The Focus of Works

This post serves to supplement Timotheos’s thread down below, “Should Christians Look Different(So Others Will Believe?).”

“When one presents works before God in the kingdom of heaven, God’s order is disrupted in both realms. Since the reign of Christ is in giving, and in grace and the gospel, to proffer gifts here is an attempt to depose Christ from his throne. A human being lets his works compete with the King of heaven. At the same time, his neighbor on earth is neglected since his good works have clearly been done, not for the sake of his neighbor, but to parade before God. Faith is revoked in heaven, and love on earth. Neither God nor one’s neighbor receives that which is properly his” (Gustav Wingren, Luther on Vocation trans. Carl C. Rasmussen (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004), 13).