For the last several months, I have written expositorily. Now is the “time” to return to a topic. The subject is the place of “works” regarding eternal life. Does one need to work or not? Of course, Jesus did all the “work” when His face sweated as if blood. Scripture is very clear who worked for our salvation:
43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. 45 And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow… (Luke 22:43-45)
(Jesus) Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins. (Rom 3:23)
Only Jesus agonized because his brothers would perish, and only Jesus
would die so that they might be saved from perishing. No one else had nothing
to do with those two things! Just how did Jesus do that work for us?
An angel strengthened Jesus. Jesus was invigorated by an
angel. It was Him who would work and the source of His strength was from God.
He was willing to do the Will of His Father in Heaven and His Father provided
the strength to do what Jesus had to do to save Adam’s kind!
Jesus worked by the sweat of His Face. That was Adam’s
penalty… “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” [i] but
Jesus would do all the work.
Adam had nothing to do with the work of his own salvation.
Jesus did it all and paid the wage that Adam owed. Because it was Adam’s sin,
we owe what is now called “reparations” to God. But Jesus removed the lien on the
souls of mankind by sacrificing His Blood rather than each their own!
It is not coincidence that scripture refers to sweating for “bread.”
Why is that? Because Jesus is the “Bread of Life”…”He that cometh to me shall
never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).
The penalty for sin was hard work, but that would be ineffective
and deficient. Only the Body and Blood of Jesus sopped in His Holy Water would
suffice.
The point so far is that it was Jesus on the Cross and
perhaps Adam was under it. [1]
Adam had no part in his redemption. It was by “grace alone” — sola gratia
in the Latin. The gifts to Adam and Eve were what? “The Lord God make coats of
skins, and clothed them” (Gen 3:21).
Why coat them? To preserve them from the devices of Satan
and to Comfort them in the world until they would be redeemed by the real Lamb
of God! Then The Holy Ghost would keep them safe from Satan and Comfort them
until Jesus comes with new Flesh for them at their resurrection.
God gave Adam and Eve a gift. They found grace. They were not
looking for it but found it anyway. They found grace because God “so loved the
world” that he desired that they not perish. [ii] “Adam
and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees
of the garden” (Gen 3:8). Even though they hid from God, God found them. He
knew where they were. They were ashamed and tried to cover it with ineffective
fig leaves. [iii]
Because the work of their own hands would not cover their guilt was why God did
so for the covering to be both efficient and safe! Chapter three of Genesis is a
foreshadowing of the gospel of Jesus. It is the story of grace. Their actions
were ergonomically inefficient and unsafe because they were neither out of the
way of Satan nor safe from him.
Likewise, Noah found grace. [iv] Was
Noah looking for grace. No. Was he working by the sweat of his
face to find grace? Again, no. Just why did Noah receive grace from God? It is
what he was not doing! Look at what everyone else was doing: “God saw
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5).
Noah found grace because he had not theretofore worked but
was willing to work for 120 years to preserve his life. It was not what
Noah did, but was willing to do, and that was the same with Adam, Eve, and
Abraham. Another thing that Noah was not doing was imagining evil
things. That was foreign to him. He had the faith of his fathers because they knew
God firsthand. [2]
The key word in this argument is “willing.” Noah did not
work for his preservation because God was the one who created the timber and
pitch and kept him safe in the turbulent waters. God is the one who ensured
that Noah made it to dry ground and to see the Promise in the bow. All that
Noah did was considered the Will of God and did what God Willed rather than his
own will. God used persuasion for Noah to volunteer. What persuaded Noah? “It
repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his
heart” (Gen 6:6). He saw the remorse and agony of God and empathized with his Father.
God had been disappointed in His creatures. Noah was willing
to change God’s opinion of him. By the way, that was the method my own father
used to change my attitude. I was never whipped into submission, but my Dad
would say, “I am really disappointed in you.” With that said, I would change.
Well, that is the same method God uses. He never whips anyone for being who
they are but encourages them to change.
With that nature, Noah found grace. He found it strictly by valuing
the Will of God. He did not want to work but did so to please God. It was not
his work that pleased God because God could have created the ark in an instant.
But Noah was willing to work so that God would preserve him as part of
the plan and future that God has for His people. [v]
Adam and Eve found grace and so did Noah. Then Abraham found
grace when he destroyed his father’s, Terah’s, worthless idols. Why did that warrant
grace? Because Abraham understood that only the LORD GOD is sovereign. Those
idols made by hands could not keep them safe any more than the fig leaves were
as rags in preserving Adam and Eve. [vi]
No type of work can obtain eternal life, but a willingness
to observe the sayings of God pleases Him. God, if He is obeyed, does not
repent that He made mankind. Hence, “The Ten Commandments” are not commandments
at all, but Ten Ways to please God so that He is not sorry for his work of
creation. They are more, “Ten Prescriptions for Eternal Health.”
Scripture refers to those ten attitudes as “sayings”
of God. [vii]
They are not commandments at all! They are God’s Will for his people. Look at
what they say in Exodus chapter 20: (1) honor God, and do no handiwork, (3) do
not be vain, (4) remember to rest with no labor, (5) honor parents, (6) do not
kill, (7) do not have sexual pleasure, (8) do not steal, (9) do not lie, and (10)
do not be jealous.
Just which of those are works? Seven of those are not to
work and the other three are how to think! In other words, The Ten
Words (of Jesus) are seven non-works and three thoughts.
The only thing involved with keeping those prescriptions is
the thought process. Noah found grace because he empathized with the agony of
God who was sorry that He made them. Christians find grace because they are
sorry they agonized and killed their Savior! The point is that Christianity is
not about what anyone does, but how they think about God and His
Way. And, of course, the “Way” to Life is Jesus!
The “Way” to where? To life… eternal life. [viii]
Isaiah wrote: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his
thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him;
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord” (Isa 55:7-8).
God will pardon because of two things: ways and thoughts. “Ways”
are the direction that people follow. That comes from the Hebrew word, “derek.”
And “thoughts” are machashabah in Hebrew, or “contrivances” (Strong’s
Dictionary). Thus, “ways” are attitudinal, and “thoughts” are cognitive. Both
are faculties of people. Neither are “works.”
In other words, Isaiah was saying that the wicked must
change their attitudes and the unrighteous his way of thinking. The attitude of
the unrighteous is that their own flesh is paramount and that they can obtain
eternal life without God.
About the concept of love — goodwill toward God and others —
“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Mat
22:40). In that context, “commandments” should be transliterated as “precepts”
(ibid), or “principles.” Abraham showed that he was willing to obey the Will of
God although he would not need to do that work. It was Abraham’s “faith (that) was
reckoned to Abraham for righteousness” [ix]
Abraham was willing to work!
Faith, however, is a gift of God: “For by grace are ye saved
through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Ephes 2:8).
Now work that out! Use rational arguments and logic: Faith is a gift given by
God. Just what would a person do to honor God? Use the gift that God gave them.
Noah found another gift — the gift of grace. Grace is receiving an unmerited
gift. Then Noah demonstrated with works the gift of faith. He put his faith in
action.
What if Noah had not worked. Then he and mankind would have
died. He had the gift, but his reasonable service was to work. Did his work preserve
him? No, for God could have done that, but his willingness to work was
what kept him safe from the water.
Perhaps others feared God, and maybe even had faith that God
would provide through Noah, but they were not certain, and did not work. It was
their attitude of vanity that would be their peril.
James, the brother of Jesus, explained those things quite
well, so well that Martin Luther wanted to discard his writings: “What doth it
profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can
faith save him” (Jas 2:14)?
Faith therein is the “Way” of which Isaiah spoke. Jesus enumerated
on that when he brought to memory the Hebrews encounter with the serpents in
the wilderness. Even though bitten, those that looked at what Jesus could do would
make it through the peril. They would be safe from the vipers. [x]
It was not their looking at the pole that kept them from
harm, but the confidence that God would take care of them even though they
could have fought the vipers themselves. It was their thoughts that counted!
Those who tried to kill the vipers themselves died. All that work was for
naught!
But what did they do” They walked through the vipers.
God could have carried them through, but their confident walk, despite the vipers,
was the evidence of their faith. God gave them the faith, and they used it to
walk forth and face the perils between them and safety.
“Works” in James 2:14 and elsewhere is “ergon” in the
Greek. “Ergon” means “to work to produce a product” (ibid). The “product” is salvation.
There is a great distinction between “safety” and “salvation.”
“Safety” is living without perishing in this world. “Salvation” is overcoming
the world and the Wicked One; to wit: “He that endureth to the end shall be
saved” [xi]
and John wrote, “I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the
wicked one” [xii] That
was explained soon after: “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are
strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one”
(1 John 2:14).
“Strong” therein does not refer to strong workers but those
with fortitude. They are strong because they abide in the Word. They do
nothing to outwit Satan, but contrive against him by using the trusted
Word of God. It is not what they do to overcome but how they think.
Thinking is not doing, and no work is involved.
Indeed, “ergonomics” is the economy of efficient and safe
working. (Merriam- Webster Dictionary). The next commentary will discuss
spiritual work and how it is done efficiently and safely.
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