Then they said unto Him, what shall we do that we might work the works of God
Synagogue questioning
I. THE SPIRITUAL IGNORANCE AND UNBELIEF OF THE NATURAL MAN.
1. When our Lord bade His hearers, “Labour for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life, they began to think of works to be done.”
2. When He spoke of Himself as one sent of God and the need of faith in them, the response was, “What sign showest Thou?” and this directly after the miracle (Mark 6:6).
3. We should remember all this in our efforts to do good and not be discouraged if our words seem thrown away.
II. THE HIGH HONOUR WHICH CHRIST PUTS ON FAITH IN HIMSELF. Faith and works elsewhere seem contrasted, but here Christ declares that believing on Him is the greatest of all works. Not that He meant that there was anything meritorious in believing; but--That it is the act of the soul which specially pleases God. Without it it is impossible to please Him.
2. That it is the first act that God requires at a sinner’s hands.
3. That there is no life in a man till he believes.
III. THE FAR GREATER PRIVILEGES OF CHRIST’S HEARERS THAN OF THOSE WHO LIVED IN THE TIMES OF MOSES. The manna, wonderful as it was, was as nothing compared with the true bread.
1. The one could only feed the body; the other could satisfy the soul.
2. The one was only for the benefit of Israel; the other for the whole world.
3. Those who ate the former died and were buried, and many of them lost for ever; those who ate of the latter would be eternally saved. (Bp. Ryle.)
A plain answer to an important inquiry
I. FAITH IS THE COMPREHENSIVE SUMMARY OF ALL TRUE WORK.
1. There lies within it every form of holiness, as a forest may lie within an acorn. It may be microscopic in form, but it only wants development.
2. All the graces come out of faith (see Hebrews 11:1-40.).
II. FAITH IS IN ITSELF MOST PLEASING TO GOD. Because
1. It is the creature acknowledging its God. The man who says my own good deeds will save me sets himself up in independency of God. But when a man submits himself to God’s way of salvation, the rebellious heart submits to the Divine authority, and the poor erring creature comes into its right place.
2. It accepts God’s way of reconciliation. It thus shows a deference to God’s wisdom, and confidence in His love, and yielding to His will.
3. It puts honour on Christ whom the Father dearly loves. That which dishonours Christ must be obnoxious to God.
4. It puts us in a right relationship with God, i.e
(1) A relationship of dependence;
(2) of child- like rest.
III. FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST. IS THE TEST OF WORKING FOR GOD.
1. Without faith the spirit of work is wrong. Suppose you said to me, “I will spend my life in your service, but I am not going to believe what you say.” All that you do must be destitute of real excellent because you begin by malting God a liar in not trusting Him (1 John 5:10).
2. Without faith the motive of work fails and becomes selfish; whereas faith aims at God’s glory.
IV. FAITH IS THE SEAL OF ALL OTHER BLESSINGS.
1. Of our election (John 6:37). If you believe in Christ you are one that the Father hath given Him.
2. Of our effectual calling. If you believe the Father hath drawn you to Christ.
3. Of our final perseverance (John 6:47).
4. Of our resurrection (John 6:39; John 6:49), (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The people’s question
Faith and works are both factors in the work of salvation. Faith is the life root of which works are the fruit. The Jew sought to justify himself by his works, and then inferentially organized his faith to work the works of God, with Him was to drive a bargain with God. “What good thing must I do?” Christ shows that the way to the Father was by no such circuitous route, but by faith in Himself.
I. A GRAVE INQUIRY. This is not a Jewish question. It is the question of humanity.
1. Man has never been able to throw off a belief in God nor to escape the apprehensions such a belief creates. Hence, in their unrest and great mental hunger, men still ask this question.
2. You see evidences of this mental disquietude in the breaking away from the restraints of creeds, in retreats from the simplicity of the present into the traditions of the past; in the rush of various systems of mediatorial penance, in the impossibility of successfully impugning the Divine record and in the despair which ensues on its rejection. Philosophy in its wildest departures from God can neither answer this question nor escape the responsibility of discussing it. Men seem to treat it as a scoff, but they arc compelled to do homage to its impressiveness in the vague worship of the unknown.
II. CHRIST’S ANSWER.
1. The work of God is not the alone work of God’s appointing. It is God and man mutually working. A fractured relation of the soul and God necessitates for its readjustment the correlation of two forces.
(1) In this work a factor is demanded that we cannot supply. “A man can receive nothing except it be given him from above.” That which our working secures is just the willingness to receive what God alone can give.
(2) The want that goes in quest of God is not God’s work but ours. On the other hand, to pacify the disquieted heart by renewing it is not man’s work, but God’s. Our first lesson, therefore, touches the pride of our self-sufficiency. We are powerless with all our power when power is needed most.
(3) Then there are things which we must cease to do. We must “cease to do evil,” get clean away from all dependence on our own works.
2. The work of man.
(1) To believe in Christ’s mission. Christ claims to have been sent into the world by the Father to perform a specific work. Miracles were His credentials. His own profound self-consciousness of His mission explains and necessitates this supernatural signature. Now, if Jesus believed Himself to be the “Sent” and the “Son of God,” and was not, He was deceived and a deceiver; but if He was, we cannot put ourselves into harmony with God otherwise than as we accept this mission.
(2) Accepting the mission. What does a man do when he believes in the Person of Christ? What does a blind man do when he commits himself to a guide? He puts himself out on trust. A drowning man, when he clings to his plank, lives suspensively on that to which he clings. A penitent sinner, when he believes in Christ, does both. And this is the work of God for all men. (John Burton.)
The work of God
There was nothing peculiar about this question. All men are asking it, some listlessly, some with agonizing importunity. There is much implied in it; amongst other things that there is some alienation between God and man which must be removed. Unfallen angels do not ask it.
I. MAN’S WAY OF ANSWERING THE QUESTION.
1. One man imagines that the works of God are to be performed by the members of the body, by prayers, genuflexions, etc. The result is that the man blinded goes down to death, or he is forced by experience to own that he has not found what he sought and to turn away from externals, still saying, “What shall I do?” etc.
2. The next stage he reaches is that of substituting moral for ceremonial acts. Hence the constant disposition to make social charities the test of character, and to establish an order of irreligious saints. In this delusion thousands live and die. But to others, goaded by conscience, this is not enough. “We have tried to do right, but we find our good works imperfect and marred by the sins that have run side by side with them. What shall we do?” etc.
3. The man has now been brought to the necessity of expiation. He must make good his past failures by working the works of God. But where shall he begin? Perhaps by refraining from sin. This unexpected difficulty drives him to repentance. He will weep over his offences. But he finds that he can no more break his heart than change his life. The sinner, abandoning the impossible effort, asks in despair, “What shall I do?”
4. This is the highest ground man ever reached by himself. If he goes beyond he goes down.
(1) Some accordingly descend to the lower ground of meritorious abstinence and self-mortification. Because they have not been able to appease God by renouncing sinful pleasures, they will now do it by renouncing innocent enjoyments.
(2) A descent in another direction leads to a desperate transfer of responsibility. As the sinner cannot work the works of God himself, the Church or a priest shall do it for him.
II. CHRIST’S WAY. The whole point here is the contrast between believing and working. They would not have been surprised had He enjoined some task. To a self-righteous spirit, difficulty, danger, pain are inducements rather than dissuasives; but a requisition to believe on Him was something different, comprehending as it did a belief of His Divine legation and authority, of His ability and willingness to save, and a full consent to be saved by Him.
1. It was this simple and implicit trust that created the difficulty, and the same feeling of incongruity is experienced now. “After spending a lifetime in working out my own salvation, must I be told at last that I have only to believe?”
2. Let this reluctance subside, and men will ask in what sense faith is the work of God.
(1) Some have taught that the act of believing is meritorious, and is accepted in lieu of all the rest. But how can this be reconciled with God’s justice?
(2) Men have run to the opposite extreme, and held that faith dispenses with all moral obligation, which is at variance with the constant requisition of obedience.
3. The true meaning of the words may be summed up in two particulars.
(1) Our access to God and restoration to His favour are entirely independent of all merit or obedience on our part. The saving benefit of the atonement is freely offered to us. Unreserved acceptance of it must, of course, exclude all reliance on any merit of our own. This is all we have to do to begin with.
(2) We are saved, not in sin, but from sin, and when belief in Christ is represented as the saving work which God requires, it is not to the exclusion of good works, but rather the source from which they flow. (J. Addison Alexander, D. D.)
Faith and its operations
I. FAITH IS HERE CONSIDERED AS THE WORK WHICH GOD ENJOINS IN EVERY INDIVIDUAL. Why is it that men do not believe the testimony which God has so clearly made?
1. A wilful turning aside from God and a determination to take up with the nearest trifle is one reason.
2. The deceitfulness of the human heart is another. Sin possesses in a most astonishing degree the faculty of hiding its own deformity.
3. The reasons of this disobedience vary in different men according to their different characters and circumstances.
4. What does the Holy Spirit do when He introduces the principle of faith into the heart of man?
(1) He removes every obstacle which we cherished in our natural state.
(2) He fixes in us principles of obedience, and makes duty a delight.
5. What is this faith? A continual reliance on Christ as a Saviour. 6 What does this faith do? It delivers the believer from the charge and dominion of sin and purifies the heart.
II. GOD’S SENDING HIS SON INTO THE WORLD.
1. This was an act of sovereignty.
2. Christ was sent as the medium of God’s moral government and as the channel of salvation.
3. What a view this gives us of the mercy and love of God!
4. How this heightens the guilt of the rejection of Christ!
III. THIS OBEDIENCE OF FAITH IS THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE DESIGN OF GOD AND THE COMPLETION OF THE SAVIOUR’S TRIUMPH. (W. Howels, M. A.)
Faith the sole saving act
1. The Jews inquired as though there were several works of God. Christ narrows down the terms of salvation to a single one.
2. In this as in many incidental ways our Lord teaches His Divinity. Imagine Paul or David resting the destiny of the soul on faith in himself.
3. The belief is natural to man that something must be done in order to salvation. The most supine expect to have to rouse themselves some day. Let us examine
I. THE COMMON NOTION UNDERLYING THE QUESTION. When a man begins to think of God and his relations to Him, he finds he owes Him service and obedience. His first spontaneous impulse, therefore, is to begin the performance of the work he has hitherto neglected. The law expressly affirms that the man who doeth these things shall live by them. He proposes to take the law just as it stands and to live by service.
II. THE GROUND AND REASON OF CHRIST’S ANSWER.
1. Because it is too late in any case to adopt the method of salvation by works. The law demands and supposes that obedience begins at the very beginning of existence, and continues down uninterruptedly to the end of it Galatians 5:3). If any man can show a clean record, the law gives him the reward he has earned (Romans 4:4; Romans 11:6). But no man can do this Psalms 58:3; Ephesians 2:3).
2. This is the conclusive ground for Christ’s declaration that the one great work which every fallen man must perform in order to salvation is faith in another work.
III. THE DOCTRINE OF SALVATION BY FAITH.
1. Faith is a work, a mental act of the most comprehensive and energetic species. It carries the whole man in it, heart, head, will, body, soul, spirit.
2. Yet it is not a work in the common signification, and is by Paul opposed to works, and excluded from them. It is wholly occupied with another’s work. The believer deserts all his own doings, and betakes himself to what a third person has done for him, and instead of holding up prayers, almsgiving, penances, or moral efforts, he holds up the sacrificial work of Christ.
3. St. John repeats this doctrine in his first epistle (1 John 3:22-23). The whole duty of sinful man is here summed up and concentrated in the duty to trust in another person than himself and in another work than his own. In the matter of salvation, when there is faith in Christ there is everything; and where there is not faith in Christ there is nothing.
Conclusion:
1. Faith in Christ is the appointment of God as the sole means of salvation Acts 4:12).
2. There are enjoyments in the human conscience that can be supplied by no other method.
(1) The soul wants peace. Christ’s atonement satisfies the demands of a broken law.
(2) The soul wants purity. The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin. (Prof. Shedd.)
Faith and works
All upon which the name of Paulinism has been bestowed is contained in embryo in this verse, which at the same time forms the point of union between Paul and James. Faith is the highest kind of work, for by it man gives himself; and a free being can do nothing greater than to give himself. It is in this sense that James opposes works to a faith which is nothing more than intellectual belief; and it is in a perfectly analogous sense that Paul opposes faith, active faith, to works of mere observance. The faith of Paul is really the works of James, according to the sovereign formula of Jesus: “This is the work of God that you believe.” (F. Godet, D. D.)
The value of faith
Faith will be of more use to us than any other grace, as an eye, though dim, was of more use to an Israelite (bitten by a serpent) than all the other members of his body. It is not knowledge, though angelical, nor repentance, though we could shed rivers of tears, could justify us; but only faith, whereby we look on Christ. (T. Watson.)
Works are useless for our salvation
Coin that is current in one place is valueless in another. Suppose an Indian, far in the western wilds, were to say, “I will become a trader with the whites. I will go to New York city and buy up half the goods there, and then come back and sell them, and then what a rich Indian I shall be.” He then collects all his wampum beads, which are his money, and compared with other Indians he is very rich, and away he journeys to yonder city. Imagine him going into Stewart’s, and offering his wampum there in exchange for their goods. They are refused. They were money in the woods--in the city they are worthless. And there are thousands of men who are carrying with them, to offer at the judgment, what is no better than the Indian’s beads. They are reckoning on their generosity, their prompt payment of all their debts, their various good natural qualities; but when they present them, they will all be found worthless trash. The things that have made them strong, and valued, and important here, will there be worse than useless to them. (H. W. Beecher.)
Faith is trust in another
The daughter of a celebrated physician was once attacked by a violent and dangerous fever; but she exhibited great resignation and tranquillity. She said she was ignorant of what might effect her cure, and if it were left to herself to prescribe, she might desire remedies which would be prejudicial. Shall I not gain everything, she added, by abandoning myself entirely to my father? He desires my recovery; he knows much better than I do what is adapted to the restoration of my health; and having confidence, therefore, that everything will be done for me which can be done, I remain without solicitude either as to the means or aa to the result. Religious faith, in like manner, trusts itself in the hands of God, in the full confidence that it will be well in the end. (J. Upham.)
The preciousness of faith
Faith is the vital artery of the soul. When we begin to believe we begin to love. Faith grafts the soul into Christ as the scion into the stock, and fetches all its nutriment from the blessed vine. (T. Watson.)
Faith and works
That is a very instructive anecdote which St. Simon relates respecting the last hours of the profligate Louis XIV. “One day,” he says, “the king, recovering from loss of consciousness, asked his confessor, Pere Tellier, to give him absolution for all his sins. Pere Tellier asked him if he suffered much. ‘No,’ replied the king, ‘that’s what troubles me. I should like to suffer more, for the expiation of my sins?’” Here was a poor mortal who had spent his days in carnality and transgression of the pure law of God. He is conscious of guilt, and feels the need of its atonement. And now, upon the very edge of eternity and brink of doom, he proposes to make his own atonement, to be his own redeemer and save his own soul, by offering up to the eternal Nemesis that was racking his conscience a few hours of finite suffering, instead of betaking himself to the infinite passion and agony of Calvary. This is a “work”; and, alas I a dead work, as St. Paul so often denominates it. (Prof. Shedd.)
Faith in God
In the first Punic war, Hannibal laid siege to Saguntum, a rich and strongly-fortified city on the eastern coast of Spain. It was defended with a desperate obstinacy by its inhabitants; but the discipline, the energy, and the persistence of the Carthaginian army were too much for them; and, just as the city was about to fall, Alorcus, a Spanish chieftain, and a mutual friend of both the contending parties, undertook to mediate between them. He proposed to the Saguntines that they should surrender, allowing the Carthaginian general to make his own terms; and the argument he used was this: “Your city is captured, in any event. Further resistence will only bring down upon you the rage of an incensed soldiery, and horrors of a sack. Therefore surrender immediately, and take whatever Hannibal shall please to give. You cannot lose anything by the procedure, and you may gain something, even though it be a little.” Now, although there is no resemblance between the government of the good and merciful God and the cruel purposes and conduct of a heathen warrior, and we shrink from bringing the two into any kind of juxtaposition, still, the advice of the wise Alorcus to the Saguntines is good advice for every sinful man in reference to his relations to eternal justice. We are all of us at the mercy of God. But the All.Holy is also the All-Merciful. He has made certain terms, and has offered certain conditions of pardon, without asking leave of His creatures, and without taking them into council; and were these terms as strict as Draco, instead of being as tender and pitiful as the tears and blood of Jesus, it would become us criminals to make no criticisms even in that extreme case, but accept them precisely as they were offered by the Sovereign and the Arbiter. (Prof. Shedd.)
The simplicity of faith
The complexity sometimes charged upon the Christian doctrine of faith is not greater than exists in any analogous or corresponding case. Tell the drowning man to be of good cheer, for you will save him, and you call upon him to perform as many acts as are included in the exercise of saving faith. For, in the first place, you invite him to believe the truth of your assertions. In the next place, you invite him to confide in your ability and willingness to save him. In the last place, you invite him to consent to your proposal by renouncing every other hope and agreeing to be saved by you. There is nothing more abstruse or difficult in saving faith. The difference is not in the essential nature of the mental acts and exercises, but in the circumstances under which they are performed. (J. A. Alexander, D. D.)
Creed and conduct
It is a very common charge against Christianity that “it puts creed above conduct.” Whether there is any truth in that charge depends upon what is understood by the term “creed.” When Jesus was asked directly concerning right conduct, he answered that a right belief is the basis of right conduct. If that be giving a first place to “creed,” let it be borne in mind that it is Jesus Christ Himself who makes the assignment. A popular saying nowadays is that “it doesn’t make any difference what a man believes if he only acts right”; but a Boston clergyman once improved on that saying by the simple change, “It doesn’t make any difference what a man believes if he doesn’t act right.” If a man is a persistent evil-doer, the soundness of his theological convictions will not compensate for his wrong conduct. But when God has sent His Son to be a Saviour and a Guide, it makes all the difference in the world whether a sinner accepts or refuses to believe on the One who is the only Mediator between God and man. So far, a correct belief is all-essential as a basis of right conduct and of safe conduct. That is the truth as Jesus puts it. (H. C. Trumbull, D. D.)