In the designation of believers as saints, i.e. holy ones, God desires to see that we cultivate the holiness which we have in Christ. This cultivation includes hating and forsaking sin, on the one hand, and doing the good works which God has prepared beforehand for his workmanship to do (cf. Eph 2:10). In discussing the relationship between sanctification and good works, Herman Bavinck notes that good works are “distinct from the virtues of the pagans” precisely because the undertaking of good works arises from “a true faith.”[1] Without devaluing the relative good that comes from the cultivation of virtue in society apart from a confession of faith in Christ, good works have much more substance to them in the eyes of God and through the exercise of faith. Indeed, it is only through faith in Christ, as Bavinck says, that good works can even be done. He writes,
As Christ with all his benefits can be given us on God's part only through and in the Spirit, so on our part he can only be received and enjoyed by faith. It is by faith that Christ dwells in our hearts (Eph 3:17), that we live in Christ (Gal 2:20), that we become children of God (3:26) and obtain the promise of the Spirit (3:14), and that we receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life (John 3:16; Rom 4:7). To live by faith is the flip side of the reality that Christ is in us (2 Cor 13:5; Gal 2:20). Faith, accordingly, is the one great work Christians have to do in sanctification according to the principles of the gospel (John 6:29); it is the means of sanctification par excellence. Faith is also competent to do this by virtue of its very nature. Having first received, it can now also give. It opens our heart to the grace of God, to communion with Christ, to the power of the Holy Spirit, and thereby enables us to do great things. Faith breaks all self-reliance and fastens on to God's promise. It allows the law to stand in all its grandeur and refuses to lower the moral idea, but also refrains from any attempt, by observing it, to find life and peace; it seizes upon God's mercy and relies on the righteousness and holiness accomplished in Christ on behalf of humans. It fosters humility, dependence, and trust and grants comfort, peace, and joy through the Holy Spirit; it generates gratitude in our hearts for the benefits received and incites us to do good works.[2]
The summary substance of these good works is found first in the Ten Commandments and then is further summarized in the Greatest Commandment, i.e. to love God, and its close second, i.e. to love your neighbor as yourself. However, these summaries are expanded throughout the Scriptures as they are applied situationally and historically.
The point, then, is that good works in the Christian life, as a cultivation of the holiness we already have in Christ, should neither be couched in minimalist terms nor be considered as unduly constraining. Quite to the contrary, good works, maximally considered, take their launching point from the expansive revelation of the character of God in the whole of the Bible and are applied individually with great freedom according to the moment and context in which one finds oneself. As Bavinck writes,
The moral law that confronts us in the Decalogue, and the Sermon on the Mount, and further throughout the Old and New Testaments is not a case of “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there are little” [Isa 28: 10, 13] but comprises universal norms, great principles, that leave a lot of room for individual application and summon every believer to examine what in a given situation would for them be the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God (Rom 12:2). Since the moral law is not a code of articles we merely have to look up in order, from moment to moment, to know exactly what we must do, there is in its domain a freedom that may not be curbed by human ordinances but must—precisely to safeguard the character of the moral life—be recognized and maintained.[3]
The place of good works in sanctification, then, is as an outwork manifestation of the holistic transformation of the believer in all of one’s relationships with God, the world, and humanity and in all facets of life. When we act according to God’s revealed will, we do good works to the praise of his transforming grace. May that spur us all on, in freedom, to do all kinds of good works to the glory of God.
[1] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 4:256.
[2] Bavinck, 257–58.
[3] Bavinck, 259.
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