What is work according to the Bible?

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.

There can be no question of doing till there is life in Christ. But, when converted, not only is the believer "ordained to good works," but to particular works. The Jew was to love God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself; but in the epistles there is that which is far higher. I am not only to love God with all my heart, and my neighbour as myself, but to be willing to lay down my life for the brethren. If God in His grace is pleased to work in me to make me like Christ, I am to be the display of what Christ Himself was, and all my works are to spring from the root laid down in Christ. So far from bringing into bondage, works are the greatest privilege. Is a soul converted? It is the life of Christ given to that soul, and there is not a single occasion in which that life is not to be shown forth, even in the giving of a tumbler of cold water. In your house, in every little thing that occurs, the Lord looks for fruit. Everything may be used to express the life of Christ in you; and instead of its being bondage, it enhances our joy in everything down here, because of enjoying all in connection with Christ and with God. A believer is not justified in saying, "What can I do?" knowing that God in His greatness comes into every particular of his life. If it be the question of Christ being everything to a saint, Christ cannot let him of from manifesting it in all the outgoings of his life down here. What will you trade on? What will you put on the loom to weave — if it be not Christ? G. V. W.

As to what one can do for the Lord, it is helpful to read Colossians 3:23-24, which was probably written to those who were menial servants, perhaps slaves: "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord... for ye serve the Lord Christ." Thus we learn that we can do our everyday, commonplace work as unto the Lord and serve Him in it. So whatever is given us to do, we are to do it heartily as to the Lord and glorify Him in it. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might" (Eccl. 9:10), is another helpful and encouraging word for our guidance in the matter of service for the Lord. Of Mary the Lord said, "She hath done what she could" (Mark 14:8). This is all that He expects of each of us. If we have a heart that is willing to serve the Lord and desirous of doing whatever He directs us to do, be it ever so small and commonplace, we will soon find that which we can do in service for Him and precious souls.

There must be a genuine conversion to God. This is a divine work from first to last. And what has the converted man got to do? He certainly has not to work for life, because he has it, even life eternal, as God's free gift, through Jesus Christ our Lord. He has not to work for salvation, because he is saved already — "saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation." What, then, is he called to do? "To serve the living and true God." How? When? Where? In everything; at all times, and in all places. The converted man has nothing else to do but to serve God. If he does anything else, he is positively untrue, unfaithful to that blessed Lord and Master who, ere ever He called him to serve, endowed him with the life, and the grace, and the power, whereby alone the service can be rendered.

In this Garden man was put, not to be idle and while away his time, but to dress and keep it. Even when in a state of innocence it was not good for man to have nothing to do. There was healthful occupation without hard labour and drudgery.

It is very illuminating that even in these days of man’s innocence, God did not intend man to be idle. He was to dress the garden and keep it. Labour would not be irksome. The ground was not cursed for man’s sin at that time. There were no thorns or thistles. Adam was given a task that was altogether pleasant, and to be desired. But God intended him to labour on the soil.

And into this scene of goodness and rest Adam was introduced But it is not said into God's rest. Both the work and the rest were peculiar to God, and man had no direct part in either, into the fruit of the one He entered, into the other believers will enter ([Heb 4) — ED.]; as it is written: "The Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it" (Gen. 2:15). Sin had not yet entered to disturb the scene of rest; nor had the curse yet been passed upon the ground, that sentenced it to bring forth thorns and thistles, so that henceforth, in labour and toil — in the sweat of his face — man must eat bread. The same word that before bid it bring forth every tree pleasant to the sight, and good for food — the tree of life also, and the tree of responsibility — and put Adam to enjoy all this goodness, in dressing and keeping it, in a manner we can have no experimental conception of, because the whole scene has long since passed away (Gen. 2) — bid it now (Gen. 3), because of Adam' s sin, bring forth thorns and thistles, and fixed on Adam the sentence we are all familiar with, "in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread." That is to say, labour and toil began with sin — the keeping and dressing of the garden was neither labour nor toil, in the language of Scripture — and that, so far as we read anything to the contrary, upon the first Sabbath that dawned upon the world (Compare Ecc. 2:22, etc.). That is why we find God, who in Genesis 2:2 had rested, here in Genesis 3:21 again at work to make coats of skin for Adam and his wife, who had found out their nakedness by their sin. Similarly the Lord said, in John 5:17, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." That is to say, the introduction of sin had broken in on God's rest. Nor could He rest again, until sin was put out. The types and shadows of the law could not do this, but the Son of God came and did it (1 John 3:8); "And now the shadows of the law Are all fulfilled, and all withdraw."

1915 320 Q. — Gen. 3:17. Did God curse the ground as a blessing to Adam and his seed, or as a just punishment for his sin, as it is said, "for thy sake"? In the two following verses it would seem that there was no work before this; whereas in Gen. 2:5 we read "there was not a man to till the ground," and again, in verse 15, "And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it." Was this work or not? That is, was not the first position of "dressing" and "keeping" of the same character as the later one of "tilling the ground from whence he was taken" (Gen. 3:23)? E.T.

A. — That the ground was cursed because of Adam's sin is what scripture plainly states. That there was no "work" before his fall is not so stated. Man placed in the garden "to dress it and to keep it" shows that it was not God's will that His creature should be idle. But there was no "toil" or "sorrow" connected with such occupation. Now thorns and thistles were to appear, and in the sweat of his face was man to eat bread. Weariness is known, and so also the sweetness of rest after labour. Idleness was one of the iniquities of Sodom (Ezek. 16:49). It had no place in innocency, nor will it be compatible with the millennium (Amos 9:13), when "the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose"; nor may we not add? — with the eternal state (Rev. 21). Labour here is good for all, and in it there is profit. For out of evil God can and does bring good.

Work for the Lord is necessary; there is much to be done for Him and the Lord is looking for servants, but our service must spring from love to Himself. Self and rivalry with others may enter into our service. Then love for the Lord is not the spring of our labours and they do not have the same value to the Lord as when done out of love to Him.

Our Lord did not omit the least little attention in His mercies. Not occupied with the greatness of His own work or the obligation of others to Him, His mind goes forth on the least occasions of one who had received the greatest of mercies. He perfects His work because all selfishness was absent from His mind. All comprehensive love flowed from perfect love, for there was no distracting medium of perception: "Tell it, said he, to no one." But He could not be hid. This is the spirit, so far above us, to seek. It is to us through faith. It works not merely not for a return, though it delights in it, but not from results, but from communion with Him who is love. It works by faith, and springs ever from Him who is above selfishness ever, in many shapes finding its way into our heart while it gives the real joy of love in the good done as to the blessing of another, but rests in Him from whom it flows. Nor will anything else make us workers together with Him, for our objects will always sink us in principle and communion, if we work for them. It is evidence of the reality of the work.