Grace has no handles and is impossible for sinners to pick up. But grace does have hands and consequently has no difficulty picking us up. As long as we cling to our very natural (and sinful) tendency to have some kind of righteousness that we can call our own, this is impossible for us to “get.” And this is particularly the case when we try to understand the role of the good works done by Christians in the public realm.
But when Christians are saved by grace, they do not become ghostly apparitions. They still have jobs, they still eat, they still vote, they still spank their kids, and they still drive their cars down the road. And in all that they do, they are either being obedient or disobedient. If they are being obedient, then we have to ask what the relationship is between that obedience and the grace of God.
We have to ask this question because, in Paul’s theology, grace and works do not mix at all — otherwise grace would no longer be grace. At the same time, Paul teaches that grace works. We are God’s workmanship, Paul argues, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand for us to do (Eph. 2:10). He does this right after insisting that we are saved by grace through faith, and not by works, so that no one can boast. We are not saved in any way by good works, but we are necessarily saved to good works.
This seems simple, as far as it goes, but we cannot stop here. This is because we have a tendency to try to understand the whole thing in terms of getting the chronological order right. First, there is grace and faith, and then after that, we do good works. But this is nothing more than a resurrection of old Galatian heresy — “We are born of the Spirit, but then we finish by human effort.” Our problem is that we want to think of saving faith as something like the light from a flashbulb going off. There! Saving faith! And now, we wonder, what is the role of works? We create this problem by thinking of the faith in sola fide as a phenomenon which comes, brings justification, and then goes away. Rather, we should see it as a deep root, planted by God in the hearts of His saints, which necessarily bears fruit upward.
Paul tells us about the power of the gospel. “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith'” (Rom. 1:17). The righteousness of God is manifested from faith to faith. Note what Paul did not say. He did not teach us that “the righteousness of God is revealed by faith at the beginning: as it is written, The just shall start by faith, and then try to figure out the relationship of grace and works after that.'” If the just live by faith, then this faith is the point of origin for their life, and every good work in it.
The saving faith which God gives to His elect does not go away after it is given. The first thing this saving faith does is believe God unto justification, but after this point, it does not die, or go into hibernation. That same faith believes God throughout the process of sanctification, ending with glory of the resurrection.
There are those who want good works to be given the honor of “co-root.” Upon all such Pharisaism, the apostle of grace would pronounce a severe anathema. Of course, we also can see the opposite error committed by so-called friends of grace, those who want the tree to have grace-roots dangling from all the branches. They see an insistence on fruit as a denial of the root, but actually any tree with roots in the air is dead. The biblical order is the root of grace through faith below (and nothing but this root below), and the fruit of good works above (and nothing but the fruit above).
And this is why the whole convoluted question of the role of faith and works is filled with optical illusions, especially when we consider broader cultural issues. This is why one man can substitute pro-life work for grace while another man’s fight for the unborn is a work of grace. One man tithes to buy his way into heaven while another man tithes out of the grace of gratitude. One man works to educate his children, his heart full of the anxiety created by every form of works-righteousness. Another man is glad to teach his children the ways of grace. The world is a messy place. One man might even trust in his lack of fruit, thinking it bestows even greater honor on the root. Another man has abundant fruit and knows that it is all of grace, from first to last.
Works of some kind are inescapable, and we cannot point to a denial of grace simply because works happened to be performed. The heart of the issue is the heart of the one who does them, and God alone is the judge of that heart. We therefore cannot see a threat to the gospel simply because Christians insist loudly that unrighteousness has taken over the public square. But we can and should see a threat to the gospel when such talk neglects or denies the root, which is justification through faith alone, apart from works of the law.
Note:
much of this old stuff is relevant to the current situation. This is an old article, on the relationship of grace and works, and it was published (out in the open) by Ligonier. So this is an example of what R.C. Sproul was urging the most recent General Assembly to vote against. And because they did so, they heartily condemned the “denials of sola fide” previously published by R.C.’s magazine. Now he might defend himself by saying there is nothing in the above article that denies sola fide. And that would be, um, our point exactly.