What Are “Works”?

What Are “Works”?

Jay: What are “works? And what is “rest” following work—the Sabbath? Here are some passages from scripture that might shed some light:

Commit your works to the Lord
And your plans will be established. (Proverbs 16: 3)

Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You get here?”

Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.  Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”  Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?”  Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”  So they said to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform?  Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’”  Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.  For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.”  Then they said to Him, “Lord, always give us this bread.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.  But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.  All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.  For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.  This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.  For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:25-40)

Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.  We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. (John 9:3-4)

The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but forblasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?  If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),  do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me;  but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” (John 10:33-38)

 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.  Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. (John 14:10-12)

In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. (Romans 11:5-6)

You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?  Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?  So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?

Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.”  So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.

For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” (Galatians 3:1-10)

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, (I Timothy 6:17-18)

Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (Hebrew 6:1)

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:13-14)

For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that [f]God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. (James 2:13-26)

As a Seventh Day Adventist, it’s hard to talk about works without also talking about the Sabbath, though I am not sure we have paid as much attention as we might to the relationship in light of possible distinctions between types of work. The fourth commandment is important to us. It reads:

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8-11)

Again: What is “work/s”? What is the relationship among work, faith, and grace? And where, if anywhere, does the Sabbath fit in?

Robin: It strikes me that the last verse (26) of James 2 says that the body without the spirit is dead, so to be alive we must have a physical body and a spirit. One without the other is death. Faith without works is also death, and faith is spiritual while works are of the body. No matter which way we turn, whether faith results in works or works result in faith, each needs the other in order to function.

Don: The works of God and the works of Man appear to be distinctive; that is to say, they are not the same. The idea that the works of Man can be pleasing or acceptable or even advantageous to God seems to be undermined by the concept that we are supposed to be doing the works of God, not the works of Man. The curse placed by God on the ground at the Fall would result in toil—a different kind of work from God’s—for Man.

God himself entered into rest upon completion of his creation, which he regarded as “good” work. There seems to be something to be understood about the work of Man, the work of God, and the work that Man ought to be doing.

Jay: Paul seems to make the same contrast between works of the law (of Man) and of grace (of God).

Don: The entering into rest through a partnership with God…

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-29)

… is perhaps a symbol of grace.

Robin: It seems the works of God described in scripture are always given, merciful, and self-sacrificing; whereas the works of Mankind tend to have an ulterior, selfish, motive. It’s hard for us to emulate the self-sacrificing service that God gives.

Donald: Work is mentioned often enough in scripture that it is clearly important and therefore worthy of careful definition. Man’s work is a task. If we do perform a task because we think it is worth doing, we call it service. Every night and every Sabbath we rest from our work. There’s also clearly a relationship between work and faith.

David: As Jay read the preparatory passages just now I thought I saw a difference between what Jesus said about work and what Paul and other apostles said about it and about what Jesus said about it. Jesus’ definition seemed to me simple, straightforward, and usually prefaced with the adjective “good”. In essence, he defined good work as belief in God or in himself as the son of God. Paul et al. seek to analyze and extend the meaning and in so doing inevitably put their own spin on it.

Works before and after the Fall are two different things. Before the Fall, we simply had to do God’s will. Believing in God was easy, faith was easy: We could see him and walk with him. We did not have to do good in the sense of helping the poor, the oppressed, and others in need, because there was nobody in need, there was no oppression, in the Garden of Eden. The only “hard” thing to do (apparently, since we failed at it) was God’s will!

But after the Fall, are we supposed to work our way back up to the Garden by acting as though we were still in it? But how can we? Here, we stumble across people begging for alms, or injured in an accident or a mugging. There, we don’t! The work we have to do here on earth seems somehow different from the work we have to do in the Garden of Eden.

Jay: Before the Fall, there is no concept of good or evil. All works are good. After the Fall, we know Good and Evil—but in a muddy, fuzzy way. What is our role in clearing up the mud and determining Good and Good works from Evil and Evil works? Jesus said we were to deploy our inner light to let others see Good works, when he told the disciples:

Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

Is this a requirement, a request, or just a statement of the way things are?

Don: We seem to have arrived at three different kinds of work: God’s work, Man’s work on behalf of Mankind, and Man’s work on behalf if his individual self. Is Man’s work on behalf of Mankind not also God’s work? I’m confident that this is not a call by Jesus to work to our own individual benefit (which often includes works of piety), but on the other hand there does seem to be a call for some kind of work.

Chris: All Adam and Eve had to do was believe what God told them about the Trees. That was essentially all the work they had—the work of believing. The serpent introduced sin, and in Genesis 3:17-19 work changed. It took a different form. It was work that had to be done:

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you;
 In toil you will eat of it
 All the days of your life.
 Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
 And you will eat the plants of the field; 
By the sweat of your face
 You will eat bread,
 Till you return to the ground,
 Because from it you were taken;
 For you are dust, 
And to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)

This was work of Man for selfish reasons: To get bread, to live. And it is work under the control of Man, directed by Man, implemented by Man. There is no faith required for this work. In contrast, to believe—to have faith—in something means giving up control. So when I believe in God, I give up control in any works I do that result from my faith. But unlike my work for myself, my work for God is not toil. It is effortless.

I see the Sabbath as a reminder to give up the works of Man, to hand control over to God to direct me in the work he created us for—to love one’s neighbor and to share God’s grace with others.

Jay: Is there any overlap between work and faith? Before the Fall they were practically synonymous; after the Fall they became practically antonymous.

Don: A double ration of manna—a symbol of God’s grace—was given on Fridays by God to the Israelites during their exodus through the desert, so they would not have to work on gathering it on the Sabbath. Was this a demonstration that God’s grace is sufficient for us and that we are not to rely on our own work to gather God’s grace? Grace requires no effort, no toil. It only requires reliance on God. Perhaps it was intended that we need to be reminded of this lesson on a weekly basis, lest we forget it.

Donald: Before sin, God did the work and Man’s only responsibility was to trust him. After sin, we need faith in him. Is there a subtle difference between faith and trust? Before sin, faith was not needed, but trust was.

Rimon: The work of God and for God is work without expectation. The work of Man for himself is work with expectation of something for it. The former requires only faith and belief in God, yet it is in fact more difficult for humans, who seem to need immediate gratification for everything they do. There is no such expectation with our work for God.

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