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most common dispute I heard did not
have to do with the sanctuary. Rather, it
had to do with works.
I must admit that even I didn’t fully
understand the role works played.
Hearing a constant barrage of criticisms
against the importance of works made
me second-guess whether they were at
all necessary. “The just shall live by
faith,” someone would say, quoting
Martin Luther and Romans 1:17. From
these encounters I would always walk
away deep in thought. Were they right?
Simultaneously, the familiar passages
“Faith without works is dead” (James
2:26)* and “A man is justified by works,
and not by faith only” (verse 24) reverberated
in my mind. Works did matter, I
argued in response.
Truly, works do matter. But do they
save?
My epiphany did not come until I
reached my 20s, after several years of
serious Bible study. Works do matter,
but they do not save us. In fact, works
are a memorial to our salvation, not the
matter?
source of it.
Did God create the world by resting
on the seventh day and sanctifying it?
Of course not. So then do we find salvation
by working? No, our works are a
result of gratitude and remembering
God’s saving work in our lives, just as
the Sabbath stands as a memorial to
God’s creative work in the world.
In the Past
In the book of Genesis, God told
Abram that his descendants would be
captive in a land not their own for 400
years. The Lord also promised to judge
their oppressor and to bring Abram’s
posterity up from Egypt and give them
the land He had promised to their
fathers. When the time to free the children
of Israel came, the Lord visited
plague upon plague on the Egyptians
and the hardened pharaoh. The final
and most devastating plague brought
on the mourning of an entire people, as
all of Egypt’s firstborn died in the nighttime
gloom.
Remember, the law of Moses, the Ten
Commandments, and the various ordinances
given at Sinai
were still unheard-of
to the Israelites. The
Lord saved them not
by works, but by faith
in the blood of the
Passover Lamb,
Christ Jesus. Truly,
“the just shall live by
faith” in both the Old
and New Testaments.
First God brought
salvation, and then He brought His children
to Sinai. Not the other way around.
This illustration is akin to the idea
that God will meet us where we are. God
will always meet us where we are, but
He refuses to keep us there. God did not
expect Israel to escape Egypt and navigate
their way to Sinai. Nor did He plan
to save them but keep them in Egypt.
With a mighty hand the Lord brought
His children up. Not once did works
play a role in their salvation—only faith.
Then, with the giving of the Ten Commandments,
God’s first words are “I am
the Lord your God, who brought you
out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage” (Ex. 20:2). A deeper
spiritual lesson exists here beyond literal
Egypt. More important than the
actual giving of the law, God first
reminded the Israelites who He was,
first and foremost—their Savior.
After Sinai, the entire Jewish economy
revolved around the elaborate sacrificial
system. This system not only remembered
the Lord’s salvation out of Egypt,
but looked in faith to the future coming
of a Savior who would free His people.
The Source
Any theology that makes works a
part of receiving salvation is a false
religion. As the apostle Paul so clearly
states: “Where is boasting then? It is
excluded. By what law? Of works? No,
but by the law of faith. Therefore we
conclude that a man is justified by
faith apart from the deeds of the law”
(Rom. 3:27, 28).
God will always
meet us where
we are, but He
refuses to
keep us there.
But before we throw the importance of
works out the window, remember that
Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments”
(John 14:15). We cannot
minimize the importance
of what Jesus
is saying, or not saying.
He is not saying,
“If you want to be
saved, keep My commandments.”
He is
expressing that
those who have
come to Christ, have
experienced His
grace and mercy, and
have been washed in the blood of the
Lamb will inevitably reflect Christ’s character
by default rather than obligation.
We live holy, consecrated lives not so
that we may be saved, but because we are
saved! Christ, the Passover Lamb, did not
die to do away with the law; rather He
fulfilled its demand for blood on our
behalf. Now by faith and in constant gratitude
we are enabled to follow in Christ’s
footsteps as His children, as the seed of
Abraham and heirs of the promise.
Works are a memorial to the Lord’s
salvation. They are never the source of it!
In the days of Moses, when children
asked, “What do you mean by this service?”
parents would say, “It is the Passover
sacrifice of the Lord, who passed
over the houses of the children of Israel
in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians
and delivered our households” (Ex.
12:26, 27).
So today, when we welcome the Sabbath
hours with prayer and hymns,
when we take Communion, or when we
study God’s Word together and someone
asks, “Why do we do this?” we have
an answer.
“We love Him because He first loved
us” (1 John 4:19). n
* Texts in this article are from the New King James
Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson,
Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Andrew Kerbs writes from
Kernersville, North Carolina.
www.AdventistReview.org | September 19, 2013 | (835) 19