Whenever I teach on grace, someone will inevitably ask how works fit into a grace doctrine. Sometime the question is asked hoping for an answer; more often the question is asked in disbelief of a grace only doctrine. To teach on how works fit in a salvation by grace alone doctrine, requires a complete definition of grace and also an understanding of the purpose of works. To give the definition of grace as a simple definition such as, “the free and unmerited favor of God,” does not answer the question any more than the simple statement, “salvation is by grace alone.”

First let’s ask, what is the purpose of works? “Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me’” (Matthew 25:34-36). That sounds like physical works are used by the King to determine who is saved. “But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?” (James 2:20). Now that puts it in a different light, faith comes before works. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). So the order is established as faith, grace, and works. So the purpose of works is not salvation, and faith with works alone is not salvation.

What does it mean when it claims, “it is the gift of God”? Let’s take a look at a parable that speaks of salvation, and being cut away and fit for the fire. “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:1-2). Here salvation by grace is being compared to a grapevine. Jesus is the vine and the believers and unbelievers are the branches. Every branch that does bear fruit and every branch that does not bear fruit. Both branch types are attached to the vine. Jesus comes to dwell in the believer, but both believers and unbelievers dwell in Jesus from creation or from conception. Not bearing fruit is faith without works. Then am saying that believing to salvation requires works. No!

When one has faith and believes to salvation they take the faith given to them as a gift from God, and believe in the Son of God. The Father and Son sends the promised Holy Spirit to the believer. The promised Holy Spirit produces the fruit of the Spirit. The promise is the Holy Spirit, the first fruit is love and love is produced by the Holy Spirit sent as a gift to the believer. The Holy Spirit filled saved by salvation believer produces love as a result of the Holy Spirit being present in them. Do you see how the bearing of fruit is a gift from God as part of His love and grace? Love sent Jesus to be killed, planted into the earth, resurrected from the earth, and planted in the believer. Keeping with the parable of the grapevine, what was an unfruitful branch begins to produce by the power of the Holy Spirit.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned” (John 15:5-6). Abide is to remain or continue to dwell in. To abide in Jesus Christ means to remain or continue to dwell in Jesus Christ. Abide does not speak to how one came to dwell in, only that one remains. There dwells in Jesus Christ both those producing fruit and those not producing fruit. Those producing abide and those not producing, at a time of the Father’s choosing are cut away. Those who remain do so at the choosing of the Father to cultivate to produce more fruit.

If both the believer and the unbeliever or the fruitful and unfruitful both dwell in Jesus Christ, then what is the difference? The difference is, “and I in him.” The indwelling of the Holy Spirit bringing the Word to dwell in us is the difference. Abiding in Jesus Christ requires both dwelling in Jesus Christ and Him dwelling in us. “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:16-17). From creation all of mankind was in Jesus Christ. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). And everything created after was created in the light, not of the sun and moon but the light of the world.

To abide in Jesus Christ requires a dwelling in Jesus which was part of creation. The abiding also requires an indwelling of Jesus Christ in the one abiding, that was a gift of creation given away when man choose to partake of the knowledge of good and evil. God breath into man and man became a living being. Jesus is the truth, the life, and the way. When life was breathed into mankind, the Son of God was breathed into mankind. When the serpent tempted mankind, mankind gave in to the temptation and lost the life dwelling in them. It was only by grace that mankind continued to remain alive. Jesus came into the creation to undo what the serpent did. Through faith in the Son of God, protecting the life of mankind, God made a way for life to dwell in individual humans again.

Now dwelling in Jesus Christ are the righteous of God in Christ Jesus by grace, but also the unrighteous lives under a death sentence maintained in life by the same grace of God. At a time of the Father’s choosing the unrighteous in Christ Jesus will be cut away and be fit for nothing but to be consumed by the fire. Jesus came to purchase life for all of mankind, and in that way grace is for everyone. All of the requirements for salvation are by grace through faith. If producing fruit is a requirement to abide and not be cut away, then producing fruit is by grace through faith. Producing fruit is not works based, but a work of God given as grace.

Now saved by grace through faith, having received the promised Holy Spirit, produce the fruit of the Spirit, namely love. God is love, God is what has been planted, and God is what is being produced. You do not get apples from a tree unless it is an apple tree. You do not get grapes from a vine that is not a grape vine. An apple tree is grown from an apple seed. A grape vine is grown from a grape seed. A branch producing grapes grows on a grape vine. Love is produced from something grown from a seed of love. A branch producing love grows from a love vine. God created the apple tree that produces the apple containing the seed to grow a like tree producing like fruit, an apple.

Mankind is created in God likeness as well as His image. To produce God’s like kind a like seed had to be planted and produce a likeness. Mankind is not a tree, so we are created in God’s image and created to produce God’s like kind or God’s love. God is love and God is Spirit, in turn the Spirit of God produces love because the Spirit of God is love. God is long suffering, and love is long suffering. And it continues so with all the attributes of love. They are also the attributes of God and in turn of the Spirit of God.

The question asked is, “Where do works fit in a grace doctrine?” Look again at the order. Faith activates grace and salvation comes through grace alone. So faith is part of grace and a gift from God. First comes faith but before faith came something to have faith in, an object for one’s faith. God gave us that object in His Son Jesus Christ. So the object of faith is a gift from God; faith in the Son of God, grace through faith, and the fruit of love all as a gifts from God. Here is where the serpent tripped us up. With the knowledge of good and evil came alternate objects for our faith to focus on. With our knowledge of good and evil mankind created gods of created things, including our forefathers, devils, demons, created spirits, and our own knowledge claiming there is no God. To receive the promise of the indwelling of God in the form of the Holy Spirit the object of faith must be God in Jesus the Christ. To produce the fruit of the Spirit requires the gift of the indwelling of the Spirit producing like kind.

Again the question asked is, “Where do works fit in a grace doctrine?” Works are a direct result of God’s love working in the physical realm. Salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and as our savior. By grace we receive the promised Holy Spirit, and through the Spirit we produce the fruit of the Spirit required to abide in the Son of God alive for an eternity. All of those are encompassed in grace given to us by God as a gift, when the gift of faith is focused on God through Jesus Christ. Our part is to use the gift of faith to believe in the gift of Jesus Christ to salvation leading to the gift of eternal life. Salvation by grace alone is faith as a gift from God leading to a belief in the work of God in our behalf leading to eternal life. Physical works are the results of an outpouring of God’s love, being produced in us by the Holy Spirit, being added to the love of God that sent us a savior to believe in. Jesus being the seed of love the Holy Spirit is planting in us to produce like kind.

“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You? And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me’” (Matthew 25:38-40). The righteousness of God in Christ Jesus does not see when they performed the works of love, because the works of love are an outflow of the love of God given to them in the form of Jesus Christ and being produced in them as a product of the Holy Spirit. The good works of the body of Christ are a response to being the temple of God and having the holy of holies in them where the Spirit of God dwells. Obedience is separate from the law of do and don’t, to the flow of God’s love separating us from the knowledge of good and evil and leaning to God’s understanding.