the good work

 How God can be said to begin the good work in us.

(a) It is to be traced to the Father's love. Take one who has experienced something of The "good work" in his heart - what is its history? If it is traced back and back, its beginnings are to be found in the motions of the Father's love. It goes further back than even the Divine counsels. For it was the love behind, essentially belonging to him as Father, that made him think of and decree our salvation.

(b) It is to be traced to the work of the Son. This is not going so far back as the Father's counsels; it is rather the carrying out of these counsels. The work of Christ outside of us is the reason why the good work can go forward in us. The Son of God, coming into our nature and grappling with all the difficulties of our position, obtained for us redemptive virtue. That is the decisive fact to which the good work in us is to be traced back, just as the healing of men's bodies of old was to be traced back to the miraculous virtue that was in Christ.

(c) It is to be traced to the operations of the Spirit. This is God coming into closest contact with us. Left to ourselves the redemptive work of Christ would have been a dead work. But it was followed up by the Spirit of Christ coming into our heart, producing in us the desire for salvation, holding up before us saving merit, saving truth. And the good work in us is to be traced back to his gracious working.

"And every virtue we possess,
And every victory won,
And every thought of holiness,
Are his alone." R Finlayson

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