The Value of “Good Works”
GOD ACCEPTS FIRST THE MAN
AND ONLY THEN HIS WORKS
I think that Scripture teaches us that this is God’s order. If the man who approaches God as a sinner is rejected, it is in vain to commend his works. All his works, be they what they may, are also rejected. And if the man who approaches God as a sinner is accepted, the foundation is laid for acceptable works—works “of faith”. We find that Abel “obtained witness that he (Abel) was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh”, Heb 11: 4. But acceptance is not on the ground of works of any kind, but on the ground of gift. God gives what He can receive.
Now how does the approaching sinner (for man can approach God in no other condition) secure this acceptance of himself? This is a question of immense moment to man, yet it is one which is instantly and clearly answered in the Word of God. It is not (clearly) there by his presentation of himself and his works. It is by his gifts, and what is meant by these? Well, God has given Christ to man, for all who desire to approach Him. “Whom God hath set forth, a mercy seat”. I present to God, as meeting, to His infinite satisfaction, every question that can be raised concerning me, a sinner, this precious gift—this—but this alone. It is enough, yea, how much more than enough for God. It is enough, since it is His provision for me, for all my need. It opens (to speak it with reverence) God’s mouth respecting me. He can speak of me now, through it. God testifies that I am “righteous”, as He did to Abel, whose gifts and acceptance, though he is dead, yet speak. And it is GOD who testifies of it. What could be a greater source of rest to my soul than the testimony of the blessed God Himself about me? And this is what I have, see also Rom 8: 33.
I think then that this is the order of God. First the man, and only then his works. But I would draw attention to the fact that in a Christian land (so called) this order is often ignored, and that real Christians are oftentimes drawn into the snare. It is taken for granted that God has accepted the man, and that now the only question is about his “works”—an awful delusion, I need scarcely say. Yet it is the foundation of what is called ‘Cain-worship’. It is common enough to be told ‘I am living an upright and moral life, and I am doing all the good I can, and what can God (or my future prospects) require more than these?’ It is the question raised in the history of Cain and Abel, and I would draw the reader’s attention to it and I hope for good, for there was no fellowship, as far as I can see, God ward, in the two men. Let us consider attentively Gen 4: 3-7.
Cain’s offering was presented to God entirely apart from faith. No death was in it—no gift. It was himself and his works. No faith. This we learn from Heb 11: 4. But we also learn there (verse 6) that “without faith it is impossible to please Him”. The man was rejected! What an awfully solemn declaration is this, in view of what the religious world is busily engaged in. God has said and He says it again today, “But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect”, Gen 4: 5. Not one particle of faith was there in Cain. What did he substitute for it? Religious activity—calmly denominated “good works”. Scripture calls such a course today, “the way of Cain”, (Jude 11) and where is it hurrying him to?
Yet it is this religious man, and these so-called good works of his, that the sympathies and fellowship of God’s people are, alas! too often linked up with! Why is this? Should we not shrink from having the slightest fellowship with Cain and his offering? Let me draw your attention to one or two ways in which he seeks to deny the truth. He goes on improving and making more tolerable this world, and his object is not God but man upon it (as the rest of the chapter shows). He is the rejected man still, but too often, alas, I repeat, people throw in their mite with his, with the religious Cain-world, because it is religious, and they are assured by those who seek their money and their fellowship, that God is the object! So also Cain could have said. But I do not think that saints ought to be caught by such a profession. In a religious country you must find Cain. He is the leader in it both in the improvement of the world as well as in religious matters.
Abel, the man of faith, must and will be hated. Balaam and Saul and Korah are all religious people of this stamp, without an atom of divine life in their souls, and they all come up again at the end. If man has, in his own opinion, an estimate of God (of the true condition of man before Him, and of what God can accept) that estimate, because it is natural, must be a false one. Those who have this estimate measure God from themselves. They will admit that God and man are not exactly at one. But God is gracious and He is merciful, and man is doing his best, and they do not see but that in the long run, all will be well! Alas! may we not say, alas! Solemn must be the awakening from such a delusive dream as that! Man is hastening on to judgment—this religious man is—and the Spirit of God thus speaks of him: “Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and run greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core”, Jude 11.
It is important to be clear that God can accept nothing from the hands of a man without faith, and therefore for Christians to have fellowship in that which Cain is doing for the social benefit and good of this world and of men in it, is to fly in the very face of what God has said: “unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect”. Moreover if you have part in it you are those who without faith are active in what they call “good works”, in their present awful delusion. Do you wish to do this? Take care, my reader, that fearing to offend Cain, you are not trifling with God’s word about him just quoted and seriously hindering your own soul!
If I were asked where in scripture, I should turn to prove the rejection of an active religious man I should turn to the story of Cain and Abel. It gives us clearly the mind of God on this subject. Cain still is the religious man of this day—religious but without faith—and you are asked by that faithless man, that man whom God as to his works has utterly rejected, to have fellowship with him in what he is doing for God! For if you have not had many times already appeals to you to help him thus, you will have to meet them. ‘We have’, he says, ‘a good object in view, we are sure that it will benefit man, and it must therefore be pleasing to God. Come, as a Christian (and we know you are) and help us in this good work’.
Shall we perpetuate the delusion of those who without faith come to us to subscribe to hospitals, to bazaars, to charitable institutions of all kinds in order to improve man in this world and who firmly believe that thereby they are ‘doing God service’? Surely it is more becoming in us to seek to open their eyes to the fact that God can accept nothing at their hands apart from faith and His Christ! The responsibility that lies upon Christians who do thus encourage them in their delusion is great. Faith first, then good works, this is the divine order.
And what are “good works” in God’s sight? They are those which God is Himself doing in this world in this day. Does what man is doing bear the stamp of this? “But”, says the apostle, “after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour towardman appeared” (Tit 3: 4); God has in view the eternal blessing of man, but as to his soul, and He works to this end. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul”. Such works must be good works in His sight if we work after the same fashion as He does, but only these.
God dwells in us by His Spirit and “it is God which worketh in you”, Phil 2: 13. As He is ungrieved in us, we maintain good works. “This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men”, Titus 3: 8. And yet again we read: “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them”, Eph 5: 11.
From Words of Encouragement—vol 2, 1896
Life Assurance
OR
THE BELIEVER’S YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND FOREVER ETERNALLY ASSURED
Christ is the beginning, continuance, and end of a believer’s history. ‘Yesterday’ he was a sinner, “dead in trespasses and sins”, “having no hope and without God in the world”, Eph 2: 1, 12. ‘Today’ he is no longer in that condition because all believers are ‘saints by calling’, Rom 1: 6-7. Once dead they live, they have “passed from death unto life”,1 John 5: 24.
God has come in in blessing and has changed my standing before Him through grace. My ‘yesterday’ of responsibility and guilt and death, is past. It is exchanged for the today of His favour and grace and life. What about the forever?
As to the ‘forever’, the great ‘tomorrow’ of the children of God, it is not said what they shall be. As a believer, I know that Christ will come for me at the end of the “today”. Therefore, “tomorrow” I shall be with Him. All that I know then of my condition is that I shall be “like him”, 1 John 3: 2. Is not this “like him” a triumphant consummation after the other two?
The Holy Spirit is given to a believer (Eph 1: 13), in order that he may know that these things “are freely given to us of God”, 1 Cor 2: 12. They are all involved in the three words, my “yesterday”, my “today”, and my “forever”, and these are the three to which the Spirit refers me, and of which Christ is the sum. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever”, Heb 13: 8.
First, I know that Christ has had to say to God respecting my ‘yesterday’. Ah, mine was an awful “yesterday”, reader! I have stated it herein. But God is rich in mercy and grace, and to God’s eternal satisfaction Christ has on the cross solved that question for me, and now God says, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more”. He sends down the Holy Spirit as a “witness” of this, Heb 10: 15-17.
Secondly, I know that Christ appears in the presence of God for me “today” and He is the crowned One there. He is “crowned with glory and honour”, Heb 2: 9. Ah, if I was well represented in my ‘yesterday’, how well am I represented in my “today?” He “In the presence of God for us”, “ever liveth”, Heb 9: 24.
Thirdly, I know that my ‘forever’ is Christ’s forever. He has said, “I will come again and receive you unto myself”. So shall WE EVER be with the Lord, 1 Thess 4.
God has thus put His Christ into my hands to relieve me of all my past, present, and future; that is, of all my history. Yesterday Christ answered for me, today He answers for me, and forever He will answer for me. As in all three He eternally satisfies the heart of the blessed God, how can I have a doubt? No, I cannot doubt. In Christ God is satisfied with me. To His eternal praise and glory be it said; and this, my present joy, He has given me by His Spirit to taste of now.
Christ was on the cross yesterday for me, is in the glory today for me, and soon is coming again for me. All this is the three-fold testimony of the past, present, and future of Christ, as the Holy Spirit in the Word, testifies of Him. Then beside this, the same Spirit dwells within me, in order that Christ may be so formed in me that He and He only, may be seen from me! It may then be said as to every saint, “What hath God wrought?”
“For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen”, Rom 11: 36.
From Words of Encouragement—vol 2, 1896
