Doing good is what we were made for, that’s the point of this verse. We should do good works. In our zeal to stress that good works is not a requirement of salvation we fail to realize that our need of salvation is precisely because we failed to do the good works that we were created for. But this concept needs unpacking, lest we miss the important message of this pericope, or short collection of verses (8-10).

We were created with God’s exquisite craftsmanship, where He used Himself as the blueprint for our design. In biblical terms, we were created in His image (Genesis 1:26). While we share certain physical characteristics with other creatures, like arms, legs, heads, etc., we share certain characteristics with God. Classically, theologians tell us these include having emotion, intellect and will. But also included are the ability to have a personal relationship with God, to have both soulish and spiritual self-awareness and to have the capacity to willfully share in God’s creativeness. In other words, we were created to reflect Him in our lives. Our creation was “in Christ,” as our verses today say, meaning the second person of the trinity was intricately involved in our creation and is involved in the outworking of God’s purpose in our lives.

Now God’s purpose was well thought out before we were even created, and was not just some afterthought. We were created with God’s purpose in mind in accordance with His image, representing Him in life. Our problem came when we failed to live up to the purpose for which we were created. Our failure to do good works is merely symptomatic of our failure to obey Him. But, His purpose for us has never changed, namely to live our lives reflecting Him, that is, to do good things in this world.

It stands to reason that salvation (with all that means, including forgiveness, redemption and restoration) cannot be attained through human efforts of good works because, simply put, we have proven ourselves incapable of doing it. In fact, one failure is sufficient to reveal us as sinners, spiritual failures. It is written, ^“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (James 1:20). God’s solution is the gift of grace which we receive not by works, but through faith. And as saved believers, we are now back on track to do what we were created to do, reflect the image of God in the works He created for us to accomplish in our lives. Salvation apart from good works is precisely a salvation that restores us to doing good works.