What are good works according to the Bible?

In Titus 2:7, 9 we have "good works" spoken of, and strongly enforced upon Christians. They are the fruit of that new life and nature of which the Christian partakes, which has its vitality in faith, and of which the Spirit of God is the power. They are the good fruit which grows upon the good tree.

This walk, worthy of the Lord and pleasing to Him, is the necessary basis of fruitfulness. We may distinguish between the "fruit of the Spirit," spoken of in Galatians 5:22-23, and "being fruitful," according to our 10th verse. There it is fruit produced in the way of Christian character. Here it is fruitfulness in good works. The former lays the foundation for the latter, but both are necessary. Good works are the necessary outcome of a character which is really formed after Christ. Good works are works which give expression to the divine life and character in the Christian, and which are according to the Word of God. We are to be marked by every good work.

Here, then, we have the believer the workmanship of God in Christ, and this "unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." This is a very remarkable expression, and one that we cannot too much weigh. It is not the good works of the law — not those which might seem so in human judgment, but an offering of a new character, heavenly and of grace, which was in God's mind and all determined about us before the scene existed into which we are now brought. The same God who had a purpose of saving us and blessing us with Christ before the world was made, had a certain line of walk, a special course of action, in which He expected the recipients of such favour to walk. It is not the thought of the good we ought to do as men, as a means of showing that we are willing to obey God under the law. It is not loving God, and one's neighbour as oneself simply, but another type and display of love altogether. It flows from our new relationships, and if it be exercised in loving God and loving those around us, it is according to the rich love which God Himself has shown us in Christ. It is not merely duty, let it be the very highest form of obligation. If a man were to walk merely in this, though ever so well, he would fall short of what a Christian ought to be, and they are not the "good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." The law was brought in by Israel's presumption and self-conceit; it was not something that God had before ordained for His people to walk in. Therefore it is said in Romans, that law came in by the way (περεισῆλθεν). It was a thing that entered incidentally, as a sort of parenthesis brought in for a special but very momentous purpose. And it has done its work, and the believer, even if he had been under it, is brought clear out of it and made alive to God. He has a new husband, and is dead to the old one. But here the truth is put in a very beautiful form, in harmony with the character of the whole epistle. As the calling and the purpose and all that God thought about us were before the world was, so even the character of the believer's walk was ordained before ever we came into the world and is in its own nature entirely above it. It is a question of our manifesting God aright, as He is now displaying Himself. "Be ye followers of God as dear children."

But there is to be a present effect as well as a future result of this wonderful work of God. "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." God designs us not for a life of mere ecstasy, like that of a monk shut up in a cell, but for a life of practical, real, good works. Believers are not to be idle spectators but actual workers. What are the good works? Is it whatever we take into our heads? Is it to do what we consider good, and nice, and amiable, to benefit our fellowmen, to elevate mankind, and such like ideas, by which so many are governed? No, we are not left to follow our own fancies. God has before prepared the good works in which it is His will that we should walk. Not only are we ourselves His workmanship, but the very sphere and character of the works which we are to do are already prepared by Him for us. How are we to get into these things and carry them out? Faith, which accepts what is of God, and absolute dependence, which characterises the new man, make all quite simple. If we forget, or neglect, or disregard the fact that we have been taken out of all that which belongs to man naturally, and brought into this new sphere, we shall very readily drift with the multitude, and find ourselves engaged in a hundred things which God never intended us to be engaged in, and practically leaving aside those things which He would have us occupied about — much less imposing, perhaps, but far more agreeable to Him. "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." Nothing can please God so much as to do His will; nothing pleases us so much naturally as to do our own will. If we have really got rid of ourselves we shall have done with our will as well as with our responsibilities, for both alike go in the death of Christ. And if we through grace have accepted God's will instead of our own it will be just as real a pleasure to us — indeed, a far more real pleasure — to carry out what we find to be His will than it would be to do that which our own hearts might suggest.

Works of which God is the source and which are for His glory. These works could not possibly be those of Gentile darkness, nor are they the dead works of Judaism; they are the reproduction of Christ in our lives, the manifestation of the new life we have as the result of quickening. The exhortations which come before us in the last three chapters would give us an outline of what these works are. It is striking to read that not only were we foreordained in Christ Jesus, but the works which are the fruit of that new life were also foreordained that we should walk in them. As we do so it will become abundantly evident that God has used His power to begin a new work in us, and thus we shall be living witnesses to the wonderful place of favour God has brought us into, in that already Christ is manifested in us in testimony.

“By their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7:20), is a test so obvious that it needs no proving. If a young man or woman professes to be converted, it will certainly be evidenced by a change of life. It is true that salvation is by grace alone, through faith, “not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:9). It is equally true that believers “are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). These works do not procure salvation in the smallest degree, but are the evidence that we are saved. They are the product, not of the old nature, not of the flesh, but of the new nature, the new man “created in Christ Jesus.” The very grace of God that has brought us salvation teaches us “that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world” (Titus 2:12).

So far from good works proving the existence of faith, they may be the fruit of unbelief itself, as when the Romanist, or Pharisee, rests on them as a ground of salvation, or a help towards it, instead of resting entirely upon the precious blood of Christ. Again, they may be the fruit of natural kindness of heart, though this is probably very rare, apart from the direct or indirect influences of Christianity. But let us remember that grace cannot exist in the heart and good works be absent. For instance, the very hour of the night in which the jailor is converted, and before he is baptized, he washes the stripes of Paul and Silas. What God looks for in the saints - that is, in justified sinners - is, that they should be good people. Of old He planted a vineyard to get fruit. That was Israel. We now are branches in the true vine in order to bear fruit. So in John 5, those who rise to life are those "that have done good." This of course shows that none can truly do good apart from faith and the new birth; but it makes manifest God's delight in those that do good. So again, in the judgment of Matt. 25 (where we know that the Church does not appear), only those are saved whose faith found practical expression in good works. "I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink," etc. See how the apostle presses good works on us in Titus 3: "Put them in mind … to be ready to every good work … I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men." And again, "Let our's also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful." Would it not be much for the health of our souls if, when we had a little time, or strength, or money that we could spare, we looked round to see what good we could do? This kind of a soul Dorcas was. Her death was such a loss that she was given back again. People of this kind also adorned the corrupt church of Thyatira. See, too, what is said of the widow in 1 Tim. 5, "Well reported of for good works;" and "if she have diligently followed every good work;" and this woman had brought up children as well. Now we happily see people around us bearing this character. Here is one sitting up a night with a sick person. Another running in in a spare hour to make a dying saint's bed. Another taking charge of the little children to let a mother get to the meeting. There are numbers of such things to be done that would relieve many an honest groan, but could we be enrolled among those who have diligently followed every good work?

(Vv. 8, 9). All is brought to pass by the grace of God, and every blessing we enjoy is the gift of God. The very faith by which salvation is received is the gift of God. The works of man have no place in securing this blessedness; all is of God, and hence there is no room for man to boast.

(V. 10). This leads to a further truth. Not only are our works shut out — for God has done all the work — but we also are His workmanship, and, as such, we form part of a new creation in Christ Jesus. If, however, the works of the law are excluded as a means of salvation, we are not to infer that works have no place in the Christian life. There are indeed works suited to the place of blessing into which we are brought, which God has before prepared that we should walk in them. These works will come before us in the later part of the Epistle, in which we are exhorted to walk worthy of the vocation, and to walk in love, to walk as children of light, and to walk carefully (Ephesians 4:1; Ephesians 5:2, 8, 15).

The “good works”, of which this verse speaks, are more than doing a good work, which it would be possible for a natural man, whose walk is anything but good, to do. Here believers are viewed as not only doing good works, but as walking in them. Moreover, the good works are prepared of God and lead to a godly walk.

Then the Apostle desires that we should be "bearing fruit in every good work" (N. Tn.). Fruit in the believer is always the expression of the character of Christ. The man of the world can do many good works; but he cannot bear fruit to God in his good works. The believer alone can express something of Christ in his good works, so that, in the good works that benefit man, there will be fruit for God.

A last instruction may be added — one already obvious from what has been said — viz., that the work of Dorcas was for cases of need. There is some danger, if not watchful, of seeking to gratify ourselves in ministry of a Dorcas character; of expending our efforts upon selected cases, of choosing such as commend themselves to us in one way or another, so that it will often happen that the needs of some of the poor saints are abundantly met, while those of others are almost entirely overlooked. The antidote is to have Christ Himself before us as the object of our ministry, only remembering that, as it was not our merit, but our necessities, that drew forth His heart in service for us, so likewise the only incentive to our loving ministry to His own should be their needs. In other words, all our service must be drawn forth by the constraining love of Christ; for it is possible to bestow all our goods to feed the poor and yet to be without divine charity (1 Cor. 13), and hence without any promptings of the heart of Christ. Christ, therefore, must be the motive; Christ must be the object, and Christ must be expressed in all our service. E. D.