Good Works – Good Deeds
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📖 Definition: Works that are pure as to their motive, lawful as to their execution, and God-glorifying as to their aim. 1Cairns, A. (2002). In Dictionary of Theological Terms (p. 197). Ambassador Emerald International.
That’s the short version. However, given the very specific nature of the good works/deeds, we need more to get a true feeling for what they are. That includes where they originate from, who’s included in performing them, and why they were carried out. In addition, since this is about the God of the Bible, more specifically the New Testament – New Covenant – we need the help of the Holy Spirit to grasp the deeper meanings.
With that in mind, let’s check out some Christian references, chosen by Faithlife/LOGOS AI, based on my question.
Good works and divine enablement
❓ Is there a more or less standard definition or meaning to the word “good” when it comes to only being able to do good works when it’s with God’s power and for His glory? I’m thinking of something like John 15:5, where Jesus says, “apart from me you can do nothing – but of course “nothing” means “nothing good”.
🤖✨ Yes, there’s a consistent theological definition across the search results. When Scripture speaks of “good works,” it carries three essential marks: they must be pure in their motive, lawful in their execution, and God-glorifying in their aim1.
The critical qualifier you’re sensing in John 15:5 appears throughout the sources. A good work is done by a believer in love, in accord with God’s will, and to God’s glory—and only a believer can do good works2. This isn’t merely about the external action but about its source and direction. Dead works are acts of obedience that do not stem from faith and are designed to bring glory to oneself, whereas good works are acts of obedience that stem from faith and are aimed at God’s glory3.
The distinction hinges on faith and dependence. Dead works are acts of obedience that do not stem from faith in Jesus Christ and a love for God—they are not the response of a joyful and grateful heart that has experienced saving grace, but instead are motivated by pride, ambition, or vanity and aimed at earning God’s favor3. By contrast, God accepts good works because they originate from faith in Jesus Christ and are the efforts of God’s children who work to honor their Father, and because such works are God’s own work in us3.
So “good” in this theological sense means works that flow from faith in Christ, depend entirely on His power, and aim at His glory rather than human achievement or self-righteousness. Your instinct about John 15:5 is precisely right—“nothing” effectively means “nothing genuinely good.”
1 Alan Cairns, in Dictionary of Theological Terms (Belfast; Greenville, SC: Ambassador Emerald International, 2002), 197.
2 Lyle W. Lange, God So Loved the World: A Study of Christian Doctrine (Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Publishing House, 2005), 400.
3 Joe Thorn, The Heart of the Church: The Gospel’s History, Message, and Meaning (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2017). [See here, here, here, here.]
Let’s look a bit closer, try to understand some implications of this.
Good Works / Good Deeds in Scripture
Three essential characteristics of good works are given:
- They must be pure in motive. That’s pure in God’s eyes, which is at a whole different level than our own.
- They must be lawful. That’s lawful in God’s eyes, which again isn’t the same level as man-made laws or in our own eyes.
- They must be God-glorifying. That means the intent, the actual works/deeds as to both means and ends.
It’s so easy to convince ourselves that our deeds are for God. That they’re pure. And mistakenly that the ends can justify the means.
And that’s why Romans, among other places in the Bible, says:
No One Is Righteous – Romans
Ro 3:9 What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10 As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
Ro 3:11 there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
Ro 3:12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
…
Then we get to:
✏️ No fallen man can originate such works (Rom. 8:7). Good works are tantamount to merit, for while God is not bound a priori to bestow favour on good works, He has promised to do so according to the terms of the Covenant of Works (see Covenant Theology). Thus, when the Scripture (e.g., Rom. 3:12) declares that no fallen man can originate good works, it is teaching in the most emphatic terms that no sinner can gain salvation by his own merit. In line with this, Protestantism emphasizes the biblical doctrine of a free justification through faith alone: that is, justification by the merits of Christ, without any contributory merit from the sinner, received by faith, which is itself the gift of God (Eph. 2:8, 9).
While the carnal mind is incapable of originating good works (Rom. 8:7), the “new creature in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:17), the man redeemed and purified by the blood of Christ, is to be zealous of good works (Titus 2:14; Eph. 2:10). These works are the fruit of salvation, not the ground of it. They are produced by the working of the Lord indwelling His people (Phil. 2:13). 2Cairns, A. (2002). In Dictionary of Theological Terms (pp. 197–198). Ambassador Emerald International.Dictionary of Theological Terms
This is how we get to salvation by faith alone – and the reward ceremony for believers where we are rewarded for “good works” – and all the while the good works don’t earn the salvation. But we are rewarded for them – because without Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we could never have even thought about them, let alone plan them out and do them.
Footnotes:
- 1Cairns, A. (2002). In Dictionary of Theological Terms (p. 197). Ambassador Emerald International. ↩︎
- 2Cairns, A. (2002). In Dictionary of Theological Terms (pp. 197–198). Ambassador Emerald International. ↩︎
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