Saved by the Works of Christ

While Adam failed to obey God and brought humanity into ruin, Jesus perfectly kept His Father’s commandments to bring salvation to His people. Today, R.C. Sproul teaches that we are saved by works—the works of Christ on our behalf.

The covenant of works refers to the original situation in which Adam and Eve are created, where they are placed in a probationary state where God gives them certain commands, stipulations, gives them certain promises. What is held before Adam and Eve is the promise of everlasting life. And that is indicated or symbolized by the Tree of Life in the garden of Eden. And yet at the same time, there are stipulations, and the main stipulation is that they are not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And so what we find in that covenant of works is this, that the destiny of the human race will be determined and decided on the basis of performance, on the basis of the work of Adam and Eve with respect to their obedience or disobedience to the terms of the covenant. If they pass the probation, if they are obedient, if their works are good, then they enter into their eternal state of blessedness. If they fail to conform to the terms of that covenant, then they will die and they, along with their descendants, will be plunged into ruin.

So that the whole basis for the relationship with God and human beings is established here on the basis of works. And what we read, of course, in Scripture is that Adam and Eve miserably failed that test, that probation. They violated that agreement and the terms and stipulations of the covenant, and as a result of that, plunged the world into ruin. Now, here’s where the confusion really gets heavy. The Scriptures tell us that we are saved by grace, and we understand that. And that grace is manifest because we are saved through the person and the work of Christ. And what is it that Christ does to save us? It’s that He becomes our champion. He becomes our substitute. He is introduced in the New Testament as the new Adam or the last Adam or the second Adam, the One who now comes into the world and places Himself under the obligation and stipulations of the original covenant of works.

As this new Adam, He goes back to the situation where Adam and Eve were in paradise. And this is dramatized, of course, in the wilderness experience of Jesus, where He undergoes the forty days of temptation from Satan. But that is not the end. Throughout His whole life, He is exposed to that temptation. And that’s why I emphasize and will continue to emphasize that we are saved not only by the death of Christ, but also by the life of Christ, because it is in His life of perfect obedience that Christ fulfills all of the terms laid down in the original covenant of works, so that in the final analysis we see that we are saved by works. You say, “Wait a minute. I thought we taught justification by faith alone?” Yes, but justification by faith alone means justification by putting our faith in Christ alone because Christ alone has fulfilled the covenant of works. We are still saved by works, but we are saved not by our works, but by the works of Christ.

Sometimes people think that the Old Testament is all about God’s justice and wrath, and the New Testament is all about His mercy and grace and love. But the clearest example anywhere in Scripture of the wrath of God and the justice of God is found not in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament. It’s found in the cross, because here the wrath of God is poured out on Christ, and God’s justice is satisfied fully and completely in this act. And yet this act, which so demonstrates the justice of God, is also at one and the same time the clearest example of the grace of God that we find in Scripture, because that wrath is received by somebody else. It is received by our substitute who submits Himself to the terms of the first covenant and fulfills all of those obligations for all who put their trust in Him.