Hebrews 6 & 10 – The Impossibility of Salvation – Part 11
The Lord’s “good pleasure” is not in the same old things of the Old Testament. It is not in fleshly, earthly things.
Hebrews 10:6-9 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. 7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. 8 Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; 9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
This isn’t just about animal sacrifices. It is about all things under the old law. Fleshly good things. Worldly fruit. All things that you could do or you could offer under the first covenant, are not pleasing to God. Nothing under the first covenant was pleasing to God.
Loving God and loving your neighbor in the flesh (which IS THE LAW), was not pleasing to God.
So why would the works of our hands be pleasing to God now? Why would fleshly good works be “his good pleasure”? They aren’t.
Micah 6:7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
The fruit of your body is not pleasing to God. Your good works, your love, your kindness, your compassion, your giving, your meekness and gentleness. The things that come out of your body are FRUITS of YOUR BODY.
He doesn’t want any FRUIT of your body. He has no pleasure in the works of your hands.
It isn’t just animal sacrifices offered “by the law” that were not pleasing to God.
Fleshly good works are done “by the law” too… the whole law hangs on TWO good works.
The things that are offered to God BY the law, are not pleasing to Him. So fleshly good works are NOT a true pleasing sacrifice to God. Fleshly things cannot please God.
But in the spirit of every Christian, there is the ability to do true good, to serve God in truth. To offer up spiritual sacrifices. Spiritual fruit. To bring forth the words of eternal life as fruit, which IS well pleasing to God.
Every Christian CAN produce TRUE good things. They have the words of God in them, and have the ability to speak them. They are labourers together with God, and God is responsible for what they do spiritually, and what they produce spiritually.
Isaiah 57:19 I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.
THOSE are the works that we can credit God for:
Producing the gospel of peace out of our mouths.
That is the fruit that God is responsible for producing in us.
Hebrews 13:15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. … 16… for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Jesus Christ. The words of Jesus Christ… those are the acceptable sacrifice, the fruit, that pleases God.
That fruit makes PEACE between God and men.
You’ll recall Hebrews 12 calls it:
Hebrews 12:11 … the peaceable fruit of righteousness …
James 3:18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
That fruit, that fruit of RIGHTEOUSNESS, out of our mouths, is what TRULY pleases God.
But that fruit of RIGHTEOUSNESS, which pleases God, is not fruit of OUR OWN righteousness.
That fruit of righteousness is not our fleshly good works, nor is it a result of US doing good works in this world.
Isaiah 42:21 The LORD is well pleased for his [Jesus’] righteousness’ sake; …
God is pleased by HIS OWN RIGHTOUESNESS.
The only way for men to please God is to receive HIS righteousness, and give others HIS righteousness.
A true Christian is able to do a true good work: to SPEAK the fruit of righteousness.
But it is all in the SPIRIT. It is not in your flesh. God is not in your flesh, and His good pleasure is not done in your flesh. He is not pleased in your flesh. He is not pleased with your fleshly good works.
Romans 8:8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Your righteousness (your fleshly good works… love God, love your neighbor) is NOT “well pleasing” to God. Only HIS righteousness is well pleasing to God.
And that righteousness was not available to men under the OT.
Isaiah 46:13 I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.
Isaiah 56:1 Thus saith the LORD, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.
God’s righteousness is not in you doing fleshly good works.
Every fleshly good work, every bit of loving your neighbor was available under the Old Covenant.
Yet NONE of it pleased God. God’s righteousness was not available yet.
True righteousness, which pleases God, is what Jesus came to PREACH.
Psalms 40:6-9 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. [No fleshly offerings pleased God. Man’s righteousness, man’s good works, did not please God. No true righteousness was available, nor is available now in the flesh. Fleshly good works COULD NOT please God. Man had no way to truly please God. So what did God do?] 7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, 8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. 9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.
God himself, became a man, to bring near HIS righteousness, and to give it to mankind, by WORDS… by PREACHING WORDS.
A Christian preaching the gospel, is producing the fruit of righteousness.
A Christian preaching the words of God’s righteousness, that is what PLEASES God.
1 Corinthians 1:21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
It pleased God to SAVE people. It pleased God (by preaching, by wisdom) to save those that believe.
That is “his good pleasure”.
That is what it PLEASED God to do: to save men by PREACHING.
Galatians 1:15-16 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, 16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:
Get saved, and save others. That is what is pleasing to God.
Not mankind’s good works. Not loving your neighbor. Preaching Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 2:4 But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.
The gospel… we speak… pleasing… God.
The only thing you can do that is TRULY (spiritually) pleasing to God, is to believe and preach the gospel.
How can I say that?
Because other than the 2 instances of God being “well pleased” that we just saw…
Hebrews 13:16 … with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Isaiah 42:21 The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; …
…which are both about speaking WORDS, and preaching the gospel, to save others…
every other instance of God being “well pleased” (of which there are 6 more), is about Jesus Christ.
All 6 are pretty much equivalent. So I’ll just give 1 example of the 6…
Matthew 3:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Jesus Christ is the only person that is ever said to have “well pleased” God.
So if you are not JUST AS RIGHTEOUS as Jesus Christ, then you have no Scriptural basis for thinking that you are “well pleasing” to God. If you don’t have God’s righteousness, you are not pleasing to God.
If you do not have the words of the true gospel abiding in you… if you never understood them, believed them, and confessed them unto salvation… then you have never pleased God, and you are incapable of doing His GOOD PLEASURE.
Jesus said “WITHOUT me, ye CAN do NOTHING”.
But IN Jesus, IN Christ, IN the Spirit, IN New Jerusalem, a true saved man CAN spiritually, work together with God, to build God’s house.
Nehemiah 2:17-18 Then said I unto them, … come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, … And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.
That is the only instance of “good work” in the entire OT.
Building Jerusalem on the Earth was the only thing in the entire OT that was ever called a “good work”.
But building Jerusalem on the Earth is not a TRUE good work.
Building Jerusalem on the Earth is a figure of a true good work.
True good works were only PICTURED in the OT. But they were not truly available to them.
Neither are they available to us in our flesh today. Fleshly good works are only A FIGURE of true good works. Men’s flesh is just not capable of doing TRUE good works.
True good works last for ever.
A true good work is building the Heavenly Jerusalem. Building a house which endures for ever.
Psalms 125:1 They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.
The true good work is to produce Christians. Believers. Living stones in a spiritual house; a heavenly house. Producing Christians is the true good work. That is what we labor to create, together with the Lord, and in the Lord.
Paul said:
1 Corinthians 9:1 … are not ye my work in the Lord?
Living stones in New Jerusalem. People. Saved people in the Lord.
Those are the true good works of a Christian.
That is how, and that is where, the Lord is “well pleased”.
1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
It doesn’t say “your labor FOR the Lord is not in vain”. It doesn’t say “your labor is not in vain if you do it FOR the Lord”. Its not about one’s motivation. It is about one’s LOCATION!
It says that labor IN THE LORD, is not in vain.
Labor in the flesh, is in vain. All labor on the Earth, is in vain.
Labor in Christ is “not in vain”. Labor in the Spirit, is not in vain. Labor in HEAVEN is not in vain. Labor in mount Zion, is not in vain.
Earthly works are not eternal. Thus they are IN VAIN. They will all burn up.
But spiritual labour, in Christ, adding souls to the body of Christ, building the temple of God in heaven, that is “NOT IN VAIN”. Those works cannot perish. They cannot burn up. They abide for ever.
Those works are WELL PLEASING. Those works are His good pleasure.
Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure [i.e. to preach the gospel, to save souls].
Earthly good works are not proof of salvation. Jesus doesn’t do those works in us.
But if you could show me a true, heavenly, spiritual good work? Show me a living stone? Show me a pure thing, that cannot sin, and cannot die, and cannot be corrupted.. an eternal thing that cannot perish?
Okay then. I would agree… THAT is proof of someone’s salvation. That is proof that someone is IN Christ.
Because whoever did that work, whoever produced that thing… could not have produced it outside of Christ. No one can produce a living stone, in a heavenly building that endures for ever, WITHOUT Christ.
John 15:5 … without me ye can do nothing.
Created unto good works
Here is another passage that is misunderstood and misapplied to the flesh, and used to teach that “God comes in and helps and makes Christians do good works in this world”…
Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Oh, the false prophets and false brethren love this one!! “See! See! Christians are created unto good works! So if you’re really saved you WILL do good works! You just can’t help but do them, cause God MAKES you!”
But really think about that: “we are…created…unto good works”… How can that be true?
Why would a person need to be created unto good works, if he was already capable of doing them?
If a person is already ABLE to do good works, if he already CAN do them, then he has no need to be CREATED unto them. Why does he need God to create him to do good works, if he is already, naturally ABLE to do them? If a person CAN do good works, then he was ALREADY created unto them.
What is the purpose of God’s workmanship?
Lost people think “saved people do good works more often”. “Christians want to do good works more than lost people do.”
Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
“we are…created…unto good works…THAT WE SHOULD walk in them” …
Notice: That really isn’t saying that we WILL do good works. It is saying we SHOULD do them, because we are now ABLE to do good works. Its not about what Christians will do, it is about what they CAN do.
If at salvation we were “created IN Christ Jesus UNTO good works”, then that necessitates that we COULD NOT DO those good works BEFORE we were saved. We could not do good works when we were lost, “in the flesh”, and not “in Christ”.
“Without me, ye can do NOTHING”, Jesus said.
“We are created unto good works” necessitates that lost people CANNOT DO the same good works that saved people CAN do.
You can’t take this verse honestly, word for word, and believe that Christians and unsaved people are BOTH capable of doing good works.
But we know that they CAN do the same good works in the flesh. They CAN do the works of the law: they can do the works of the “moral law”.
They can clean up their lives.
They can give to the poor.
They can clothe the naked.
They can dig wells for the thirsty, who have no clean drinking water.
They can build houses for the homeless.
They can love their neighbors.
They can even read the Bible and go to church.
They can do every fleshly good works that Christians can do.
And Christians can sin every sin that unbelievers can sin.
There is no difference in our CAPABILITIES.
So how can “we are…created in Christ Jesus unto good works” apply to the FLESH?!? It can’t!
True good works cannot be done in the flesh. They cannot be done with hands. They cannot be done ON THE EARTH. They can only be done “in Christ Jesus”.
In Christ Jesus… THAT is where we are created unto good works. Not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. In Christ. In heaven. NOT on Earth.
It just makes a complete mess of things if you try to apply God’s works to men’s flesh… if you refuse to divide flesh from Spirit, and fleshly works from spiritual works.
A true good work is only done In the Spirit, IN CHRIST.
Without me (outside of Christ) ye can do nothing!
Men in the flesh cannot do true good works. What that means is.. your flesh can only do evil works.
That is a very tough pill to swallow for people, but I believe it is true!
Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
In your flesh, you CANNOT perform that which is good (true good). Flesh cannot do it. NONE doeth good.
Even when we WANT to do good. Even when a saved person WANTS to do good, he can’t perform it. He can’t even figure out HOW to perform it. Why? Because our flesh is not CAPABLE of doing good!
Jeremiah 4:22 For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
The reason God had to create Christians UNTO good works, is because we did not have the ABILITY to do them BEFORE salvation.
Mankind, in the flesh, wants to do good, tries to do good… but doesn’t know how to!
Mankind, in the flesh, has no KNOWLEDGE of HOW to do TRUE good. Man is naturally INCAPABLE of doing good. Not just incapable of doing good consistently over the course of a long life… incapable of doing good at all… even one! Men don’t know HOW to do good. Not TRUE good anyways.
Feb 17 2025
Hebrews 6 & 10 – The Impossibility of Salvation – Part 11
Hebrews 6 & 10 – The Impossibility of Salvation – Part 11
The Lord’s “good pleasure” is not in the same old things of the Old Testament. It is not in fleshly, earthly things.
Hebrews 10:6-9 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. 7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. 8 Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; 9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
This isn’t just about animal sacrifices. It is about all things under the old law. Fleshly good things. Worldly fruit. All things that you could do or you could offer under the first covenant, are not pleasing to God. Nothing under the first covenant was pleasing to God.
Loving God and loving your neighbor in the flesh (which IS THE LAW), was not pleasing to God.
So why would the works of our hands be pleasing to God now? Why would fleshly good works be “his good pleasure”? They aren’t.
Micah 6:7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
The fruit of your body is not pleasing to God. Your good works, your love, your kindness, your compassion, your giving, your meekness and gentleness. The things that come out of your body are FRUITS of YOUR BODY.
He doesn’t want any FRUIT of your body. He has no pleasure in the works of your hands.
It isn’t just animal sacrifices offered “by the law” that were not pleasing to God.
Fleshly good works are done “by the law” too… the whole law hangs on TWO good works.
The things that are offered to God BY the law, are not pleasing to Him. So fleshly good works are NOT a true pleasing sacrifice to God. Fleshly things cannot please God.
But in the spirit of every Christian, there is the ability to do true good, to serve God in truth. To offer up spiritual sacrifices. Spiritual fruit. To bring forth the words of eternal life as fruit, which IS well pleasing to God.
Every Christian CAN produce TRUE good things. They have the words of God in them, and have the ability to speak them. They are labourers together with God, and God is responsible for what they do spiritually, and what they produce spiritually.
Isaiah 57:19 I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.
THOSE are the works that we can credit God for:
Producing the gospel of peace out of our mouths.
That is the fruit that God is responsible for producing in us.
Hebrews 13:15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. … 16… for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Jesus Christ. The words of Jesus Christ… those are the acceptable sacrifice, the fruit, that pleases God.
That fruit makes PEACE between God and men.
You’ll recall Hebrews 12 calls it:
Hebrews 12:11 … the peaceable fruit of righteousness …
James 3:18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
That fruit, that fruit of RIGHTEOUSNESS, out of our mouths, is what TRULY pleases God.
But that fruit of RIGHTEOUSNESS, which pleases God, is not fruit of OUR OWN righteousness.
That fruit of righteousness is not our fleshly good works, nor is it a result of US doing good works in this world.
Isaiah 42:21 The LORD is well pleased for his [Jesus’] righteousness’ sake; …
God is pleased by HIS OWN RIGHTOUESNESS.
The only way for men to please God is to receive HIS righteousness, and give others HIS righteousness.
A true Christian is able to do a true good work: to SPEAK the fruit of righteousness.
But it is all in the SPIRIT. It is not in your flesh. God is not in your flesh, and His good pleasure is not done in your flesh. He is not pleased in your flesh. He is not pleased with your fleshly good works.
Romans 8:8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Your righteousness (your fleshly good works… love God, love your neighbor) is NOT “well pleasing” to God. Only HIS righteousness is well pleasing to God.
And that righteousness was not available to men under the OT.
Isaiah 46:13 I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.
Isaiah 56:1 Thus saith the LORD, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.
God’s righteousness is not in you doing fleshly good works.
Every fleshly good work, every bit of loving your neighbor was available under the Old Covenant.
Yet NONE of it pleased God. God’s righteousness was not available yet.
True righteousness, which pleases God, is what Jesus came to PREACH.
Psalms 40:6-9 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. [No fleshly offerings pleased God. Man’s righteousness, man’s good works, did not please God. No true righteousness was available, nor is available now in the flesh. Fleshly good works COULD NOT please God. Man had no way to truly please God. So what did God do?] 7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, 8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. 9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.
God himself, became a man, to bring near HIS righteousness, and to give it to mankind, by WORDS… by PREACHING WORDS.
A Christian preaching the gospel, is producing the fruit of righteousness.
A Christian preaching the words of God’s righteousness, that is what PLEASES God.
1 Corinthians 1:21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
It pleased God to SAVE people. It pleased God (by preaching, by wisdom) to save those that believe.
That is “his good pleasure”.
That is what it PLEASED God to do: to save men by PREACHING.
Galatians 1:15-16 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, 16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:
Get saved, and save others. That is what is pleasing to God.
Not mankind’s good works. Not loving your neighbor. Preaching Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 2:4 But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.
The gospel… we speak… pleasing… God.
The only thing you can do that is TRULY (spiritually) pleasing to God, is to believe and preach the gospel.
How can I say that?
Because other than the 2 instances of God being “well pleased” that we just saw…
Hebrews 13:16 … with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Isaiah 42:21 The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; …
…which are both about speaking WORDS, and preaching the gospel, to save others…
every other instance of God being “well pleased” (of which there are 6 more), is about Jesus Christ.
All 6 are pretty much equivalent. So I’ll just give 1 example of the 6…
Matthew 3:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Jesus Christ is the only person that is ever said to have “well pleased” God.
So if you are not JUST AS RIGHTEOUS as Jesus Christ, then you have no Scriptural basis for thinking that you are “well pleasing” to God. If you don’t have God’s righteousness, you are not pleasing to God.
If you do not have the words of the true gospel abiding in you… if you never understood them, believed them, and confessed them unto salvation… then you have never pleased God, and you are incapable of doing His GOOD PLEASURE.
Jesus said “WITHOUT me, ye CAN do NOTHING”.
But IN Jesus, IN Christ, IN the Spirit, IN New Jerusalem, a true saved man CAN spiritually, work together with God, to build God’s house.
Nehemiah 2:17-18 Then said I unto them, … come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, … And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.
That is the only instance of “good work” in the entire OT.
Building Jerusalem on the Earth was the only thing in the entire OT that was ever called a “good work”.
But building Jerusalem on the Earth is not a TRUE good work.
Building Jerusalem on the Earth is a figure of a true good work.
True good works were only PICTURED in the OT. But they were not truly available to them.
Neither are they available to us in our flesh today. Fleshly good works are only A FIGURE of true good works. Men’s flesh is just not capable of doing TRUE good works.
True good works last for ever.
A true good work is building the Heavenly Jerusalem. Building a house which endures for ever.
Psalms 125:1 They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.
The true good work is to produce Christians. Believers. Living stones in a spiritual house; a heavenly house. Producing Christians is the true good work. That is what we labor to create, together with the Lord, and in the Lord.
Paul said:
1 Corinthians 9:1 … are not ye my work in the Lord?
Living stones in New Jerusalem. People. Saved people in the Lord.
Those are the true good works of a Christian.
That is how, and that is where, the Lord is “well pleased”.
1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
It doesn’t say “your labor FOR the Lord is not in vain”. It doesn’t say “your labor is not in vain if you do it FOR the Lord”. Its not about one’s motivation. It is about one’s LOCATION!
It says that labor IN THE LORD, is not in vain.
Labor in the flesh, is in vain. All labor on the Earth, is in vain.
Labor in Christ is “not in vain”. Labor in the Spirit, is not in vain. Labor in HEAVEN is not in vain. Labor in mount Zion, is not in vain.
Earthly works are not eternal. Thus they are IN VAIN. They will all burn up.
But spiritual labour, in Christ, adding souls to the body of Christ, building the temple of God in heaven, that is “NOT IN VAIN”. Those works cannot perish. They cannot burn up. They abide for ever.
Those works are WELL PLEASING. Those works are His good pleasure.
Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure [i.e. to preach the gospel, to save souls].
Earthly good works are not proof of salvation. Jesus doesn’t do those works in us.
But if you could show me a true, heavenly, spiritual good work? Show me a living stone? Show me a pure thing, that cannot sin, and cannot die, and cannot be corrupted.. an eternal thing that cannot perish?
Okay then. I would agree… THAT is proof of someone’s salvation. That is proof that someone is IN Christ.
Because whoever did that work, whoever produced that thing… could not have produced it outside of Christ. No one can produce a living stone, in a heavenly building that endures for ever, WITHOUT Christ.
John 15:5 … without me ye can do nothing.
Created unto good works
Here is another passage that is misunderstood and misapplied to the flesh, and used to teach that “God comes in and helps and makes Christians do good works in this world”…
Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Oh, the false prophets and false brethren love this one!! “See! See! Christians are created unto good works! So if you’re really saved you WILL do good works! You just can’t help but do them, cause God MAKES you!”
But really think about that: “we are…created…unto good works”… How can that be true?
Why would a person need to be created unto good works, if he was already capable of doing them?
If a person is already ABLE to do good works, if he already CAN do them, then he has no need to be CREATED unto them. Why does he need God to create him to do good works, if he is already, naturally ABLE to do them? If a person CAN do good works, then he was ALREADY created unto them.
What is the purpose of God’s workmanship?
Lost people think “saved people do good works more often”. “Christians want to do good works more than lost people do.”
Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
“we are…created…unto good works…THAT WE SHOULD walk in them” …
Notice: That really isn’t saying that we WILL do good works. It is saying we SHOULD do them, because we are now ABLE to do good works. Its not about what Christians will do, it is about what they CAN do.
If at salvation we were “created IN Christ Jesus UNTO good works”, then that necessitates that we COULD NOT DO those good works BEFORE we were saved. We could not do good works when we were lost, “in the flesh”, and not “in Christ”.
“Without me, ye can do NOTHING”, Jesus said.
“We are created unto good works” necessitates that lost people CANNOT DO the same good works that saved people CAN do.
You can’t take this verse honestly, word for word, and believe that Christians and unsaved people are BOTH capable of doing good works.
But we know that they CAN do the same good works in the flesh. They CAN do the works of the law: they can do the works of the “moral law”.
They can clean up their lives.
They can give to the poor.
They can clothe the naked.
They can dig wells for the thirsty, who have no clean drinking water.
They can build houses for the homeless.
They can love their neighbors.
They can even read the Bible and go to church.
They can do every fleshly good works that Christians can do.
And Christians can sin every sin that unbelievers can sin.
There is no difference in our CAPABILITIES.
So how can “we are…created in Christ Jesus unto good works” apply to the FLESH?!? It can’t!
True good works cannot be done in the flesh. They cannot be done with hands. They cannot be done ON THE EARTH. They can only be done “in Christ Jesus”.
In Christ Jesus… THAT is where we are created unto good works. Not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. In Christ. In heaven. NOT on Earth.
It just makes a complete mess of things if you try to apply God’s works to men’s flesh… if you refuse to divide flesh from Spirit, and fleshly works from spiritual works.
A true good work is only done In the Spirit, IN CHRIST.
Without me (outside of Christ) ye can do nothing!
Men in the flesh cannot do true good works. What that means is.. your flesh can only do evil works.
That is a very tough pill to swallow for people, but I believe it is true!
Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
In your flesh, you CANNOT perform that which is good (true good). Flesh cannot do it. NONE doeth good.
Even when we WANT to do good. Even when a saved person WANTS to do good, he can’t perform it. He can’t even figure out HOW to perform it. Why? Because our flesh is not CAPABLE of doing good!
Jeremiah 4:22 For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
The reason God had to create Christians UNTO good works, is because we did not have the ABILITY to do them BEFORE salvation.
Mankind, in the flesh, wants to do good, tries to do good… but doesn’t know how to!
Mankind, in the flesh, has no KNOWLEDGE of HOW to do TRUE good. Man is naturally INCAPABLE of doing good. Not just incapable of doing good consistently over the course of a long life… incapable of doing good at all… even one! Men don’t know HOW to do good. Not TRUE good anyways.
By Pastor • Christian Doctrine, False Prophets/Doctrine, Problem Texts • 0