Many people think they will get to Heaven based upon what they do, i.e., their works. A work is anything you do to earn or merit your salvation or to make yourself worthy or deserving of everlasting life. Such people think that if they just do enough good things throughout their life they will “make it”. This of course assumes that it is possible to be good enough to get to Heaven. Unfortunately for those who are trying to work their way to Heaven, God and the Bible say something quite different.

According to the Bible everyone is a sinner and has come short of the glory of God.¹ God created us with a free-will and yet we all choose to use our free-will to commit sin. As a result, we are morally accountable for our sin and cannot claim innocence before God. Moreover the Bible pronounces that in God’s sight no one is righteous² or good enough³ to get to Heaven based upon what they do. Heaven is a perfect place, and to get there you have to be perfect, not just “good”.⁴ Good is not good enough.

The reason why good works cannot save, is because they can never be enough. Even if it was possible for you to live a sinless life from this day forward (which by the way is impossible⁵), and perform maximum good works each day until the day of your death, what about the sins you committed in the past? There has to be a payment made for them. Trying to “make-up” for your sins by doing something good does not take them away. Rather a payment needs to be made.

Consider the illustration of a criminal standing in court. If someone had committed a crime, was caught and proven to be guilty, the judge is obligated to punish the criminal.

Now if the guilty criminal standing before the judge were to object to his prison sentence by appealing to all the good things he had done in his life, would the judge be just and right to dismiss the case against the criminal? Of course not!

In fact, if the judge were to accept this self-righteous defence on the part of the guilty criminal, and fail to issue a sentence of punishment, the judge himself would be guilty of injustice! People would be up in arms and rightfully call for the dismissal of such an unjust judge.

Likewise, when we stand before God on judgment day as guilty sinners, we cannot offer up our good works in hope that they will “out-weigh” the sin that we have committed. No amount of good works can ever take away our sin. God, who is perfectly just, will be completely righteous on the day of judgment to sentence the sinner to the penalty of his sin, which is Hell.

The good news however is that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, willingly laid down his life for us and took our sins upon himself while on the cross, paying for them in full and freeing us from the penalty of our sin.⁶ God offers salvation freely to anyone who will by faith accept this payment that Jesus made.

Salvation therefore is not based upon what WE do, but rather upon what Jesus did for us through his sacrificial substitutionary atonement on the cross. Our sins deserve to be punished. But Jesus took the punishment in our place. God can therefore pardon us and be just at the same time. This is the good news of the gospel.

If after reading the above article you now understand that salvation is NOT by works,⁷ and you see your need of the saviour, please click here to be directed to a page which will explain to you exactly what you must do to be saved.

1. Romans 3:23 – For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
2. Romans 3:10 – As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
3. Romans 3:12 – They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
4. Revelation 21:27 – And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
5. 1 John 1:8 – If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
6. I Peter 2:24 – Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
7. Titus 3:5 – Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;