I recently wrote two blogs on the importance of works: one from James 2 – What we do matters! and a follow-up: Obedience in the Flesh, in which I observed that some folks seemingly try to get out actually doing anything because it might be perceived as “works righteousness” or “obedience in the flesh.”
I was talking with a pastor friend the other day, and he had a wonderful response to one of his members who was worried about “works righteousness.” Aaron said:
It’s not works righteousness; it’s righteousness at work!
The scriptures are clear. Here’s Ezekiel talking about the new covenant that quite clearly includes Spirit-empowered obedience:
And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. (Ezekiel 11.19, 20, ESV, emphasis mine)
I read the very same chapter in Ezekiel yesterday and couldn’t agree more than what you said in your blogs. Our righteousness at work is what God conveyed to us through the prophet and in the book of James and elsewhere in Scripture. It’s how we work out our faith in fear and trembling before an almighty God, in humility and obedience.
Good word, Barry. Thanks.