Works and Righteousness
Carl F. H. Henry wrote the following in an article on a biblical view of social justice (a pet study interest of mine). Though in the context of work and its relation to the poor, this paragraph helps me better understand an appropriate Christian priority of work as it relates to righteousness.
God who adversely judges men’s works is himself the divine Worker–in creation, preservation, providence and judgement. God’s activity in the cosmos and his rule in history are specific and comprehensive. God’s assignment of work to man dates back to the creation of Adam (Gen. 2:15). As Georg Bertram observes, “the concept of reward and punishment presupposes that the biblical revelation views the erga of man as performed by divine commission” (on ergon, in TDNT, 2:648). It is man’s fall into sin that precipitates labor as a curse (Gen. :17 ff.) and involves all man’s works in sin. Passages like Genesis 6:5 and Jeremiah 44:9, among others, reflect the wickedness of all human endeavor; the Old Testament rules out any righteousness of human works as something holy that fulfills the claims of God’s law (Isa. 58:2 f., 64:5). Yet Judaism later proclaimed an untenable doctrine of works-righteousness, a self-confident trust in personal achievement that conceals the need for a substitutionary mediator, and linked the righteousness of works with an expectation of compensatory divine reward. But only for those redemptively renewed after the fall can work be restored to the moral and spiritual status known prior to the fall. The Lord promises blessing to his people who “in all the work of your hands” (Deut. 14:29, cf. 16:15) live within his ethico-religious intention. Work done in God’s name disallows a separation between so-called secular work and the work of faith. The earliest Pauline letters include the exhortation to work (1 Th. 4:11; 2 Th. 3:10 ff.; cf. Eph.4:28).
-Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority,
vol. 6, ch. 18, p. 406.
The key quote for me here is: “only for those redemptively renewed after the fall can work be restored to the moral and spiritual status known prior to the fall.”
Henry, I believe, is speaking of the difference between state sanctioned and church provided charity. However, I think the basic thought also applies to our works of righteousness. The key is to understand, as Henry suggests, that our ’secular’ day-to-day living and our faith righteousness are not different or distinct.
If we are disciples of Jesus Christ, then all that we do will be done to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). This does not just include our moral choices, or our spiritual objections to the moral choices of others, but also our common choices, particularly those chosen without any spiritual consideration whatsoever. The point is that our choices matter, and choices to work and to perform works must be chosen for the good. When we are freed in Christ to work for God, then we are expected to do so to the glory of God and our benefit in heaven (Matt 6:19-21, Luke 12:31-34).
