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love and good works", whilst in the latter "your work and love unto His name" is
remembered. The things accompany salvation are those things that indicate the
perfecting of faith. We have only to remember James 2: 11 where we learn that "faith if
it hath not works is dead, being alone". The great illustration of James 2: is the faith of
Abraham, but not the faith of Gen. 15: when Abraham believed God and it was
reckoned unto him for righteousness, but the faith of Gen. 22: when Abraham was
willing to offer up his beloved son. Of this James says:--
"Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made
PERFECT? and the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God and it
was imputed unto him for righteousness" (James 2: 22, 23).
We are upon exactly the same ground as in Heb. 6: The things that accompany
salvation are those things that "perfect faith". The perfected faith "fulfilled" the promise
of its inception. Gen. 15: 6 was filled out when Abraham's faith manifested itself in
acceptable works. If we glance down Heb. 6: we shall find that the same illustration is
used by Paul. There once again Abraham's faith as manifested in Gen. 22: is brought
forward. It is therefore important to remember that a man is justified without works, but
is perfected by works (Rom. 5:; James 2:). A man is saved by faith "not of works", but
he has been saved to walk in "good works" (Eph. 2:). While Titus 3: declares that we
were saved by faith and "not by works of righteousness which we have done", Titus 2:
reveals that we were redeemed in order that we might be a peculiar people "zealous of
good works".
It is surprising the antipathy that some of God's children show to any mention of
works. We yield to none, we trust, in a steadfast belief that grace and works, so far as
salvation is concerned, cannot blend. If we are saved by grace, then that initial salvation
cannot be "of works" for grace excludes works as works exclude grace (Rom. 11: 6). We
do however feel that much vital truth is dimmed to the eyes of many by carrying their
opposition to works beyond the limits of truth. It is a case of failure rightly to divide the
Word of truth. What is true in the case of the origin of salvation may not necessarily be
true in the case of the fruits of that same salvation. The law is excluded as a factor in
justification, but the law is nevertheless holy, just, good and spiritual, and it is the will of
God that it shall operate in the kingdom yet to come.
"But the God of peace . . . . . adjust you by every good work unto the doing of His
will, doing in you that which is well pleasing in His presence, through Jesus Christ"
(Heb. 13: 20, 21).
We cannot "do His will" without at the same time "doing good works", but these good
works will not take their rise from the flesh, but will be the Lord's own "doing" within
us, through Jesus Christ. Heb. 10: 24 says, "provoke unto love and good works";
Heb. 6: 10 links work and love together. This reveals the essential character of the good
works that are well pleasing to God. It is a good work to bestow all one's goods to feed
the poor; it is a good work to suffer one's body to be burned rather than give up the faith,
but only so if love is the spring of such actions; if love be absent "it profiteth me
nothing".