A “theology” of Good Works

When I saw this new book by Thomas McCall, Caleb Friedemann, and Matt Friedemann (=MFF), The Doctrine of Good Works: Reclaiming a Neglected Protestant Teaching, one of my first responses was whether or not they’d line up with me on tov. After all tov is the “good” in “good works.”

In A Church called Tov I outlined a theology of tov with the following themes: (1) God alone is tov, (2) God’s design is tov in the power of the Spirit, (3) Tov is active, (4) Tov resists evil, (5) Tov is God’s ultimate and final approval, (6) the Gospel is tov (good news), (7) Jesus is the one true human of tov, and (8) we are called to participate in God forming a tov church in this world. We line up well with one another, but MFF could have examined tov more.

Overall MFF get the basics even if their framework becomes much more systematic theology, and much more connected to soteriology. But we agree on the “basic elements for a theology of good works”: that is, “one that is grounded in the goodness of God and motivated by the gracious work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

So for MFF good works begin in the nature of God: God is good, all the time. Goodness is fundamental and essential to God. “God is necessarily good” and “God can be said to be goodness itself.” MFF then connect goodness to “holy love.”  I have some quibbles both with their definition of holiness and their definition of love. But I like this:

Goodness “informs and motivates all that God does. Thus God creates to extend and share goodness with creatures; God sustains and provides to share that goodness with creatures; and God redeems fallen and sinful creatures so that they might be restored to knowledge of that goodness and share in that holy love.”

Their Wesleyan approach permits contingency in God giving causal powers to humans so that “God sustains and provides causal powers, but God does not determine all outcomes.”

MFF then sketch a typical soteriological narrative of the Bible (creation, fall, covenant, Christ), leading to the big idea that justification is not salvation and not the same as sanctification. God’s design is for redeemed people to act like the redeemed, that is, be people of good works.

An interesting idea is about union with Christ and what they call “joint attention,” which refers to “the mutual closeness and shared attention that two persons share in close relation to each other.” Such persons’ joining to one another leads to shared life and mutual indwelling and the impacting of one another. This may seem a little harsh, and it has nothing to do with MFF’s book at all whatsoever (clear?), but at times I read some theologian, I put the book down, and I muttered to myself this author has not spent enough time with the Jewish Jesus. What I mean is that theology that does not anchor itself in Jesus, his vision of the Kingdom, and his vision of discipleship, falls short of the true test of having a Jesus-framed theology. The point of this is that joint attention when it comes to theology means that our joint and our attention need to include time with Jesus in the formation process of our theology.

The more time we spend with Jesus, the more our theology will look like him and his.

Of course, MFF take us to Christology and pneumatology in a theology of good works. They do this so so well. Too, their soteriology includes a “working out our own salvation” that leads to a Christian life characterized by good works. Because McCall is a systematic theologian he has very good attention to the challenge that good works bring to the temptations of Pelagianism.

Good works do not yield justification. Good works are consequent to justification. Nor are good works antecedent to regeneration, and they too are consequent to regeneration. But when it comes to sanctification, a person who is filled with the Spirit is characterized by good works. Sanctification is a necessary component of holistic salvation. Union with Christ is transformative.

True to the doctrines of systematic theology, and in particular the ordo salutis, MFF turn next to good works and the doctrine of glorification. Good works are antecedent to glorification. Christ likeness and transformation into the image of Christ involve good works. The church is a community of good works, and the final judgment is based in good works.

The result of this book is that good works are not ancillary or unnecessary or insignificant. Good works measure justification, indicate sanctification, precede glorification, and are a necessity for entrance into the Kingdom of God.

Any properly Protestant doctrine – indeed, any biblical doctrine – of good works will not hesitate to affirm that good works are truly necessary. Works of piety and works of mercy are necessary. Worshipping God is not optional for Christians, and neither is serving neighbors. To be a Christian simply is to love God with all your heart, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself. But the fullness of the good news about good works is not that such works are necessary. Instead, it is that such good works are possible, for God has worked in Christ and the Holy Spirit so that we might truly love and live out that love.

This book belongs in your library. More than that, it belongs in your careful reading for this year. If you read it, you will rise up and call them (and me) “blessed!”