"The Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good but that God will make us good because He loves us." - C.S. Lewis
Thought-provoking question. Many people have misunderstood what Christianity is about. In particular, many people (including Christians!) believe they ought to be good, because that's how God accepts them.
This is not true. Scripture tells us there are actually no good persons. We all have sinned (Romans 3:23), and therefore no one is righteous (Romans 3:10) or good (Luke 18:19). In other words, those who believe they are good (while others are 'bad') are self-righteous and full of pride. Consider the elder son in the parable of the prodigal sons (Luke 15). The point of that story is to show that God the Father shows grace to BOTH sons. They are both sinners. The elder son did not squander his father's wealth like his younger brother, but he is guilty of being self-righteous and prideful. He felt he deserved blessing because of how "good" he was.
That being said, there is another way to look at this. There are people who perform many good deeds, but are not Christian. How is this possible? Theologically, it is possible because of something called "common grace." Common grace means that every human being is made in God's image and therefore some goodness can come out of their lives. This is why many of your friends believe in social justice and helping others. It is also why we have an inward sense of right and wrong that reflect many of the moral standards found in the Bible. It is because we are under the common grace of God.
Common grace, however, is not saving grace. When we are saved by God, we do not perform good deeds in order to be accepted by God. We do not consider ourselves to be "good people" but only sinners. When we are saved, we are accepted by God because of what Christ has done on the cross; not what we are able to do on our own. Therefore, the good work that come from a Christian's life comes out of gratitude and joy. The good work that pours out of a Christian's life does not save us, but it is an indication of the saving work that Christ has already done in our lives.
One blogger put it this way:
Christianity doesn't call people to be good in and of themselves, independently of God. It calls them to come to Christ and let Him make them good and live His life through them. Salvation is a relationship with a loving God who makes us good. Sin is independence from God, trying to be what we consider good through our own means and standards and the fruit of that will always be rotten. The gospel of Jesus Christ is that He will save us. He will make us good. The bad news in that is that we can't make ourselves be good and we desperately need Him and to receive Him, we must give up all our attempts to make ourselves good. We can't pay our own way. We can't pull ourselves up by our bootstraps to God's pure standard of goodness because our bootstraps won't reach that high, neither will our hands.
Summarily, there are no good persons because nothing can a person "good" in God's eyes, apart from Christ. Yet there are "good Christians" and "bad Christians," i.e. those trying to follow Jesus by the grace of God, and those who are not following him. If someone continues to disobey Jesus and does not repent of this (aka the "bad Christian"), I would argue he should question whether or not he is truly saved (1 John 5:18).
Hope this helps!
[Answered by Pastor HM]
