Belief: The Work that God Requires!
- samshmn
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Contrary to the teaching of Protestantism, the God-breathed Scriptures teach that belief in Christ is a work, in fact the one necessary work required by God for salvation.
Note carefully the words of our Lord:
“‘But earthly food spoils and ruins. So don’t work (ergazesthe) to get that kind of food. But work to get the food that stays good and gives you eternal life. The Son of Man will give you that food. He is the only one qualified by God the Father to give it to you.’ The people asked Jesus, ‘What does God want us to do (ergazometha ta erga tou Theou)?’ Jesus answered, ‘The work God wants you to do (to ergon tou Theou) is this: to believe (pisteuete) in the one he sent.’” Easy-to-Read Version John 6:27-29 ERV
Here is how other English versions render v. 29:
“Jesus replied, This is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent [that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger].” AMPC
“Jesus replied, ‘This is what God requires, that you believe in him whom God sent.’” CEB
“Jesus answered, ‘God wants you to have faith in the one he sent.’” CEV
“Jesus answered, ‘You should believe in the one that God has sent to you. That is the work that God wants you to do.’” EASY
“Jesus answered, ‘·The work God wants you to do is this [L This is the work of God]: Believe the One he sent.’” EXB
“Jesus answered, ‘What God wants you to do is to believe in the one he sent.’” GNT
“‘The work of God for you,’ replied Jesus, ‘is to believe in the one whom he has sent to you.’” PHILLIPS
“Jesus answered, · · saying to them, ‘This is the work that God requires, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’” MOUNCE
“Jesus answered, ‘The work God wants you to do is this: Believe the One he sent.’” NCV
“Jesus replied, ‘This is the deed God requires—to believe in the one whom he sent.’” NET
“Jesus told them, ‘This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.’” NLT
“‘This is the work God wants of you,’ replied Jesus, ‘that you believe in the one he sent.’” NTFE
“Jesus answered them, `The work that God asks you to do is to believe in the one whom he has sent.'” WE
The Expositors
I cite a few commentaries, which agree that Jesus classified belief in himself as a work that God requires. All emphasis will be mine.
This is the work of God - This is the thing that will be acceptable to God, or which you are to do in order to be saved. Jesus did not tell them they had nothing to do, or that they were to sit down and wait, but that there was a work to perform, and that was a duty that was imperative. It was to believe on the Messiah. This is the work which sinners are to do; and doing this they will be saved, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth, Romans 10:4.
Believe
Faith is put as a moral act or work. The work of God is to believe. Faith includes all the works which God requires. The Jews' question contemplates numerous works. Jesus' answer directs them to one work. Canon Westcott justly observes that "this simple formula contains the complete solution of the relation of faith and works."
Verse 29. - Christ's reply really solves the great problem which had long perplexed the schools of Palestine, and often, and even to the present hour, is dividing into two hostile camps the Christian Church. Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God. Observe, not "works," but "work" - the one work which is the germ and the consummation of all the partial workings which are often made substitutes for it. There is "one work" which God would have man do. Jesus admits that there is something to do (ποιεῖν) - there is a labour, an effort of the will needed to do what God requires; and this is evident enough as soon as this great work is described, viz. That ye believe on him whom he (the Father) sent; or, hath sent. Ἵνα πιστεύητε, here preferred by the R.T. to πιστεύσητε (see John 13:19), marks the simple fact and continuous act of believing with the effort tending to such result; while the aorist would have pointed to one definite act of faith (see Westcott).. To "believe on him," to habitually entrust one's self to the power and grace of Christ, to make a full moral surrender of the soul to the Lord, includes in itself all other work, and is in itself the great work of God. "It is the Christian answer to the Jewish question" (Thoma). "Faith is the life of works, works the necessity of faith" (Westcott). "Faith is the highest kind of work, for by it man gives himself to God, and a free being can do nothing greater than give himself: St. James opposes work to a faith which would be nothing but intellectual belief. St. Paul opposes faith, active faith, to works of mere observance. The 'faith' of St. Paul is really the 'work' of St. James, according to this sovereign formula of Jesus, 'This is the work of God, that ye believe'" (Godet). Luther says, "To depend on God's Word, so that the heart is not terrified by sin and death, but trusts and believes in God, is a much severer and more difficult thing than the Carthusians or all orders of monks demand." Schleiermachcr says, "This is the most significant declaration, that all eternal life proceeds from nothing else than faith in Christ."
Verse 29
John 6:29. Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he sent. The one work which God would have them do is believing in Him whom He sent. The people had spoken of ‘works,’ thinking of outward deeds; but that which God commands is one work, faith in Jesus. This faith leads to union with Him and participation of His Spirit, and thus includes in itself all works that are pleasing to God. We must not suppose that our Lord intends to rebuke their question, ‘What must we do,’ as if He would say, It is not doing, but believing. The act of believing in Jesus, the soul’s casting itself on Him with perfect trust, is here spoken of as a work, as something which requires the exercise of man’s will and calls forth determination and effort. It is very noticeable that these words of Jesus directly touch that thought in John 6:27, which their answer (John 6:28) neglected. The work of theirs of which He had spoken was their toil to come to Him: He had prescribed no other work, but had sought to lead them to the higher object, the attainment of the abiding nourishment, unto eternal life offered by the Son of man. So here: every disturbing or extraneous thought is put aside; and, with even unusual directness, force, and simplicity, Jesus shows that the one cardinal requirement of the Father is the reception of the Son by faith. (Schaff's Popular Commentary on the New Testament (Philip Schaff), John, Chapter 6)
6:27–29 The double amēn statement is immediately followed by an explanatory statement of what the people should have been pursuing. Instead of rushing after pieces of bread (and fish, physical food), which perish (“spoils”; cf. 6:12), the people’s effort (work) should have been directed to a food that endures (6:27). To make sure no one thought he was in the food preserving business, Jesus immediately defined what he meant by preservation, namely, eternal life. He also provided a footnote concerning the source of this life. The son of man, who was authenticated (sealed) by the Father, is clearly identified as this source (6:27; cf. 3:33–36). The question in this section is thus focused on the recognition of the authentic sign—Jesus, the Son of Man, the one who had been marked/sealed/certified (sphragizein) as genuine by the Father. He is the one who gives eternal life, the food that does not perish (6:27). The reader will observe in Jesus’ words once again several familiar Johannine themes including eternal life (cf. 3:14; 5:21; 20:31), dependence on the Father (cf. 5:19–22; 17:6), Son of Man (cf. 1:51; 5:27), Jesus as source (cf. 6:51; 8:12; 15:4), and saving from perishing or avoiding lostness (cf. 3:16–17; 4:42; 10:28). The result is that the reader is being led with the people in the story to ask the existential question: “What must we do?” (6:28).
But that question did not end there because it was asked not by contemporary generalists but by Jews who were oriented to “do the works God requires” (6:28). The expression, literally, “working works,” is a typical emphatic Hebraism that has been preserved perfectly in Greek. Its occurrence suggests that the conversation is most probably the kind that would have taken place in a synagogue (note the reference to the synagogue at 6:59) among those who were bent on gaining precise definitions of legitimate, God-honoring work that would provide the devotee with God’s assured affirmation. The response of Jesus, however, was not what the questioners were seeking. In his answer Jesus turned the concern of the Jews on its head and defined the assuring work not as usual labor but as believing in him—the one who was on a mission from God (6:29).
The interplay between working and believing is crucial to the concept of salvation in John. On the one hand, a person cannot earn acceptability with God by working for it. On the other hand, acceptability with God cannot be on the basis of “belief” in a mere theological formulation about God. Thus the noun “faith” (pistis) does not occur in John’s Gospel. He chose instead to use only the verb “believe” (pisteuein), and he almost equated it with “obey” (cf. 3:36). Acceptability with God is a relationship God gives (6:27), therefore, and both believing and obeying are parallel ways one acknowledges dependence on God. As the Son always responded appropriately to the Father, people are to respond to the Son, who was sent by the Father (6:29). That is precisely the way John understood the call of Jesus to the Jews here. (Gerald L. Borchert, John 1-11, vol. 25A, The New American Commentary [Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996], pp. 262–263)
6:28. The crowd misunderstands the thrust of Jesus’ prohibition. His words ‘Do not work for food that spoils’ (v. 27) did not focus on the nature of work, but on what is or is not an appropriate goal. His point was not that they should attempt some novel form of work, but that merely material notions of blessing are not worth pursuing. They respond by focusing all attention on work: (lit.) ‘What must we do in order to work the works of God?’ The expression ‘the works of God’ does not refer to the works that God performs, but (as in niv) to the works God requires. Their question therefore resolves into this: Tell us what works God requires, and we will perform them. From John’s perspective, their naïveté is formidable. They display no doubt about their intrinsic ability to meet any challenge God may set them; they evince no sensitivity to the fact that eternal life is first and foremost a gift within the purview of the Son of Man (v. 27).
6:29. Jesus sets them straight: The work of God—i.e. what God requires—is faith. This is not faith in the abstract, an existential trust without a coherent object. Rather, they must believe in the one [God] has sent. Such language may reflect a specific Old Testament passage, such as Malachi 3:1 where God promises to send, in due time, the ‘messenger of the covenant’, but in fact the language is reminiscent of the entire ‘sentness’ theme in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus is supremely the one who reveals God to us, precisely because, unlike any other person, he has been in the courts of heaven and has been sent from there so that the world might be saved through him (e.g. 3:11–17). Faith, faith with proper Christological object, is what God requires, not ‘works’ in any modern sense of the term. And even the faith that we must exercise is the fruit of God’s activity (cf. notes on vv. 44, 65). Although the noun ‘faith’ is not used, this ‘work of God’ turns out to be nothing else than faith, making this ‘work of God’ diametrically opposed to what Paul means by ‘the works of the law’. As a result, the thought of the passage is almost indistinguishable from Paul: ‘For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law’ (Rom. 3:28). (D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary [Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991], pp. 284–285)
Concluding Remarks
John 6:27-29 is crystal clear that believing in the Lord Jesus is a work, which means that the Holy Bible does not deny that a man is justified by works. Rather, what the sacred Scriptures are condemning is the Judaizing wing of Christianity, which claimed notion that God justified individuals by carrying out the works of the Mosaic Law. This is precisely what Paul was opposing when he stated that a person is justified by faith and not by works:
“What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’ Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work (ergazomeno) but believes (pisteuonti) in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
“‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.’
“Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
“For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
“In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was ‘counted to him as righteousness.’ But the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Romans 4:1-25 Legacy Standard Bible (LSB)
The context shows that the blessed Apostle was contrasting faith with the works of the Law, and therefore wasn’t denying that faith is itself a work that God requires of individuals. He was reject the notion that the only way to be faithful to God is by obeying the Mosaic Law, since Abraham was faithful and therefore righteous in God’s sight long before the Law had ever been given.
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