There is a great salvation text, perhaps the greatest in Scripture, that speaks of our works.
It is the wonderful 53rd chapter of Isaiah, which better than any other place explains how God saves poor sinners.
All human religions rely upon our so-called good works to please God. That is how we think the world works - we must do something to get on God's good side, to appease Him.
More sophisticated religions, such as Roman Catholicism, claim that God's grace works in us to produce good works which then justify us before God.
Therefore, we would all expect God to talk about our works a great deal, since we suppose that our good works put us in good stead before God.
Therefore, we ought to examine Isaiah 53 very carefully to see how it describes how our works are involved in our salvation.
Because true Christianity and the Gospel proclaims, to the contrary, that Christ was punished for our crimes, and all our righteousness comes from Him, and our so-called "good works" are counted for nothing, we first assume that our works play no part in the theology of Isaiah 53.
Indeed it is true, that our "good works" are not mentioned one single time in Isaiah 53, which fact in itself tells us that God's great redemption of His people does not involve our "good works."
But lo and behold, upon reading Isaiah 53 through again, we find that it does, indeed, discuss our works!
In fact, Isaiah 53 explains how crucial our works are in God's scheme of redemption!
"He was wounded for our transgressions." There our works are crucial to understanding how Christ saves us!
Or, "He was bruised for our iniquities." Once again, our works right there front and center! |
