The good works that we do are tainted with Sin.
We deceived even of ourselves of the motive behind our good works.
The sacrifices that we offer to God is detestable had it not for the account of Christ.
When our good works is not ascribe unto the Lord, it is a Sin and remains a wicked deed.
Who then can save us from the works that we do and render it good and acceptable to God?
Who can save us from our righteousness?
Thanks be to the Lord our God Jesus Christ who is the reason for all the good that we do.
If there is any good among us, it must be from the Lord. For the love of Christ compel us.
Our good works are bless only when we ascribe it to the Lord.
Even our prayer is Sin if it is not done in Jesus name.
When the Pelagians pointed to the virtues of the heathen, who “merely through the power of innate freedom” were often merciful, discreet, chaste, and temperate, he answered that these so-called virtues were sins, because they did not spring from faith.
Augustine
admits that the heathen can perform certain acts which are in themselves good and from a lower point of view even praiseworthy, but yet considers these deeds, as the deeds of unregenerate persons, to be sin, because they do not spring from the motive of love to God or of faith, and do not answer to the right purpose, the glory of God.
Augustine
denies that such deeds are the fruit of any natural goodness in man.
~
Louis Berkhof
Matthew 6:1-4
New King James Version
Do Good to Please God “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.
John 15:5
“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.
Reformed theologians generally maintain that the unregenerate can perform natural good, civil good, and outwardly religious good. They call attention to the fact, however, that, while such works of the unregenerate are good from a material point of view, as works which God commanded, they cannot be called good from a formal point of view, since they do not spring from the right motive and do not aim at the right purpose.
~
Louis Berkhof
Zechariah 7:5 NKJV
“Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me?
Further Study
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