Truth: "Works of the Law"

Truth: Bible Truth

"Works of the Law" - Page 13

We next see Paul giving the same teaching to the Gentiles at Ephesus. In Ephesians 2:8-9 he writes:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."

Notice again the same emphasis on "boasting" in the context of "grace versus works." Paul is not writing to Jews, but to Gentiles, since in the surrounding verses he addresses them directly. In Ephesians 2:1-5 he writes:

1 "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest... 11 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called "Uncircumcision " by the so-called "Circumcision," which is performed in the flesh by human hands - 12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world."

Paul continues this same theme in another epistle written mainly to Gentiles. In Titus 3:5-7 he writes:

"He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

This passage is even more significant than the others since Paul doesn't use the common wording "works of the law" or "works" or "law," but a new clause is added to the Justification dictionary: "deeds which we have done in righteousness." The Greek wording is "oujk ejx ejvrgwn tw:n ejn dikaiosuvnh aJ; ejpoihvsamen hJmei:V" which literally translates as "not by works of righteousness which we did." It couldn't be any clearer that St. Paul is including moral works in his regimen of things which do not justify, since "works of righteousness" can hardly be understood as referring to the ceremonial law. It must refer, as the Council of Trent taught, to "his own works which are done either by his own natural powers, or through the teaching of the Law."

So again, we see why the Council of Trent addressed the "works of the law" issue by teaching that it referred to the whole law. The reason: because the Gentiles have just as much of a problem in thinking that God owes them salvation as the Jews. In fact, THAT is the perennial problem of all mankind - in his pride he thinks that that God both owes him a living and salvation. But Paul clearly teaches that such is not the case. Paul sums this up very well in Romans 11:35: "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became his counselor? 35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?

Now, some may object that the whole Judaizing matter became obsolete after St. Paul's time when the Temple was destroyed and it was no longer possible to practice biblical Judaism. Christians and Jews became polarized against each other and lost sight of their common heritage.

But in answer we say that the principles learned from that experience remained. That is why, for example, Paul keeps going back to the experiences of Jewish unbelief in the Old Testament as the examples from which the Gentile churches must learn to have faith.

Just as Paul goes back to the Jews of Elijah's time in Romans 11 as an example of people who sought works rather than grace, so Paul does, for example, in 1 Cor 10:1-11 in order to warn the Corinthians not to fall into the same mind-set as the Jews.

What was that mind-set? From the surrounding context of the Corinthian epistle we find that the Corinthians were falling into the same sins of pride and boasting as the Jews, thinking that somehow they were owed what they were receiving from God because of their great knowledge and piety (cf., 1 Cor 3:18-22; 1 Cor 4:7-8).

Hence, twice in 1 Cor 10, in verses 6 and 11, Paul says that the stories about Jewish unbelief were written in the Old Testament precisely to serve as examples to the Church of our day so that we wouldn't fall into the same trap. The "trap" was that the Jews had all the accouterments of God's presense (v. 1-4: baptism, spiritual food and drink, the rock of Christ following them, etc) but verse 5 says "MOST of them God was not well-pleased with, and they were laid low in the wilderness."

"Works of the Law" - Page 13

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