Created for Good Works
Understanding Our Purpose in Salvation
When we talk about salvation by grace alone, we’re echoing what the Bible itself emphasizes with tremendous force. Ephesians 2:8-10 contains some of the most important verses teaching this doctrine: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
We repeat these truths constantly because they matter so deeply. You cannot earn salvation. You cannot gain God’s approval by being good because you still have to deal with the evil in your life. God is a just judge and He will judge evil, including the evil you have done. You cannot outweigh your evil by any amount of good that you try to do.
Jesus himself said he came not to condemn the world, for the world is already condemned. In Adam, when Adam sinned, God said, “dying you shall die.” We are all under that death sentence. Consequently, in ourselves we have no hope.
Your salvation does not depend on how much effort you put into your faith. Faith is not a work. It is not a thing you work at. You aren’t saved because of your good work of faith, or because you have an extra special kind of faith over other people. Faith is not a work. It involves a change of mind, a repentance of self, an accepting of God’s plan, and a call on Christ. There is much more we could say about this, but let’s make this clear: Your good works have nothing to do with salvation. They do not produce a Christian.
The Expectation of Goodness
Now having said all that, everyone knows Christians are supposed to be good, right? Christians are supposed to do good things. We also know that Christians do not always do good things. But you ask any person in the world, anybody who is not a Christian, what are Christians supposed to be like? Well, they are supposed to be nice, they are supposed to be gentle, they are supposed to be kind. And then they will look at you and say, how come you are not? The world is not wrong when it expects good works form a Christian.
That raises this question, “What is the relationship of salvation and good works?” Ephesians 2.10 answers the question directly.
Eph 2.10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
God did everything in salvation (and it is good)
The verse begins with the little word, “for,” which points back to verses 8 and 9. The reason you cannot boast about salvation is because salvation is the gift of God. We cannot boast about ourselves. What can we boast about? The Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who gets all the credit for our salvation. God did everything. “We are His workmanship,” he says. He did the work. That is why we can be so confident about our salvation.
The word “workmanship” comes from the Greek word “poiēma,” which sounds like our English word “poem.” A poiēma is a doing, a working. The word has to do with the activities of a skilled craftsman. You can call the result a masterpiece.
Rather than salvation being a masterpiece we have produced, regenerated believers are a masterpiece that God has produced. The product does not produce itself. The workman does. You did not create that beautiful transformation, God did. Jesus called this work being born again. You did not do anything to be born again, God did it all.
The word “created” is used in the New Testament only of God’s activity. It refers to things created: things physical and spiritual. But in this verse he is talking about the creation of believers. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. He is not referring to the moment at which we were born or conceived. He is referring to that new act of God when a sinner understands that he is a sinner and cannot save himself, turns to God and says, “Oh Lord Jesus, I see that you are the only solution for my sin. Please forgive me of my sin and turn me into your creature.” And that is what has happened.
We are created in Christ Jesus. This is a new creation. We were dead in trespasses and sins. God has made us alive. That is what happens at salvation. It is not simply following a tradition or the ways of our fathers. It is not finding some better path so that we can somehow deserve the acceptance of God. No, it is an acknowledgement. I am a sinner. I cannot save myself. I call on Jesus to save me and in that moment, He receives me. I am born again.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things are passed away, behold new things have come.” While everything is new, and there is a new creation, Christians retain their old nature while at the same time they are born again. Consequently, Christians still must learn to walk in that newness of life so that they will reflect the Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, in terms of their standing before God, they have been created as new creatures and they are fully alive in the Lord Jesus Christ.
God intended for salvation to produce good works
God intended for salvation to produce good works. Good works come into salvation through this creation, this new creation. Every created thing has a purpose. Like all creation, human beings in their natural state before salvation are broken by sin. But In salvation, we were created anew in Christ Jesus for good works. That is our purpose.
Before you are a Christian, you can do things that are good, but in God’s eyes they do not measure up because they are so outweighed by your sin. They bring no glory to God. The Bible says even the plowing of the wicked is sin. That means that something a man does that would be considered a good thing to do – to plow his field, plant a crop, provide for his family and be a blessing to the world – that thing is still as sin for a sinner. Why? Because he is not in a right relationship with God.
But now, at the moment of salvation, I am created in Christ Jesus for good works. My life is transformed. My “plowing” is redeemed. And more than that, now I do not want to lie because I want to honor God with my life. I am faced with all the temptations I used to indulge in, but I want to turn to God’s path and walk His ways. He is honored by my commitment to His ways. God intended for salvation to produce good works.
God prepared the good works for us to walk in them
God prepared the good works for us to walk in them. Think about that. Pre-made good works. These good works that God is talking about here are prepared ahead of time. The implication seems to be that these works were prepared before the original creation. This was in God’s mind. Even at the beginning when God created Adam and Eve, people were supposed to walk in these ways, do these works, walking this prepared path. But man sinned and fell off the path. The way back is through Jesus Christ.
What does Paul talk about in the book of Ephesians that might resemble this path? In chapters four through six, the text talks about how we should live. It talks about putting away lying and talking right to one another. It talks about husbands and wives, fathers and children, bosses and workers. These are the works prepared beforehand. This is how we are supposed to live. We can go through all the New Testament and find passages like this that show us this path that God ordained beforehand.
Walking, Not Just Working
The intention is that Christians should walk on this path. Notice what the text says. “Which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Even after salvation, it is not so much that we must now do good works, but we must now walk in good works.
What happens when you are born again is you have just changed the course of your life. Now you do not want that old way. You want the new way. You want to walk that path. You want to be the person that puts one foot after another and does what glorifies God because you are so thankful for what He has done for you in salvation.
There is a road to follow. There are things that you could do that are not Christian. Do not walk that way. There are things that you must do that God has laid out. Walk that way. Make that your path.
If you are born again, you have a purpose and a path. God did everything in salvation, and it is good. God intended for salvation to produce good works. God prepared his good works for us to walk in them.
If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you turn your life to Him, you belong to Him now. The next step is to throw yourself into knowing Him and living for Him. Find out all the beautiful features of that walk that is laid out before you.
Some people will object to this teaching and say you are just a legalist. You are too narrow. They claim salvation gives them liberty to live their life according to their own ideas. That is not Bible. That is not God’s idea. Paul in Romans 6 asks, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” He answers, “God forbid, may it never be.”
The true joy and freedom in salvation is living life for God’s glory and God’s ways. Do not look for the things in life that most appeal to you. Learn to fall in love with God and His ways and His things and seek to do those things that most appeal to Him.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
This article reproduces a sermon preached on October 19, 2025, which you can listen to here. We used Claude.AI to turn the transcript into the article. Pastor Johnson has reviewed and approved the final form of this article.
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