the preface to the Ten Commandments, He says to every hearer of the gospel, “I am the Lord thy God.” It is as if He had said, “I am your God in offer.” And in the first commandment, as was observed above, He requires everyone to believe the gracious offer with application to himself, saying, “Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me” (Exodus 20:2-3). He commands every man to know and acknowledge Him to be the only true God, and his God, upon the ground of the unlimited offer; and He enables all His own people to believe cordially that He is their God in offer. He is also their God in choice. In the exercise of their faith, they choose the Lord Jesus to be their Savior and God in Him, to be their covenant God, saying, “What have we to do any more with idols?” (Hosea 14:8). “This God is our God forever and ever” (Psalm 48:14). Each of them is enabled to say to the Lord, as the Psalmist did, “I trusted in Thee, O Lord. I said, ‘Thou art my God’ ” (Psalm 31:14); it is as if he had said, “Thou art my God not only in offer, but in choice (or in preference to every other god); and I, accordingly, have trusted in Thee as my God, and placed all my hope and happiness in Thee.” He is their God also in possession. By believing cordially that He is theirs in offer, and by choosing Him for their God and portion in preference to every other god, as well as by trusting that in Christ He will perform the part of a God to them, they take possession of Him
as their God. According to their faith in Him is their possession and enjoyment of Him; and in bestowing Himself on them as their God and portion, He makes over to them all that He is, has, does, and will do to be theirs in time and through eternity (Hosea 13:4; Psalm 84:11; 1 Corinthians 3:21). Seeing, then, that in amazing condescension He bestows Himself upon them as their God, they are under infinite obligations to devote themselves, and all that they are, have, and do to Him as His people. By His being their God, they are firmly bound, as well as powerfully excited, to love Him supremely, and to delight in yielding spiritual and universal obedience to Him.
Because He is the Lord and their God, they are bound to keep all His commandments. And because it is of sovereign grace that He has been pleased to become their God, they are bound to obey His law as it stands in His covenant of grace—to obey it not that He may become their God, but because He already is their God. The covenant right which, according to His gracious promise, they have to Him as their God, gives Him an additional claim to them, and to all their love and obedience.
5. Their obligation to obey His law as a rule of conduct proceeds likewise from His being their redeeming God. In His love and pity He has redeemed them. From eternity He, according to the good pleasure of His will, has chosen them to everlasting salvation, and has devised the amazing scheme of their redemption. In the immensity of His redeeming love, and in the exceeding riches of His glorious grace, God the Father has sent His only begotten Son to
purchase redemption for them, and His adorable Spirit to apply it to them. He has appointed His only Son to answer the demands of His law as a covenant for them that they might be justified, and His Holy Spirit to write His law as a rule on their hearts that they might be sanctified. As means of attaining the inestimable benefits of eternal
redemption, He has moreover favored them with the doctrines,promises, and ordinances of His blessed gospel. Thus the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one Jehovah, stands in the endearing relation of a redeeming God to all true believers; Christ the glorious Mediator stands in the relation of a near Kinsman, an incarnate Redeemer; and the Holy Spirit in the relation of a Sanctifier and Comforter to them. And while God the Father and Christ and the blessed Spirit stand in these and other endearing relations to believers, believers stand in all the correspondent relations to them. Now from those relations an additional obligation to love and to good works arises which, instead of impairing, greatly strengthens all the other ties under which believers lie to yield evangelical and universal obedience. Because God graciously redeems them from the hand of all their enemies, and that with an infinite price and by infinite power, they are surely under the firmest possible obligations “to serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of their life” (Luke 1:74-75). The notion of a divine
Redeemer implies that of a Creator. “Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer, and He that formed thee from the womb, ‘I am the Lord that maketh all things’ ” (Isaiah 44:24).
As God’s being the Redeemer of His people, then, implies His being their Creator, in subordination to His glory in the redemption of them, so the obligation to obedience arising from His being their sovereign Creator is implied in, and strengthened by, the obligation flowing from His being their Redeemer. The redeeming grace of God in Christ is so far from lessening the force of the natural obligation under which believers as creatures lie to love and obey Him, that it increases this obligation in the highest possible degree. The great God who is glorious in holiness has not resigned His right of sovereign authority over His saints by redeeming them from the law as a covenant, and from their spiritual enemies; but, on the contrary,
He has hereby laid them under further and stronger obligations to universal obedience to the law as a rule. The more illustrious the displays of His glorious perfections, and especially of His infinite goodness, are which He has afforded in their redemption, the greater are their obligations to obedience. When they consider that they have the righteousness of the incarnate Redeemer imputed to them to entitle them to eternal life, and His Spirit dwelling in them to make them meet for the perfection of it, they must surely acknowledge themselves to be under the firmest obligations possible to devote themselves entirely to the service and glory of their redeeming God.
In order to be satisfied of the truth of this, we need only to consider the new relations mentioned above, from which arises a set of new duties which no man is capable of performing, or has access to perform, unless he previously is a partaker of those relations. Of this class of duties are the faith, love, reverence, and worship which believers owe to Christ the adorable Mediator, to God in the relations of a Friend, Father, and God in covenant, and to the Holy Spirit dwelling in them as a Quickener, Sanctifier, and Comforter— also the duties which they owe to fellow-saints as members of Christ’s mystical body. From those endearing relations, and the inestimable blessings issuing from them, believers cannot but be laid under new and peculiar obligations not only to perform these, but all the other duties required of them, in the law as a rule of life.
6. The holy will of God, revealed in His law as a rule of duty to believers, lays them under infinite obligations to obedience. The law in the hand of Christ is to His spiritual seed not only the rule, but the reason of their duty. They are bound not only to do that which is required in the law, and to leave undone that which is forbidden, but they must do what is commanded for the very reason that the Lord requires it, and abstain from what is forbidden because He forbids it. “Thou hast commanded us,” says the holy Psalmist, “to keep Thy precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes!” (Psalm 119:4-5). To keep His commandments is, according to the phraseology of Scripture, to do His will. “He that doeth the will
of God,” says the Apostle John, “abideth forever” (1 John 2:17). And, says another apostle, “This is the will of God, even your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). It is the will not only of God the Father, but of God the Son: “I have ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain” (John 15:16). It is the will also of God the Holy Spirit, whom believers grieve, and even quench, when they do not study to advance daily in the love and practice of universal holiness.
The law as a rule is not only a transcript of the infinite purity of God’s holy nature, but it is, at the same time, a declaration of His holy will
respecting the duty which His people owe to Him. They are, then, under the firmest ties to keep His holy commandments because it is His will that they should keep them. His will declared in His law is infinitely, eternally, and immutably holy, and therefore, in connection with the other sources of obligation already mentioned, it lays believers under the highest possible obligations to perfect and perpetual obedience of heart and life to His holy law.
7. Once more, the obligation under which believers are to obey the law as a rule arises also from the inexpressible benefit or advantage of holiness to themselves. The law in the hand of Christ is not only holy and just, but it is good. It is good in itself and good for believers. It requires nothing of them but what is good for them to perform, and to endure nothing but what is suitable and advantageous to them; nothing but what is agreeable and delightful to the new and holy nature imparted to them in regeneration. To be enabled, then, from principles of faith and love, and for the glory of God, to perform spiritual obedience to such a law is profitable, honorable, and delightful to real believers. It is profitable for them. “Godliness is profitable unto all things” (1 Timothy 4:8). “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). “Charge them that are rich in this world ... that they do good, that they be rich in good works” (1 Timothy 6:17-18). “These things are good and profitable unto men” (Titus 3:8). To love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind, and their neighbor as themselves, is the very perfection of their nature, the highest advantage of which it is capable. Holy obedience to the law in the hand of Christ is also honorable to believers. “If any man serve Me,” said our blessed Lord, “him will My Father honor” (John 12:26). And again, “If a man love Me he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). What a high honor, what an exalted distinction is conferred on sinful worms of the dust when they are not only beautified with the holy image of God, but are advanced to intimate fellowship with Him! Conformity of heart and of life to the divine law is true honor. To resemble Him who is the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person, is the honor and glory of a man. To yield obedience to the law of Christ is delightful also to holy souls.
As they delight in the law itself, so they take pleasure in yielding spiritual obedience to all its holy commandments. Wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness to them. Holiness is not only connected with happiness, but is itself happiness. A man is miserable in proportion as he is sinful, and happy in the same degree in which he is holy. In obedience there is a present and a great reward. True holiness is the health and happiness, the peace and pleasure of the soul. It renders the external comforts of the believer doubly pleasant and his heaviest crosses light, his life valuable and his death desirable. The holy commandments are inscribed on his heart; and therefore, he is well pleased with the purity, spirituality, and goodness of them. He delights in meditating on them (Psalm 1:2), and especially on the holiness of them; he counts them an easy yoke, and he chooses and resolves to perform spiritual and perpetual obedience to them. He knows by experience that he is happy in proportion as his inclinations, thoughts, words, and actions are holy; and that he is in his proper element only when he is exercising graces and performing duties.
Now, seeing holiness is, in subordination to the glory of God, profitable, honorable and pleasant to believers themselves, and so is highly beneficial to them, they are bound to make continual progress in the love and practice of it. As they are bound to glorify God as their redeeming God, and, in subordination to this, to advance in the enjoyment of Him, so they are under strong obligations, in obedience to His holy law, to advance in conformity to Him and in communion with Him: for they cannot glorify Him but in proportion as they enjoy Him, and they cannot enjoy Him but by such conformity to His image as is the fruit of communion with Him. Let every believer, then, endeavor diligently to advance in faith and holiness according to the law of Christ; for “blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is” (Jeremiah 17:7), and “blessed also is the
man that fears the Lord, that delights greatly in His commandments” (Psalm 112:1). From what has now been said, we may warrantably infer that all they to whom the law of the Ten Commandments is given as the authoritative rule of their life have already received spiritual life as the beginning of life eternal. They have all been quickened by the Spirit of Christ, united to Him as their living Head, instated in His covenant of grace, and justified for His righteousness imputed to them. And so they have received already the beginnings of eternal life as the gift of God through Him. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” (John 3:36). And again, “Whosoever lives and believeth in Me shall never die” (John 11:26). The law as a covenant of works says to the dead sinner, “Do this and live; do this for life.” The law as a rule of life, on the contrary, says to the living saint, “Live and do this; do this not for, but from life already received.” All they, then, to whom the law as a rule of life in the hand of the Mediator is
given already have, in their regeneration, received the beginning of eternal life prior to their being capable of performing the smallest degree of obedience to the law in that form. They cannot obey the law as a rule of life otherwise than by working from life; but this supposes them to have life previous to such working, and as the principle of it. Christ lives in them, and they live by the faith of Him.
Their spiritual and eternal life is the life of Christ, life which is wholly derived from Him; and the rule of it by which all its activity is to be
regulated is the divine law as the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2). Regeneration and vital union with Christ are previously and absolutely necessary to the smallest act of acceptable obedience to the law as a rule of life.
Does the law as a rule of life oblige believers to yield even perfect obedience to its precepts?
We ought not to infer from this that it can either justify them before God or condemn them. To justify or to condemn a man belongs to the law as a covenant, but not to it as a rule. To be under the law as a rule of life is the privilege only of believers who are already justified freely by grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and who are thereby placed forever beyond the reach of condemnation (Romans 8:1). The law as a rule cannot justify believers for their obedience to it, for they were perfectly justified in the sight of God before they began their course of sincere obedience; and besides, their obedience is far from being perfect. Neither can it condemn them to eternal wrath for their disobedience; for in their justification they were delivered from condemnation before they began, strictly speaking, to disobey it. It can indeed adjudge them to endure the painful effects of paternal anger, but not to suffer the direful effects of avenging wrath (John 5:24). The law as a rule can direct and bind believers even to perfect obedience, but it cannot either justify them to eternal life or condemn them to eternal death. Their tide to eternal life, and their security from eternal death, have been merited for them by the obedience and death of the last Adam; and they are secured to them
by His intercession. This consideration should endear exceedingly the holy law as a rule of duty to the true believer, and should constrain him to rejoice in the thought that he is bound, and in the prospect that to all eternity he shall be bound, by the authority of it to perfect and perpetual obedience (Psalm 119:77; Revelation 22:3).
Hence also it is evident that the main reason why many true believers have but little holiness of heart and life is that they have much of a legal spirit still remaining in them. It is only with their renewed nature that they obey, or are capable of obeying, the law as a rule. Their unrenewed nature still cleaves to the law as a covenant. In proportion, then, to the degree of corruption remaining in them is that of their legal or old covenant spirit; and the more this prevails in them, the less holy they are. Evangelical or true holiness is a conformity of heart and life not to the law as a covenant of works, but to it as a rule of life standing in the covenant of grace. Although believers, as we said above, are wholly delivered from the dominion of the covenant of works as a rightful sovereign, yet many times it is permitted to re-enter their consciences and usurp authority over them. At such times it will venture either to promise eternal life to them for their obedience, or to threaten eternal death to them for
their disobedience. Now in exact proportion to the degree of their legal temper they are disposed to hearken to the voice of the law in their consciences; and as far as they regard the usurped authority of the law as a covenant of works, they so far disregard the high authority and obligation of it as a rule of duty. Believer, you cannot advance in holy conformity to the law as a rule but in proportion as you, by the Spirit, mortify your legal temper. You may be eminently strict, exact, and uniform in your external performance of every duty; but in as far as a legal spirit prevails and influences your performance of them, they are so far unholy and unacceptable to God. He will accept none of your works but those which are done from evangelical principles and in an evangelical manner. Nothing will more effectually retard your progress in true holiness than either
to hope that you shall obtain heaven for your works of obedience or to fear that you shall be cast into hell for your sins. If you trust your
habits of grace rather than the fullness of grace in Christ; if you derive your comfort from your lively frames and religious attainments rather than from Christ and the promises; and if you make either the good dispositions implanted in you or the good works performed by you the ground of your right to trust daily in Him for salvation, instead of trusting in Him upon the ample warrant afforded you by the offers and calls of the gospel, by doing so you will assuredly decline from holy and cheerful obedience to the law as a rule of life. If instead of coming always as a sinner to the
compassionate Savior, and placing direct confidence in Him for salvation to yourself in particular, you refuse to trust in Him except when you can bring some good qualification or work with you to recommend you to Him, you cannot advance in that holy obedience to His law which is the obedience of faith (Romans 16:26). It is no less manifest from what has been said that the state to which believers are advanced upon their vital union with Christ is so far from being a state of liberty to commit sin that it is a state in which they are laid under the highest possible obligations even to perfect
obedience. If all men are bound to keep the commandments of God because He is Jehovah, the redeemed are especially and still more firmly bound to yield all obedience to them because He is not only Jehovah, but is besides their God and Redeemer. None are under such high and strong obligations to holiness of heart and life as the ransomed of die Lord are. He is their God in covenant, and this lays them under the firmest ties to be His obedient, holy people. He is their almighty and gracious Redeemer, and therefore they are not their own, but His, and are infinitely bound to glorify Him in their bodies and in their spirits, which are His (1 Corinthians 6:20). Why do the saints bitterly bewail the strength of their corruptions and the
weakness of their graces, the innumerable sins of which they have been guilty, and the want of perfect conformity to the holy law of which they are sensible? Is it not because they feel their infinite obligations not to merely sincere, but even to perfect obedience? And why do they, in their exercise of evangelical repentance, loathe themselves in their own sight for their iniquities and their abominations (Ezekiel 36:31)? Do they it not because they are enabled to account their want of that perfect conformity to the law to which they are bound an abominable defect? The wonderful grace of God displayed in their justification and deliverance from the law as a covenant of works, instead of leaving them at liberty to continue in
sin, disposes and powerfully constrains them to depart from all iniquity and advance resolutely in universal obedience to the law as a rule of life. There is not a true believer in the world who does not know this by experience.
What has been advanced may also serve to throw some light on the doctrine of vowing to the Lord, and of the obligation which arises from a lawful vow. Believers are far from being left at liberty to vow or not to vow as they please. They are expressly commanded to vow to God, and also to perform their vows. “Vow, and pay unto the Lord your God” (Psalm 76:11). “Pay thy vows unto the Most High” (Psalm 50:14). It is clear from the context that the vows mentioned in this last passage are not legal and ceremonial, but spiritual or moral vows; vows which believers in all ages of the Church are bound both to make and to perform. Isaiah, when predicting the conversion of multitudes in New Testament times, and especially in the millennial
period of the Church, says, 'The Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day; yea, they shall vow a vow unto the Lord, and perform it” (Isaiah 19:21).
Accordingly, the venerable Assembly at Westminster teaches that “vowing unto God is a duty required in the second commandment of the moral law” (Larger Catechism, question 108).
All true converts, in every age of the Church, dedicate themselves, and all that they are, have, and do to the Lord; and in doing so they either expressly or implicitly vow to Him. That is to say, they solemnly purpose and promise that in dependence on promised grace, or that in as far as the Lord Jesus will according to His promises, enable them, they shall, all the days of their life, yield sincere and increasing obedience to His holy law as the rule of their duty. They do not engage or promise to yield perfect obedience in their present state of imperfection, or to perform so much as a single duty in the strength of grace already received, but to perform in the strength of that grace which is promised, and which they trust will be
given them, all necessary duties. This is not a particular, but a general vow. Neither is it a legal and ceremonial, but a spiritual and moral vow. It is the believer’s baptismal vow which, if opportunities are afforded, he will be sure willingly, explicitly, and frequently to renew at the Table of the Lord.
Now, from this vow or promissory oath arises an obligation on the believer to do as he has said. He vows to perform nothing but what he was previously under the firmest obligations possible to perform; and therefore, though his vow cannot add to the authority of God in His law, nor, strictly speaking, strengthen those obligations to obedience which are already as strong as it is possible for them at the time to be; yet it is the source of a new, a distinct and a super-added obligation. It is not, indeed, a primary source of obligation to obedience like those mentioned above; but still it lays the believer under a new and distinct obligation to fulfil his engagement. He engages or obliges himself, by his own voluntary act, to perform
sincerely all those duties to which he is already bound by the law. And the more often he repeats his vow, the obligation arising from it becomes the firmer. If a lawful vow, with respect to things indifferent, founds an obligation, as generally seems to be allowed, much more, surely, must a lawful vow concerning necessary duties be binding. The new obligation to necessary duties, arising from a deliberate and solemn vow to perform them, is not in the least inconsistent with those high obligations to them which flow from the other sources already explained. It is, indeed, associated with these obligations, but it is no disparagement to them.
Should any still be disposed to question if a lawful vow respecting moral duties can found a new and distinct obligation to perform them, I would only add that it either lays the believer who makes it under a new obligation or it does not. There can be no medium here. If it lays him under an obligation, it must be an obligation posterior to those considered above, and therefore a new and distinct one. If it lays him under no obligation, it will follow that lawful vows do not bind; if they do not bind or impose an obligation, they cannot be broken; and, if so, the saints in all ages have acted an unwise, yea, and a superstitious part when they have confessed and bitterly bewailed their breach of vows. Many professors of religion in our day seem unwilling to vow to the Lord for fear that, by the breach of vows, they should increase the number of their sins. But this discovers both a want of knowledge and a want of sincerity. Matthew Henry, commenting on Isaiah 45:23, says well, “If the heart be brought into obedience to Christ, and made willing in the day of His power, the tongue will swear to Him, will lay a bond upon the soul, to engage it forever to Him; for he that bears an honest mind doth never startle at assurances.” In conclusion, believers are under every obligation not only to obedience to the divine law, but to free and voluntary obedience. They are bound to yield such obedience as cannot be performed under the law as a covenant of works, as cannot be performed from the principle either of slavish fear or of servile hope. They are under the strongest ties to yield voluntary obedience
to the law as a rule of life. They are firmly bound, but it is to free obedience; to the obedience not of slaves or hirelings, but of sons and
daughters. The Lord Jesus says in His law to them, as on a particular occasion He did to His disciples, “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). With infinite willingness, He obeyed the law as a covenant for them in order that they, by His grace, might with sincere willingness and, in due time, with perfect willingness obey it as a rule. The law as a rule of life to believers has, as was said above, no threatening of eternal death, and no promise of eternal life annexed to it. No obedience, therefore, is suitable to it but that which is free and voluntary, proceeding from love to God, delight in His will, and concern for His glory. In proportion, accordingly, as the saints are enabled to believe the astonishing love of God with application to themselves, and to contemplate the infinitely free grace manifested in redeeming them from the broken covenant of works, and in bringing them under the law of the hand of Christ, they yield free and unconstrained obedience to this law. Made a willing people in the day of the Redeemer’s power, they obey willingly, and that not from legal motives, but from 'evangelical ones. They study to do what the Lord requires because He commands them, and in order to please and honor Him. They hate all manner of sin because it is hateful in itself, and because He hates it. With holy abhorrence they forsake iniquity because He forbids it, and in order that they may not displease or dishonor Him. And though their obedience will not be absolutely free till it is absolutely perfect, yet the freeness of it will always be in exact proportion to the strength and frequency of their
actings of faith and love. When a man is habitually attentive to the manner as well as to the matter of every act of obedience, it is a good
evidence that he is dead to the law as a covenant, and is brought under the obligation of it as a rule; that the law as a covenant has
begun to be erased from his heart, and the law as a rule to be written on it
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Post by Admin on Feb 22, 2024 20:30:53 GMT -5
The Nature, Necessity, and Desert of
Good Works
Good works are such actions or deeds as are commanded in the law
of God as a rule of life. An action is a good work in the view of men
when it is materially good; that is, when the matter of it appears
agreeable to the letter of the law, and when it is profitable either to
the individual himself who performs it or to any other. But nothing is
a good work in the sight of God unless it is formally as well as
materially good. While the matter of it must accord to the letter, the
form must, in some degree, correspond to the spirit of the holy law.
No man, while he is under the law as a covenant of works, can do a
single action that is formally good. He must be a true believer,
justified by faith, dead to the law as a covenant, under the law as a
rule, and “created in Christ Jesus to good works” before he can
perform the smallest action that will be good and acceptable in the
sight of God (Romans 5:6). Good works cannot be done but in
obedience to the law in the hand of the Mediator as an authoritative
rule of conduct; and they cannot be performed but by persons who
are vitally united to Him as the last Adam, and who have communion
with Him in His righteousness and fullness (John 15:5). In order to
perform the smallest good work, a man must be justified on the
ground of the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to him; and
therefore his good works arrive too late to form any part of his
justifying righteousness. As it is impossible for a man to be justified
in the sight of God by the works of the law before conversion, so it is
equally impossible for him to be justified by his good works after it.
Good works will, indeed, justify the believer’s profession of faith
before men, but not his person before God. Such works, not being
performed under the law as a covenant, and at the same time not
being perfect, cannot enter into the ground of a sinner’s justification;
but they manifest him to have true faith, and to be already justified
by faith; and so they evidence his profession of faith before men to be
sincere (Galatians 2:16; Philippians 3:9; James 2:24). As good works
are strictly enjoined in the law of God, and as it is of the highest
importance to the honor of God, and also to the advancement of
holiness and comfort in believers themselves that they understand
well the nature, the necessity, and the desert of such works, I shall
here consider briefly, each of these in order.
Section 1. The Nature of Good Works
Holiness of life, or the constant practice of good works, proceeds
from that holiness of heart which is imparted to elect sinners in
regeneration and sanctification. It consists in their conformity of life
to the law as a rule of duty. The habitual and constant performance
of good works is the same as holiness of life; and it is the
distinguishing character of every adult person who so believes in the
Lord Jesus as to have the beginnings of eternal life. Here it will be
necessary, briefly, to point out what it is that constitutes an action, a
good work in the sight of God, the omniscient and sovereign Judge of
all.
Much more is required for this purpose than merely a good
intention. A man may, in his actions, propose to himself a good end,
or may have an apparently good intention to serve, while yet he is
ignorant of the holiness and spirituality of the divine law (1 Timothy
1:7). Many, with what has appeared to them to be the best intention,
have done and still do things which are expressly forbidden in the
holy law of God (1 John 16:2). The sovereign authority of God in His
law obliges men to regulate not only their ends of acting, but their
principles, inclinations, and the matter and manner of their actions
by that divine standard (Deuteronomy 12:32; Mark 12:30-31). The
following things especially are requisite to constitute our works of
obedience as good works:
1. They must be such as are required in the law of God, and are
performed in obedience to His holy will, expressed in the precepts of
His law. “He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his own soul”
(Proverbs 19:16). “He that doeth the will of God abideth forever” (1
John 2:17). The law of God is the revelation of His sovereign will, and
therefore it is the authoritative rule of our obedience. No action,
then, is a good work unless it is performed agreeably to His will, and
as an act of obedience to His commands.
2. They cannot be accounted good works unless they are raised on a
good foundation. Our works cannot be good unless they are works of
new and evangelical obedience; and this they cannot possibly be
unless they are built on a new and evangelical foundation. Good
works cannot stand but on a good or an evangelical ground, namely
the doctrines, offers, invitations, and promises of the gospel, and
especially, the glorious doctrine of justification only for the
righteousness of Christ imputed and received by faith; as also the
holy law, in consequence of the second Adam’s fulfilling of it,
divested of its federal form to believers, and in and by Him given to
them as the only and immutable rule of their new obedience. “If ye
know these things,” said our Lord to His disciples, “happy are ye if ye
do them” (John 13:17). And the Apostle Paul wrote, “These things,”
namely the things mentioned in the immediately preceding context,
“I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in
God, might be careful to maintain good works” (Titus 3:8).
3. It is also requisite that they flow from evangelical principles. They
cannot be spiritually good or acceptable to God unless they proceed
from good principles of action. But no principles are good unless
they are evangelical. It is not sufficient for this purpose that our
performances be barely moral, as many of the actions of heathens
were; they must be evangelical and holy also. They must flow from
such evangelical principles as these: a soul regenerated by the
quickening Spirit of Christ; a mind enlightened with the saving
knowledge of Christ, and of the truth as it is in Him; union with
Christ, and with God in Him, by a living faith; communion with
Christ in His righteousness and fullness, and with God in Him; a
conscience sprinkled with His justifying and peace-speaking blood;
and a heart sanctified and comforted by His Holy Spirit (Ezekiel
36:25-27; Matthew 12:35). They must proceed more immediately
from principles and habits of faith, hope, and love in a sanctified
soul. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:16).
“Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He
is pure” (1 John 3:3). “This is the love of God, that we keep His
commandments” (1 John 5:3).
4. We must be excited to the performance of them by evangelical
motives only. To render our works spiritually good, it is not enough
that they proceed from good principles; they must, moreover, be
influenced by good motives, deeply affecting and determining our
hearts, such as: the astonishing love and grace of God manifested in
His gospel (1 John 4:19); the sovereign authority and will of God as
our Covenant God and Father, declared in His law as the rule of our
duty (1 Thessalonians 4:3; Exodus 20:2-3; 2 Corinthians 5:14); our
deliverance from condemnation, and the ample security from eternal
death which the blood of Christ affords us (1 Corinthians 6:20; 1
Peter 1:17-19); the promise and the hope of “eternal life as the gift of
God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Titus 1:2; Romans 6:23), and
the perfect pattern of good works, which Christ has proposed for our
imitation (1 Peter 2:21; Hebrews 12:1-3).
5. Another requisite is that they be performed in a special manner.
It is necessary that the manner as well as the matter of our works be
spiritually good and acceptable to God. The manner of performing
them must be evangelical, suited to the state, the privileges, and the
prospects of believers. They cannot be good works unless they are
performed inwardly as well as outwardly; for the law is spiritual, and
it requires the obedience of the whole heart as well as of the whole
life. They must, in order to their being good works, be performed in
the exercise of trusting with firm confidence that Christ will, every
moment, afford us grace to enable us to perform them acceptably (1
Timothy 1:5; Philippians 4:13; Hebrews 11:6); in the exercise of a
lively hope (1 Peter 1:3-4); in the exercise of supreme love to Christ,
and to God in Him {1 Timothy 1:5; Romans 13:10); in the exercise of
adoring gratitude to the Lord for all His benefits bestowed and
promised (Psalm 116:12-14); and in the exercise also of evangelical
contrition and humiliation, counting ourselves utterly “unworthy of
the least of all His mercies” (Genesis 32:10), and indebted wholly to
His sovereign grace for all our salvation (Ephesians 2:8-10). They are
good works only in proportion as they are performed in the exercise
of spiritual graces and in the strength of promised grace.
6. Once more, it is no less requisite that we propose to ourselves
good ends in performing them. The ends which we propose to
ourselves in the practice of them must be evangelical, as well as our
principles, motives, and manner. They cannot be accounted good
works, except our chief or ultimate end in doing them, be the glory of
God in Christ, as our God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Nor is it sufficient
for this purpose that in them we virtually and habitually intend the
glory of God; it will be necessary that, in performing each of them,
we actually aim at die glory of His holy name as our highest end. It is
also requisite that in our practice of them we have it ever in view, in
subordination to the manifested glory of God, to advance in
conformity of heart and of life to our great Redeemer (1 Peter 1:15-
16; Philippians 3:10-14), to embrace every opportunity of doing good
to all around us (Matthew 5:16), and to prepare for the full and
everlasting enjoyment of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—as our
infinite portion (Psalm 73:25-26).
Now the performances of real Christians have, in a higher or lower
degree, all these requisites; and therefore they are, strictly speaking,
good works. The depravity that remains in the hearts of believers
hinders, indeed, their works from being perfectly good; but it cannot
prevent them from being truly or spiritually good and “acceptable to
God through Jesus Christ.” The good Spirit of God dwells in all
saints, and “works in them, both to will and to do of His good
pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). He has begun, and He promotes, a good
work of grace in their hearts; and from this proceed all good works of
obedience in their lives (Philippians 1:6). But, seeing their best
actions are not yet perfectly good, they ought so to increase and
“abound in every good work,” so as constantly to press on toward
perfection in holiness. They are commanded to increase more and
more in the strength and liveliness of their spiritual graces, and in
the zealous and diligent performance of their necessary duties (2
Peter 3:18; 1 Thessalonians 4:1).
Section 2. The Necessity of Good Works
In this section, I shall, first, endeavor to show for what purposes
good works are not necessary, and, next, in what respects, or for
what ends, they are necessary.
In the first place, I am to show for what purposes they are not
necessary.
1. Good works are not necessary to move God to be merciful and
gracious to us. They are not needful to recommend us so to the favor
of God so as to excite
His compassion and good will to us, or to produce the smallest
change in His intentions concerning us. The change to be promoted
by the continual practice of good works will be only in ourselves; it
cannot be in God. “He is in one mind, and who can turn Him?” He is
Jehovah, and He changes not. Our holy performances, do not render
God more willing than He is already to show mercy or give grace to
us; but they are means of rendering ourselves more and more willing
to receive His mercy and grace. We must, then, never depend on our
own good works, but always on the spotless righteousness of Christ,
and on the gracious promises of God, for all the effects of His mercy
and favor.
2. Our good works are not necessary to afford us a right to trust in
Christ for salvation. They cannot obtain for us a right to believe in
the Lord Jesus; nor is it requisite that they should. The
commandment of the law to believe in the name of Jesus Christ (1
John 3:23), together with the offers, invitations, and promises of the
gospel, affords us all the right or warrant that is requisite to come as
sinners to the Savior, and to place the confidence of our hearts in
Him for His whole salvation. These afford to us, in common with all
the other hearers of the gospel, a full right as sinners of mankind to
approach, and, with the firmest confidence, to trust in Him. And
therefore we have no need to procure by our performances the
smallest degree of right to come to Him (Isaiah 55:1; Revelation
22:17). Our good works are necessary for other purposes, but not for
this. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” and “not to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” We must, therefore,
approach and trust in Him as sinners utterly unworthy of Him, and
that without looking for any good qualities or works of our own
either to recommend us to His regard or to entitle us to trust that He
will save us. How can our good works be necessary to afford us a
right to trust in the Savior when we must begin to trust in Him
before we can perform the smallest good work?
3. Neither are good works necessary to acquire for us a personal
interest in Christ. So far are they from being requisite to merit, or so
much as to obtain for us a saving interest in Jesus Christ, that our
being previously interested in Him is indispensably necessary to our
being capable of performing so much as the very smallest of them
(Ephesians 1:6; John 15:5). Good works, then, can have no place in
procuring for us a personal interest in the Savior. It is necessary to
qualify us for them, but they are not necessary to confer on us a right
to it. They are indeed an evidence of it, but not a procuring cause;
they follow upon it, but do not go before it. They can have no
existence before it; and therefore, they can neither entitle us to it nor
qualify us for the reception of it. A personal interest in Christ must
either be received as a gift of sovereign grace, by faith only, or not
received at all. Many convinced sinners err greatly in this matter.
They hope that their reformations, their frames, and their
performances will so recommend them to God as to procure for them
a saving interest in the person and work of Christ. Thus they
themselves try to begin the work of their salvation, and then to trust
that the Savior will help it forward. But this is to “seek righteousness
not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law, and to stumble at
that stumbling stone” (Acts 15:9; 1 Corinthians 6:11; Colossians
2:12). No man can attain a saving interest in Christ until he is made
willing to receive it as a gift of infinitely free grace.
4. Good works are not requisite to acquire for us a right to increasing
degrees of sanctification. We ought, indeed, to employ them
diligently as means of growing in habits of grace; but we must not
hence conclude that they are needful to procure for us a title to those
influences of sanctifying grace which are every moment requisite for
increasing our habits of grace and exciting them to exercise. They are
necessary as means, and also as evidences, but not as procuring
causes of progressive holiness. It is not the good fruit that makes the
tree good; but, on the contrary, it is the good tree that produces the
good fruit. It is not the good works of believers, but the infinitely
perfect righteousness of the second Adam, that entitles them to
increasing holiness both of heart and life. And therefore, while they
ought to be diligent and zealous in performing all good works, they
must not presume to place the least dependence on their
performance of them for a title to continued supplies either of
sanctifying or comforting grace. Instead of trusting to their own
endeavors for a continued increase of inherent holiness, their duty is
to rely on the righteousness of Jesus Christ for their whole title to it.
They ought to rely on His surety-righteousness as much for a title to
sanctification as for a right to justification. It is by faith in the Lord
Jesus as their righteousness and strength that they are sanctified as
well as justified (Acts 15:9; 1 Corinthians 6:11; Colossians 2:12).
While then they trust constantly in Christ Himself for continual
supplies of sanctifying grace, they must, instead of depending on
their own works, rely daily on His righteousness alone for all their
title to those supplies. Though good works are indispensably
necessary in those who are sanctified, yet they are so far from being
requisite to procure for the saints a title to progressive sanctification
that these could not perform so much as one of them till after they
began to be sanctified.
5. Once more, good works have no place in obtaining for the saints a
right to eternal life in heaven. Eternal life is the gift of God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. It is a purchased possession, purchased for all
His spiritual seed by the obedience unto death of the second Adam.
It is an inheritance which He, “the heir of all things,” bequeaths to
them, and of which they attain possession not on the ground of their
own good works, but by union and communion with Him. It is not
their own good deeds, but His righteousness that is meritorious of
eternal life for them. “Not by works of righteousness which we have
done,” says the Apostle Paul, “but according to His mercy He saved
us” (Titus 3:5). It is Christ only who “hath obtained eternal
redemption” for believers (Hebrews 9:12). They are accepted as
righteous in the sight of God, and entitled to eternal life, not for their
own good works, but only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to
them, and received by faith alone. It is “by the righteousness of one”
that grace, or “the free gift, comes upon all men who believe, unto
justification of life”; for “by the obedience of one shall many be made
righteous” (Romans 5:18-19). Were the good works of believers to
entitle them in the smallest degree to salvation, their salvation
would, in the same degree, be of debt to them and not of grace. But it
is not by any merit of theirs, but by the sovereign grace of God that
they are saved (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Besides, if their good works afforded them a right claim to eternal
life, it would inevitably follow that they could not have a right to it till
after they had performed them all. But the infinitely perfect
righteousness of Jesus Christ gives them in their justification a
complete right to life eternal, and that before they begin to do one
good work (Romans 4:4-6). Indeed, believers, even if they could
perform perfect obedience, could yield no degree of obedience but
what they owed to the Lord; and therefore even their perfect
obedience could not merit the least favor from Him.
And as their good works can give them no meritorious right to
eternal life, so neither can they afford them a pactional title to it; for
by the consummate righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to them
they have already both the one right and the other, and that in the
highest possible degree. Though good works, then, are not necessary
in order to procure or obtain a right to eternal salvation; yet they are
the necessary duties of all who are justified and entitled to that
salvation. They are the consequences of salvation already procured;
and they are the antecedents which prepare believers for the
salvation to be still attained. At the same time, however, they are not
causes of obtaining the possession either of the beginning, the
progress, or the consummation of salvation. They are indispensably
necessary in all adult persons who shall be saved, but not necessary
to obtain or acquire salvation. Believers are saved not by their good
works, but to them, as effects and evidences of their salvation already
begun. These words of the Apostle Paul, “They do it to obtain a
corruptible crown, but we, an incorruptible,” will not prove that good
works are necessary to obtain eternal salvation; for the verb in the
original properly signifies “to receive or apprehend” (1 Corinthians
9:25); and it is so rendered by our translators in the verse
immediately preceding. Believers are not saved either by their works,
for their works, or according to their works.
We are not saved by them, “Not by works of righteousness which we
have done, but according to His mercy He saved us” (Titus 3:5).
We are not saved for them. “ ‘It is not for your sake do I this saith the
Lord God, ‘be it known unto you’ ” (Ezekiel 36:32).
We are not saved according to them. “He hath saved us, and called us
with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His
own purpose and grace” (2 Timothy 1:9), Men are, indeed, to be
judged according to their works; but are not to be saved according to
them. The rule of judgment will be the law; but the rule of salvation
will be the gospel.
I proceed now, as was proposed, to show in what respects or for what
important purposes good works are indispensably requisite.
1. They are necessary as just acknowledgments of God’s sovereign
authority over believers, and as acts of obedience to His righteous
commands. “For this is the will of God,” said Paul, “even your
sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). The infinite Majesty of heaven
has not laid aside His right of dominion over believers by affording
them deliverance from condemnation and a right to eternal life; but
on the contrary He has, in that wonderful way, laid them under
additional obligations to holiness in all manner of conversation. The
glorious liberty to which He has called them is given them for this
purpose: “That they may serve Him without fear, in holiness and
righteousness before Him, all the days of their life” (Luke 1:74-75).
He has delivered them from the law as a covenant for this very end:
that according to the law as a rule “they might serve Him in newness
of Spirit” and “be careful to maintain good works.” The sovereign will
of God as the supreme rule of duty is expressed in His commands;
and therefore universal and perpetual obedience to them is
necessary.
2. Good works are indispensably requisite as being one special end of
the election, redemption, regeneration, and effectual vocation of the
objects of God’s everlasting love. They are one design of the election
of sinners. “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ hath
chosen us in Him,” said the Apostle Paul, “that we should be holy,
and without blame before Him in love” (Ephesians 1:4). They are
also one end of the redemption of elect sinners. For the same apostle
said, “Christ gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all
iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good
works” (Titus 2:14). They are one of the designs too of the
regeneration of God’s elect. “We are His workmanship,” said our
apostle, “created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath
before ordained that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
Good works are the native and necessary operations of a regenerate
and sanctified soul. Grace in the heart is a living, operative principle
of holiness in the life. Good works are likewise one of the ends to be
attained by their effectual vocation. “As He which hath called you is
holy,” said the Apostle Peter, “so be ye holy in all manner of
conversation” (1 Peter 1:15).
3. Good works are also necessary inasmuch as they are one great
design of the gospel, and of the ordinances and providential
dispensations of the Lord. As for the gospel, it is “the mystery of
godliness” (1 Timothy 3:16), “the doctrine which is according to
godliness” (1 Timothy 6:3). The doctrine of the gospel is not
speculative merely; it is also transforming and practical. It is not only
the instrument of enlightening the mind, but also of renovating the
will, and of rectifying the affections of the soul. In the hand of the
Holy Spirit, it is a fire which penetrates, warms, softens, quickens,
purifies, and comforts the heart. It is a light which assimilates (2
Corinthians 3:18) and truth which sanctifies (John 17:17). It is also
“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” which, by making
believers “free from the law of sin and death,” brings them “under
the law to Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:21). The design, too, of the
ordinances of the gospel is that sinners may be converted to the love
and practice of holiness, and that saints may be enabled to abound
more and more in every good word and work. This is the design
likewise of all providential dispensations to the children of God. If
they are favored with prosperity, it is that the goodness of God may
constrain them to “bring forth fruits meet for repentance”; or, if they
are visited with adversity, it is “that it may yield the peaceable fruit of
righteousness to them” (Hebrews 12:11).
4. It is indispensably requisite that believers perform good works as
expressions of gratitude to their God and Savior for all His
inestimable benefits vouchsafed to them. They are bound to always
be grateful and thankful to the Lord for His great goodness to them
in creation, in providence, and especially in redemption. It is He who
has made them and not they themselves. He has preserved them
amidst innumerable dangers, and has liberally supplied their various
wants. He has distinguished them from all others of the sons of men
by the greatness of their privileges and the inestimable value of their
enjoyments; by the innumerable instances of His kindness and the
rich abundance of His favors. He has also, in the immensity of His
love, sent His only begotten Son to redeem them to Himself by His
blood, and to merit for them the full and endless fruition of Himself
in the mansions of bliss. Moreover He has sent His Holy Spirit to
dwell in them, to apply redemption to them, and, by His sanctifying
and comforting influences, to prepare them for every good work and
advance them to the full enjoyment of eternal life. How boundless,
then, how inexpressible, is the debt of adoring gratitude which they
owe to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit! Now, what does
the Lord require of them in return for all His benefits? Nothing but
that they should “be ready to every good work,” and be “zealous for
good works.” Having been bought with a price of infinite value, they
are no more their own, but are indispensably bound to glorify God in
their body and in their spirit, which are His, by a spiritual, universal,
and cheerful obedience to Him. It is the will of their sovereign
Benefactor that they express their gratitude to Him for the
inestimable blessings of His grace by taking pleasure in keeping all
His commandments, and by showing themselves patterns of good
works (Titus 2:7).
5. Good works are no less necessary as they are our walking in the
way which leads to heaven. Jesus Christ is the way (John 14:6). Faith
and holiness are our walking in Him as the way. This way,
accordingly, is called “the way of holiness,” or “the holy way” (Isaiah
35:8), inasmuch as none can walk in Christ other than by faith, and
by that holiness of heart and life which is “the obedience of faith.” As
no man can arrive at heaven but by Christ, so “without holiness,” or
walking in Him, “no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). None
is in the way to heaven but he who, by a life of faith and the practice
of those good works which are the fruits of faith, is advancing toward
perfection of holiness. It is the order immutably fixed in the
everlasting covenant that a man be made holy in heart and in life
before he is admitted to see and enjoy God in His holy place on high.
The love and practice of good works, then, in one who has an
opportunity of performing them, are necessary as appointed means
of disposing or preparing him for the holy enjoyments and
employments of the heavenly sanctuary. The redeemed, therefore,
who are in the way to the celestial city, are zealous for good works
and “fruitful in every good work” (Colossians 1:10).
6. Good works are also indispensably requisite in order to evidence
and confirm the faith of the saints. Wherever a living and a saving
faith is, good works are, in every adult believer, the native fruits and
proper evidences of it. “Show me,” said the Apostle James, “thy faith
without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works”
(James 2:18). Sincere obedience is the necessary consequence, and
therefore a necessary evidence, of justifying and saving faith. Good
works are works of faith, works performed in faith, and proceeding
from it as the living principle of them. Whatever seeming evidences
of true faith, then, a man may have, they are all to be regarded as
counterfeit and delusive if he does not, at the same time, love and
practice good works. Such works not only evidence a living faith, but
they also encourage the believer resolutely to persevere in renewing
his exercise of faith; and so they prove to be means of confirming his
faith.
7. Good works are necessary to believers for making their calling and
election sure to them. Although such works afford a man no right to
eternal salvation, yet they are an infallible proof to him that he has a
personal interest in it and a sure tide to it. They, under the
witnessing of the Holy Spirit, supply the believer with arguments,
which not only serve to confirm his assurance of faith, but to increase
his assurance of personal interest in Christ and His great salvation.
“Hereby we do know that we know Him,” said the beloved disciple,
“if we keep His commandments... Whosoever keepeth His Word, in
him verily is the love of God perfected; hereby know we that we are
in Him” (1 John 2:3, 5). To the same purpose the Apostle Peter says,
“Giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue,
knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance,
patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly
kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. . . Give diligence to
make your calling and election sure; for if ye do these things, ye shall
never fall” (1 Peter 1:5-7, 10). Without the diligent performance of
good works, no believer can attain assurance of his personal interest
in eternal salvation, far less establishment in that assurance.
8. Good works are indispensably requisite for the maintenance or
continuance of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Though such works
are not procuring causes of spiritual peace and joy, yet, as fruits of
righteousness imputed and fruits of faith, they always accompany
that peace and joy which issues from the lively exercise of faith
(Psalm 119:165; 2 Corinthians 1:12). The consolation which flows
from the vigorous exercise of an appropriating faith, and from
cheering discoveries of personal interest in the covenant of grace,
cannot be retained without unwearied diligence in the exercise of
spiritual graces, and in the performance of good works. If believers
would know by experience that “wisdom’s ways are ways of
pleasantness, and all her paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17); and if they
would enjoy a continued sense of redeeming love, and a sweet
foretaste of heavenly felicity; they must be habitually careful not only
to maintain, but to be rich in good works.
9. Good works are no less needful in order to adorn the doctrine of
God our Savior, and our profession of that holy and heavenly
doctrine. The Apostle Paul gave this charge to Titus: “Exhort
servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them
well in all things; not answering again; not purloining, but showing
all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior
in all things” (Titus 2:9-10). Believers cannot otherwise be a credit to
the gospel, and to their holy profession of it, than by a cheerful and
diligent performance of every good work. It is only by the love and
practice of universal holiness that they can strike a conviction of the
holiness, excellence, and efficacy of the gospel of God our Savior on
the consciences of hardened sinners around them. No other practice
than that of good works in all their variety becomes the gospel of
Christ. It is only “the beauty of holiness” that is suitable and
ornamental to His glorious gospel. If believers, then, would not
afford occasion to the enemies of the Lord Jesus to blaspheme His
glorious name, to speak evil of the way of truth, and to conclude that
all who profess faith and holiness are hypocrites and imposters, they
must diligently follow every good work. If, while men seek to be
justified by Christ, they themselves also are found sinners, this
reflects much dishonor on our great Redeemer, and makes Him “the
minister of sin” (Galatians 2:17).
10. Good works are also requisite to stop the mouths of wicked men
and to prevent offense. “For so is the will of God,” said the apostle,
“that with well doing, ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish
men” (1 Peter 1:15). They are necessary likewise to gain over
unbelievers and other enemies of the truth, and to recommend faith
and holiness to their esteem. It is, by the faithful and cheerful
performance of every good work, that believers commend the Lord
Jesus, and the way of truth and holiness to the consciences of all
around them.
11. They are necessary, moreover, for the edification and comfort of
fellow Christians. Our blessed Lord, therefore, gave His disciples this
high command: “Let your light so shine before men that they may see
your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven'
(Matthew 5:16). And the Apostle Paul informed the believers at
Corinth that their zeal, in contributing readily and seasonably for the
poor saints at Jerusalem, had provoked many (2 Corinthians 9:2).
The same apostle informs us that the doctrines of grace, and the
good works to which they tend, “are good and profitable unto men”
(Titus 3:8). Such works are highly necessary not only for the
edification and comfort of individual believers, but also for the peace,
security, and glory of the Church.
12. Finally, good works are indispensably requisite for promoting
before the world the manifested glory of Christ, and of God in Him.
The Apostle Paul prayed for the believers at Philippi that they might
be “sincere, and without offence till the day of Christ; being filled
with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the
glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:10-11). The Lord Jesus said to
His disciples, “Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit”
(John 15:8). Believers, then, must endeavor, whatever they do, to “do
all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). To this purpose it is
requisite that they care for the things of the Lord, “that they may be
holy both in body and spirit, diligently following every good work” (1
Corinthians 7:34), and that they “follow not that which is evil, but
that which is good” (3John 11).
These appear to be the leading purposes for which good works are
necessary; and so indispensably requisite are they to subserve those
designs that, according to the order unalterably fixed in the covenant
of grace, it will be impossible for the latter to be attained without the
former. Though good works, as has been observed, are not necessary
out of their proper place, yet, in the place assigned to them and for
the purposes intended to be served by them, they are absolutely
indispensable. No man can warrantably conclude that he is instated
in the covenant of grace unless he finds that he is disposed and
enabled daily to perform them.
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Post by Admin on Feb 22, 2024 20:32:28 GMT -5
Section 3. The Desert of Good Works
Although the good dispositions and actions of one fellow creature
deserve to be commended and, in some cases, to be rewarded by
another, yet no good qualities or works of mere men can merit the
smallest blessing or good thing from the infinite Majesty of heaven.
With respect to the works of unregenerate persons, they are destitute
of every thing which can render an action good and acceptable in the
sight of God. They are not done from true faith as a principle (Titus
1:15; 1 Timothy 1:5; Hebrews 11:6), nor are they performed from a
principle of love (Romans 8:7 and 13:10). Neither are they done by
persons who are “accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). They are
not performed in obedience to the will of God expressed in His holy
law (Zechariah 7:5; Romans 8:7-8), nor are they done to His glory as
the chief end of them. All unconverted persons are said in Scripture
to be sinners or workers of iniquity (Psalms 53:1-4; Romans 3:9-19)
and their works, however advantageous many of them may be to
themselves or others, are all, notwithstanding, represented as sins in
the account of an infinitely holy God (Proverbs 21:4; Isaiah 1:13-14),
for although many of them may be materially good, yet all of them
are formally evil; and therefore they are an abomination to Him
(Proverbs 15:8 and 21:27). Consequently, the very best works of
unregenerate persons, instead of deserving the favor of God, deserve
His wrath and curse, both in this life and in that which is to come.
Such works deserve eternal death, and cannot surely, at the same
time, merit eternal life (Romans 6:23); and yet so deplorably
ignorant and self-righteous are unregenerate sinners that they all
rely, either wholly or partially, on their own works for a tide to the
favor of God, and even to endless felicity. Nay, so gross is their
ignorance of themselves, and of the righteous law of God, and so
inveterate is their pride, that they depend on such works not only for
a title to eternal life, but even for security from that eternal death
which is already due to them for their innumerable sins, and to
which they are already condemned.
As for the good works of regenerate men, these also cannot merit
from the high and holy One the smallest blessing, much less eternal
life. So far as they are spiritually good, they do not, indeed, like the
works of the unregenerate, deserve the wrath of God; but still they do
not merit the smallest favor at His hand. Merit of condignity, or
merit strictly so called, necessarily requires that the works which can
merit from God such a reward as would, in strict remunerative
justice, be a reward of debt be performed in our own strength; that
they are more than we owe to God or more than He requires from us;
that they be at least absolutely perfect, and that both in parts,
degrees, and continuance; that their value be equal to that of the
promised reward; and that the reward be, according to the strictest
rules of justice, due for them. Hence it is manifest that the very best
works of the holiest of men can merit no favor, no benefit for them at
the hand of God. The perfect works of Adam in innocence could not
merit any good thing at the hand of the Lord; much less can the
imperfect works of holy men now.
These works cannot, by their own intrinsic value, merit the smallest
blessing from God. For, first, all the performances that are spiritually
good proceed from the almighty agency of the Spirit of grace in
believers (Philippians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 4:7). Second, according to
the precepts of His holy and righteous law, believers owe perfect and
perpetual obedience to the Lord (Romans 8:12; Matthew 5:48).
Third, the very best of their works in this world are far from being
answerable to the high requirements of the holy law of God (Isaiah
64:6; Galatians 5:17). And, fourth, their best actions, suppose they
were perfect, could bear no proportion to any divine blessing,
especially to the inestimable blessing of eternal life. The former are
the works of finite creatures; the latter, being endless felicity, or the
eternal enjoyment of God and of the Lamb, is an infinite reward
(Romans 8:18 and 11:6). It is evident, then, that to believers it is
wholly a reward of grace, and in no degree a reward of debt. “The gift
of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
As the good works of believers cannot, by their own intrinsic value,
merit eternal life, or even the smallest blessing from God, so they
cannot, by paction, procure the smallest right either“to“the one or to
the other. For, first, the law as a rule of life, under which believers
are, is a perfect law of liberty; and therefore it cannot contribute to or
admit of pactional merit. The man “who looketh into that perfect law
of liberty, and who is a doer of the Word, shall indeed be blessed in
his deed”; but he shall not be blessed for it (1 Corinthians 9:21;
James 1:25). Second, the good works of believers, during their state
of imperfection, are never correspondent, in a perfect degree, to the
law as a rule of life (Matthew 22:37-39 and 5:48; Ecclesiastes 7:20).
Third, the principles of faith and union with Christ, from which all
the good works of believers do flow, imply that the infinitely perfect
righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to them, which alone merits
for them a complete title to the progress and consummation of
eternal life (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 2:16, 20; Romans 5:21).
The infinitely spotless and meritorious righteousness of Christ,
therefore, which is placed to their account, as well as the infinite
grace of God which abounds toward them, leaves no room for the
pactional merit of their own works (Ephesians 2:7-9; Romans 5:16-
19). And, fourth, we read nowhere in Scripture that God ever makes a
covenant or pact with believers in which He promises to them eternal
life, or even the smallest favor, in consideration of their own sincere
obedience. The only covenant that He makes with them is the
covenant of grace, according to which every spiritual and temporal
blessing is wholly a gift of free and sovereign grace (Ephesians 2:8-
9).
The good works of believers, then, do not, either by their own
intrinsic value or by paction, procure for them a right to the smallest
favor at the hand of God, much less to eternal life. It is only the
surety-righteousness of Jesus Christ, imputed to them and received
by faith alone, that merits and so procures for them a complete title
to the beginning, progress, and perfection of eternal life (Romans
5:21).
It is evident from what has been said that Christ, who lives in
believers, is the only source of all their good works. Having in
regeneration entered by His
Spirit, He dwells in their hearts by faith as the only fountain of
holiness and the sole cause of good works. If adult persons, then, are
vitally united to Christ, they will certainly be renewed in the spirit of
their minds after His holy image, and will perform good works as the
necessary fruits of holiness implanted in their hearts. Where vital
union with Christ is, good actions, by persons capable of them, will
be the certain consequence; and where it is not, such actions cannot
be performed, and it will be in vain to pretend to the practice of
them. All the performances of believers that are spiritually good flow
from Christ dwelling in their hearts by His Spirit as a spirit of faith;
and whatever works proceed not from this principle have nothing
more than the mere appearance of good works. “Without Me,” said
our blessed Lord, “ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). No works are
good and acceptable to God but those which have the Spirit of Christ
for their main principle and the glory of God for their chief end. And
no man is “careful to maintain good works” but the man who has the
Spirit of Christ in him, causing him to walk in His statutes, to keep
His judgments, and do them (Ezekiel 36:27). It is from the gracious
work of the Spirit of Christ in the saints that all their good works
proceed. If He did not work in the heart “both to will and to do,” they
could not work in the life; and if He did not “rest upon them as the
Spirit of glory and of God” (1 Peter 4:14), they could not perform a
single action to the glory of God. The only way. then, in which either
ministers in the gospel or private Christians can effectually promote
the interest of good works among others around them is not only to
exhibit a bright example of them in their own conduct, but to
endeavor diligently to be instrumental in conducting sinners to Jesus
Christ, and in teaching them how to “walk in Him.”
Can a man perform no good works till after he is justified in the sight
of God? Hence it is manifest that they who rely on their own
obedience for a title to justification are strangers to good works.
Their continued and avowed dependance on their own works for a
right to justification is a sure evidence that they have never
performed a single good work; it demonstrates them to be totally
destitute of that “holiness without which no man shall see the Lord”
(Hebrews 12:14). To pretend to sanctification, and then to rely on it
for justification, is to derive the fountain from the stream, the cause
from the effect, and so to invert the order of the blessings of
salvation. It is necessary that our sins are forgiven, and our persons
accepted as righteous in the sight of God, in order to our being
capable of yielding the least degree of acceptable obedience to Him.
As long as a man is not justified, he is under the curse of the law; but
how can a man who is under the condemning sentence of the law,
and consequently under the dominion of sin, perform good works?
The Apostle Paul informs us that “as many as are of the works of the
law, are under the curse” (Galatians 3:10). It is evident, then, that as
long as they rely on their own works of obedience to the law for
justification, they are utterly unable either to love or perform the
smallest good work. It is the distinguishing property of all good
works that they are performed from, and not for, justification. Oh,
that secure sinners and self-righteous formalists would believe this,
and flee speedily to the compassionate Savior for righteousness and
strength!
The notion of a sinner’s justification before God by his own works is
an absurdity; it is contrary not only to Scripture, but to reason. Every
condemned sinner, being under the dominion of sin, is, as was
already observed, unable to perform the smallest good work; yet he
flatters himself either that his ability is so great, or that the
conditions of his justification and salvation are so easy, that he can,
especially with divine assistance, fulfill them. “If righteousness
cometh by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Galatians 2:21); and
yet, while the self-righteous formalist seeks righteousness by the
works of the law, he professes to believe that the death of Christ has
satisfied divine justice for his offenses. If righteousness is by the
works of the law, then remission of sins is unnecessary (Romans 4:6-
7); and yet, while he is establishing his own righteousness for his
justification, he professes to pray for the pardon of all his sins. He
expects justification for the merit of his own works, and, at the same
time, he professes his belief that they who are justified are justified
by grace. In a word, he professes to believe that good works follow
justification, and that “without faith it is impossible to please God”
(Hebrews 11:6), and after all, he depends on his own works for his
justification, as a blessing which he expects will follow them. Ah, how
inconsistent, how irrational is the conduct of a self-righteous
professor of Christianity! How plainly does it appear that his
understanding is darkened, and that he himself is under the
dominion of the prince of darkness!
Are we never to perform good works in order to recommend
ourselves to Christ, or to afford us a right to trust in Him? Then how
dreadful is the condition of multitudes in the visible church! There
are many, very many, alas, who, if they grow remiss in performing
duties, or fall into open sins, begin to suspect that Christ will not
accept them! But when they labor to mortify their lusts and reform
their conduct, they then presume to hope that He will receive them,
and that God, for His sake, will accept them. Now what is this but to
hope that they shall procure the favor of Christ and an interest in His
salvation by their own performances, and that His merits will render
their own works so valuable as to recommend them even to the
acceptance of God. They suppose that if they themselves but begin
the work of their salvation, they may warrantably trust that the
Savior will carry on and finish that work. Thus they proudly and
sacrilegiously presume to divide the work and the honor of their
salvation between Christ and themselves. This legal temper is a sure
evidence that they are under the dominion of the law of works, and
that they are totally destitute of evangelical holiness. It is an infallible
proof that they have no part in that salvation of the Lord Jesus, the
glory of which is to be ascribed wholly to Himself, and to God in
Him.
We also learn from what has been advanced that good works are to
be considered as the fruits of a believers being already saved, and, at
the same time, in subordination to the glory of God as the end for
which he is saved. They are the fruits of his being already in a state of
salvation. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done,” said
the Apostle Paul, “but according to His mercy He saved us by the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5).
Here our apostle argues against salvation by our own works of
righteousness on the ground that our good works are the fruits or
effects of salvation already begun in our souls. He shows that
inherent holiness from which all our good works spring is an
essential part of our salvation; for, he says that we are saved by the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Holiness of
heart, then, is a necessary part of salvation by Jesus Christ; and
holiness of life, or our being careful to maintain good works, is the
necessary fruit springing from that salvation (Luke 1:74-75). Good
works are also the end for which believers are saved. They are
“created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Ephesians 2:10). The
great end, in subordination to the glory of redeeming grace, for
which they have been saved or created in Christ Jesus is that they
might perform and persevere in the practice of all good works. Such
works, then, are so far from being grounds of title to salvation that
they are the fruits, or consequences of being already in a state of
salvation. True saints are actually, though not completely, saved—
and their fruits of righteousness are the evidence of it. They are not
saved by their good works, but they are saved to them; nor are they
sanctified in order to be justified, but are justified in order to be
sanctified.
The reader may hence learn how to understand aright this
proposition: “Good works are necessary to salvation.” If the term
salvation is, by some, and that without any warrant from the
Scriptures, restricted to the perfect blessedness of saints in heaven,
then good works, in the case of persons capable of them, are
necessary to or toward salvation. They necessarily exist before it, not
indeed as procuring causes or federal conditions, but merely as
antecedents of it. They must of necessity go before it inasmuch as
that which, according to the covenant of grace, is first imparted to
the spiritual seed of Christ must with its genuine effects precede that
which is last of all, conferred on them. Personal and progressive
holiness is necessary to perfect holiness; and happiness begun is
requisite to happiness consummated. At the same time, I dare not
say that holiness either of heart or of life is necessary to procure or
obtain the felicity of heaven. But if the word “salvation” is taken in its
large and scriptural sense, as comprehensive both of a state of grace
in time, and of a state of glory in eternity, then good works are,
properly speaking, not necessary to it, but necessary in it. As
imperfect, they are indispensably requisite in a state of grace; and as
perfect, they are necessary in a state of glory. They are needful in
progressive as well as in perfect salvation. They are indispensably
requisite in every adult person who is justified and saved. That the
term “salvation” ought to be taken in this comprehensive meaning is
evident from this, among other passages of Scripture: “I endure all
things for the elect’s sake, that they may also obtain the salvation
which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory” (2 Timothy 2:10). Here
the salvation which is in Christ Jesus is distinguished from eternal
glory.
What has been advanced may serve to show us the difference, or
rather the opposition, between a reward of debt and a reward of
grace. In the law of works, eternal life is promised to the man who
yields perfect obedience. If man had yielded this obedience, that
would have been a reward of debt (Romans 4:4), a recompense due
by stipulation for the work done. In the gospel, the reward of eternal
life is promised to the obedient believer not for his good works, but
considered as united to Christ in whom he has righteousness for his
justification, and in whom all the promises of God are “yea” and
“amen.” This is, indeed, a reward of debt to Christ, to whom the
believer is united, and in whom he is justified; but it is a reward of
infinitely free grace to the believer himself. It cannot be a reward of
debt to the believer and at the same time to Christ. A reward of debt
is promised to the act or work; but a reward of grace is promised only
to the agent or worker. The former is adjudged as a recompense for
the work performed: the latter is awarded in and after the work. If
the reward is given to a man for his works of obedience, then it is not
of grace, otherwise work is no more work; but if it is given him of
grace, then it is not for his works, otherwise grace is no more grace
(Romans 11:6). If the reward corresponded to the exact value of the
work done, and if it followed upon work to which man was not
bound, or which was more than he owed to God, and which he
performed in his own strength, independent of God, then it would be
a recompense strictly merited by him, and so would, in the highest
sense of the phrase, be a reward of debt to him. Or even if the value
of the work done bore no proportion to that of the reward, and
though it were work which man previously owed to God, and which
he performed in strength received from Him, yet, if God had made a
covenant with man in which He promised to him the reward of
eternal life for the perfect performance of that work, then eternal life
would be a reward of pactional debt to man upon his complete
performance of the work. On the other hand, when the reward is
given, not according to the intrinsic worth, but according to the
spiritual nature or quality of the work, and of the work as already due
to the Lord; and when it is conferred not in consideration of the work
done, but because of the free favor of God to the believer who has
done the work, it is in that case a reward of grace. Although eternal
life is given to the true Christian not as a recompense for his good
works, but only as a gift of infinitely free grace, yet, in the Scriptures,
it is called a reward to him because it is conferred on him in and after
his works.
While the gospel teaches us that good works are unnecessary to the
justification of a sinner before God, it affirms that they are necessary
in the life of a saint. It, indeed, excludes them from being federal
conditions or procuring causes of salvation; but it includes them in
salvation both as parts and as consequences of it. We are not saved
on the ground of them; but we are careful to maintain them because
we are saved, and “saved by grace through faith.” The grace of God
exhibited in the glorious gospel enables as well as teaches us “to deny
ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously and
godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:11-12); nor have we truly
discerned or received that grace which brings salvation if it has not
effectually taught and enabled us to do so.
Reader, let it be your diligent endeavor to trust at all times in the
Lord Jesus, for that great salvation which He has brought near to you
in the offers and promises of the glorious gospel, and to trust in Him
for it in order that you may thereby be enabled to perform good
works. You can do nothing that is spiritually good unless you trust
and pray daily for grace to enable you. Let the life, then, which you
live in the flesh, be by the faith of the Son of God; and in this way you
shall so die to the law in its federal form as to live unto God. Rely on
His consummate righteousness, and on that only, for all your tide to
salvation; trust His overflowing fullness for all supplies of grace
necessary to make you advance daily in the love and practice of every
good work.
Faith in the adorable Redeemer is the first act of acceptable
obedience, and the root of all other spiritual graces. Implanted by the
Holy Spirit in the heart, it is the principle and primary means of that
evangelical “holiness without which no man shall see the Lord”
(Hebrews 12:14). Trust, then, and trust with all your heart in the
compassionate Savior for justification by His spotless righteousness,
and for sanctification by His Holy Spirit. Come to the Lord Jesus
and, upon the warrant afforded you by the unlimited offers and calls
of His glorious gospel, place the confidence of your heart in Him for
that holiness which is the beginning and the very essence of salvation
by Him. Instead of being the proper condition of salvation, this is
salvation itself.
Thus, by grace derived from His fullness, you shall become “zealous
of good works”—zealous for performing them, and equally zealous
for placing no dependance on them for a title to divine favor. And so
you shall “be filled with those fruits of righteousness, which are by
Him, unto the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:11). United by
faith to the second Adam as your Head of righteousness and life, you
shall live a life of progressive obedience in time, and of perfect
obedience through eternity. Oh, be persuaded that union and
communion with Christ as your righteousness and strength are
indispensably requisite to your being capable of performing such
works as will be good and acceptable to an infinitely holy God. You
yourself must, in union with Christ, be accepted as righteous, and
have a right to eternal life, before any of your works can be accepted
as sincere. The great Redeemer is in the gospel freely offered to you
that you may have a warrant so to believe in Him as to be united to
Him; and it is to your peril if you reject the gracious offer. Do not say,
“I cannot believe in Him, and why should I be doomed to more
dreadful destruction for not doing what I cannot do?” You cannot
believe in the Savior because you will not; just as Joseph’s brethren
could not speak peaceably to him because they hated him. Were you
really willing to believe in Christ and yet were not able, you could not
be an object of blame. But it is quite the reverse with sinners: they
are not able because they are not willing (John 5:40), and they are
not willing to come to Christ because their carnal mind is enmity
against Him (Romans 8:7). Their inability is moral and, therefore,
sinful impotence. Nothing renders them unwilling but the sin that
reigns in them. If you are willing to come to the Savior, you will, in
the same proportion, be able. No sinner was ever willing to come to
Him and yet was not able. In order, then, that you may be made
willing to come, you ought, without delay, to trust and plead this
absolute promise which, in and with Christ Himself, is graciously
offered to you: “I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and
I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26), and also this one:
“In His name shall the Gentiles trust” (Matthew 12:21).
If Christ is the way to God and to glory, and if He is the way of
holiness, or the holy way, then you who have believed through grace
ought to take heed that you walk constantly in that way. “As you
have, therefore, received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him”
(Colossians 2:6). In union with Him, go forward daily in the exercise
of faith and love, and in the practice of holiness. Depending on His
grace and strength, advance with holy diligence and with increasing
ardor in the daily practice of those good works which are works of
faith and labors of love. Make constant progress in your exercise of
faith, and by sanctifying and comforting influences from the fullness
of Christ, walk on with cheerfulness and resolution in Him as your
way to the perfection of holiness and of happiness.
To walk in Christ is, in consequence of union with Him, and by
communications of grace from Him, to walk in the unwearied
exercise of trusting and hoping in Him; to “walk in His
commandments” (2 Chronicles 17:4), and to walk in the love and
practice of all good works (Ephesians 2:10). Having, then, become
dead to the law as a covenant by the body of Christ, apply and trust
the promises of His gospel; and in the faith of the promises, walk in
all the commandments of His law as a rule. In the humble confidence
that He performs the promises of His glorious gospel to you, and so
“worketh in you both to will and to do,” keep the commandments of
His holy law. Keep them diligently, and whatever you do in word or
in deed, do all in His name, and to the glory of God in Him. Thus
shall you “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called”
(Ephesians 4:1), and “worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being
fruitful in every good work” (Colossians 1:10). Thus you shall both
adorn the gospel of God your Savior in all things, and honor His
righteous law.
Oh, believer, much depends on your behavior! The men of the world
around you will always be ready to spy out every blemish in your
conduct, in order to justify their contempt of you and their
disapprobation of your sentiments. Others may commit many sins
and escape censure; but if you do anything wrong, or discover
inconsistency even in a single instance, every mouth will be open—
not against you merely, but against your principles, and all who
profess them. Take heed, then, that you give no occasion to the
enemies of the Lord to speak reproachfully; but rather, on every
occasion, study “with well-doing, to put to silence the ignorance of
foolish men” (1 Peter 2:15). You are one of the children of light: “Let
then your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven' (Matthew 5:16).
In conclusion, from what has been said we may see how good works
are related both to the law and the gospel. Four things are to be
remarked concerning such works: obligation to them, assistance in
them, acceptance of them, and reward according to them. The first
proceeds from the law as a rule of duty in the hand of the Mediator;
and the other three proceed from the gospel in its strict acceptance.
The obligation to perform them arises from the sovereign authority
of God our Savior revealed in the law; assistance in performing them
is afforded by His strength, promised in the gospel: the acceptance of
them flows from His righteousness, revealed and offered in the
gospel; and the reward according to them proceeds from His
boundless grace, displayed and tendered also in the gospel.
Much more, therefore, is requisite to the performance of good works
than merely to know that they are enjoined in the law. That, indeed,
is requisite to the right performance of them; but it is far from being
all that is needful.
Many think it sufficient for them only to know their duty: and no
sooner do they seem to themselves to know it than they immediately
and inconsiderately attempt the performance of it. But all they who
have the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus
Christ, and so are made wise unto salvation through faith which is in
Him, know that much more is requisite to the right performance
even of the smallest duty than to know that it is commanded in the
law. They not only look, therefore, to the law as a rule for authority to
oblige them to the practice of good works, as well as for direction in
performing them, but they look also to the gospel, and to the Savior
offered in it, for strength to perform them, for merit to render them
acceptable to God, and for a reward of grace to crown them. If the
true Christian, then, would be ready to every good work, he must be
excited and resolved not only to receive the law of Christ as his rule
of direction, but to believe with application to himself the gospel of
Christ, and, in believing it, to trust with firm confidence in Him for
assistance, acceptance, and a gracious reward. Thus he will be
enabled, while he sojourns in this valley of tears, to serve God
acceptably; and at length he will be graciously rewarded with the
inexpressible honor of serving as well as enjoying God and the Lamb
forever and ever in the holy place on high. There, His servants shall
serve Him, and they shall see His face.
It is not here meant that believers need not regard with holy
admiration and gratitude the grace manifested in the promise of the
covenant of works; nor, that they need not regard with holy awe the
terrible wrath revealed in the threatening of that broken covenant,
but only that they need not, and should not, have respect to them, or
take them into their view as motives to live unto God or to obey the
law as a rule of life
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