Throughout history man has always sought for ways to deliver himself from his condition of depravation. On the one hand, man realizes that his outward conduct is not up to the expectation of his conscience and God's righteousness. On the other hand, he is aware that within him there is always a tendency that draws him to lust, to hate, and to rebel against God's law. These two things have been with man ever since the beginning of civilization. No matter what culture a man is born into, he always experiences these two problems. We may call these two problems man's outward acts of sins and his inward nature of sin.
The acts of sins that a man commits outwardly cause his conscience to condemn him, whereas the nature of sin within him entangles him to continue in his sin. Man's intuition tells him that there is a God and that such a God is righteous. He desires to know God, but he realizes that his sinful acts and sinful nature isolate him from God. Under such a circumstance he devises many ways to solve this problem of sin and to save himself from sin. These ways are known to man as the different ways of salvation. Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Juda- ism, and all other great religions of the world have devised many ways for man to save himself. Although these ways are varied and diverse, they have one thing in common: they all depend on man's own work and effort, and all originate from man himself.
The first and most common way man uses to try to save himself is by doing good works. Many people think that good works can save man. The Buddhists believe that as long as one performs good works and does not kill animals, he will fare better in the next life. The Moslems believe that in order to be saved, one must be faithful to God and keep the words of the prophet Mohammed. The Jews believe that in order to please God, man must keep the law of Moses.
However, the Bible says that "man is justified...apart from the works of the law" (Rom. 3:28). To be justified is to be right according to God's standard of righteousness, and "the works of the law" are the good works that a man performs in order to keep the law. Romans 3:20 says, "Out of the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before Him." This verse tells us that a man can never be right according to God's standard by doing good works. Why is it that good works will not make a man right before God? There are two reasons. First, good works will not take away a man's past record of sins. Suppose a man has killed someone and robbed others. Suppose, further, that after a few years the murderer feels sorry about it and decides to give a large sum of money to the poor. The act of giving to the poor, though good in itself, will never remove his crimes of murder and robbery. If he goes to court, he cannot plead innocence on the ground that he has done much good to others. Likewise, good works will never erase the sins that one has committed before God.
The second reason that good works cannot make a person right before God is that no good work performed by man can come up to the standard of God's righteousness. A rich young ruler once came to Jesus to ask for the way to gain eternal life. This young man claimed that he had done everything that the law required. But when the Lord asked him to sell all that he had and follow the Lord, he could not do it, because he loved his riches (Luke 18:18-23). He was not able to come up to God's standard of loving God above everything (Matt. 22:37-38). No one can be as holy as God is; no one can be as righteous as God is; and no one can love God in the way that He demands. The Bible says that all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags (Isa. 64:6). A filthy rag is something unpresentable before men. Likewise, all our good works are unpresentable before the eyes of God.