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The Two Works of Scripture, Part 1: Dead Works of the Old Man

[Study Aired April 28, 2026]

Introduction: The Apostolic Pattern and Its Witnesses

The doctrine of works stands at the center of Scripture’s testimony concerning God’s purpose — the redemption of the naturally captive creature, not from a lost perfection, but from the designed bondage of the natural order (Rom 8:20) — into the liberty of the life of the Spirit through the ransom of Christ. Few subjects have been more bitterly contested, more frequently distorted, or more desperately misunderstood. At first glance the sacred page appears to speak out of both sides of its mouth—commanding works while condemning them, judging by works while saving apart from them, declaring faith without works dead while declaring works of the law incapable of justifying. These apparent tensions are not contradictions to be resolved by choosing sides. They are differentiations to be discerned by the governing principle that orders all of God’s purpose: Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual (1 Co 15:46).

This article, the first of three parts, establishes the foundation of the doctrine by examining the nature of works under the old man—what Scripture terms “dead works.” Part 2 will treat the work of God (believing) and the spiritual reality of works wrought in God through the indwelling Spirit. Part 3 will address the judgment of works and the final vindication of the natural-first, spiritual-second pattern.

Before turning to the text, a word about the pattern itself. What follows is not a suggestive inference drawn from isolated verses — it is an apostolic doctrine, confirmed in the mouth of multiple witnesses across the New Testament. Paul contrasts works of the flesh with fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:19-23). The writer to the Hebrews contrasts dead works with serving the living God (Heb 9:14). Paul contrasts works of the law with the righteousness of faith (Rom 3:28; 4:4-5; Gal 2:16). Christ contrasts the multitude’s striving to work the works of God with the single work of believing (John 6:28-29). Paul contrasts man’s labor to establish righteousness with God’s own working within the believer (Phil 2:12-13). Where two or three witnesses establish a word (2Co 13:1), five apostolic witnesses establish a doctrine.

The pattern itself is one of apostolic contrast — the natural against the spiritual, the first against the second, the earthy against the heavenly. Paul does not merely demonstrate this contrast; he states it as the governing principle of all God’s purpose: Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual (1Co 15:46). The first man Adam was made a living soul; the Last Adam was made a quickening spirit (vs 45). The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven (vs 47). Every doctrine of works in Scripture moves on this line. The works of the first Adam and his posterity are the works of the natural — carnal and dead. The works wrought by the Last Adam in His people are the works of the spiritual — heavenly and living.

With this apostolic pattern in view, we turn to the Hebrew testimony of Scripture, where the terminology of works was first laid down.

The Hebrew Foundation: Ma’aseh, Pa’al, and ‘Avodah

The Old Testament employs three primary terms for what later Scripture will develop into the doctrine of works. Each contributes to the picture of the natural order, and each anticipates the resolution that belongs to the spiritual.

The most frequent is ma’aseh (Strong’s H4639), occurring over two hundred times. The word denotes a made thing, a deed, a work, an action. It is first used of God’s own works: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made (Gen 2:2). It describes the heavens as the work of thy fingers (Psa 8:3). The same word is applied to man’s works — Cain’s offering, Noah’s ark, Bezaleel’s labor on the tabernacle. Critically, ma’aseh is the word used for idolatry: the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell (Deut 4:28). Man’s works take the form of man’s gods, and man’s gods are as lifeless as man’s works. The lifelessness of the idol testifies to the lifelessness of the labor that produced it.

The second term is pa’al (Strong’s H6467, with verb H6466), “to do, to work, to make.” It carries a more personal, agential weight than ma’aseh. David prays, Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavours; give them after the work of their hands (Psa 28:4). It describes the wicked who work iniquity (Psa 6:8; Psa 14:4), and the righteous whose work God remembers (Ruth 2:12). Isaiah indicts Israel for disregarding the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands (Isa 5:12). The human pa’al is the subject of God’s evaluation throughout the prophets; God’s own pa’al is the subject of human neglect.

The third term is ‘avodah (Strong’s H5656), “service, labor, bondage.” It carries the connotation of servile toil. It is first used of Israel’s hard bondage in Egypt: And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour (Exo 1:14). The same word is later applied to the service of the tabernacle (Exo 35:24; 38:21) — cleansed and consecrated labor, yet still belonging to the natural order. God’s appropriation of ‘avodah from Egyptian bondage to tabernacle service is itself instructive: labor is redirected but not yet transformed; the servant serves a new Master but still serves in the flesh. The tabernacle ‘avodah was external worship by external men — a natural anticipation of the spiritual reality, pointing forward to that indwelling temple the believer has become (1Co 6:19).

The bondage that ‘avodah describes is also the bondage from which God redeems. The primary Hebrew terms for redemption — ga’al (H1350) and padah (H6299) — do not describe the recovery of a prior perfection. Ga’al is the right and obligation of the kinsman to buy back what poverty or captivity has forfeited, moving the redeemed not backward but forward into new standing (Ruth 4:4-10; Isa 43:14). Padah is ransom-release — the payment of a price that frees the captive from the condition holding them (Deut 7:8; Exo 13:13-15). Neither term presupposes a fall. Both presuppose designed captivity awaiting a Deliverer. The ‘avodah of Egypt was not an accident to be corrected; it was the natural order crying out for the ga’al of God — a cry answered first in Moses and finally and fully in Christ, who gave His life a ransom for many (Matt 20:28).

Two Old Testament passages deserve special notice as foreshadowings of the spiritual reality to come. Isaiah 26:12 prays, LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. Here the prophet sees what Paul will later expound in Philippians 2:13 — that the acceptable works of God’s people are works God Himself has wrought in them. Psalm 90:17 confirms the same anticipation: And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. The man of God does not boast that his hands have established a work; he pleads that God will establish it. Even in the Old Testament the confession is already forming: Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it (Psa 127:1). The Hebrew foundation announces the problem; the Greek New Testament declares the resolution.

Dead Works: What Scripture Means by the Term

When the writer to the Hebrews coins the phrase “dead works” he is not speaking exclusively of acts of sin. He is naming a whole category of human activity—the full body of labor performed by the old man, whether openly wicked or outwardly pious. The phrase appears twice, each time identifying the believer’s deliverance from such works as foundational to the gospel: Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God (Heb 6:1). And more pointedly: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Heb 9:14).

The Greek term rendered “dead” is nekros (Strong’s G3498)—the same word used for physical corpses, for the spiritually unregenerate, and for faith without works. This term does not refer merely to the cessation of life; it signifies lifelessness as pervasive character, a quality belonging to the thing itself. A dead body is not a living body that has stopped working; it is a different kind of thing, belonging to a different category. So with dead works. They are not merely ineffective works that need greater effort; they are a different kind of works, produced by a different source, belonging to a different order of being.

The same nekros terminology converges across three New Testament books to confirm this reality. Paul declares to the Ephesians that they were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1), describing the old man’s condition before the Spirit’s quickening. James declares that faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone (James 2:17), and again, faith without works is dead (James 2:26). The Hebrews passages already seen apply the same adjective to works themselves. Dead man, dead faith, dead works — all three share one source: the Adamic nature in which the quickening spirit has not yet come. The natural order cannot produce what belongs to the spiritual, for the Last Adam has not yet wrought His work within. The convergence across Hebrews, James, and Ephesians establishes the category with the full weight of apostolic testimony.

It is crucial to see that dead works include far more than moral evil. They include religious works performed without the indwelling Spirit. Our Lord Himself warned: Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity (Matt 7:22-23). Prophesying in Christ’s name, casting out devils in Christ’s name, performing wonderful works in Christ’s name—religious works of the most impressive kind, invoking the name of the Son of God—and yet classified as iniquity, the work of those whom Christ never knew. The name on the label does not change the substance within. Works wrought by the old man in the flesh remain dead works, even when performed under Christian vocabulary. Sincerity of invocation does not sanctify the source; only the indwelling Worker does. We will return to this passage in Part 3; here it suffices to establish that the category “dead works” is larger than sinful works too narrowly understood.

Works of the Flesh

Paul’s catalog in Galatians 5 names the works of the flesh with unmistakable specificity: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like (Gal 5:19-21). The catalog is deliberately mixed. It includes gross immorality (adultery, drunkenness, murder), occult religion (idolatry, witchcraft), and the internal works of pride and division (emulations, variance, heresies). The scope is the flesh as a whole — the natural Adamic nature in all its expressions, whether externally vile or internally respectable.

Observe how Paul concludes the catalog: they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 5:21). The works of the flesh do not merely fail to earn the kingdom; they bar it. But notice the contrast that follows: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law (Gal 5:22-23). The works of the flesh stand over against the fruit of the Spirit — and Paul does not say “works of the flesh / works of the Spirit.” He changes the word, and the change is deliberate.

The Greek word behind “works” is erga (G2041) — deeds, actions, labor produced by an agent through his own exertion. The Greek word behind “fruit” is karpos (G2590) — produce that grows organically from a living source. These are not synonyms. Erga describes what a man does; karpos describes what a living thing bears because of what it is. Paul’s choice to use karpos rather than a second erga is itself the apostolic testimony to the natural/spiritual distinction. What the old man produces belongs to one category; what the Spirit bears through the yielded believer belongs to another entirely. Old-man activity is mechanical production — the output of a laboring agent. New-man activity is organic bearing — the increase of an indwelling life. The Lord stated the principle directly: As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me (John 15:4). The branch does not labor to bear fruit; it bears fruit because it is alive in the vine. So with the fruit of the Spirit — it is not produced by effort but borne by union. The vocabulary shift from erga to karpos is not incidental. It is Paul’s own word for the difference between the natural and the spiritual.

Works of the Law

Of all the categories of works belonging to the natural order, the most deceptive is that which Paul names “the works of the law.” These are not evil works. They are commanded works — ordinances given by God through Moses, constituting the external shadow of what Christ would fulfill. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20). Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ (Gal 2:16). Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (Gal 3:2).

The Greek phrase Paul uses throughout these passages is erga nomou (G2041 + G3551) — works of the law. The noun nomos (G3551) in Paul’s letters describes a binding legal system that makes external demands and pronounces legal verdicts. Erga (G2041) is the same word for labor and deed already established as the natural man’s mode of production. The compound therefore describes precisely what the natural order does: it labors externally to satisfy the demands of an external code. The law is outside the man; his works are produced outside the man; and the verdict the law returns is that no such external labor can reach what the law actually requires — a righteousness that must come from within. This is not a flaw in the law. It is the law’s design — to demonstrate by its own inexorable demands that the old man cannot satisfy them — and that what the law requires, only God Himself can supply.

Some interpreters have argued that Paul’s “works of the law” refers narrowly to the ceremonial boundary markers that distinguished Jew from Gentile — circumcision, dietary laws, Sabbaths and feast days — rather than law-keeping in general. There is a measure of truth to this observation: the conflict in Galatia revolved precisely around Judaizers who imposed circumcision and feast observance on Gentile believers, and the controversies of Paul’s ministry often turned on these ceremonial markers. The narrow reading cannot contain the whole force of Paul’s argument. Galatians 3:10 quotes Deuteronomy 27:26: Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. The scope is the whole law, not merely its ceremonial portion. Romans 2:21-23 rebukes Jews for violating not ceremonial statutes but the plain moral commandments — stealing, adultery, sacrilege. Romans 3:19-20 concludes that by the law is the knowledge of sin — a principle that applies to the law’s moral function no less than its ceremonial function.

The erga nomou that cannot justify therefore include the law’s moral, ceremonial, and civil demands alike, precisely because the old man cannot produce the righteousness the law requires in any of its dimensions. The narrower reading captures the point of controversy; the broader reading captures the principle at stake. Both together give the full picture: the Judaizers pressed the ceremonial markers because they were the visible line dividing Jew from Gentile, but the principle Paul articulates applies universally to every work performed by the old man under any dimension of law.

The works of the law are the works of the natural order in their purest form. They are ordained of God, commanded by God, imposed upon the covenant people by God Himself, and yet they cannot accomplish the thing they point toward. This is because they were never designed to. They were designed as shadow, to testify that the substance must come. For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God (Heb 7:19). For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect (Heb 10:1). The very inadequacy of the law’s works was the testimony; the ceaseless repetition of the sacrifices was the confession that a greater Worker must come.

Romans 7: The Old Man’s Crisis Laid Bare

No passage in all of Scripture so intimately depicts the futility of the old man’s attempt to produce righteousness as Romans 7. The apostle writes as one embodying the experience: For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I (Rom 7:14-15). And more pointedly: For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not (Rom 7:18).

This is the Adamic condition placed under a microscope. The law commands; the man consents; the flesh cannot perform. The will is present; the power is absent. I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members (Rom 7:23). The cry that breaks forth from the crisis is not “Let me try harder” but O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom 7:24). The answer, when it comes, does not deliver by improved effort but by the replacement of the laboring agent: I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:25), and in the next breath, For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh (Rom 8:3).

Romans 7 is therefore the hinge between the natural and the spiritual in personal experience. It is where the old man reaches the end of his striving and confesses that a different kind of Worker must come. The chapter is the personal testimony to what the apostolic epistles declare as doctrine. Paul’s confession strips away every illusion about what the natural man can produce — not because the flesh has failed, but because the flesh was never the appointed vessel for this work. The old man’s crisis reaches its conclusion here; the next chapter opens with no condemnation and proceeds to the full unfolding of life in the Spirit.

Much debate has centered on whether Paul speaks here as regenerate or unregenerate — but the witness of Scripture itself dissolves that question. The crisis of Romans 7 is not a narrative of fall and recovery; it is the disclosure of what the first Adam always was. Created a living soul, subject to vanity by God’s own purpose, never yet a quickening spirit — the old man’s incapacity is the very testimony that a Last Adam must come. The natural order was designed to fail as the basis of standing precisely in order that the spiritual might be received as a gift. Creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope (Rom 8:20). The hope was the spiritual all along.

Dead Works and the Living Worker to Come

In this first part we have laid the foundation. The Hebrew testimony shows that works are as ancient as creation and as varied as humankind, but that even the saints of old knew their works required God’s establishment. The New Testament declares that works performed by the natural man belong to a category Scripture names “dead works” — a category that includes moral evil, religious activity, and even ordinances commanded by God when performed by the old man in his own strength. The dead-works terminology converges across Hebrews, James, and Ephesians to confirm the doctrine with the full weight of apostolic testimony. The works of the flesh bar the kingdom; the works of the law cannot justify; and the crisis of Romans 7 discloses that the old man cannot perform the good he wills.

The apparent contradictions with which we began — Scripture commanding works while condemning them, judging by works while saving apart from them — are not contradictions at all. They are the two orders speaking in their own voices. The natural order produces what the natural order produces, and Scripture names it plainly: dead works. The spiritual order produces what only the indwelling Spirit can bear, and Scripture names that plainly too: fruit. The interpretive key is not a choice between the passages that command and the passages that condemn — it is the recognition that they are addressed to two different men.

The very inadequacy of the natural order testifies that the spiritual must come. The dead works of the old man cry out for a living Worker. In Part 2 we turn to that Worker — to the question Christ answered in John 6, to the Abrahamic pattern of faith accounted for righteousness, to the rest of Hebrews 4 where the believer ceases from his own works as God did from His, and to the works that are wrought in God through the indwelling Spirit.

Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual (1 Cor 15:46).