GOOD WORKS
By Elder Mark Green
“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me” (Mt. 25.35-36).
This is the commendation that the Lord will give His elect people after they are placed on His right hand in that great Day. All are acts of kindness and charity, evidences of a good heart. They are done from a principle of love and give evidence of the gracious condition of those individuals concerned. You and I might sometimes make a mistake regarding whether acts are or are not legitimate evidences of a quickened heart, but certainly the Lord who quickened us will make no mistakes in that regard. The Lord here vindicates His own justice in receiving these into glory by giving certain and undeniable evidence that they were indeed objects of His grace.
Two very singular things should be noted regarding this passage: first, these are good works, but they are not gospel works. Nothing in them is exclusive to the gospel. Not one is an act such as baptism or partaking of the Lord’s Supper that may be performed only within the gospel kingdom. They are acts of a general nature that any child of God of sufficient capacity might perform, anywhere and anytime.
Second, these are works that are so inbred into the nature of these people that they are almost instinctive. They flow naturally from a good heart. The people who have done them are not even aware of having done some particularly commendable act. “When did we do these things?” they ask. Gospel works are specific and deliberate. When someone submits to being plunged, fully clothed, beneath the water of the baptismal pool, it is not something that happens merely in the ordinary course of a person’s life. If the Lord had mentioned baptism as one of the characteristic acts of a child of God, these people surely would not have reacted in the manner in which they did. Wicked hypocrites sometimes do outwardly commendable acts in order to receive praise or profit, but these things are calculated and deliberate. God’s people, though they do many good things deliberately, also do many unselfish acts of love without thinking about it, without considering whether or not there is any praise or gain in it for them. They do good acts because they are good people. They bear good fruit because they have been made good trees.
Now, if it were true that all God’s people are obedient to the gospel and such obedience is characteristic of all of them, does it not stand to reason that when the all-knowing, inerrant Lord of glory gives His description of their characters that it will be gospel works that He will mention? Does it seem reasonable that He would leave us in doubt about the matter? If gospel obedience were always present in the life of a child of God, He could have told us here, and all questions about the matter could have been removed from everyone’s minds. Since He does not mention gospel works, but only acts of love of a more general nature, may we not conclude that these are a sufficient evidence, whether or not they are accompanied by gospel acts, of the grace of God in a person’s heart? Does not Jesus here say that when a man does an act of kindness toward a child of God from a principle of love in his heart, that that is evidence of grace? If that is not what this passage means, then I have misunderstood its significance entirely.