What does it mean that we were created for good works (Ephesians 2:10)?

I maintain, therefore, that the salvation spoken of in Ephesians is already complete for him that believes; so absolute indeed, that none can add anything to it, because it would be adding something to Christ, and to what Christ has done. And this may not be, cannot be, seeing that it is all the free, unmerited, unmingled mercy of God. And this is the great thing for the soul. Am I able, without question of what I am, or what I hope to be, or what I ought to do for God, to trust Him now? Can I rest all that I have been and am upon Christ, without any promises or pledges of mine — without any hope or thought of what I may do, because God might take me away in a moment? Can I rest entirely and implicitly in Him? Think of the case of the dying thief, which is a living and notable testimony of salvation by grace throughout all ages. Others may have a work to do afterwards; but there we have one who was an object of grace in the last hours of his life. And there is no other way. Had he lived for a thousand years afterwards, he would not have been a whit more secure by grace than he was then. It is of great moment to bring our souls to the touchstone from time to time — whether we are resting solely upon the grace of God toward us, not upon what people call grace in us, i.e., our faithfulness toward Him. For this is a common notion of grace. They mean a great change that has taken place in the heart in respect of God. This, however, is not what God calls grace, but what He has given gratuitously in the work that Christ has done for sin. "By grace are ye saved through faith." The Spirit shuts out all thought of man's contributing the faith or taking any credit because coming to Christ; for He says immediately after, "And that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." This probably refers, not only to the salvation, but to the faith; it was all the gift of God, and not man's production: "Not of works, lest any man should boast." On the contrary, instead of being a question of our works, we are God's handiwork, the new creation for His own praise. "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." There you have a most plain proof that there could be no carelessness as to the walk of the believer; but the same verse cuts off all thought that man's doing can be the ground or means of salvation.

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."

What a wonderful place is this that we are put into! We have been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God before prepared that we should walk in them. We have a new character of life altogether that the law never contemplated, and we have a correspondingly new character of good works.

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.

Again, the result of new creation is seen in a life of good works. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God has ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Good works are works that spring from a heart devoted to Christ with an intelligent sense of what is pleasing to God. Good works according to God would not be the building up of the present course of things an this world. Many a work done by Christians is acclaimed as a good work, when all the time it is only building up that which will be burned up in the day of judgment.

What we have just been looking at is the new creation mind found in the saints; whereas Ephesians 2:10 brings us to new creation practice and action. We are created "to good works," in which God purposes we should walk. James, in his second chapter, speaks not of good works but of the works of faith; that is of work energized by faith, and consequently manifesting it before the eyes of men. Here we do have good works; that is, works that express the goodness of God. Being God's workmanship, created by Him in Christ Jesus, we have the inward capacity to do works of this exalted character, and the obligation to do them rests upon us. These good works were supremely and perfectly done by Christ, and as created in Christ, we are to walk in them — works of that order, though of course not in the same measure as He.

After Paul had made clear in Ephesians 2:9 that salvation is the work of God without any works done by men, he continues: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." This shows on the one hand that it is God's purpose that His people should perform good works and on the other that we need not look out restlessly for the good works we are to do, because God has ordained them for us. We simply have to abound in them. "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work" (2 Cor. 9:8).

The more we meditate about this subject the more surprised we may be how often the Word of God speaks about good works in the life of a believer. We will just mention a few passages, highlighting the particular exhortation contained in the different verses.

(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.

Verse 9. That salvation is "not of works," results inevitably from the doctrine already stated. Instead of being won by his own effort, salvation is received by the believer as the end of his faith (1 Peter 1:9). But the reason elsewhere given is here also added it is not of works, "lest any man should boast." God, who is seeking the glory of his Christ, will still all human boasting. He does so now with His elect by the power of His saving grace. He will do so in the coming day of judgment, when the haughtiness of man shall bow before the fearful presence of His holiness. It is evident that boasting is excluded where salvation is of grace. Believers are not boasters but worshippers, adoring with a wise and understanding heart the God whom they have learned to know and love, through His manifestation of His own rich grace in Jesus. The doctrine of this verse, and of the entire passage of which it forms a part, may be easily paralleled by the attentive reader of Scripture; for it is the fundamental doctrine of the Gospel. Happy are they who, in a clear perception of the mystery of saving grace, are kept from glorying in anything but the cross of Him through whose sore travail all this great salvation is their own.

Verse 10. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained (or prepared) that we should walk in them." Instead of working, we ourselves are wrought of God. Two words occur in the verse, which it is proper to distinguish. First, the saints collectively are styled "the workmanship" (poiema) of God. The force of this expression is to show the completeness, whether of the Church in its unity, or of the believer as a particular member of the body of Christ. A Christian, when considered as a vessel of saving mercy, is not in process of formation, but completely made. But we are said also to have been "created (ktisthentes) in Christ Jesus." We cannot hesitate as to the intention of the Holy Ghost in his selection of such a word. It is, beyond doubt, that the absolute originality of this work of God might be forcibly impressed on our minds. It is not an adaptation of something that previously existed, but a new creation. A believer carries nothing of himself into Christ; he is another and a new man. The old nature having been set aside judicially in the cross of Christ, we receive in Him, and from Him, another nature, a new and altogether different life. Hence the perfect propriety of describing the conversion of a soul to God by an expression which conveys nothing less than the idea of primary and absolute creation. Identity is not destroyed, fin• it is we who are thus said to be new made. On the other hand, it is no longer we, but Christ. Being naturally lost, we are found in Him. If we are really alive to God, our life is by the faith of Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us (Gal. 2:20).

But this creation of God is also described in its intended results. If God creates His people anew, it is that they may glorify Him by their obedience. For they who are truly sons obey the Father that begat them. His children must bear some resemblance to Himself in their desires and their ways. And God has perfectly provided for this end. The good works in which believers are to walk have been prepared beforehand by Himself. This is accordingly expressed with much distinctness in the verse before us. We are created "unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." The intention of the Apostle in the previous verses is very manifest. Nothing could be more important, in the eye of the Spirit of God, than that Christians should be preserved from the danger of confounding the practical effects of grace in themselves, with the completed work of God by which He had definitively stablished them in Christ as living members of His Body. Having, however, declared thus emphatically the great doctrine of sovereign grace, he does not fail to state, with equal clearness, the moral results of God's saving power, as they exhibit themselves, in a greater or less abundance, in the conduct of His people.

The doctrine of good works is a correlative of that which declares the creative power of God to be the origin of Christian life. Union with Christ is as truly the effective cause of acceptable works, as it is the security of the believer's life. The Lord has very plainly taught us this. That apart from Him we can do nothing, is affirmed not less emphatically than that without faith in Him we are destitute of life (John 15:5). But, in the language of the Spirit, to abide in Christ is to bear fruit to God. Faith without works is dead; for true faith binds us to the Living Vine, in whom our fruit as well as our life is found. Thus the quantity of our fruit will be in proportion to our faith; for faith is the working arm of our strength. It is also by that leading string that the sons of God are conducted by the Spirit in the way of peace. As to the Pattern of our imitation, it is JESUS; who has not only saved us, but has left us an example that we should follow His steps. Flesh will not cease to lust in a believer against the spirit; but the desires of the new and inner man are wholly towards God. That which is born of God still cleaves to Him in love, preserving its natural bias amid all the oppositions of an alien will, which never changes. Moreover, the Spirit lusts against the flesh; and, being God, will ultimately conquer, though the struggle may be long. The assertion of good works as the necessary, because Divinely-prepared, consequence of saving faith, is intended not only to act in warning power on the conscience of the real believer, but to frustrate by anticipation the device of Satan, who endeavours to lead sinners to destruction by separating holiness from grace.

The concluding verses of the section (8-10) show that salvation is entirely by grace on God's part, pure favor at a time when we deserved wrath and judgment. "Through faith" is the means by which we receive such grace, faith being not in itself a thing of merit, but that which rightly recognizes all merit in the Lord Jesus Christ, having confidence simply in Himself. "And that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." Even faith to believe is seen as God's gift for in our natural state faith was far from us. God alone has worked marvelously in changing matters, giving us faith and salvation by grace, and indeed every spiritual blessing.

Verse 9 firmly guards against the human natural thought to add works to grace and faith: "not of works, lest anyone should boast." All occasion for people's self exaltation is utterly taken away. We are reduced to our true place and God is exalted. Believers are seen to be "His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus" (v.10). Precious work of new creation, by power infinitely higher than all human work! Let us delight to think of what it means to be the subjects of God's miraculous work. Yet His work in us is "for good works" (v.10), for good works are the proper result after God's work has brought salvation. Yet God has before prepared even these good works for us to walk in. Therefore, if we believers do good works, we have nothing to boast of, nor do we have any excuse for not doing them.

The way in which God works for the salvation of men precludes boasting. God is the Worker today. Man never merited anything by his own works except condemnation; for the flesh can produce nothing acceptable to God. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.” In our natural state we are our own workmanship, helped on by Satan who works in the children of disobedience. But as in Christ Jesus we are God’s workmanship, a new creation in Christ, and are to walk as He walked, and exhibit in our practical lives the beauties and perfections of that heavenly life that was His, and that is now ours by Has quickening power. What a privilege! May we see to it that it is a privilege which we heartily embrace!

Such then is God's grace towards us, who were once walking "according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air … fulfilling the desires of the flesh … children of wrath." (Eph. 2:2-3.) Grace has delivered us from this lost state, quickened us together with Christ, made us members of His body, given us His own acceptance before God, and associated us as fellow-heirs in His universal dominion. Surely this is worthy of God! He has thus wrought for His own glory, "that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." (v. 7.) All is of grace. Works can have no place here, nor the boastings of man. But is God indifferent to good works? Nay; "for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." (vv. 8-10.) As to our standing, good works have no place; for we are God's workmanship. But this very fact demands that good works should follow as a result. We are not created by good works, but we are created unto them.