Gospel pillar in Job

Posted by Gary on January 27, 2007

One of the pillars of the Christian faith is the fact that human beings are unrighteous and cannot do anything to earn their salvation. Sinful man’s response to this claim of the gospel is that people do good works (drive their elderly neighbor to the store, give money to the poor, pray…) and that these works have have merit with God and can be counted toward our salvation account. I am convinced that the bulk of humanity believes that we possess some level of righteousness and do some level of good works that earn us favor with God.

I recently read the book of Job and noted with interest that the people of Job’s day understood clearly that good works earn us nothing with God. The young man Elihu states it quite plainly:

Job 35:7 “If you are righteous, what do you give to Him, or what does He receive from your hand?

The idea that good works are an “extra” that what we perform earns us points with God is rejected out of hand by the Bible in this place and many others. Elihu’s question could not make it more clear, righteous deeds result in us giving nothing additional to God, nor does God regard it a favor or an extra that we have done something good.

This passage has a parallel passage found in the book of Luke:

Luke 17:7-10 “Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come immediately and sit down to eat’? “But will he not say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink ‘? “He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? “So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’”

Immediately, we do not like Jesus’ terminology. Plug yourself into the story, what are you? A slave. What do slaves do? The will of their master. Service performed by a slave is not an extra, it is not meritorious, it is what is expected. We as sinners want to tell ourselves that doing good deeds is an extra, we think we are doing things others aren’t and this should mean something, should earn us something.

The teaching of the Bible is that that God created us to be good, it is His expectation that we do good and our duty to do good, not some of the time, but all of the time. Consider Jesus’ statements as a number line with positive numbers to the right and negative numbers to the left. If you and I did everything we were supposed to do, if we obeyed God every moment of every day, where would it place us on the number line? The answer is, at zero. Listen to Jesus, “So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’” The ESV is even more helpful, “We have only done what was our duty.”

Dear friend, do not rely on good works to earn you anything with God. Goodness is your duty, every day in every situation, thought, motive and word. You have not done good all the time have you? Nor have I. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus came and received the punishment that our disobedience deserves, He did good all the time, He performed our duty and then died in our place receiving in Himself the punishment our disobedience deserved.

Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”