Jesus was the source of our good works

JESUS WAS THE SOURCE OF OUR GOOD WORKS
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
for good works, which God afore prepared that we
shouldwalk in them.—Ephesians 2:10.
GreatTexts of the Bible
God’s Workmanship
For we are his workmanship, createdin Christ Jesus for goodworks, which
God afore prepared that we should walk in them.—Ephesians 2:10.
This chapter contains an argument which is a goodillustration of the two-
edgedway in which the sword of the Spirit cuts enemies who come from
different directions. On the one hand, St. Paul strikes at those who would
teachthat licentiousness is possible to men who are saved by grace. We are
His workmanship, createdin Christ Jesus, forgoodworks. It is true that we
do not improve ourselves. It is all of grace, yetgoodworks are binding upon
us all the more. On the other hand, let us not take any credit to ourselves. If
we are elevatedor refined, it is because Godhas taken pains with us;
otherwise we should be as coarse andfoul as any one. Indeed, we should never
have come into the workshopbut for the heavenly artist. “No man cancome
to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” It is, as old Mr.
Honest said, when the rest of the pilgrims came to watchhim cross the river,
“Grace reigns.”

The teaching of St. Paul, then, is that men and women are not the sole
architects of their own characters;the Supreme Architect who works upon
them is God. We are savedby grace—bya long series of Divine interpositions,
by Heavenly compulsions and impulsions, by the energies ofa ceaselessHand
that works upon us and brings out the Heavenly design, and completes the
Divine symmetry. It is easy, of course, to turn such a thought into folly.
Human nature is, unfortunately, so constituted that very few minds are
capable of seeing both sides of the truth. Thus it happens that those who cling
most to the consoling thought of a gospelof pure grace oftenneglectthe
equally binding gospelofa ceaselessstruggle aftergoodness. And again, the
goodpeople who build up a life of flawless honour, integrity, and virtue, often
find, because theyhave not learned to need it, a gospelof grace
incomprehensible. Yet both are true, just as it is true that a ship depends for
its movement equally on the men who work the pulleys and on the wind that
fills the sails. So we work out our own salvation; but we move to no heavenly
shores till the wind comes out of the waste heaven, and God touches us. Forit
is by grace, by a Divine interference, that we are saved;nor is salvation
possible without it.
It was the supreme truth of God’s free grace that converted both Luther and
Wesley. The one rose from Pilate’s staircasein Rome with the dawn upon his
brow, as a man enfranchisedof a new world; the other in Aldersgate Streetin
half-an-hour castthe husk of twenty years of ritualism, and emergedinto
unbounded spiritual liberty. For us also to grasp this truth is life. Yet so ill-
balancedand frail of judgment are we that there is only too much peril of
wresting such a truth to our destruction. Ratherfor us the most necessary
truth to-day is that goodnesscanbe found only by effort, that the Kingdom of
Heaven suffereth violence, that Godwill not save us by any spiritual
necromancy, that if we are not prepared to be as earnestoverreligion as we
are over our worldly affairs, there is no religion and no salvationfor us.1
[Note:W. J. Dawson, The Divine Challenge, 107.]

“Hamlet,” says ProfessorBradley, “usually speaks as one who accepts the
receivedChristian ideas, yet when he meditates profoundly he seems to ignore
them.” There has been too much of this Hamlet-spirit in the Church. Yet her
shortcomings have only thrown into more brilliant relief the quenchless
patience of God’s love, and the tenacityof His revelation. The vital truths of
the faith have refusedto be ignored for long. It has been a revelationto the
world, as well as to the Church itself, how vital and undying is the sheergrace
of God in Christ, often thwarted, often grieved, but never chilled by human
imperfections.2 [Note:J. Moffatt, Reasons andReasons, 28.]
I
A Divine Creation
“We are his workmanship, createdin Christ Jesus.”
1. The term rendered “workmanship” signifies “a poem,” and the idea is, that
as a poem owes its conceptionto the singer’s intellect and fancy, so a believer
in Christ owes his characterand standing to God. We are indebted to the
Greeks forthe word, and for its beautiful meaning. A poem with them was,
first, anything made; but as beauty and harmony are elements in all truly
original or createdworks, the word “poem” came to be applied more and
more exclusively to the expressionof truth and beauty in rhythmical form.
Only in one other place does the word occurin the New Testament. That place
is Romans, chapter 1 Ephesians 2:20;and there the Apostle uses it with
reference to the wonders of creation. This bright and beautiful world in which
we live is full of God’s poeticalworks. “The heavens are telling the glory of

God;” the starry sky, with the sun and moon, is not only a Divine poem, but
also an oratorio, full of celestialharmonies. The little islands are the poetry of
the sea. Gems and precious stones, suchas the diamond and the emerald, are
the poetry of the mineral kingdom. Flowers are the poetry of the vegetable
kingdom. The young ones of living creatures are the poetry of the animal
kingdom. Children are God’s poeticalworks in the world of mankind; we
remember the lines which Longfellow addressesto them—
Come to me, O ye children!
And whisper in my ear
What the birds and the winds are singing
In your sunny atmosphere.
For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks?
Ye are better than all the ballads

That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.1 [Note: C. Jerdan, Manna for Young Pilgrims, 102.]
“We are His poem!” EachChristian age has been a canto of it; eachChristian
life and death a word. Its strains have been pealing down the centuries, and
“though set to a tune which admits of such endless variations that it is often
difficult to detect the original melody amid the clashof the chords that conceal
it, it will eventually be resolved, through many a swift modulation and
startling cadence, back to the perfectkey.”1 [Note:H. G. Miller, St. Paul’s
Epistle to the Ephesians, 93.]
Biographers ofWordsworth have marked the exactperiod when his genius
reachedits height, and after that the glory came only at intervals, and the real
poems were rare. And because a true poem is so rare a thing, it has always
been appraised as the highest form of literature. Many greatbooks come—
and go;but a true poem is as fresh after long centuries as when it was first
written. “Poesyneverwaxeth old,” and knows no decay. It knows no decay
because it is permeated with the spirit of beauty; because it is the enduring
monument of a combination of fine gifts, whose final result is a thing of beauty
and a joy for ever. That is what a poem is, and St. Paul says that we are the
expressionof the mind of God, as the In Memoriam is the expressionof the
full mind and heart of Tennyson. We are God’s Poems.2 [Note:W. J. Dawson,
The Divine Challenge, 111.]
If thou hadst been a poet! On my heart

The thought flashedsudden, burning through the weft
Of life, and with too much I sank bereft.
Up to my eyes the tears, with sudden start,
Thronged blinding: then the veil would rend and part!
The husk of vision would in twain be cleft!
Thy hidden soulin nakedbeauty left,
I should behold thee, Nature, as thou art!
O poet Jesus!at thy holy feet
I should have lien, sainted with listening;
My pulses answering ever, in rhythmic beat,
The stroke ofeachtriumphant melody’s wing,

Creating, as it moved, by being sweet;
My soulthy harp, thy word the quivering string.3 [Note:George MacDonald,
“Concerning Jesus”(PoeticalWorks, i. 255).]
2. The poem depends entirely upon the poet for its creation. It is the unveiling
of the deepestand most intimate secreciesofhis heart. His own image is
projectedover every page, and it is the poignant personalelement in poetry
that makes it so beautiful, and gives it its enduring charm. Men, then, are
God’s poems. The intimacies of God’s heart are expressedin man—God’s
highest thoughts, God’s deepestemotions. The prayer of Moses was thatthe
beauty of God might rest upon him. When a man is finished at last in the
likeness ofChrist, God’s sense ofbeauty is satisfiedin him, God’s art has
found its finest expressionand the beauty of God does restupon him. The true
Christian is God’s poem in a world of prose, God’s beauty in a world of
gloom, God’s fine and finished art in a world where men forget beauty, and
are carelessofmoral symmetry and spiritual grace.
There is no bioplasm in the spiritual world. By no means or contrivance can a
soul live the life of God without the direct interposition of the Holy Spirit. You
may galvanize a dead bird into a flutter, but there is no life in a galvanic
shock. The Gospel, which is such a rich exhibition of pathos, beauty, and
prospect, when its truths are naturally presented, may create emotion, but it
cannot give the new heart by outward experiment. Life comes from life, and
not from declarations oftruths. We may touch and move the external nature,
but God alone cangive the new life.1 [Note: T. Davies, Sermons, ii. 116.]
I remember once seeing a little fountain playing in the room of a house in
which I was staying. I went nearto examine it and heard the click and whirr
of machinery! The fountain was the product of a mechanicalcontrivance;it

went by clockwork. It was wound up and played for a little while and then
sank into stagnancyagain. How different from the spring! One plays in
feverish spasms;the other flows in restful persistence.“Notofworks”:that is
the manufactured fountain. “We are his workmanship”:that is the life of the
spring. The Christian life is quietly natural; it is the creationof the ceaseless
energy of God.2 [Note:J. H. Jowett, in The Examiner, Nov. 19, 1903, p. 508.]
3. The new creationis “in Christ Jesus.”One of the earliestand most majestic
names of God is Maker, Creator. The Psalmistsays, “Thyhands have made
me and fashioned me.” We wearthe image of the earthly Adam by our
natural descent, and in this sense we are the creatures ofGod. But the first
creationhas been marred, and we need to be createdagainby being brought
into connexion, relationship, and union with the secondAdam, the Lord from
heaven. We are createdin Christ Jesus.
Now, if every Christian is a true poem of God, and if the Holy Catholic
Church is the supreme Divine epic “created” in our world, who is the Hero of
the composition? Our text answers that the Hero is the Lord Jesus Christ. The
poem is full of Him. God’s people are “createdin Christ Jesus for good
works.” This Hero is both Divine and human. He is the Sonof Godand the
Flowerof men, and also the one Mediator betweenGod and us. God has
purchased the Church, and every individual member of it, with His own
blood. The Church is Christ’s body, “the fulness of him that filleth all in all.”
His Spirit dwells in the heart of every believer. His glory fills the entire Society
of His people. Every poem of which He is the Hero shall spreadHis name and
His fame throughout the universe to all eternity.1 [Note:C. Jerdan, Manna
for Young Pilgrims, 105.]
In every greatpoem there is a definite subject, a leaping thought, or a hero
around whom everything gathers. The central figure of Homer’s Iliad is
Achilles, a typical Greek—handsome,brave, passionate, hospitable,

affectionate. The hero of the Odysseyis the wandering Ulysses, also anideal
Grecianof the Homeric age. The hero of Virgil’s Æneid is “the pious Æneas,”
a famous Trojan, one of the principal figures of classicallegend. Dante’s
Commedia is the great poem of retribution, his own figure dominating the
whole of it. The outstanding personality in Milton’s Paradise Lostis Satan,
while that in Paradise Regainedis Jesus ofNazareth. The hero of Tennyson’s
Idylls of the King is King Arthur of the Round Table, or, as some would have
it, Sir Lancelotof the Lake.2 [Note:Ibid. 104]
II
The PracticalEnd
“Forgoodworks.”
1. St. Paul indicates in one brief phrase the right relation of goodworks to the
Christian life. It is “for goodworks” thatwe are createdin Christ. Or, to put
it otherwise, goodworks, holiness,Godlike character, are the aim of God in
creating us afresh. They are His ultimate goal;accordinglythey cannot be the
cause ofour being saved, but must be its issue and consequence. Theyare the
fruit of the goodtree, not its root or vital sap; and we are said to be created
for goodworks just as a tree is created, or exists, for its fruit. Hence the true
relation is altogetherdistorted and reversedwhen characterand conduct are
made pre-conditions of our obtaining Divine grace, insteadof the joyous
result of our having acceptedit.
This is a problem exactly parallel to that of slave labour. If the end of labour
be taken as the maximum of production, then the question history had to solve
was this, How is this end attained most effectively?—byslave labour or by

free? In Greece, in Rome, in our own dependencies a hundred years ago, an
unhesitating answerwas given in favour of slavery; yet emancipation had only
to become a fact to prove that, even from the economic point of view, freedom
was inestimably the more advantageous of the two. So is it also in religion. Let
men believe that they must purchase salvationby hard, grim toil, as the mere
bond-slaves of God, and their hands will sink in weakness anddespair. But
tell them that in Christ Jesus they are the sons and daughters of the Lord
Almighty, and grateful love and wonder will evoke a beauty and a wealthof
goodness ofwhich else they had vainly dreamed.1 [Note:H. R. Mackintosh,
Life on God’s Plan, 55.]
Wordsworthhas describedin a memorable and familiar passage the history of
human life as it is developedunder the influence of the world, the sum of
external and transitory things.
Our birth is but a sleepand a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.
This description of the experience of the growing child is the exactreverse of
the truth in regard to the life “in Christ.” The fresh rays of glory which the
boy sees abouthim do not “fade” or “die away” with advancing years, but, as
his powerof vision is strengthenedand disciplined by continuous use, are seen
to spread from point to point with undimmed lustre, till at last all Nature is
flooded with the heavenly splendour. The solitarystar is found to be the
quickening sun. Love for the Ascended Christ continually calls forth fresh and
more glorious manifestations of His Personand will (John 14:23).
Life “in Christ” is, in other words, a progressive realizationofa personal
fellowship with Godin thought, word and deed, which brings an ever-
increasing powerof discerning Him in His works and a surer faith by which
we apprehend the invisible (Hebrews 11:1). Thus the Christian appropriates
in action little by little what has been done once for all, and gladly recognizes
“the goodworks, whichGod afore prepared that [he] should walk in them”
(Ephesians 2:10). He is himself God’s “workmanship” and his characteris a
reflectionof the living Christ, gainedin the common business of life as he
places himself before His open presence (2 Corinthians 3:18).1 [Note:B. F.
Westcott, ChristianAspects of Life, 24.]
2. The Christian life is always metrical, beating in harmony with the will of
God. It is in religion as in music. Nature is full of musical voices, ofsimple
notes that sound melodiously in every ear; but out of these the cultured and
quickened imagination of the mastercan create harmonies such as Nature
never has createdor can create—canin his Oratorio weave sounds into
symphonies so wondrous that they seem like the speechof the gods suddenly
breaking articulate upon the ear of man, speaking ofpassions, hopes, fears,
joys too tumultuous and vast for the human tongue to utter; or opening and

interpreting for mortals a world where, remote from discord or dissonance,
thought and being move as to the stateliestmusic. So in the spiritual sphere
the truly holy religious personis the master spirit, making audible to others
the harmonies his imagination is the first to hear. In him the truths and ideas
of God, as yet indistinctly seenor partially heard by the multitude, are
embodied, become as it were incarnate and articulate, assume a visible and
strenuous form that they may inspire men to nobler deeds, and show them
how to create a higher manhood and purer society.
ProfessorGilbert Murray writes of the Greeks that “the idea of service to the
community was more deeply rooted in them than in us, and that they askedof
their poets first of all this question: ‘Does he help to make men better? Does
he make life a better thing?’ ” These were the questions that Signor (Mr.
Watts) askedhimself daily and hourly. I remember how pleasedhe was when
Verestchaginagreedheartily with his aphorism, “Art should be used to make
men better.”1 [Note:Mrs. Watts, in George Frederic Watts, ii. 279.]
Tennyson, in one of his earlierpoems, gives his conceptionof the place and
work of the true poet:
The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dower’dwith the hate of hate, the scornof scorn,
The love of love.

He saw thro’ life and death, thro’ goodand ill,
He saw thro’ his own soul.
The marvel of the everlasting will,
An open scroll,
Before him lay: with echoing feet he threaded
The secretestwalks offame:
The viewless arrows ofhis thoughts were headed
And wing’d with flame.
The poet, says another, is the writer who pours forth his thought and inner
life in the melody of metre, and under the inspiration and powerof a Divine
emotion. Poetry, like all creation, is self-revelation. It is the highest form of
expression. In literature the imperial minds worthy of the name poet are few.
The Hebrew race had but one David, the Greek but one Homer, the Italian
but one Dante, the German but one Goethe, the English but one
Shakespeare.2 [Note:A. Lewis, Sermons Preachedin England, 125.]

In your concordand harmonious love Jesus Christ is sung. And do ye, each
and all, form yourselves into a chorus, that being harmonious in love and
having takenthe scale (or keynote)of God, ye may in unison sing with one
voice through Jesus Christ unto the Father, that He may both hear you and
acknowledge youby your gooddeeds to be members of His Song of Solomon3
[Note:Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians.]
When Carlyle describes Elizabeth Fry standing fair as a lily, in pure
womanliness, amid the abominable sights of old Newgate;or Longfellow
describes Florence Nightingale moving with her lamp among the wounded at
Scutari—
And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless suffererturns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls—
what is the effecton the mind? It is the effect of poetry. We feeltouched,
purged, exalted: we know that these women were in truth God’s poems. And
there are men and women in the world still who touch the soul by the same
Divine magic.1 [Note:W. J. Dawson, The Divine Challenge, 113.]
III

A Comprehensive Design
“Which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.”
1. God’s greatplan includes the Christian life and all its conditions. By the
revelation of the moral law He has alreadyfixed the pathway of the believer’s
obedience, and by creating us in Christ, He fits us by disposition and aptitude
for that obedience. Foreachof us a path of spiritual development has been
prepared beforehand, our travelling by which will be the realizationof the
Divine ideal of our life which has hovered before the mind of God from the
beginning. For every life God has a plan that touches the details as well as the
greatissues of the life, and there comes into the life of the believernothing
unknown to God. There are certain words that we make use of very often. We
say that a certain contingencyhas arisen, an exigency, a combination of
circumstances, thatsuch and such a thing happened. All those words may be
very necessarywhen we are talking about our own arrangements and our own
outlook upon life, but they find no place in the vocabulary of God. There is no
contingencythat can surprise or startle Him, no exigency that He does not
see;no detail of a human life is enshrouded in the mystery of an unborn hour
so that God cannot detectit.
I think, as I look back over my life, that there is hardly a single thwarting of
my wishes, hardly a single instance where things seemedto go againstme, in
which I cannot even now see, that by God’s profound mercy they really went
for me all the while; so that if I could have lookedforwardonly so far as the
time now present I should have longed for and welcomedall those things
which I have feared and grudgingly accepted.… There is nothing that God
does not work up into His perfectplan of our lives: all lines converge, all
movements tend to do His will, on earth as in Heaven.1 [Note:Francis Paget,
Bishop of Oxford, 49.]

2. God, who does nothing vainly or at random, delights in that which is
individual; He prepares us for the pathway of goodworks because He has also
prepared the pathway for us; the two have originated togetherin His mind. It
has been chosenfor us, as a fitting stage to educe and develop our special
powers;we have been createdfor it, and therefore endowedwith the powers it
will callfor. Men differ in gifts and aptitudes as infinitely as do the leaves ofa
tree in form and texture; and one of the beautiful and inspiring thoughts that
lie, like precious grains of gold, beneath the surface of this text, is the message
that God has His own ideal for eachone of us, and therefore would have us
manifest the Christ-like and Christ-nourished life eachin his own way. God
keeps no setmoulds into which charactermust run; rather the mould is
broken after the emergence ofeachnew life. For eachthe end of the journey is
the same, when we shall all come to the measure of Christ’s fullness; but one
may approachthe far-shining summit up a gentle slope, soft with grass and
deep with flowers, anotherover morass and torrent, and at last along the
flinty way where the tender feetare bruised, and the wind blows keenacross
the snow. It matters little, if only we tread the ordained pathway of God.
Mrs. Josephine Butler, for whose heroismhe had a deep veneration, was one
of four women of mark whom Signor(Mr. Watts)wished to include in his
series ofportraits for the NationalGallery. Her portrait was painted, and at
Limnerslease, where she came to staywith us. Very lovely in her youth, in age
her delicate sensitive nature still gave true beauty to a face that bore but too
plainly the marks of an heroic crusade. When she saw the portrait for the first
time she saidbut a few words. She left the room and went to take the rest
which at intervals was now necessaryforher. Before she came downstairs to
dinner she had written what she had not been able to say to Signor:—
“When I lookedat that portrait which you have just done, I felt inclined to
burst into tears. I will tell you why. I felt so sorry for her. Your power has
brought up out of the depths of the past, the record of a conflict which no one
but God knows of. It is written in the eyes, and whole face. Your picture has

brought back to me all that I suffered, and the sorrows through which the
Angel of God’s presence brought me out alive. I thank you that you have not
made that poor woman look severe or bitter, but only sad, and yet purposeful.
For with full purpose of heart she has borne and laboured, and she is ready to
go down to Hades again, if it were necessary, forthe deliverance of her fellow-
creatures. But God does not require that descentmore than once. I could not
say all this aloud. But if the portrait speaks with such truth and powerto me,
I think it will in some way speak to others also.”1 [Note:Mrs. Watts, in
George Frederic Watts, ii. 250.]
Some time ago, when in Manchester, I saw men at work pulling down whole
streets of houses to make room for a new railway station. All appearedruin
and disorder. Here was a party digging out foundations; in another place the
bricklayers were building walls;elsewhere some were laying foundations for
other walls; beyond them others were still pulling down. It seemedlike chaos,
and yet in the architect’s office could be seenthe elevationand picture of the
complete whole. Every man was working to a plan. And so Godhas His
elevation, but He does not show it. “It doth not yet appear.” When Josephwas
in jail, he was in the path of Providence, and the fetters of iron were as much
part of the plan as the chain of gold he wore when brought to the summit of
greatness.2 [Note:T. Champness, New Coins from Old Gold, 86.]
To erect a greatbuilding, to paint a greatpicture, to carve a greatstatue, to
compose a greatoratorio, to write a greatpoem, requires a great theme, and
to live a greatlife requires a greatpurpose. So we, God’s poems, to fulfil our
mission in the world, must have a greatpurpose. Gladstone, Wellington,
Grant, Lincoln, Washington, Luther, Savonarola, Paul, were all men of
purpose and noble ambition. Frances Willard, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth
Fry, and Susanna Wesleywere women of purpose, as have been all those who
have accomplishedanything worth the doing.3 [Note: A. Lewis, Sermons
Preachedin England, 143.]

3. The sense of a high vocationwill go far to redeem life from failure. Our
consciousnessofbeing in touch with God would be deepened if we would only
recognize that He has prepared the specific enterprise and exercise ofduty for
us, and is ready to meet us face to face upon that line. Whateverlove may be,
it is dutiful; it assigns duties to others, and to itself. To ignore this truth is to
miss one of the dimensions of His greatlove. To acceptit is to reacha new
degree of cheerfulness and effectivenessin our service of God and man. More
than that, to believe “we are his workmanship” here because we are needed
for some end of His own makes us aware of the wonderful precisionand
definiteness with which God uses the details of our individual lives to draw us
into the destiny of our tie to Jesus Christ. We are createdin Christ Jesus for
goodworks. Theyare not irrelevant to our spiritual careerany more than
they were to His. If we understand anything of the moral energy which throbs
in God’s redeeming purpose, we shall grow more and more consciousthat our
duties are a vocation, and that they become for eachof us a private
interpretation of the great will of Love with its designand its demands.
I have been reading MargaretFuller’s love letters. Sometimes the letters are
light and frolicsome, glancing along the surface of things as a swallow skims
the stream. At other times one is dropped sheerdown into inconceivable
depths. Here is a phrase which laid hold of me from these strange epistles. She
is writing to the one she caredfor and loved. “May God refine you and
chastenyou until the word of your life is fully spoken.” “The wordof your
life!” As though every life was purposed to be some articulated word, clearly
and fully spoken. It is only another way of saying that life is ordained to be a
distinct and distinguished poem, expressing in some altogetherpeculiar way
the mind and will of God.1 [Note: J. H. Jowett, in The Examiner, Nov. 19,
1903, p. 508.]
Among the art treasures ofRome there is a mysterious unfinished statue. It
represents a barbarian king in chains—one of those tall fair-haired men of the
North—men of our own blood—who, even when they stoodin captivity before

their Roman conquerors, extortedadmiration by their splendid physique and
their royal dignity of bearing. The peculiarity of this statue is that it has never
been finished. The work is wrought with greatcare and skill up to a certain
point—then it suddenly stops short. Conjecture has been busy about the
statue. Why did the sculptor stop, after having done so much? Was the reason
caprice, or accident, or sudden death, or impatience at his failure to realize
the ideal aimed at? Who cantell? The secretlies buried in a forgottenpast.
But He who labours at the chiselling of new men and women in Christ never
loses patience, nevertires of His task. Obstaclesmay delay, but they can never
finally baffle His sublime purpose.1 [Note: Martin Lewis.]
There’s heaven above, and night by night
I look right through its gorgeous roof;
No suns and moons though e’erso bright
Avail to stop me; splendour-proof
I keepthe broods of stars aloof:
For I intend to get to God,
For ’tis to God I speed so fast,
For in God’s breast, my own abode,

Those shoals ofdazzling glory, passed
I lay my spirit down at last.
I lie where I have always lain,
God smiles as he has always smiled;
Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,
Ere stars were thunder-girt, or piled
The heavens, Godthought on me his child;
Ordained a life for me, arrayed
Its circumstances everyone
To the minutest; ay, God said
This head, this hand should rest upon

Thus, ere he fashionedstar or sun.
And having thus createdme,
Thus rooted me, he bade me grow,
Guiltless for ever, like a tree
That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know
The law by which it prospers so:
But sure that thought and word and deed
All go to swellhis love for me,
Me, made because that love had need
Of something irreversibly
Pledgedsolelyits contentto be.2 [Note:Browning, “Johannes Agricola in
Meditation.”]

More than once in those long nights I spent on the Atlantic, I went on deck
when all was still, and felt how insignificant a thing was man, in all that lonely
immensity of sea and sky. There was no sound save the cry of the wind among
the spars, the throb of the greatengines, the sound of the many waters
rushing round the vessel’s keel. Ifelt the mystery of life; I was conscious of
“the whisper and moan and wonder and diapason of the sea.” And then out of
the stillness there came a voice, clearand ringing—the voice of the man on the
look-outcrying to the night, “All’s well, and the lights burn bright! All’s well,
and the lights burn bright!” How did I know all was well? What knew I of the
forces that were bridled in the mysterious throbbing heart of those unceasing
engines, of the peril that glared on me in the breaking wave, or lay hidden in
the dark cloud that lay along the horizon? I knew nothing; but the voice went
sounding on over the sea:“All’s well, and the lights burn bright!” And the
wind carried it awayacross the waters, and it palpitated round the world, and
it went up soaring and trembling, in everfainter reverberations, among the
stars. So I stand for a little while amid greatforces of which I know little; but
I am not alone in the empty night. The world moves on to some appointed
goal, though by what paths I know not; it has its Steersman, and it will arrive.
And, amid the loneliness and mystery, the peril and uncertainty, I have
learned to hear a Voice that cries, “All’s well!” and tells me why all is well; if
is the Voice of Christ saying, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the world.” God has not left His world. He is working out His supreme art in
it every day, and if we be true Christians we are God’s poems wrought in
Christ Jesus unto goodworks.1 [Note:W. J. Dawson, The Divine Challenge,
118.]
Lord, in my spirit, one by one
Thou dost repeat the wonders done
At Thy creative work begun.

When first I came from out the night,
The earliestsense that woke was sight,
And Thou didst say, “Let there be light.”
I saw pass by Thy shining car;
I had no thought of near or far;
I tried to catchthe bright day-star.
But when I found my strength was spent
The air with infant cries I rent,
And met therein my firmament,—
I learned that distance vastdivides
The river in the skythat glides

From ebb and flow of earthly tides.
Then grew I up from eve to morn,
With eachbeginning newly born,
Leaving eachformer stage forlorn.
First, as a plant of field I grew,
Unmindful of the winds that blew,
Unconscious that I nothing knew.
Next, with the cattle on the plain,
Bird of the air, fish of the main,
I rose to sense ofjoy and pain.
Then woke the spirit of the man,
With laws to bind, with hopes to fan,

With powers to say “I ought,” “I can.”
One stage remains to make me blest,
The brightest, loveliest, and the best;
My bosommust become Thy rest.
In vain from peak to peak I go,
If on the summit of pure snow
I cannot Thy communion know.
For bird of air and fish of sea
The earth was made a rest to be;
I came to be a restto Thee.
Creation’s Spirit most doth move,

And mightiest on the waters prove,
When life has found a home for Love.1 [Note:George Matheson, Sacred
Songs, 155.]
God’s Workmanship
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
God's Workmanship
Ephesians 2:10
W.F. Adeney
I. AS CHRISTIANS, CREATED IN CHRIST, WE ARE GOD'S
WORKMANSHIP. It cannot be that our salvation comes by our works,
because it is such a quickening from death to life as amounts to nothing short
of a new creation, and because Godis the only Creator. We only become new
creatures through union with Christ, and by the grace ofGod that is in him.
To know if this is our condition, we must see if we bear the traces ofthe great
Workerupon our persons. God's work must have the characteristics ofgood
work.
1. Fitness. Godfinds us out of joint. He shapes us suitably for our vocation. A
house without adaptation to its ends may look handsome, but it is a failure. A
true Christian will not only have a saintly bearing, he will have a practical
suitability for his mission.

2. Thoroughness.How thorough is God's work in nature as seenin the
microscopic organs ofthe smallestinsects!The new creationis as thorough as
the old creation. Downto every thought and fancy God shapes the character
of his redeemed.
3. Beauty. The best work is gracefuland fair to look upon. God's spiritual
work is adorned with the beauty of holiness.
II. WE ARE THUS CREATED FOR THE PURPOSE OF DOING GOOD
WORKS. Goodworks are more honored by the doctrine of grace than they
are by the scheme of salvationby works;for in the latter they appeal only as
means to an end, as stepping-stones to be left behind when the salvationas
reached;but in the former they are themselves the ends, and are valued on
their own account. Thus we are taught not to perform goodworks as an only
or necessarymeans for securing some ulterior boon, but are invited to accept
that boon just because it will enable us to do our work better. Instead of
regarding the gospelas a pleasantmessageto show us how we may save
ourselves the trouble of work, we must hear it as a trumpet-call to service.
The Christian is the servant of Christ. In spiritual death we can do nothing.
Salvationis quickening to a new life. The objectof this life is not bare
existence. All life ministers to some other life. Spiritual life is given directly
with the objectof enabling us to do our work. It fails of its object if it is
unfertile. The barren tree must wither, the fruitless branch must be pruned
away. Purity and harmlessness are but negative graces,and are not sufficient
justification for existence. The greatend of being is the doing of positive good.
The judgment will turn on the use we have made of our talents.
III. THE WORKS FOR WHICH WE ARE CREATED HAVE BEEN
PREARRANGEDBY GOD. The road has been made before we have been
ready to walk on it. And there is a road for every soul. Eachof us has his
vocationmarked out for him and fixed in the ancientcounsels of God. No life
need be aimless since every life is provided with a mission. How may we know
the mission?
1. From our talents. Men do not gathergrapes of thorns, nor poetry of
commonplace minds, nor heroism of feeble souls. The nature of the tool

proclaims its use. The hammer cannot be made to cut, nor the saw to drive
nails. God's workmanship bears on its specialform the indications of its
purpose. To know our work we must pray for light that we may know
ourselves, orwe shall fall into the common error of mistaking our inclination
for our capacityand our ambition for our ability.
2. From our circumstances.Godopens providential doors. Let us not refuse to
enter them because they are often low and lead to humble paths. If they face
us they indicate the work for which we are created, and that should suffice
obedient, servants. - W.F.A.
Biblical Illustrator
For we are His workmanship, createdin Christ Jesus unto good works.
Ephesians 2:10
Justified persons are God's workmanship
H. Harris, B. D.

Grace here means God's free gift. Our salvationis entirely God's gift to us;
and it must be so, because we cannotmake it or getit for ourselves;we have
no power of our own to make it for ourselves, nothing of our ownto offer in
exchange for it. If our salvation does not come to us as God's free gift it can
never come to us at all. But, though our salvationis entirely God's free gift to
us, it is never forced upon us without our consent. Freelyas it is offered to us,
we must, on our parts, freely acceptit when it is held out to us; we must
acknowledge itthankfully; and unless we do acknowledgeit and lay hold on it,
it can never become curs. It may go on lying within arm's length of us all our
lives through, and yet be of no more service to us than if it were hundreds of
miles away; we must reachout our hand to take it, and this hand of ours
which we have to put forth to take it with is faith. "By grace are ye saved,
through faith." This reaching out of faith, in answerto God's stretching out
His hand to save us, is the secondstepwhich is necessaryto be takenin the
matter of our salvation. But here St. Paul finds it necessaryto put in a word of
caution to those who are the very foremostin accepting his teaching, and the
most earnestin looking to their faith as the sole instrument of their
justification. He foresaw that men would come to pride themselves upon this
faith of theirs as something peculiarly their own, which very few besides
themselves had any share in, and which entitled them to look down upon the
rest of mankind with something like a feeling of contempt. And so, after
saying, "By grace are ye savedthrough faith," he goes onto say, "and that not
of yourselves;it is the gift of God." Your salvation, yes, and your faith, too, by
which you lay hold of your salvation, is all God's free gift to you; you did not
make your faith for yourselves any more than you made your salvation; you
had nothing of your own with which to make it. And how dare you, then,
presume upon your faith, and pride yourselves upon it, as if it were your own
creating? And now that St. Paul has securedhis position againstattack on one
side, he turns cautiously round, like a skilful general, to secure it on the other:
"Notof works," he proceeds to say, "lestany man should boast." And here,
after all, is the quarter from which an attack is chiefly to be lookedfor. It is in
man's nature to make as much of himself as he can; it is in his nature to seek
to justify himself, to work all out by himself, to sethis ownaccountstraight
with God. But now, of course, if he canearn his salvationfor himself, he can
make a merit of what he has done, he can claim his justification as his own

work. And so, in order to put a stop, once for all, to such notions and attempts
on the part of man to justify himself, the apostle lays down his next great
principle in the doctrine of justification: "Notof works, lestany man should
boast. For," he proceeds to say, "we are His workmanship." So far from
having any works of our own with which to purchase our salvation, we are
ourselves nothing but a piece of work of another's making. Godmade us, and
not we ourselves;He put us together, just as a workmanputs a piece of
machinery together, piece by piece, and we have no more ground for boasting
or making a merit of what we do than a clock has ground for boasting of
being able to point to the time or to strike the hours. We are simply, then, a
piece of workmanship, designedand put togetherby God. Still, a piece of
machinery is designedfor some setpurpose or other, and so are we; we have
been made, and made over again, "createdin Christ Jesus unto goodworks,
which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them."
(H. Harris, B. D.)
Believers are God's workmanship
Paul Bayne.
The apostle, having shownthat our salvationis only of grace, and the means
by which we are made capable of all saving goodin Christ, by faith, excluding
all causes in man, and that from the end lesthe should boast himself: he now
gives a reasonwhy God's grace is all in all, drawn from our redemption by
Christ. As in the first creationthere was no dispositionin man to make
himself a man, so no virtue in man now createdto make him able to bring
himself to eternal life; he confers nothing to the works of his new creationin
Christ, no motion of man's will, thought, or desire, or any preparatory work;
all proceeds from the infinite creating powerof God, He gives all.
1. All the faithful are new creatures in Christ.(1) This proves to many that
they are not believers as yet. Why? Becausethey live in their old sins. So long
as the love of any sin is retained there is no part of new creationin that
person.(2)To prove we are in Christ we must approve ourselves new

creatures.(a)The parts of this new creationare — holiness of the spirit, and of
the body, mind, will, affections, andevery member of the body.(b) Degrees —
babes in Christ; young ones;old men, the perfectionof stature.(c) Signs —
change;spiritual motion in the heart; desire for the sincere milk of the Word;
desire to draw on others to grace.
2. God is the author of our new creation.
(1)This shows the dignity of the saints. They are God's children.
(2)It teaches us to whom we are to ascribe all that we are.
3. God gives us our new creationthrough Christ. Let us magnify Him
accordingly.
4. The new creature has new works. The two go together;there cannot be the
one without the other. As is the fountain, such will be the streams which flow
from it.
5. We come to have goodworks whenwe are made new in Christ. Before that
we can do nothing, not only meritorious, but even good(John 15:15). If the
things which are necessaryconditions of a goodwork be considered, this will
be clear. It must be done
(1)From the heart.
(2)In the obedience offaith.
(3)To God's glory.
6. Goodworks are the very end of our new creation. As we plant our
orchards, to the end that they may bring us fruit, so does the Lord plant us on
purpose that we may bring Him fruit. Hence His people are called "Trees of
righteousness, the planting of the Lord, in whom He may be glorified."
"Herein is My Fatherglorified," said Christ, "that ye bear much fruit."
Honour God with thy graces. It is reasonable thatevery one should have the
honour of his own. We see plainly that other creatures glorify God in their
kind, and fulfil the law of their creation;man alone, who has the greatest
cause and best means, comes behind.

7. We must walk in the ways which are prepared by God. Our life must be a
tracing of the commandments; we must not salute the ways of God as
chapmen coming to fairs; we must walk in them. Men in the world may
become so prosperous that they may give over trading, and live comfortably
on what they already possess;but it is not thus with the soul, which, where it
ceases to profit, waxes gross.(1)As thou wouldst have comfort that thou art a
new creature in Christ, made alive by the Spirit, try it by this — how thou
walkest.(2)Everstrive to be going forward, exercising the faculties we have,
and looking to God for all.
(Paul Bayne.)
Christian men God's workmanship
R. W. Dale, LL. D.
These words suggestfar-reaching speculationsaboutthe Divine ideal of
humanity, and about how that ideal is suppressedby human folly and sin;
they suggestinquiries about the ideal relations of all men to Christ, relations
which are only made real and effective by personalfaith in Him. But Paul was
thinking of those who by their own free consentwere in Christ, of those who,
as he says, had been "savedby faith." Of these it was actuallytrue that they
were "God's workmanshipcreatedin Christ Jesus." How are we to getat the
gospelwhich these words contain? Let us try. Mostof us, I suppose, who have
any moral earnestness, are at times very dissatisfiedwith ourselves;yes, with
ourselves. We think it hard that we should be what we are. We complain not
only of the conditions of our life, which may have made us worse than there
was any need that we should be, but of our native temperament, of tendencies
which seemto belong to the very substance of our moral nature. We have
ideals of moral excellence whichare out of our reach. We see othermen that
have a goodness thatwe envy, but which is not possible to ourselves. There is
something wrong in the quality of our blood. The fibre of our nature is coarse,
and there is nothing to he made of it. There is a wretched fault in the marble
which we are trying to shape into nobleness and beauty, and no skill or
strength of ours can remove it, And ours is not an exceptionalwretchedness.

The specialinfirmities of men vary. One man finds it hard to be just, another
to be generous;one man finds it hard to be quiet and patient under suffering,
another to be vigorous in work;one man has to struggle with vanity, another
with pride, another with covetousness, anotherwith the grosserpassionsofhis
physical nature; one man is suspicious by temperament, another envious,
another discontented;one man is so weak that he cannothate even the worst
kinds of wrong-doing, the fires of his indignation againstevil never burst into
flame; another is so stern that even where there is hearty sorrow for wrong-
doing he canhardly force himself to forgive it frankly. The fault of our nature
assumes a thousand forms, but no one is free from it. I look back to the
ancient moralists, to and to Seneca andto Marcus Antoninus, and I find that
they are my brethren in calamity. The circumstances ofman have changed,
but man remains the same. How are we to escape from the general, the
universal doom? We want to remain ourselves, to preserve our personal
identity, and yet to live a life which seems impossible unless we cancease to be
ourselves. It is a dreadful paradox, but some of us know that this is the exact
expressionof a dumb discontent which lies at the very heart of our moral
being. Is there any solution? Paul tells us what the solution is. Christian men
are "God's workmanshipcreatedin Christ Jesus."Yes, we were made for
this, for something higher than is within our reach, apart from the reception
of the life of God. There are vague instincts within us which are at warwith
the moral limitations which are born with us. Our aspirations are after a
perfect righteousness anda diviner order, but we cannotfulfil them. They will
die out through disappointment; they will be pronounced impossible unless we
discoverthat they come from the fountains of a Divine inspiration, unless we
have the faith and patience of the saints of old who waited, with an invincible
confidence in the goodnessand powerof God, until the words of ancient
prophecy were fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, in Christ. The prophets of the
earlier centuries prophesied of the grace that was to come to later
generations;their prophecies were dark and indistinct, and even to themselves
almost unintelligible. They inquired and searcheddiligently concerning the
salvationwhich they knew was to come, though they could not tell the time or
the manner of its coming. And these aspirations of the individual soul are also
prophecies;by them the Spirit of Christ is signifying to us the hopes which are
our inheritance; they come from the Light which lighteth every man. But their

fulfilment is not reservedfor others; they may be fulfilled to ourselves. All
that we have vaguely desired is now offered us in the glorious gospel ofthe
blessedGod; in Christ we become "His workmanship createdin Christ Jesus
unto goodworks." The Divine idea is moving towards its crowning perfection.
Neverlet us forgetthat the life which has come to us is an immortal life, At
best we are but seedlings onthis side of death. We are not yet planted out
under the open heavens and in the soilwhich is to be our eternal home. Here
in this world the life we have receivedin our new creationhas neither time
nor space to reveal the infinite wealthof its resources:you must wait for the
world to come to see the noble trees of righteousnessfling out their mighty
branches to the sky and clothe themselves in the glorious beauty of their
immortal foliage. And yet the history of Christendom contains the proof that
even here a new and alien life has begun to show itself among mankind; a life
not alien indeed, for it is the true life of our race, but it is unlike what had
been in the world before. The saints of every Church, divided by national
differences, divided by their creeds, divided by fierce ecclesiasticalrivalries,
are still strangely akin. Voice answers to voice across the centuries which
separate them; they tell in different tongues of the same wonderful discovery
of a Divine kingdom; they translate every man for himself into his own life the
same Divine law. We of obscurerrank and narrowerpowers read their lives,
and we know that we and they are akin; we listen to their words, and are
thrilled by the accentofhome. Their songs are on our lips; they seemto have
been written for us by men who knew the secretwe wantedto utter better
than we knew it ourselves. Theirconfessionsofsin are a fuller expressionof
our own sorrow and trouble than we ourselves had ever been able to make.
Their life is our life. We and they belong to a new race. A new type of
characterhas been created. Christ lives on in those whose life is rootedin
Him.
(R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
God's workmanship
R. J. McGhee, M. A.

We have in this verse three things.
I. THE POWER that acts on the sinner to bring him into obedience to his
God. The power of God alone. Man is dead; God is the quickener.
II. THE MODE in which that power acts upon him so as to produce this
effect. "In Christ Jesus."
III. THE CERTAIN SECURITYfor the operation of this power, and for the
effectit will produce. God has appointed it. He has ordained that His people
should walk in goodworks. You perceive, then, why throughout the
Scriptures the works of man are made the test of his salvation. He is not to he
justified by them, but he is to be judged by them, and this is a difficulty that
often occurs to the mind, How is man to be judged by his works if he is not to
be justified by them? The answeris — because they are takenas the testof his
faith, as the proof of his sincerity. A cup of cold water could not purchase
salvationfor the sinner; but a cup of cold water, given in the name of Jesus,
shall in no wise lose its reward, because it is the testthat the believer loves his
Master.
(R. J. McGhee, M. A.)
The heavenly Workman
T. Champness.
I. God works with skill and industry in elevating and refining human nature;
and let us not overlook the fact that there is A GREAT DIFFERENCEIN
THE MATERIAL. It is useless to say that all men are equal. We are not all
born alike. From the fault or misfortune of our progenitors, we may start on
the race with heavy burdens that we cannot shake off. Besides, we differ in
both physical and mental constitution. We use terms which are very
suggestive whenwe speak of a "hard" man, or when we say, "He is soft," "He
is coarse,"or"He is a fine man." Some we describe as Nature's gentle men,
while others are born mean. Let it be understood that the GreatWorkman
does not expectthe same results from every kind of material. There is one

thing He expects from all, and something He has a right to expect, and that is
what all can do: we must love God.
II. IT IS WELL FOR US TO HAVE CONFIDENCE IN THE WORKMAN.
What a different fate awaits some of the blocks ofmarble which come into
London as compared with others. They will all be used, but how differently.
One is takento the studio of the sculptor, to be carvedinto some statue to be
admired for ages;another is sawninto slabs to make the counter of some gin
palace!If the former block could know and feelthe difference, how glad it
would be to find itself in the places where statues are made. Let those of us
who are lovers of God never forget that we are in the studio. It is not the
purpose of the heavenly Workman to put us to any of the baseruses we might
have been fit for but for His grace.
III. WE MUST NOT FORGET THAT THE WORKMAN HAS A PLAN. Life
in any of us is a very complicatedaffair. Things are always happening —
births, deaths, and marriages. Business relations alter. Circumstances differ:
there seems no order or arrangements. It is chaos to us. And yet God knows
all, and knows the precise bearing of eachevent on our lives. It does not seem
like it, and yet, if we look hack, we may often see that God has been working
all along in harmony with one idea. Some time ago, whenin Manchester, the
writer saw the men at work pulling down whole streets of houses to make
room for a new railwaystation. All appeared ruin and disorder. Here was a
party digging out foundations; in another place the bricklayers were building
walls;elsewhere some one was setting out for other walls; beyond them they
were still pulling down. It seemedlike chaos, and yet in the architect's office
could be seenthe elevationand picture of the complete whole. Every man was
working to a plan. And so God has His elevation, but He does not show it. "It
doth not yet appear." When Josephwas in jail, he was in the path of
Providence, and the fetters of iron were as much part of the plan as the chain
of gold he wore when brought to the summit of greatness. Whata variety of
tools!What are the so-calledmeans of grace but tools in the hand of the Great
Workman? What are preachers but God's chisels and hammers? Books, too,
are tools. How important is the work of those who write them! But the finest
work is often done by those sharp-edgedchisels calledPain and Bereavement.
How many of us are to be made perfect by suffering! It is not the dull tool that

can cut the fine lines. Will the work ever be completed? Not in this world
certainly. There is no room for self-complacence.
(T. Champness.)
The nature and necessityof goodworks
That those who are God's workmanship are createdin Christ Jesus to good
works;or, in plainer terms, all those who belong to God, and are createdanew
by His Spirit, are enabled by virtue of that new creationto perform good
works. In pursuance of this proposition, I will show —
1. What goodworks are.
2. What are the qualifications of them.
3. Why they must be done.
4. Apply all.
I. That we may understand WHAT IS MEANT BY GOOD WORKS, we must
know that there are habits of grace, andthere are acts and exertments of
grace;and these two are different from one another, because these acts flow
from those habits. These acts are two-fold, either inward or outward. The
inward are such as these — a fear and reverence ofthe Almighty, a love of
God and all goodness,and a love of our neighbours (which is called the work
and labour of love, Hebrews 6:10), which, though they be not outwardly acted,
yet are properly the works of the soul, for the not producing them into
outward action hinders not their being works. Forthe mind of man may as
properly be saidto work as the body; yea, if we considerthe true nature of
things, we may rightly assertthat the soul is the principal workerin man, and
that all the outward exertments of virtue in the body flow from the mind of
man, and take thence their denomination. These outward acts of grace which
are exertedby the members of the body, and are apparent in the practices of
holy men, are the goodworks generallyspokenofin the Scripture. They are
no other than visible exertments and actualdiscoveries ofthe inward graces
before mentioned. Thus our reverencing of God is discoveredby our solemn

worshipping Him, and that in the most decent and humble manner. Our faith
in Him, and love to Him, are showedby our readiness to do His will and obey
all His commands. It is true goodworks in generalcomprehend all works
morally good, whether they be adjusted to the law of nature or the revealed
law; but I shall chiefly and principally considergoodworks as they are
conformable to the revealedrule of the gospel. And so I proceedto the —
II. Thing I undertook, viz., to show WHAT ARE THE QUALIFICATIONS
OF THESE GOOD WORKS, that is, what is absolutely required in these
works to make them good. I shall speak only of those qualifications which are
requisite in evangelicalgoodworks, namely, such as are necessaryto eternal
salvation.
1. In a goodwork it is requisite that the person who doth it be good. By which
I mean not only that he be inwardly goodand righteous, according to that of
our Saviour, make the tree goodand his fruit good(Matthew 12:33);but I
understand this also, that the personwho performs goodworks be one that is
reconciledto God; for if the person be not accepted, the work cannot be good.
It is said, "The Lord had respectunto Abel and to his offering" (Genesis 4:4).
First unto Abel, and then to his offering. The sacrificermust be accepted
before the sacrifice.
2. As the works are goodbecause ofthe person, so both the personand works
are goodbecause ofthe righteousness ofChrist, in whom God is well pleased.
"He hath made us acceptable to the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:6). What we do is
favourably receivedas we are consideredin Christ. By virtue of our relation
to Him, who is our Righteousness,our performances are accountedrighteous.
This qualification of a goodwork the devout Mr. Herbert assigns, saying, "It
is a goodwork if it be sprinkled with the blood of Christ."
3. A goodwork in the gospelsense andmeaning is a work done by the grace of
God and the assistanceofthe Holy Spirit.
4. It must be done in faith, for the apostle tells us that "without faith it is
impossible to please God" (Hebrews 11:6), and, consequently, as he adds in
another place, "whatis not of faith is sin."

5. In all actions that are really goodthere must be lawful and right means
used. Acts of justice and honesty must be clone by ways that are lawful and
good. We must not be just among ourselves by being unjust to others. I must
not stealthat I may be charitable to the poor. I must not promote the best
cause either by persecutionor by rebellion. Thoughit be God's cause, it ought
not to be fought with the devil's weapons.
6. Goodworks must be adjusted to a right rule; they must be according to the
will and commandment of God. They must not be after our own inventions,
but according to this Divine command (Micah 6:8). That is goodwhich God
requires.
7. Every goodwork must proceedfrom a right principle; and by a right
principle I mean these following things —(1) That our works proceedfrom
sufficient knowledge. No actiondone ignorantly is good. He that acts without
knowledge cannotbe said to actmorally, much less Christianly. We must first
know that what we do is our real duty, and we must also understand why it is
so. Religionmust not be blind; reasonmust always go first, and carry the light
before all our actions, forthe heart and life cannotbe good if the head be not
enlightened. The understanding must make way for the will. Which brings me
to the next particular.(2) Goodworks must proceedfrom a free and voluntary
principle. As he that acts ignorantly, so he that acts unwillingly cannotbe said
to act well. To the will is to be imputed whatsoeveris ill or well done by us.
There is nothing goodor bad but what is matter of choice and consultation.(3)
With the understanding and will must be joined the affections. And this
includes in it these following things —(a) Integrity of heart. As servants are
bid to discharge their duty in singlenessofheart (Colossians 3:22).(b)An
entire love of God is required in every goodwork. All our actions must flew
from this principle, for if we love not God, we cannot do the works ofGod.(c)
There must be an entire love, not only of God, but of goodness itself, and the
intrinsic excellencyand perfection that is in it. There must be a delight and
pleasure in the ways of God, and in all those goodand virtuous actions which
we do, and that for their own sakes.(d)Notonly a love of God, but a fear of
Him, must be a principle from whence all our holy actions are to proceed, a
fear of acting contrary to the purity of God's nature, a fear of displeasing and
offending Him. Josephactedout of this excellent principle when he cried out,

"How shall I do this wickedness and sin againstGod?"(e)Humility is another
principle from whence we must act. Every goodand righteous man lays his
foundation low; he begins his works with a submissive and self-denying spirit;
he proceeds with lowliness of mind, and a mean opinion of himself, and of all
he can do.(f) Alacrity, joy, and cheerfulness, and so likewise a due warmth,
zeal, and ardency, are other principles from whence our goodworks should
spring. We must with gladness undertake and perform them, and we must
serve the Lord with a fervency of spirit (Romans 12:11).
8. This is another indispensable qualification of a goodwork, that it be done
for a goodend. As there are fountains or principles of actions, so there are
ends or designs belonging to them all. You must necessarilydistinguish
betweenprinciples and ends if you would speak properly and significantly.
Fountains and springs of actions are those from whence the actions flow; ends
and aims are those to which the actions tend. There is a vastdifference
betweenthese. I have told you what the former are;now I will setbefore you
the latter. The right ends which ought to be in all evangelicalactions (for of
such I intend chiefly to speak)are these three — our own salvation, the good
of others, and in pursuance of both God's glory. This was it which spoiledand
blasted the most solemn and religious duties of the Pharisees. Whenthey did
their alms, they sounded a trumpet before them, that they might have glory of
men (Matthew 6:2). Whey they prayed, they did it standing in the corners of
the streets, that they might be seenof men (Matthew 5:5). Likewise when they
fasted, they disfigured their faces, thatthey might appear unto men to fast
(Matthew 5:16). Yea, all their works they did to be seenof men (Matthew
23:5). All was to gain esteemand reputation, all was for applause and
vainglory. This wrong end and intention made all they did sinful. When I say
all our works are to be done for the ends above named, I do not by this wholly
exclude all other ends. As two of the great aims of our actions, namely, our
own happiness and that of others, are subordinate to the third, God's glory, so
there are other lesserand inferior ends which are subordinate to all these. He
evidences this by such ways as these — He never lets these temporal things
stand in competition with, much less in opposition to, those which are greater
and higher. He never so seeks his own as not to seek the things which are
Jesus Christ's. He doth not one with the neglectof the other.

9. To comprehend all, a good work is that which is done in a right manner.
Goodactions are such as have goodcircumstances andqualities, and evil
actions are such as have undue and evil ones.
III. Having instructed you in the nature of goodworks, I am to show you, in
the next place, HOW REASONABLE A THING IT IS THAT WE SHOULD
TAKE CARE TO DO THESE GOOD WORKS. I will present you with those
arguments and motives which I apprehend are most powerful to incite you to
this. First, I might mention the reasonin the text, where first we are said to be
createdunto goodworks, that we might walk in them. This is the very design
of the spiritual creationor new birth, that we should exert all these acts of
piety and religion which I have before mentioned. It is the purpose of heaven
in regenerating us that we should walk in the ways of holiness, and
conscientiouslyperform all the parts of our duty towards God, towards men,
and towards ourselves. Again, it is said, we are saidto be createdin Christ
Jesus to this. This is the end of Christ's undertakings. "He gave Himself for
us, that He might redeemus from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a
peculiar people zealous of goodworks" (Titus 2:14). Moreover, it is added
that God hath before ordained these works. This was the goodwill and
pleasure of the blessedTrinity in their eternalconsults before man was made.
Why then should we, as much as in us lieth, frustrate the purpose and decree
of heaven concerning us I Further, this (as the apostle saith of sanctification)
is the will of God (1 Thessalonians 4:3). This is that which is commended to us
by the example of the saints;they have all been zealous practisers ofgood
works. This is the grand evidence of the truth of our inward graces.This is
that whereby you show your thankfulness to God for your electionand
redemption. I add, this is that which is the greatornament and lustre of our
Christian profession;this will setforth and commend our religion to the
world. But there are these two arguments yet behind which I will more amply
insist upon — goodworks are necessaryto salvation; goodworks glorify God.
1. Though our goodworks are conditions of salvation, yet they are not
conditions as to God's election, for He decreedfrom eternity out of His free
will and mercy to save lost man, without any considerationof their good
works. Predestinationto life and glory is the result of free grace, andtherefore
the provision of works must be excluded. The decree runs not thus, I choose

thee to life and blessedness onsupposalor condition of thy believing and
repenting; but thus, I freely choose thee unto eternallife, and that thou
mayest attain to it, I decree that thou shalt believe and repent.
2. Though faith and obedience be conditions of happiness, yet the
performance of them is by the specialhelp and assistanceofa Divine and
supernatural power. God, who decrees persons to goodworks, enables them
to exert them.
3. Norare they conditions in this sense that they succeedin the place of
perfect obedience to the law which the covenantof works required. I am
convinced that no such conditions as these are consistentwith the new
covenant, the covenant of grace. Works,if they be consideredas a wayleading
to eternal life, are indeed necessaryto salvation;they are necessaryby way of
qualification, for no unclean thing shall enter into heaven. Graces and good
works fit us for that place and state; they dispose us for glory. We are not
capable of happiness without holiness. It may be some will not approve of
saying, We are saved by goodworks, but this they must needs acknowledge
that we cannot be saved without them; yea, we cannotbe saved but with them.
Some are convertedand savedat the last hour, at their going out of the world;
but even then goodworks are not wanting, for hearty confessionofsin, and an
entire hatred of it, sincere and earnestprayers, hope and trust in God, desire
of grace, unfeigned love, and zealous purposes and resolves, allthese are good
works, and none can be savedwithout them. In the next place, goodworks are
for God's glory, therefore they must be done by us. As I have showedbefore
that it is a necessaryqualification of goodworks that they be done out of an
intention to glorify God, so now it will appearthat this is one greatreason
why we are obliged to perform them, viz., because therebyGod is glorified.
"Let your light so shine before men," saith our Saviour, "that others seeing
your works may glorify your Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). The
light of our works came from God, and it must be reflected to him again.(1)
Becauseofthe wicked, that you may stoptheir mouths, and take awayall
occasionofspeaking evil againstyou. Again, for the sake ofgoodmen, we are
obliged to be very careful how we walk; we are concernedto do all the good
we can, that they may not be scandalizedand hurt by our evil examples, and
consequentlythat God's name may not be dishonoured thereby. By our holy

and exemplary lives, we may be serviceable to stir up the hearts of the godly
to praise God on our behalf. "Theyglorified God in me," saith the apostle, of
those Christian Jews who took notice of his miraculous conversion, and of his
extraordinary zealin preaching the faith (Galatians 1:24).
IV. By wayof inference, from what hath been said of goodworks, we may
correctthe error of the Antinomians, we may confute the falsehoodof the
Roman Church, we may make a discoveryof other false apprehensions of men
concerning goodworks;we are hence also obliged to examine whether our
works be good;and lastly, if we find them to be such, we must continue in the
practice of them.
1. What I have delivered on this subject is a sufficient check to the
Antinomian error, viz., that because Christhath satisfiedfor us, therefore
there is no need of goodworks;Christ's obedience serves forours. What need
we do anything since He hath done all? And all this is conformable to the
doctrine of our blessedLord and Saviour, who tells us that He came not to
destroy the law, but to fulfil it, and make it more complete and perfect. By His
doctrine and practice He taught the world that the moral law obligeth the
faithful under the evangelicaldispensation, andthat obedience to the former
is not opposite to the grace ofthe latter. He constantly promoted goodworks
and holy living, and bid His disciples show their love to Him by keeping His
commandments (John 14:15). You see then how fondly they discourse who say
that, because Christhath done and suffered all things for man's redemption,
therefore there is nothing left for us to do. Indeed, we have nothing to do that
can further our salvationby way of merit, but we have something to do
whereby we may show our thankfulness for Christ's undertakings; we have a
greatdeal to do whereby we may discoverour obedience to the Divine
commands and injunctions. Though goodworks and obedience are not
conditions of justification, yet they are of salvation;they are requisite in the
person who is justified, although they are wholly excluded from justification
itself. Or we may say, though they do not justify meritoriously, yet they do it
declaratively, they show that we are really of the number of those who God
accountethjust and righteous.

2. The falsehoodof the Romanists is hence confuted. They cry out againstus,
as those who utterly dislike, both in doctrine and practice, all goodworks.
They brand us with the name of Solifidians, as if faith monopolized all our
religion. Indeed, all that profess the reformed religion affirm that faith is the
root of all graces, thatDivine virtue is the basis and foundation of all good
works;this they maintain, and have goodreasonto do so; but still they hold
that goodand holy works are indispensably requisite in Christianity, and that
no man can be excusedfrom performing them, and that those whose lives are
utterly devoid of them have no right faith and no true religion. This is our
unanimous belief, profession, and doctrine, and the Papists are maliciously
reproachful when they accuse us Of the contrary.
3. From what hath been said, we may discoverthe wrong notions and
apprehensions which most men have of good works. I will instance more
particularly in charity, which is eminently calleda goodwork, but there is a
greatand common mistake about it. And so as to other goodworks, all
understanding men agree that they ought to be done, but they greatly mistake
what goodworks are. They think if they do the outward acts of religion they
do very well; if they fast and pray, and hear God's Word, and receive the
eucharist; if they perform the external acts of justice and charity, their doings
cannot but be goodand acceptable, and they need look afterno more. They
never considerwhether their fasting and praying and other exercisesof
devotion and piety proceedfrom God's grace and Holy Spirit in them,
whether they be accompaniedwith faith, and be the result of goodand holy
principles, and be done for goodends, and in a goodmanner. Alas! these and
the like things are not thought of. This discovers the gross mistakesin the
world.
4. Then you are really concernedto examine your lives and actions, and to see
whether you be not of the number of the mistaken persons.
5. When you have examined the true nature of good works, then urge upon
yourselves that you are indispensably obliged to do them. Being thoroughly
persuaded of the necessityof them, press the practice of them on yourselves
and on others.Thatyou may successfullydo so, observe these four plain and
brief directions —

1. Beg the assistanceofthe Spirit. These are no mean and common works
which I have set before you as that duty. They require greatstrength and
powerto exert them.
2. Study the Scriptures. There, and there only, you will find instructions for
the performing of works acceptable to God.
3. Setbefore you the example of the saints, for by viewing of them you will not
only learn what to do, but you will be taught not to be wearyin well doing.
4. Redeemand improve the time. Fix it on your thoughts that you have a good
deal of work to do, but your time to do it in is short and soonexpiring.
(J. Edwards, D. D.)
The singular origin of a Christian man
C. H. Spurgeon.
I. THE SINGULAR ORIGIN OF A CHRISTIAN MAN. As many as are truly
saved, and brought into union with Christ, are the workmanship of God. No
Christian in the world is a chance production of nature, or the outcome of
evolution, or the result of specialcircumstances. Ofregenerationwe must say
once for all, "This is the finger of God." The spiritual life cannotcome to us
by development from our old nature.
1. We are God's workmanship from the very first. The first stroke that helps
to fashion us into Christians comes from the Lord's own hand. He marks the
stone while yet in the quarry, cuts it from its natural bed, and performs the
first hewing and squaring, even as it is He who afterwards exercisesthe
sculptor's skill upon it.
2. We shall remain the Lord's workmanship to the very last. The picture must
be finished by that same Master-handwhich first sketchedit. If any other
hand should lay so much as a tint or colour thereupon, it would certainly mar
it all.

3. This is very beautiful to remember, and it should stir up all that is within us
to magnify the Lord. I was surprised when I was told, the other day, by a
friend, who was a makerof steel-plate engravings, how much of labour had to
be put into a finely executedengraving. Think of the powerthat has cut lines
of beauty in such steelas we are! Think of the patience that lent its arm, and
its eye, and its heart, and its infinite mind, to the carrying on of the supreme
work of producing the image of Christ in those who were born in sin!
4. If we are God's workmanship, never let us be ashamedto let men see God's
workmanship in us. Let us be very much ashamed, though, to let them see the
remains of the devil's workmanship in us; hide it behind a veil of repentant
grief. Christ has come to destroy it; let it be destroyed.
II. Secondly, here in the text we see THE PECULIAR MANNER OF THIS
ORIGIN. "We are His workmanship, createdin Christ Jesus." "Createdin
Christ Jesus."Our new life is a creation. This goes further than the former
expression;for workmanship is less than creation. Man may produce a
picture, and say, "This is my workmanship": a piece of mosaic, or a vessel
fresh from the wheel, may be a man's workmanship, but it is not his creation.
The artist must procure his canvas and his colours, the maker of a mosaic
must find his marbles or his wood, the potter must dig his clay, for without
these materials he cando nothing; for he is not the Creator. To One only does
that augustname strictly belong. In this world of grace, whereverwe live, we
are a creation.
1. Our new life is as truly createdout of nothing as were the first heavens, and
the first earth. This ought to be particularly noticed, for there are some who
think that the grace ofGod improves the old nature into the new. That which
is of God within us is a new birth, a Divine principle, a living seed, a
quickening spirit; in fact, it is a creation:we are new creatures in Christ
Jesus.
2. Creationwas effectedby a word. "By the word of the Lord were the
heavens made." "He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood
fast." "Godsaid, Let there be light: and there was light." Is not that again an
accurate descriptionof our entrance into spiritual light and life? Do we not

confess, "Thyword hath quickenedme"? "Being born again, not of
corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and
abideth forever." "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God."
3. In creationthe Lord was alone and unaided. The prophet asks, "Who hath
directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counsellorhath taught Him?"
Creationis the prerogative of Jehovah, and none canshare it with Him. So it
is in the regenerationofa soul; instrumentality appears, but the realwork is
immediately of the Spirit of God.
III. We come, thirdly, to dwell upon THE SPECIALOBJECT OF THIS
CREATION:"Unto goodworks, which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in them." When Adam was created, the Lord made him for His
own glory. When the Lord creates us the second time, in the secondAdam, He
does not make us that we may be merely comfortable and happy. We may
enjoy all that God has given us, for of every tree of this garden you may freely
eat, since in the paradise into which Christ has introduced you there is no
forbidden fruit. Around you is the gardenof the Lord, and your callis that
you may dress it, and keepit. Cultivate it within; guard it from foes without.
Holy labours awaityou, goodworks are expectedof you, and you were
createdin Christ Jesus onpurpose that you might be zealous for them.
1. Works of obedience.
2. Works of love.
3. Goodworks include the necessaryacts ofcommon life, when they are
rightly performed. All our works should be "goodworks";and we may make
them so by sanctifying them with the Word of God and prayer.
4. God has not createdus that we may talk about our goodworks, but that we
may walk in them. Practicaldoing is better than loud boasting.
5. And they are not to be occasionalmerely, but habitual. God has not created
us that we may execute goodworks as a grand performance, but that we may
walk in them.

IV. Fourthly, THE REMARKABLE PREPARATION MADE FOR THAT
OBJECT,for so the text may be rendered, "which God hath prepared that we
should walk in them."
1. The Lord has decreedeverything, and He has as much decreedthe holy
lives of His people as He has decreedtheir ultimate glorificationwith Him in
heaven. Concerning goodworks, "He hath before ordained that we should
walk in them." The purpose is one and indivisible: there is no ordination to
salvationapart from sanctification.
2. But, next, God has personally prepared every Christian for goodworks.
"Oh," say some, "I sometimes feelas if I was so unfit for God's service." You
are not unfit, so far as you are His workmanship, createdin Christ Jesus unto
goodworks. When God createsa bird to fly, it is the best flying machine that
can be manufactured; indeed, none can equal it. If God creates worms to
plough the soil, and bring up the more useful ingredients to the surface, they
are the best fertilizers under heaven. God's purpose is subservedby that
which He makes, else were He an unwise worker. We are in a specialdegree
God's workmanship, createdto this end, that we may produce goodworks;
and we are fitted to that end as much as a bird is fitted to fly, or a worm is
fitted for its purpose in the earth.
3. Everything around you is arranged for the production of goodworks in
you. On the whole, you are placedin the best position for your producing
goodworks to the glory of God. "I do not think it," says one. Very well. Then
you will worry to quit your position, and attain another footing; mind that
you do not plunge into a worse. It is not the box that makes the jewel, nor the
place that makes the man. A barren tree is none the better for being
transplanted. A blind man may stand at many windows before he will
improve his view. If it is difficult to produce goodworks where you are, you
will find it still difficult where you wish to be. Oh, sirs, the real difficulty lies
not without you, but within you. If you get more grace, and are more fully
God's workmanship, you can glorify him in Babylon as well as in Jerusalem.
Moreover, the Lord has prepared the whole systemof His grace to this end —
that you should abound in goodworks. Every part and portion of the

economyof grace tends toward this result, that thou mayest be perfect even as
thy Fatherwhich is in heaven is perfect.
(C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Christian is the noblest work of God
Men can admire a statue; it is breathing with life, and the fire of genius has
succeededin imparting almost animation to the figure. You remember that
once it was but an unmeaning block of marble, but the sculptor's imagination
has succeededin portraying a man, and the human face divine meets your
enraptured eyes. You are filled with rapture and astonishmentat the powerof
genius to callforth such a beautiful creationof art. And have you no eyes to
see, nor heart to appreciate, the noble work of God in the new creationof a
soul that was dead in trespasses andsins? That man was once a blank in the
creationof God; he was spiritually dead, but now he has a soul instinct with
the breath of heaven, which lives for its Maker, which hears and obeys His
voice, and beats high with the generous sentiments of redeeming love. It is a
soul that is restoredto its original place in the creation, fulfilling the high
purposes of its God, and glowing with ardour to live for His honour and glory.
It has not, like the statue, the mock appearance oflife; it is not a beautiful
illusion of your fancy which vanishes at one effort of your soberreason. It has
not its useless andinanimate form to reign and hold its empire only in your
imagination. No! look on it, it is the living work of God; it has His own
resemblance imparted to it; it is immortal, and destined to run an endless race
of glory, to the everlasting praise of the infinite Jehovah — behold it — angels
are enamoured with it, and yet you, who canbreak forth in rapture at that
lifeless statue, cansee no beauty here; no loveliness to draw forth your love;
no admiration of this soul "born of God"!
Professors without goodworks
C. H. Spurgeon.

Many Christians are of a retiring disposition, and their retiring disposition is
exemplified somewhatin the same way as that of the soldier who felt himself
unworthy to stand in the front ranks. He felt that it would not be too
presumptuous a thing for him to be in front, where the cannon balls were
mowing down men on the right hand and on the left, and therefore he would
rather not be in the vanguard. I always look upon those very retiring and
modest people as arrant cowards, and I shall venture to callthem so. I ask not
every man and woman to rush into the front ranks of service, but I do ask
every converted man and woman to take some place in the ranks, and to be
prepared to make some sacrifice in that position they choose orthink
themselves fit to occupy.
(C. H. Spurgeon.)
A Christian Christ's workmanship
It is told of MichaelAngelo, the famous Italian sculptor and painter, that he
invariably selectedthe marble block on which he was to operate from the
quarry himself. He would allow no other hand to touch it, not even in its
rudest state, lestit should be marred. After such a fashiondoes the Master-
Sculptor of souls proceed. He performs the entire work of refashioning the
human soul from beginning to end. In this work, it is true, He employs various
tools — His Word, His Spirit, His Providential arrangements;but no hand
save His touches them.
We are His workmanship.
Man's creationunto good works
Thomas Jones.
Human boasting is excluded, because human merit there is none. We are
God's workmanship, not our own.
I. THE DIVINE WORKMANSHIP.

1. Characterizedby truth, reality, thoroughness, Noton the surface — not
merely intellectualor mental; but a deep, subterraneous powerheaving from
the depth of the spiritual nature, and working from the centre to the
circumference. Born again. Createdanew.
2. When complete it will be perfect in beauty. He who made these bodies of
ours so beautiful, so kingly, so majestic, so unutterably wonderful; He who
bent with such majestic grace the arch of the firmament; He who clothed the
earth with its infinite variety of beautiful objects;will make His spiritual
creationin harmony with the material; so that, when finished, it shall be said,
"He hath made this also beautiful in his season." Godwill look upon it, and
say, "Yes, it is My workmanship, and I am pleasedwith it." That is the
highest thing that canbe said. His heart will rest in it.
II. THE COMPASS OF THIS WORKMANSHIP. "Createdin Christ Jesus
unto goodworks." Goodworks here, and goodworks hereafter. We are to
serve God in the best way we can here, and we shall serve Him in another
world in the distant future more perfectly than now.
1. Goodworks have their origin in love. Nothing noble is done from any other
motive.
2. Goodworks are always inspired by the Holy Ghost. He inspires the love,
and the love gives existence to the goodworks.
3. The good works we are to do are ordained by God. God thought of you
before you were;He resolvedthat you should be — that you should be to do
goodworks — to do good works whichbelong to you alone, just as in nature
the tree is createdto bear a particular fruit. How shall we know what we
ought to do?(1)By the predispositions of our own minds, which are
themselves the creationof God.(2)From our abilities. All we can do we are
bound to do. Not much is expectedfrom a mere mountain brook. Let it flow
through its narrow channel; let it make a little greenon its banks; let it
murmur as it goes — and that is all you canever expect of it. It is only a
mountain brook. But, of a vast river starting at one end of a continent, and
flowing through the heart of it, gathering to itself volumes of water, much is
expected, for is it not a greatriver? And so, you who have education and

genius, you whom God has richly endowed, you who have noble opportunities
and fine talents — God expects greatthings of you; you must waterthe
continent, as it were; and the question for eachone is, to what work does my
heart gravitate, and what work can I do? It is a greatmistake — a mistake
often committed — to try to do what we cannot, and to leave undone the thing
which God has ordained for us to do, and which we could do with perfect
ease.(3)We are bound to pray, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" Life
oftentimes seems a pathless region, and it is evening with us, and the clouds
are lowering, and the dark, black forestis before us, and there is no pathway,
and a kind of bewilderment comes overa man at times; he does not know
what to do, or which way to go — a conscientious man, especially. If God has
placed him in a position in which others are dependent upon him for all
blessing whatsoever, it becomes a greatquestion, and a bewilderment
sometimes, whathe is to do. Rut we are not alone in this pathless place. There
is always the invisible presence, the Eternal Friend at hand, and to Him we
must go in solemnprayer. This if we do, we shall not go astray, but when life
ends shall find that accomplishedwhich He desired.
(Thomas Jones.)
The new creationof believers
T. Manton, D. D.
The doctrine of the text is, That those who are renewedand recoveredout of
the apostasyofmankind, are, as it were, createdanew through the powerof
God and grace ofthe Redeemer.
I. EXPLAIN THE TEXT.
1. Our relationto God. "We are His workmanship."(1)Bynatural creation,
which gives us some kind of interest in Him, and hope of grace from Him.(2)
By regeneration, or renovation, which is calleda secondor new creation(2
Corinthians 5:17).(a) A change wrought in us, so that we are other persons
than we were before, as if another kind of soul came to dwell in our bodies.(b)
This change is such as must amount to a new creation. Nor merely a moral

change, from profaneness and gross sins to a more sobercourse of life; nor a
temporary change, whichsoonwears off; nor a change of outward form,
which does not affectthe heart; nor a partial change. The renewedare "holy
in all manner of conversation."Theydrive a new trade for another world, and
setupon another work to which they were strangers before;must have new
solaces, new comforts, new motives. The new creature is entire, not half new
half old; but with many the heart is like "a cake not turned."(c) When thus
new framed and fashioned, it belongethto God; it hath specialrelationto Him
(James 1:18). It must needs be so; they have God's nature and life.(d) This
workmanship on us as new creatures farsurpasses that which makes us
creatures only.
2. God's way of concurrence to establishthis relation. It is a "creation."(1)
This shows the greatness ofthe disease;in that so great a remedy is needed.(2)
It teaches us to magnify this renewing work. if you think the cure is no great
matter, it will necessarilyfollow that it deserves no greatpraise, and so God
will be robbed of the honour of our recovery.
3. How far the mediation of Christ is concernedin this effect. We are renewed
by God's creating power, but through the intervening mediation of Christ.(1)
This creating poweris setforth with respectto His merit. The life of grace is
purchased by His death, "Godsent His only-begotten Son into the world that
we might live by Him" (1 John 4:9); here spiritually, hereaftereternally; life
opposite to the death incurred by sin. And how by Him? By His being a
propitiation.(2) In regard of efficacy. Christ is a quickening Head, or a life-
making Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45). Whatevergrace we have comes from
God, through Christ as Mediator; and from Him we have it by virtue of our
union with Him (2 Corinthians 5:17).(3)With respectto Christ: "We are His
workmanship, createdin Christ Jesus,"who is the Head of the new world, or
renewedestate.(4)With respectto the use for which this new creationserveth.
One is mentioned in the text: "Createdunto goodworks";but other things
must be taken in.(a) In order to our present communion with God. Till we are
createdanew, we are not fit to converse with a holy and invisible God
earnestly, frequently, reverently, and delightfully, which is our daily work and
business.(b) In order to our service and obedience to God. Man is unfit for
God's use till he be new moulded and framed again.(c)In order to our future

enjoyment of God, and that glory and blessednesswhichwe expectin His
heavenly kingdom; none but new creatures canenter into the new Jerusalem.
Application: Use.
1. Of information.(1) That there is such a thing as the new nature,
regeneration, orthe new birth, and the new creature. It is one thing to make
us men, another to make us saints or Christians.(2)That by this new nature a
man is distinguished from himself as carnal;he hath somewhatwhich he had
not before, something that may be called a new life and nature; a new heart
that is created(Psalm51:10), and may be increased(2 Peter3:18). In the first
conversionwe are mere objects of grace, but afterwards instruments of grace.
First God workethupon us, then by us.(3)How little they can make out their
recoveryto God, and interest in Christ, who are not sensible of any change
wrought in them. This is a change indeed, but in many that profess Christ,
and pretend to an interest in Him, there is no such change to be sensibly seen;
their old sins, and their old lusts, and the old things of ungodliness are not yet
castoff. Surely so much old rubbish and rotten building should not be left
standing with the new. Old leaves in autumn fall off in the spring, if they
continue so long; so old things should pass away, and all become new.(4) It
informeth us in what manner we should check sin, by remembering it is an old
thing to be done away, and ill becoming our new estate by Christ (2 Peter1:9).
2. To put us upon self-reflection;are we the workmanshipof God, createdin
Christ Jesus?that is, are we made new creatures? It will be knownby these
things — a new mind, a new heart, and a new life.
3. To exhort you to look after this, that you be the workmanship of God,
createdin Christ Jesus. Youwill say, "What can we do? This is God's work in
which we are merely passive." I answer — It is certainly an abuse of this
doctrine if it lull us asleepin the lap of idleness;and we think that because
God doth all in framing us for the new life, we must do nothing. The Spirit of
God reasonethotherwise, "Work outyour own salvationwith fear and
trembling; for it is God which workethin you, both to will and to do of His
goodpleasure" (Philippians 2:12, 13). This principle canneither be a ground
of loosenessnorlaziness. You are under an obligation both to return to God
and to use the means whereby you may return. Your impotency doth not

dissolve your obligation. A drunken servantis a servant, and bound to do his
work;his master losethnot his right by his default. An insolvent debtor is a
debtor, and if he cannot pay all, he is bound to pay as much as he can. Besides,
you are creatures in misery; if you be sensible of it, your interest will teach
you to do what you can to come out of it; and God's doing all is an
engagementto wait upon Him in the use of means, that we may meet with
God in His way, and He may meet with us in our way.
II. THE END why we are brought into this estate. Notto live idly or walk
loosely, but holily and according to the will of God.
1. The object: goodworks;that is, works becoming the new creature;in short,
we should live Christianly.
2. God's act about it.
(1)God has prepared these works for us.
(2)God has prepared us for them.
3. Our duty: that we should walk in them. Walking denotes both a way and an
action.(1)Goodworks are the way to obtain salvation, purchased and granted
to us by Jesus Christ. Unless we walk in the path of good works we cannot
come to eternal life.(2) An action. Walking denotes —
(a)Spontaneity in the principle; not drawn or driven, but walk — setourselves
a-going.
(b)Progress m the motion.
(T. Manton, D. D.)
New creatures prepared for goodworks
T. Manton, D. D.
I. WHAT IS MEANT BY GOOD WORKS.

1. The kinds. All acts of obedience.(1)Acts of God's immediate worship, both
internal and external.(2)Every man must labour in the work to which he is
called.(3)Works of righteousness andjustice; to hurt none, to give every one
his due, to use fidelity in our relations (Acts 24:15).(4)Works ofcharity and
mercy; as to relieve the poor, to be goodto all, to help others by our counselor
admonition.(5) I think there is another sort of goodworks which concern
ourselves, and that is sobriety, watchfulness, mortification, self-denial. A man
owethduty to himself (Titus 2:12).
2. The requisites.(1)That the person be in a goodstate (Matthew 7:17).(2)The
principles of operationmust be faith, love, and obedience.(3)A due regard of
circumstances, thatit may be not only good, but done well(Luke 8:15).(4)The
end — that it be for God's glory (Philippians 1:11).
II. HOW NEW CREATURES ARE OBLIGED TO THESE GOOD WORKS.
1. With respectto God, He hath ordained that we should walk in them. If you
refer to His decree, He will have His electpeople distinguished from others by
the goodthey do in the world, that they may be knownto be followers ofa
goodGod, as the children of the devil are by their mischief (2 Peter1:10). If
you take it for His precept and command, surely we should make conscience
of what our Father giveth us in charge.
2. With respectto Christ, who died to restore us to a capacityand ability to
perform these goodworks (Titus 2:14).
3. With respectto the Spirit, who renewethus for this end; we are new made,
that we may look upon doing goodas our calling and only business. All other
things are valuable according to the use for which they serve;the sun was
made to give light and heat to inferior creatures, and we are enlightened by
grace, and inclined by grace, that our light may shine before men (Matthew
5:16).
4. With respectto heavenand eternal happiness, they are the way to heaven.
We discontinue or break off our walk when we cease to do good;but the more
we mind goodworks the more we proceedin our way (Philippians 3:14).

III. HOW ARE THEY FITTED AND PREPAREDby this new nature that is
put into them for goodworks? There is a remote preparation, and a near
preparation.
1. The remote preparation is an inclination and propensity to all the acts of
the holy and heavenly life. All creatures have an inclination to their proper
operations, so the new creature. As the sparks fly up and the stones downward
by an inclination of nature, so are their hearts bent to please and serve God.
The inclination is natural, the acts are voluntary, because it is an inclination of
a free agent.
2. The near preparation is calledpromptitude and readiness for every good
work, or "a ready obedience to every goodwork." (See Titus 3:1; 1 Timothy
6:18; Hebrews 13:1). This is beyond inclination. The fire hath an inclination to
ascendupwards, yet something may violently keepit down; so a Christian
may have a will to good, a strong, not a remiss will, but yet there are some
impediments (Romans 7:18).
(T. Manton, D. D.)
A bird's-eye view of life
James Stalker, M. A.
I. THE AIM OF LIFE. "Goodworks." Is it Paul who speaksthus? Is not he
the enemy of goodworks? Is not this the doctrine of the Old Testament?
Answer: Paul was the enemy of a certain doctrine of goodworks, and of a
party who took goodworks as its motto. But it is quite possible to object to a
thing in the wrong place, and appreciate it in the right place. The voice of
consciencetells a man he shall be justified or condemnedby his works. Are
the words of our Lord, in Matthew 25:35, mock thunder? If not, then it is
plain that what we shall be askedfor at the judgment seatwill be our good
works.
II. THE LINE BY WHICH THIS AIM IS LIMITED.

Jesus was the source of our good works

Jesus was the source of our good works

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