Reference: Works
Morish
These are activities, divine or human, which may proceed from good or evil. We read of 'dead works': acts of mere ceremony, and the religious efforts of the flesh (the flesh profiteth nothing). Heb 6:1; 9:14. These stand in contrast to 'works of faith,' which are the expression of life by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Heb. 11. The works of the flesh are detailed in Ga 5:19-21.
Man is justified by faith apart from the 'works of the law' (Ro 3:20; Ga 2:16), but real faith will produce 'good works,' and these can be seen of men, though the faith itself be invisible. Jas 2:14-26.
The Lord Jesus when on earth declared that His works gave evidence that He was Son of God, and had been sent by the Father, and that the Father was in Him, and He in the Father. Joh 9:4; 10:37-38; 14:11.
When the Jews were persecuting Christ because He had healed a man on the Sabbath day, He said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Joh 5:17. God had rested from His works of creation on the seventh day, but sin had come in, and in the O.T. allusions are frequent as to the activity of Jehovah for the spiritual blessing of man.
The apostle Paul, in writing to Titus, insists strongly on good works, that Christianity might not be unfruitful.
Every one will have to give an account of himself to God, Ro 14:12; and the wicked dead will be raised and judged according to their works. Re 20:12-13.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
But he answered them, "My Father has continued working until now, and I am working too."
"I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no man can work.
"If I am not doing the deeds of my Father, do not believe me. "But if I am doing them, then though you believe not me, believe the deeds, in order that you may come to know and keep on clearly understanding that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."
"Believe me, all of you, that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very words' sake.
For no man will be justified in God's sight by works of the Law; for through the Law comes the consciousness of sin.
So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.
"yet because we know that no man is justified by the works of the Law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, we ourselves also have put our faith in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the Law; for "By the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified."
Now the works of the flesh are manifest; such, for instance, as fornication, impurity, indecency, idol-worship, sorcery, quarrels, party-spirit, jealousy, passionate anger, intrigues, factions, sectarianism, read more. envy, drunkenness, revellings, and things like these. I tell you beforehand, as I have already told you, that those who practise such sins shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
So let us get beyond the teaching of the elementary doctrines of Christ, and let us be borne along toward what is mature. Let us not be continually laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works,
how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through his eternal spirit offered himself free from blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works unto the service of an ever-living God!
My brothers, what good is it if any one says that he has faith, if he has no deeds? Can such faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked and in need of daily food, read more. and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, find warmth and food for yourselves," but at the same time you do not give the necessaries of the body, what good would that do them? In just the same way faith, if it have not deeds, is by itself a lifeless thing. Some one indeed may say, "You have faith, and I have deeds." "Then show me your faith," I answer, "apart from any deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds." You believe that God is one? You do well; even the demons believe, and they shudder. But do you want to be convinced, O foolish man, that faith apart from deeds is barren? Was not Abraham our ancestor justified by deeds, in that he offered up Isaac, his son, upon the altar? You see how faith was cooperating with deeds, and faith was made perfect by deeds. And the Scripture was fulfilled which said, And Abraham believed God, and this was imputed to him as righteousness, and he was called God's friend. You see, then, that it is by his deeds a man is justified, and not simply by his faith. In like manner was not Rahab, the harlot, justified by her deeds, in the fact that she received the messengers and sent them forth by another way? So just as the body without a spirit is dead, so faith is dead without deeds.
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne; and books were opened, and another book??he Book of Life??as opened; and the dead were judged according to their deeds, by what was written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them.