On the Articles: Article XIII

The Sunday after Ascension Day

O GOD the King of Glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven: We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

XIII. Of Works before Justification
Works done before the grace of Christ, and the Inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or (as the School-authors say) deserve grace of congruity: yea rather, for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.

 The words of this article, particularly its opening line, can sometimes be confusing. Words done before the grace of Christ, and Inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God. The most obvious interpretation of this involves looking at it through the lens of works and God’s favour; it is a restatement of the fact that we cannot earn God’s favour through our good deeds, called works. Yet that is not where the article ends. Indeed, it is not even where the sentence ends.

Much like Christ in the antitheses the Article calls us to go further, and reinforces the point that God doesn’t just care about what we do, but what we think and why we do things. You have heard it said you cannot earn God’s grace by good works, it says good works done before justification remain outside God’s will and are sinful in their nature.

This may require a bit of unpacking. It is easy to accept the first part that we cannot earn points with God through good works, whether before or after justification, but to say that good deeds done before justification are sinful in nature seems difficult to accept. At the core of this article is the question, what is the difference between a good work done by a Christian versus a non-Christian. The answer, according to the article, is fundamentally linked to the nature of good works.

Good works are not just about some form of secular, philosophical evaluation of outcomes. Two people who donate their time, treasure or talents to the less fortunate in equal measure, in secular terms would have been said to have done the same good. If both donate $100 of groceries to a food bank, or spend an evening volunteering at a soup kitchen, the secular world would generally agree that both had done an equal good. Yet this article says that the actions of the Christian are pleasing to God while the actions of the non-Christian have a sinful nature. Why would that be? It only makes sense, however, when considering the fact that we are discussing Christian works, and their importance is evaluated not on the basis of secular philosophies of outcomes, but on their role in our Christian journeys.

If good works are the proceeds of faith, or as the article puts it, the “Inspiration of his Spirit,” then it is clear that in general non-Christians would not be able to do good works, unless in particular circumstances the Holy Spirit were working through them, and there are examples in Holy Scripture of the Holy Spirit working through non-believers both in the Old Testament and in the New.

This contrasted with some of the medieval doctrines of the Western Church, and the ideas of the School-authors, a reference to Christian Scholastics of the medieval period, who developed the idea of grace of congruity, which said that because their actions mirrored so closely the good works of Christians, similar works of non-Christians conferred some form of grace, though not salvation. Ultimately this rejection of that principle seems far more consistent with Scriptural doctrines, both in terms of the antitheses and also the story of the rich young man who followed the law yet refused to give up his wealth. He outwardly followed the law out of obligation but when prompted to act out of an inward love of God he was unable to.

This helps us to differentiate what a good work is for Christians versus a non-Christian good deed. A good deed is rooted in secular morality, and might consist of characteristics of altruism and the promotion of the common good. Works, in the Christian sense, are rooted in submission and obedience to God’s will. They will often line up with secular ideas of good deeds simply because of God’s love for his creation, yet at the same times because we are dealing with the spiritual, there are certain good works which might not be evaluated as good deeds because their benefit is in the realm of the soul which cannot be quantified or evaluated in secular terms.

A corollary to this point is that something might be a good deed, because it can be morally justified, but yet not be a good work because it is not rooted in obedience to God. It may well be sinful. Indeed, as this article states, it is rooted in a sinful nature by virtue of the fact that it uses some system of secular morality to judge whether or not it is good, and not the simple question of God’s will.

Does this suggest that all deeds done apart from Christ are sinful then? What is the meaning of saying that such actions have the nature of sin? The answer to the former is that no. Going back to the previous example of a Christian and non-Christian, both of whom donate $100 of groceries to a food bank. It is not a sin for either of them to do this, but for the Christian it is a good work, and an act proceeding from a saving faith in loving obedience to God. For the non-Christian, however, it is not proceeding from obedience to or love of God, but rather something else. Sin is ultimately turning from God, and so while we often think of sin as in some way being harmful to others, even good deeds can have a sinful nature (having turned from God).

With the rise in those who describe themselves as spiritual but not religious, this remains an important affirmation that you cannot buy your salvation, and a reminder that as good as you are, apart from God, you cannot please him. As Lewis puts it in Mere Christianity:

The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says “Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked-the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”