Saved for Good Works

Most claims in this book come as a sentence. This one comes as a picture, and a good one:

“It is like a student admitted to university without an exam deciding to prepare for the entrance exam again.”

The student holds his acceptance letter in his hand. The university let him in freely, with no test, no score, and no fee. Yet he sits up at night over practice papers, trying to prove that he deserves the place he has already been given. Anyone watching would shake his head, because the young man is already in.

The point of the picture is grace. We were admitted to God’s family without earning it, so why would anyone go back and try to earn it now? The conclusion usually drawn is that we should not go back to the Torah, because the Torah is the entrance exam and we have already been admitted.

Half of the Picture Is Right

The first half is exactly right, and this book stands on it. Paul says it in the sharpest terms:

Galatians 5:4 You have been severed from Messiah, you who are seeking to be justified by nomos νόμος nom'-os(law); you have fallen from charis χάρις khar'-ece(grace).

To seek to be declared righteous before God on the basis of keeping the Torah is to go back to the entrance exam. That is worse than pointless; it is falling from grace. Nothing in this book teaches such a thing. Admission is free, and it stays free.

So far, then, we agree with the picture of the student. The question is where the picture goes next.

The First Day of Class

Imagine the same student on the first morning of term. With his letter in his pocket, he walks past the lecture halls, goes back to his room, and stays there. Classes begin, and he skips them. Assignments are set, and he ignores them. When someone asks him why, he holds up his letter: “I was admitted without an exam. Why would I need to do coursework?”

Anyone watching would shake his head again, and harder this time, because the student has confused two different things. The exam was how students got in, and the classes are what students do once they are in. Being admitted for free never meant that the classes disappeared. It meant that he now had a place in them.

That is the distinction the picture quietly blurs. The Torah plays a different part in each half. As a way of being admitted, of being justified, it is closed, and Paul says so. As the way the admitted walk, it is the coursework of the house. The justified walk in God’s commandments.

The Thought Paul Shut Down

We need not guess how Paul would answer the student in the dormitory, because he met the same idea in his own day:

Romans 6:1-2 What then shall we say? Are we to continue in sin so that charis(grace) may increase? May it never be! We who died to sin — how shall we still live in it?

“Are we to continue in sin so that charis(grace) may increase?” That is the student’s reasoning: admission was free, so what I do now does not matter. Paul answers, “May it never be!” His reason is not a rule but a fact about who we are: “We who died to sin — how shall we still live in it?”

Why He Paid

There is also the reason for the gift itself. Why did the Messiah give Himself at all? Paul tells Titus:

Titus 2:14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah(Torah-lessness), and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

The purpose clause matters. He gave Himself “to redeem us from every anomia(Torah-lessness).” The word for redeem is lytroo λυτρόω loo-tro'-o, to set free by paying a ransom. What we are ransomed from is not the Torah but anomia, Torah-lessness, the very thing this book has been tracing since Chapter 12. The price was paid to bring us out of a life without God’s law.

And what are we ransomed for? “To purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” Zealous is a strong word. It describes a people who do not merely put up with good deeds but are eager for them.

The student who skips class has therefore misunderstood his own admission letter, for the letter itself says why he was admitted. Neither half of Titus 2:14 is the price of admission; both are the reason for it.

Prepared Beforehand

Paul says the same thing to the Ephesians, in a passage every believer knows:

Ephesians 2:8-10 For by charis(grace) you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the doron δῶρον do'-ron(gift) of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Messiah Yeshua for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

The first two verses are the free admission: by grace, through faith, not of yourselves, not of works. The third verse is the timetable: “created in Messiah Yeshua for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

The classes were not added later to spoil the gift. They were prepared beforehand, before the student ever arrived, and he was admitted in order to walk in them. Nor is he left alone with the coursework. The verses just before Titus 2:14, which Chapter 17 reads, call grace itself the teacher.

So keep the picture, for it is a good one. Do not go back to the entrance exam, because you were admitted freely, by grace, through faith. But go to class, because that is what students are for.

The next line is drawn through time itself: the old saints, it is said, were servants, and we are sons.