They said therefore to him, What should we do that we may work the works of God?
The Lord had just told the crowd to work for spiritual food. Their question back to Him sounds eager and obedient, but His answer overturns the assumption hidden inside it.
The crowd took the Lord's word about work and asked for instructions. One writer notes how willing they seemed:
This brought out their first question. He had said, Work for the spiritual food. They replied, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" They seemed to grasp something of what His words meant, and they looked ready to obey the call, if only they found out what they were to do.
The flaw is not in their willingness but in their confidence. They assume that whatever God asks, they can supply.
They show again the deep-rooted assumption of men in every condition, age and country, that fallen man is capable of working the works of God. They ignore their own sin, His holiness and majesty. It was the way of Cain, and the professing Christian world is as infected with it as Judaism or the pagan world. It is the universal lie of man, until the Holy Spirit brings him to repentance. Then, in the new life, he feels and judges the old life. He finds, as we see in Romans 7, that the question is not what he does but what he is. There is no help for him except deliverance from it all, and that comes in Christ, by faith.
The mistake was not new. Israel had made the same promise to God once before:
When the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, the Jews asked Him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" They had done the same thing before, when they said to God, "All that You have said to us we will do." Man flatters himself that all he needs to know is what he ought to do, and he will do it. Jesus did not flatter them, but said, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent."
One writer weighs the question itself and shows what it draws out of the Lord:
In chapter 5 Jesus is Son of God; here He is Son of man, and we shall see what faith in Him as such produces. The legal question of the crowd in verse 28, fairly vague and trivial, opens up this development. What must we do (they say), to be doing the works of God? This is the work of God (the Lord replies), that you believe in Him whom He has sent.
They asked about works in the plural. He answered with a single work — and that work is believing. This does not abolish good works; it puts them in their place.
Man may be blessed fully and securely, but only by grace, and so by faith. Faith gives the glory to God, and faith is itself His gift. So faith is the work of God. It shuts out man's working — not as the fruit of faith, for faith produces works, and plenty of good works, but as something that comes before faith or stands alongside it. And that is right. Otherwise it would have to suit God to be partner with man, and the believer would be the first to refuse that.
Another writer states it in the plainest terms:
The doing is not on our side, it is on God's side; it is Christ's doing, not ours, which brings salvation.
The Lord's answer points to a Person. He is the One the Father marked out with His own seal:
In what lovely, patient grace the Lord replies, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." Is He the One who, of all who ever walked this earth, was counted worthy to be sealed by God the Father? Then how clear it is that to believe in Him is what God must approve. Without that, God can accept nothing else.
- Question — They asked for a task list, ready to obey if only someone told them what to do.
- Assumption — Under the question lies a belief: that fallen man can work the works of God. It ignores his own sin and God's holiness.
- Answer — The Lord replies not with tasks but with one work: believe in the One He has sent.
- Reversal — The doing is not on our side but on God's. Faith itself is His gift, and it rules out any working of ours before it or beside it.
- Result — Faith does not cancel good works. It is what produces them, and produces them in plenty.
Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom *he* has sent.
Jesus had just fed the crowd, and now they ask Him for a list of works to do. Their question assumes something about themselves that He never grants.
They said to Him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." So, as He spoke clearly, they show their deep-rooted assumption once more. People in every state and age and country take it for granted that fallen man can work the works of God. They ignore their own sin, His holiness and majesty. It was the way of Cain; and the professing Christian world is as infected with it as Judaism or paganism.
They asked about "works," plural. He answered with one.
God asked for faith: believing in the Lord Jesus, the One He sent. He did not ask for activity in works, or for an offering brought to the altar in the Temple court. So God asked nothing beyond what a man could do. Not works, but faith, was the work of God for them.
The chapter also attaches a picture to that one work.
They ask then what they might do, and our Lord tells them there is but one work of God for them. It is to "believe in Him whom He has sent." He is the true Bread. So to believe in Him is to eat that Bread which has come down from heaven.
Calling faith a "work" could sound like a loophole — as though believing were a small task that earns the wage.
So the principle is clear. To the man who works, God counts the reward as a debt, not as grace. But the man who does not work, and instead believes in Him who justifies the ungodly — God counts his faith as righteousness. Man may be fully and securely blessed, but it is only of grace, and so by faith, which gives the glory to God, as itself His gift. So faith is the work of God, and it shuts out man's working. It does not shut out works as the fruit of faith, for faith produces plenty of good works. It shuts out any work that comes before faith or stands level with it.
Behind their question lay a wrong picture of God.
They knew neither their own helplessness nor God's grace, so they thought of God as One who makes demands of man. They had yet to learn that the grace of God does not demand works to get the blessing. It only asks that man should believe in the One Whom He has sent. Works would follow faith.
Faith here has a named Person as its object. The Father Himself has already marked that Person out.
Is He the One whom God the Father, of all who ever walked this earth, counted worthy to seal? How clear, then, that to believe in Him is what God must approve. Without that faith, God can accept nothing else.
The word "sent" carries weight of its own. It points back to a relationship that already existed before He came.
These words clearly imply that the relationship of Father existed before He, the Son, came out from Him. The same relationship, before He became man, stands revealed in the Lord's frequent saying that the Father sent Him, the Son. See John 5:30, 37 and John 6:29. The sense of these passages is plain and unmistakable, and it needs no forcing: the Lord came out from the One Who was the Father, and came into the world.
If faith is God's work, then God must produce it.
The work of God is to believe in Him whom God has sent. That belief, produced by the Holy Spirit, brings life and salvation. (There is also a belief which is purely mental!) ... The Holy Spirit is brooding over the darkness and chaos in the souls of men. He works in a moral way, awakening them to their true condition before God. The result is a new condition which answers to God.
- Assumption. The question "What must we do?" already carries the error. It assumes that fallen man can work the works of God.
- Answer. Christ reduces the plural to a singular: there is one work of God for them, and it is to believe in the One He sent.
- Grace. To the worker, wages are a debt. To the believer, God counts faith as righteousness. So the blessing stays a gift, and the glory stays God's.
- Object. Faith is not a feeling. It rests on a Person: the One the Father sealed, who came out from the Father before He came into the world.
- Result. There is a belief that is only mental. But the faith God works brings life, and good works follow it rather than earn it.