The Human Condition
"Not of works, lest any man should boast."
Ephesians 2:9
Imagine a man at a restaurant who has finished a fine meal and reaches for his wallet, only to be told that the bill has already been settled by someone else. There are two things he can do. He can accept it gratefully — or he can insist on paying anyway. And if he insists, he is not being noble. He is refusing a gift, embarrassing the one who paid, and attempting to buy something that is no longer for sale.
That is very nearly the position of every person who hopes to reach God by being good enough. The instinct behind it is understandable and even admirable in its way. But it will not work, and this article is about why — and about the far better thing God has put in its place.
Ask almost anyone how a person gets to heaven, and the answer will involve some version of a ladder. Be decent. Do more good than harm. Keep the commandments as best you can. Be sincere. It is the assumption underneath nearly every religion on earth, and underneath the vague hopes of many people who follow no religion at all.
Ask a hundred people on any street what a man must do to be right with God, and the answers will differ in wording and agree in substance. Be good. Do your best. Live decently. Don’t hurt anybody. Ask a Catholic, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Jehovah’s Witness and a wholly irreligious man, and beneath the differences you will find the same architecture: a scale, with your conduct on it.
That instinct is not stupidity. It is how everything else in life works. Wages are earned. Grades are earned. Trust is earned. A man who has spent forty years being paid for what he produces will naturally assume that eternity is arranged on the same terms.
And it is the one thing Scripture says cannot be done.
"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Isaiah 64:6)
Notice which side of the ledger that verse is describing. Not our sins — our righteousnesses. The best things we ever did. Isaiah says God’s estimate of our finest work, offered as payment, is a heap of soiled cloth.
Notice how deep the instinct runs. It feels right that reward should follow effort. In every other area of life, that is exactly how things work: study and you pass, train and you improve, work and you are paid. It seems only fair that eternity should operate the same way.
And here is the surprise. Christianity is the one message in the world that says it does not. Not because God undervalues goodness — He values it more highly than we do — but because of what our actual situation is.
God gave commandments. Many people assume they were given as a ladder — a set of requirements to be met so that God would accept us. But Scripture states the purpose differently, and the difference changes everything:
If the law was never going to save anyone, the obvious question is why God gave it. Scripture answers directly, and the answer is not what most people expect.
"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3:20)
By the law is the knowledge of sin. The law was never a ladder. It was a mirror. A mirror will show a man his face is dirty; it will not wash it, and no amount of pressing your face to the glass has ever cleaned anybody.
"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." (Galatians 3:24)
A schoolmaster, whose task is finished when the pupil is delivered to the one he was being prepared for.
"Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made." (Galatians 3:19)
"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3:20)
Read both halves. Negatively: no flesh shall be justified by keeping the commandments. Not some. Not the very devout. None. Positively: by the law comes the knowledge of sin.
So the law is a mirror. A mirror is excellent at showing you that your face is dirty, and completely useless for washing it. Nobody blames a mirror for this; that is not what mirrors are for. In the same way, God's commandments were never given as a means of becoming acceptable. They were given to show us that we are not — so that we would look for cleansing elsewhere.
The apostle Paul stated the conclusion three times over in a single sentence, in case anyone should try to slip a work in at the edges:
"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." (Galatians 2:16)
Someone will say: perhaps perfect obedience is impossible, but surely God accepts a sincere effort. Here Scripture says something that stops the argument entirely.
Men who feel the force of this usually retreat to a lower standard: they may not be perfect, but surely they are good enough. Scripture removes that ground too, and it does so with a single sentence about the law’s indivisibility.
"For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." (James 2:10)
That is how law has always worked. A man who has kept every statute in the criminal code except one is not a mostly-law-abiding citizen; he is a man with a conviction. One count is enough to put him in the dock.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
And mark the standard being used. Not the glory of your neighbour. Not the glory of the worst man you know. The glory of God. Measured against that, the distance between the best of us and the worst is real but negligible — the difference between a man who can jump nine feet and one who can jump three, when the canyon is a mile across.
"They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Romans 3:12)
"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6)
Not our sins — our righteousnesses. The very deeds we would bring to God as our credentials come out stained when He examines them. And He examines the inside as well as the outside: the pride mixed into the charity, the desire to be seen mixed into the service, the self-satisfaction that follows the good deed almost before it is finished.
This is not cynicism about human goodness. Real kindness is real, and the world is better for it. But there is a difference between a deed that is genuinely good among men and a deed pure enough to be offered to a holy God as payment. A gift may be beautiful and still be inadequate to settle a debt of millions.
Here is the flaw at the very heart of the ladder, and it is worth stating plainly, because most people have never examined it.
Here is the difficulty most people never think through, and it is fatal to the whole scheme.
Suppose a man resolves today to live a perfect life from this moment on — never another lie, never another unkind thought, never another selfish act. Suppose, impossibly, he succeeds.
What has he done about yesterday?
Nothing whatever. Perfect obedience from today is no more than what was owed all along. A man cannot pay a debt with money he already owed. If he never breaks another law, he is not thereby cleared of the ones he broke — and no court on earth operates otherwise.
This is why the guilt does not lift. Men resolve, and reform, and try again, and the accusation stays exactly where it was, because reformation addresses the future and the problem is in the past.
"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." (Jeremiah 13:23)
Suppose a man is in court, having been convicted of a real offence. He says to the judge: from today onward I will obey every law perfectly. Suppose he even does it. Has he discharged the offence? He has not. He has only done what was already required of him every day. Obedience going forward is not a surplus that can be applied backwards; it is simply the duty he already owed.
So it is with us. Even if you never sinned again from this moment — which you will — you would only be doing what you were obliged to do all along. There is no credit accruing, no overpayment to set against the record. The debt remains exactly where it was.
Scripture puts the same point in commercial terms, and the contrast is exact:
"Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." (Romans 4:4-5)
If you work, what you receive is owed to you — and God owes us nothing but what our record deserves. The alternative is startling and is stated without embarrassment: to him that worketh not, but believeth. God justifies the ungodly. Not the improved. Not the promising. The ungodly, who has stopped working and started trusting.
The New Testament shuts this door repeatedly and in the plainest words it possesses.
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." (Titus 3:5)
"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." (2 Timothy 1:9)
Three passages, three different letters, and the same phrase in each: not of works, not by works, not according to our works. The Holy Ghost is not being ambiguous.
And the apostle Paul states the logic of it as a matter of plain arithmetic:
"Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." (Romans 4:4-5)
If you work for it, the payment is a wage, and God owes you. If it is grace, it cannot be a wage. The two cannot be mixed:
"And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work." (Romans 11:6)
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us." (Titus 3:5)
"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." (2 Timothy 1:9)
Consider that last one especially. The grace by which we are saved was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began — before any of us existed, before a single deed good or bad had been done. Whatever our works may be, they cannot have been the basis of a decision made before we were born.
Notice the reason Scripture gives for excluding works. It is not that works are worthless. It is this: lest any man should boast.
Why would God arrange salvation so that human effort is excluded entirely? Scripture gives the reason without embarrassment.
"That no flesh should glory in his presence... That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." (1 Corinthians 1:29,31)
If any part of it were earned, heaven would contain a class of people with something to say about themselves. God has removed that possibility — not to humiliate men, but because pride is the original sin and there will be none of it there.
There is a mercy in this that is easily missed. A salvation partly earned is a salvation never certain, because you can never know whether you have done enough. Every system of works produces the same fruit: a man who hopes, and fears, and counts, and cannot rest. The gift excludes boasting — and in excluding boasting it also excludes terror.
"And if by grace, then is it no more of works." (Romans 11:6)
Follow the logic. If salvation could be earned even partly by our effort, then heaven would contain a class of people with something to be proud of. There would be degrees of merit, comparisons, and the quiet superiority of those who had tried harder than others. The old poison that ruined us in the first place would be carried straight into eternity.
By making salvation a gift, God ensures that no one in heaven will have anything to boast of except the Saviour. The rescued alcoholic and the respectable churchgoer arrive by exactly the same door, on exactly the same terms, and neither has anything to say to the other except that Christ paid for them both.
There is a second mercy in it, and it is greater than the first. If salvation depended on our performance, no honest person could ever have peace. He would never know whether he had done enough, and every failure would reopen the question. Because it depends on a finished work outside ourselves, assurance becomes possible. A man may know he is saved — not because his record is good, but because the payment was complete.
It certainly does, and this is where careless readers go wrong in the opposite direction. Having heard that works cannot save, some conclude that works do not matter. Scripture does not permit that either. Look at what comes immediately after the great denial:
This is the fair question, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a dodge, because the Bible plainly does command good works.
The answer is that Scripture never presents works as the root of salvation. It presents them as the fruit. An apple tree does not become an apple tree by producing apples; it produces apples because that is what it already is.
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10)
Read that immediately after verses 8 and 9, because the apostle Paul put it there on purpose. Not of works — then, in the very next breath, created unto good works. Works are not the road to salvation; they are the road out of it.
And when James says faith without works is dead, he is not contradicting this. He is testing the reality of a professed faith, not adding a second requirement. A living faith works, as a living man breathes. Nobody breathes in order to become alive.
"Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." (James 2:17)
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10)
Watch the preposition, because everything hangs on it. We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works — not by them. Good works are not the root of salvation; they are its fruit. They are not the payment; they are the thanks. They are not how we get in; they are what we were saved for.
Think of a man pulled from a river by a stranger who nearly drowns doing it. What does the rescued man owe? Not repayment — the debt is beyond repaying, and the rescuer is not asking. What follows is gratitude that reshapes a life. That is the New Testament's picture of Christian obedience. It is the response of the rescued, never the price of the rescue.
And notice that this actually produces better works than the ladder ever did. Works offered to buy God's favour are, at bottom, about ourselves — our standing, our security, our record. Works offered out of gratitude for a finished salvation are free to be about God and about our neighbour, because nothing is riding on them.
The Lord Jesus Christ told a story about this that is worth remembering, because it puts flesh on the argument.
The Lord Jesus Christ told a story about this that settles the matter better than any argument.
"Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess." (Luke 18:10-12)
Everything he says is true. He really did fast. He really did tithe. He was not an extortioner. On any honest reckoning of behaviour, he was the better man in that building.
"And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner." (Luke 18:13)
Seven words, and no defence offered.
"I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." (Luke 18:14)
The good man went home unforgiven and the bad man went home justified — and the difference was not conduct. It was that one came with a record and the other came with nothing.
Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was religious and genuinely upright — he fasted, he gave a tenth of everything, he was not a thief or an adulterer, and every word of his self-assessment was true. He thanked God that he was not like other men. The other was a tax collector, despised and with good reason, who would not so much as lift his eyes, but struck his breast and said: God be merciful to me a sinner.
And the Lord Jesus Christ said it was the second man who went home justified.
Sit with how offensive that is. The moral man went home unforgiven; the disreputable one went home right with God. Not because morality does not matter, but because the first man was presenting a bill and the second was asking for mercy — and only one of those can be granted. The tax collector's advantage was not that he had sinned more. It was that he had stopped arguing.
All of this comes to a single practical point. A gift cannot be received by hands that are full.
As long as a man is holding out his church attendance, his decency, his charitable giving, his heritage, or his sincerity as part of the reason God should accept him, he has not yet come with the empty hands that faith requires. He is still negotiating. And God does not negotiate about this, not out of sternness, but because the price was already paid in full and there is nothing left to discuss.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
It is worth naming the main forms this takes, because a reader may be inside one without recognising it as the same error.
Sacraments. Grace administered through rites, received in instalments, capable of being lost and needing renewal. Whatever is said about grace in such a system, the effect is that the believer's standing depends on what he keeps doing. There is no rest in it, and no verse anywhere makes a rite the ground of justification.
Performance and record-keeping. Hours reported, doors knocked, a tally kept. This is the shape of every modern sect that comes to the door, and it is bondage with a clipboard.
Sincerity. The most respectable version, and the most common among people who never darken a church door: God will accept anyone who is sincere. But sincerity is not innocence. A man may be perfectly sincere and perfectly guilty, and no court has ever accepted it as a plea.
Comparison. Measuring against neighbours rather than against God — which is precisely what the Pharisee did in the temple, and precisely why he went home unjustified.
"But they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." (2 Corinthians 10:12)
Every one of these breaks at the same place. Each requires a man to supply something, and none of them does anything whatever about the debt already outstanding.
This objection is as old as the doctrine, and the apostle Paul raised it himself before anyone could raise it against him.
"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" (Romans 6:1-2)
Notice he does not answer by adding conditions to salvation. He answers by pointing to what has happened to the person. The question assumes the believer is unchanged, and he is not.
A man rescued from drowning does not go back into the water to prove his gratitude. If he wants to, one may reasonably wonder whether he understood that he was drowning.
"For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world." (Titus 2:11-12)
Grace teaches. It does not merely pardon and walk away. The very thing men fear will produce carelessness is the thing Scripture says produces godliness — and it produces it from the inside, which law never could.
If you have spent years attempting to be good enough, hear what is actually being said, because it is not that your efforts were wicked. Many of them were admirable, and God is not indifferent to them.
It is that they were aimed at the wrong thing. You were trying to purchase what was never for sale, and while you were trying, it was being offered to you as a gift.
"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." (Isaiah 55:1)
Buy without money. The invitation is deliberately absurd, because it is addressed to people who have nothing, and it tells them to come anyway.
And when the crowd asked the Lord Jesus Christ directly what they must do to work the works of God — the exact question this article has been about — He gave an answer that dissolved the premise:
"Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." (John 6:28-29)
They asked for a list. He gave them a Person.
"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." (John 6:37)
Return to the man in the restaurant with his wallet out. Everything depends on whether he believes the bill is really paid. If he half believes it, he will hover awkwardly, wanting to contribute something. If he truly believes it, he will simply say thank you.
This is the hardest thing in the world for a self-respecting person to do, and that is precisely why it is the way in. God has arranged salvation so that pride cannot enter and so that no one is excluded for being too far gone. The moral man must come the same way as the criminal, and the criminal may come as freely as the moral man.
Put down what you were going to offer. It was never enough, and it is no longer needed.
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us."Titus 3:5
Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.
We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for Him who finished the work that no man could begin. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:9), and which cannot be broken.
We confess before You of every hour we have spent trying to earn what was already purchased. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.
Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to free every reader from the treadmill of his own righteousness, for Your glory and not for ours.
We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?
You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.
If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:
Dear Holy and Almighty God, I come to You just as I am. I confess that I am a sinner. I have broken Your law, I have gone my own way, and I deserve the judgment and the everlasting fire that my sin has earned. I cannot save myself, and I bring You nothing.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Your Son; that He loved me and died on the cross in my place, shedding His precious blood for my sins; that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day.
Here and now I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone — not my works, not my religion, not my goodness — to save me. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin, and be my Saviour from this moment and for ever.
In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.
4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.
5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).