- WORKS RIGHTEOUSNESS
'wərks raɪ.tʃəs.nəs noun. A right standing (with God or others) achieved through good deeds.
Works righteousness is how the world works. We
Or (and this is the much harder way, although a number of people prefer it ’cause you can do it passively) we’ve gotta suffer some kind of catastrophic loss. One which totally doesn’t seem to fit our circumstances. You know, like Job being a really good guy, yet losing all his kids and stuff in a single day.
See, people assume the universe oughta balance things out. Good things should happen to good people, and bad things to bad. But in reality the universe
But yeah, the world runs on works righteousness. On karma.
Problem is, for a whole lot of Christians this idea hasn’t entirely sunk in. When we come to Jesus, we bring our existing ideas, including our existing wrong ideas, with us. One of ’em is the idea we owe God big-time. After all, look how much he’s done for us! But we conclude we therefore have to pay him back. You’ll even hear Christians claim this is why we’ve gotta do good deeds: We owe God. We’ll never ever be able to make it up to him; not even after a trillion years of good deeds. Still, they insist, we should try.
Which is simply nuts. And goes against everything God’s trying to teach us about grace. We’re supposed to give without expecting anything back,
But karma is so pervasive in every human culture, even those of us who know God does grace instead of karma, try to make it up to him in big or small ways. We don’t always do stuff for God out of pure gratitude. We’re still trying to balance out our karmic debt… to an infinite God. Good luck with all that.
Nah. The reason Christians are to be good, is because God instructs us to be good. Not to earn anything, not to pay anything back, not for any other reason than love. If you love God, do as he says.
Why works righteousness can’t work.
I once had a student who misbehaved so much, I decided he didn’t get to go to gym class that day. Which made him absolutely nuts, ’cause he loved gym. But, I pointed out, if he wasn’t gonna listen to me, how could I trust him to listen to the gym teacher? So he could sit out gym for one day.
He tried bargaining.
- HE. “I’ll be good for the rest of the week!”
- ME. “You’re supposed to be good for the rest of the week anyway. You’ll just get in more trouble if you’re not. How’s that anything to bargain with?”
- HE. “I could grade papers.”
- ME. “No, that’s not happening. I grade the papers.”
- HE. “I could do chores.”
- ME. “Don’t need chores.”
- HE. “I could do my homework.”
- ME. “You’re supposed to do your homework.”
He was too young to think of bribery, although that wouldn’t have worked either. He had nothing to bargain with. It was either stuff he was already supposed to do, or stuff I neither needed nor wanted.
Same deal with God. Our good deeds are the bare minimum of his expectations. And any above-and-beyond efforts we might make, any karmic extra credit, won’t count: He doesn’t want, and didn’t ask, for that stuff.
If all it took to be saved was good deeds, Jesus wouldn’t have had to die for our sins. He could’ve come to earth, told us, “You know those commands the L
But even the best of us bungle those commands. And there’s no possible way for us to balance out the universe after we’ve sinned. Hence the dire need for grace, and the fact God already thought of it way before we ever did.
Titus 3.4-7 KWL - 4 When kindness and love for humanity was revealed by our savior God,
- 5 it wasn’t from the righteous things we’d done.
- Instead, he saved us from his mercy, by the Holy Spirit’s washing, rebirth, and renewal.
- 6 He richly poured out his Spirit on us, through our savior Christ Jesus.
- 7 Because we’re declared righteous by that grace,
- we can become his heirs, and have hope of eternal life.
Works can’t make us righteous.
Like Paul made clear in Ephesians, it’s not that we needn’t do good deeds anymore. As Christians, we have all the more reason to do good: We’re representing Jesus, we’re not ingrates, and we’re helping him spread his kingdom. But as far as salvation is concerned, we humans don’t earn it, and never did. The Hebrews weren’t given the Law, then told, “Be good and I’ll save you from the Egyptians.” The L
Ephesians 2.8-10 KWL - 8 You’re saved by grace, through a faith which doesn’t come from you: It’s God’s gift.
- 9 It doesn’t come from good deeds; nobody can brag about it.
- 10 We’re God’s poetry, composed in Christ Jesus,
- so we can do the good things God got ready for us, and walk in them.
Problem is, sometimes we teach just the opposite—that we gotta clean up before we can be forgiven. That we gotta do good deeds, and continue to do good deeds, lest God decide, “You’re supposed to do good deeds now that I’ve saved you, but since you’re not, I’m gonna withdraw my salvation.” God doesn’t work like that! If you trust him to save you, he’s gonna save you. Good works are the side effect, not the cause. Trying to make ’em the cause, indicates we don’t really trust God, and are following karma instead of him.
Accusations of works righteousness… from lawless Christians.
There’s a common, and irritating, phenomenon. It’s when fellow Christians look at our good deeds, and assume because we’re striving to be good like God commands, we’re really doing them because we don’t really trust God to do all the saving. We’re practicing works righteousness.
Why do they claim this? Three reasons.
The most obvious reason… is they’re totally right. There are Christians who try to earn favor with God through their good deeds. The Christians who pray regularly, read bible regularly, go to church regularly, do good deeds regularly, and remain good—not out of gratitude, but out of fear. They worry they’re
They may have started their Christianity by believing in grace, by recognizing God saved us when we believed in him. But over the years they got the idea that maintaining this state of grace required effort on their part. To them, Christianity’s like if your dad gave you a new car, then said, “But you have to make the car payments, pay the taxes and registration and insurance, buy the gas, and get the oil changed regularly.” Wait, you have to pay for everything? Exactly what’d he give in this arrangement?
If we’re going with the car simile, more accurately God’s the dad who gave you a new car and paid for everything. Including payments, registration, gas, oil changes. And if you’re caught speeding or illegally parking, he pays the tickets. And if you smash it into things—even for evil fun!—he pays the repair bills. He doesn’t want you to speed or smash the car; he ordered us to keep it in good condition. If we truly love him, that’s what we’ll strive to do,
The more common reason has to do with the accusers’ own lack of good deeds.
As I pointed out
There are some “good works” these Christians permit themselves. But they tend to consist of minor, petty stuff. Behaving themselves in public.
That, and these Christians wanna make sure
Basically these folks are abusing grace. And they’re the ones who are quickest to point the finger at Christians who are striving to do good deeds, and claim our motives have nothing to do with love for God, nor love for others, nor compassion, gratitude, generosity, kindness. It’s because we’re feathering our heavenly nests: We’re trying to earn karma points, and achieve salvation by our own efforts.
Yeah, it’s pure projection. They aren’t acting out of love, kindness, or any fruit; they figure we can’t be acting out of those motives either. We’ve gotta be working some angle. It’s pure cynicism.
And that leads to the third reason: Politics.
Suffice to say many left-wing Christians assume the Christian Right is purely acting out of works righteousness, and right-wing Christians believe precisely the same of the Christian Left.
In general, these accusers share one thing in common: They’re not really following God, and they’re suspicious of those of us who do. Their consciences condemn them, so they’re trying to shout ’em down. They tell themselves, and anyone who’s similarly motivated to believe them, that it’s even righteous of them to practice no good deeds. This way they’re totally dependent upon God’s grace to save them: They never even give works a chance.
But in so doing, they’re disobeying God. And they’re proud of it.
This behavior has its own consequences. The biggest of all is how it demonstrates they have no faith.
These folks embrace the poisonous idea of, “I did what God asked of me”—namely some small, minimal, token act of obedience—“and therefore God’s obligated himself to me.” We
Yeah. Just when you think you’re not trying to earn your righteousness, turns out the only reason you think so is because you pretty much think you’ve already earned it.
It’s no basis for a relationship. A proper relationship with God is one where we Christians, in response to his abundant grace, love God back and do for him. And he for us. And we don’t keep score, ’cause love doesn’t do that.
And we do good works. After all, what other sort of works ought God’s followers do? But not because they save us: Simply because now we can.
