Skip to Main Content

Producing Fruit

October 02, 2017 - 1 minute read


Green Grapes on a vine

Faith or works? Reformation era debates about the distinction and place of faith and works continue today. The debate rears its head as some insist that Christianity must produce “results.” We see it in Bible studies and Sunday school lessons that confuse the Gospel of Jesus Christ with moral instruction. At its worst, Some Christians think that their salvation is based on their being a “good person.”

The confusion heads down a different path when Christians seem to ignore the will of God and see the Gospel as an excuse to sin.

In these opposite errors, we see that there is truly nothing new under the sun!

Luther struggled with the book of James because he saw the potential to misread the apostle’s admonition.

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. James 2:17

He did not see how that reconciled with Paul’s words:

We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Romans 3:28

God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does.

However when these passages are read in the context of Christ’s teachings and the rest of Scripture, we find something else. Good works are not the cause of our salvation. They are the fruit of faith. They are Christ’s work through us, not our work through Christ. Jesus says: 

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15: 5

As a branch, I am not able to produce fruit by my own efforts. Rather, through my abiding in the vine, fruit is produced by Christ in my life.

This is so incredibly freeing! I do not need to struggle to appease God or to pay Him back, rather as Luther put it:

God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does.

I don’t need to purchase anything or spend my life wondering if I have done enough. Christ has done enough! Now, in faith, I simply abide in Christ, in Word and Sacrament, and with the community of the church, my life will serve those God places in my life. God works through us to bear fruit.

-DR

Always Reforming

Reflections on the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation

by Steven P. Mueller

The brief essays in this volume explore various aspects of Reformation theology and its implications. They were written by faculty of Concordia University Irvine in commemoration of the Reformation's 500th anniversary.

Available on Amazon
Back to top