Whilst I agree that good works certainly do not achieve or prove salvation, I think it is reasonable to expect that, OVER TIME, a person who has genuinely been "born again", will exhibit the fruit of the Holy Spirit in their lives. I believe we can draw a distinction between "good works" and "fruit of the Spirit." "Fruit of the Spirit" is a biblical term that sums up the nine visible attributes of a true Christian life. Using the King James Version of Galatians 5:22-23, these attributes are: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. Collectively, these are the fruits that all Christians should be producing in their new lives with Jesus Christ. If a person exhibits no "fruit of the Spirit" over time, and lives in obvious indifference to God's moral and spiritual standards and guidelines, then I believe we have every reason to doubt their conversion experience. BUT, ultimately, apart from those who are blatantly anti-Christian and deny the deity of Jesus Christ, God alone knows for sure who are His children, and who are not. .....Keygar |
There is every reason to think that those who have believed in Jesus
Christ as Saviour and are consequently born into God's family will
experience a changed life to some degree. Some would say that this
changed life is evidenced by good works which proves they are saved. If
that is true, then the converse is true: if there are no good works,
then there is no salvation. In this view, good works (sometimes called
"fruit" or evidence of a changed life) prove or disprove one's eternal
salvation.
Some passages are used to contend that works can prove or disprove one's
eternal salvation. Probably the most common are James 2:14-26, John
15:6, and Matthew 7:15-20. But James is writing to Christians about the
usefulness of their faith, not its genuineness. Likewise, in John 15:6
Jesus is talking about fruitless believers and compares them to branches
that are burned, in other words, not of much use. Matthew 7:15-20 warns
against false prophets (not believers in general) who can be evaluated
on the basis of their evil deeds or heretical teaching (not an absence
of works in general).
CAN GOOD WORKS PROVE SALVATION?
There is no passage of Scripture that claims works can prove salvation.
In fact, there are many problems with trying to use works to prove
salvation, or the lack of works to disprove salvation.
Good works can characterize non-Christians. Works in and of themselves
can not prove that anyone is eternally saved because those who have not
believed in Christ will often do good things. In fact, good deeds are
essential to many non-Christian religions. Sometimes the outward
morality of non-Christians exceeds that of established Christians. In
Matthew 7:21-23 we see the possibility of those who do not know Christ
doing great works, but their works are useless in demonstrating their
salvation; they are not saved.
Good works can be hard to define. Though we might define a good work as
something done by a Christian through the Spirit for the Lord, how can
we always know when that is true? It is hard to imagine even a single
day when a Christian (or non-Christian, for that matter) would not do
something good like go to work to provide for a family, hold a door for
someone, or brake for a squirrel. How can we know when these things are
done through the Spirit and for the Lord, especially if they can be done
by non-Christians?
Good works are relative. While a person's
behaviour may seem excessive,
it may actually demonstrate great progress in that person's Christian
growth. A man slips with a curse word that startles other believers, but
those believers do not know that before his conversion, curse words
flowed freely. The amount of fruit must be considered in the context of
one's total past life, a difficult thing to do. It may also be relative
to the amount of sin in one's present life. For example, if a Christian
were to commit adultery, we might focus our thinking on that sin so that
we ignore the other good things he is doing.
Good works can be passive in nature. The fruit of salvation is not
always what we do, but often what we do not do. As a Christian, one may
no longer get drunk or may refrain from yelling at an inconsiderate
motorist. This fruit of the Spirit, self-control, may not be detected by
others because of its passive nature.
Good works can be unseen. In Matthew 6:1-6 Jesus told his followers to
give and pray in secret rather than publicly. A person who never prays
in a group may breathe a prayer while driving and no one will ever know.
Another may not attend church, but give regularly to a Christian
charity. These are works that go unobserved by others.
Good works can be deceptive. Since we can not know one's motives, a
seeming good work could be done for the wrong reason. A person might
give money to a church to impress others. Another might volunteer to
work with church children only to wait for an opportunity to sexually
abuse them. These are not actually good works at all! Motives are
difficult to discern, even for the doer, but God knows each person's
heart (1 Cor. 4:3-5).
Good works can be inconsistent. The Bible allows the possibility of
believers who begin well, but fall away from their walk with the Lord or
fall into sin (1 Cor. 11:30; 2 Tim. 4:10; James 5:19-20). If a Christian
shows the evidence of a changed life, but later falls away, at what
point in their life do we examine them to prove or disprove their
salvation? If there can be lapses in good works, how long does the lapse
continue before one is judged as never saved?
CONCLUSION
Nowhere does the Bible teach that fruit or good works can prove one's
eternal salvation. Since the fruit of good works is not easily discerned
or quantified, it cannot be reliable proof of salvation. The subjective
nature of measuring one's fruit creates the impossibility of knowing
objectively whether someone is saved. The amount of fruit necessary to
please one Christian "fruit inspector" may not please the next "fruit
inspector." As Christians, we are created in Jesus Christ to do good
works (Eph. 2:10) and expected to do good works (1 Tim. 6:18; Titus 2:7,
14; Heb. 10:24), but good works are never attached to the condition for
salvation, which is faith alone in Christ alone (Rom. 4:4-5).
While good works can be corroborating evidence for one's faith in Christ, they are not sufficient to prove or disprove it. Only faith in God's promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ guarantees and proves our salvation.