Works (2038) (ergazomai from érgon = work) means to work out, engage in an activity involving considerable expenditure of effort. It was used to describe one toiling energetically and diligently in the vineyard. Ergazomai is present tense indicating habitual activity.

Paul now uses a common illustration to amplify his point making it clear that the legal act of declaring a man righteous (justification) is completely apart from any kind of human work. If salvation were on the basis of one’s own effort, God would "owe salvation" as a debt—instead of righteousness being a gift of God’s grace to those who believe. Since faith is contrasted with work, faith must mean the end of any attempt to earn God’s favor through personal merit and this same principle applies to us once we have become believers. We are sanctified (our daily growth in grace and progress toward greater Christlikeness) by faith not by deeds we do in our strength. Nothing of the old flesh can please God Who is holy.

Although faith is required for salvation, it has no power in itself to save. It is the power of God’s redemptive grace alone, working through the atoning work of His Son on the cross, that has power to save. Note carefully that faith is not, as some claim, a type of work. Paul here makes clear that saving faith is completely apart from any kind of human works.

HIS WAGE IS NOT RECKONED AS A FAVOR BUT AS WHAT IS DUE: o misthos ou logizetai (3SPPI) kata charin alla kata opheilema:

"his wages are not counted as a favor or a gift, but as an obligation (something owed to him)" (Amplified)

Wage (3408) (misthos) refers to compensation or pay for service, whether that service is good (a reward) or bad (a retribution).

Reckoned (3049)  (logizomai from lógos = reason, word, account) (Click for in study of logizomai)  means to take something that belongs to someone else and credit it to another’s account. 

Favor (5485) (charis) in context refers to an undeserved or gratuitous gift.

What is due (3783) (opheilema from opheilo = owing a debt or having a strong obligation moral obligation and personal duty) refers to a debt, to that which is owed or to that which is strictly due.

Think of it this way: when a man works for a living and gets his paycheck at the end of the week, he is entitled to his wages. He has earned them. He does not bow and scrape before his employer, thanking him for such a display of kindness and protesting that he doesn’t deserve the money. Not at all! He puts the money in his pocket and goes home with the feeling that he has only been reimbursed for his time and labor.

Kenneth Wuest explains that...

"Paul uses an illustration here taken from human affairs. He calls attention to the fact that when the employer gives the workman his pay, that is not counted as a favor, but as a legal obligation which the employer is bound to discharge. It is a debt which he owes his employee. The latter, out of courtesy, thanks his employer, but he is not legally obligated to do so. He earned the wages and he deserved them. If the sinner earned salvation by good works, God would be indebted to man and obligated to give it to him. It would not be a favor which God would do for man. And man would not need to thank God nor glorify Him for it." (Wuest, K. S. Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: Studies in the Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans)

Wages have nothing to do with grace (unmerited favor) but with what is due.

John Piper explains that

"In other words, if you receive circumcision (or let's say, attend church, and keep the second table of the Ten Commandments) as a way of obtaining right standing with God, then what you would get would not be grace, but what you are due. In other words, "working" calls attention to the worker and the work and expects what is due. Therefore, working does not exclude boasting, it supports boasting (v2) On the other hand, faith does not call attention to itself, but to the grace of the one trusted. Faith corresponds to grace. Work corresponds to debt. Therefore faith excludes boasting, and work supports boasting. If you are the beneficiary of grace in all that you are and have, you cannot boast in yourself. Paul said in [1Cor 4:7], "What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?" When all is gift, boasting is excluded.  But what happens if you try to perform a "work of Law" as a way to get right with God? Three things:

1) you nullify grace ("to the one who works, his wage is not credited according to grace");

2) you turn justification into a wage that you are due, rather than a free gift;

3) you re-establish boasting which the entire plan of salvation was meant to destroy.

Works (2038) (ergazomai from érgon = work) means to work out, engage in an activity involving considerable expenditure of effort. It was used to describe one toiling energetically and diligently in the vineyard. Ergazomai is present tense indicating habitual activity.

in the realm of the moral and spiritual, if a sinner does not perform good works in an effort to earn salvation, but instead puts his trust in the God who justifies the ungodly person, that act of faith is put down to his account as the efficient medium through which God bestows a righteous standing upon that person.

The Futility of Works:
An Illustration

An Englishman by the name of Ebenezer Wooten had just concluded a preaching service in the village square. The crowd had dispersed, and he was busily engaged in loading the equipment. A young man approached him and asked,

“Mr. Wooten, what must I do to be saved?”

Sensing that the fellow was trusting his own righteousness, Wooten answered in a rather unconcerned way,

“It’s too late!”

The inquirer was startled.

“Oh don’t say that, sir!”

But the evangelist insisted,

“It’s too late!”

Then, looking the young man in the eye, he continued,

“You want to know what you must do to be saved. I tell you it’s too late now or any other time. The work of salvation is done, completed, finished! It was finished on the cross.”

Then he explained that our part is simply to acknowledge our sin and receive by faith the gift of forgiveness.

BUT BELIEVES IN HIM: pisteuonti (PAPMSD) de: (Ro 4:24; 3:26-30; 8:30-34; Jn 5:24; Gal 3:8)

Believed (4100) (pisteuo) as used in the NT to describe saving faith denotes more than mere intellectual assent to a fact. Pisteuo describes an adherence to, a committal to, a  reliance upon or a trust in a person or an object. Thus genuine belief involves not only the consent of the mind, but an act of the heart and will of the subject. Biblical saving faith is not passive assent but an active staking of one's life on the claims of God. The present tense means this belief is habitual or continuous.

To paraphrase the respected linguist, W E Vines, saying faith involves (1) A firm conviction which produces full acknowledgment of God's revelation of Truth, (2) a personal surrender to the Truth and (3) a conduct inspired by & consistent with that surrender.

Only those who relinquish all claims to goodness and acknowledge they are ungodly are candidates for justification, for Jesus Himself declared

"I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:32)

Thus belief stands in stark contrast here with "work" and those who say that "belief" is a "work" have not understood Paul's point. We can do nothing to merit being declared righteous. Yes, we believe but that is not a work of our flesh that merits God's salvation. It is analogous to a drowning man holding up his hand to the one who has reached down to save him.

WHO JUSTIFIES THE UNGODLY (destitute of reverential awe towards God): epi ton dikaiounta (PAPMSA) ton asebe: (Ro 1:17,18; 5:6-8; Josh 24:2; Zech 3:3,4; 1Cor 6:9-11; 1Ti 1:13-15; Titus 3:3-7)

Justified (1344) (dikaioo is derived from the noun dike = righteousness) (Click more detailed analysis of dikaioo) defines the act by which a man is brought into a right state as related to God. Justified means "being declared righteous." Note that verbs which end in –óo generally indicate bringing out that which a person is or that which is desired, but not usually referring to the mode in which the action takes place.  It is not something the sinner does but something God does for the sinner when he trusts Christ and it represents a once-for-all declaration which never ever changes or is rescinded! To be justified means that the believer is now viewed in Christ as righteous, and is treated as such by God. This is good news for the ungodly!

Dikaioo never means to make anyone righteous or to do away with his violation of the law, by himself bearing the condemnation and the imposed sentence. Abraham or any man in his fallen condition can never do anything in order to pay for his sinfulness and thus be liberated from the sentence of guilt that is upon him as it happens in the world - when a guilty person has paid the penalty of a crime, he is free from condemnation.

Ungodly (765) (asebes from a = without + sébomai = worship, venerate) describes an absence of all fear and reverence for God. The ungodly person is thus unrestrained by the awe due Him. The ungodly man is one who practices the opposite of what the fear of God demands. The ungodly is the man who has little or no time for God in his life and is someone who has ruled God out of his affairs and his thinking even though God is the greatest Being in the universe, the One who makes sense out of life and the One around whom all of life revolves. To eliminate such a Being from your thinking is to be wicked, to be ungodly.

Asebes means lack of interest in the things of God and a behavior and lifestyle consistent with such an irreverent attitude. Click for an in depth study of the related word ungodliness (asebeia). It pertains to violating norms for a proper relation to deity, and in short means irreverent (lacking proper respect of God) or impious. Living as if God does not exist and with no regard for Him. Read and study Psalm 1, an excellent summary of the righteous versus the ungodly (wicked).

Those who are righteous in their own eyes have no part in God’s redemptive work of grace. This is an amazing to think that Abraham was a wicked, ungodly man, but he was. Anybody who tries to earn acceptance, to earn God's love, to earn a place of respect and standing before God by trying hard to do things for him, is a wicked, ungodly person.

What is the fate of the ungodly, those who are never justified? Jude writes...

"(Enoch even before the Flood, prophesied about Christ’s second coming in judgment) Behold, the Lord came (spoken as prophecy but in the past tense because it was certain to take place!) with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." (Jude 1:14-15)

We come to God just as we are -- nothing in our hands we bring, simply to His Cross we cling -- sins as scarlet but made white as snow by His judicial decree

"This one is he or she who has the righteousness of Christ accounted to their debit column".

Sola fide, the doctrine of faith alone, offends our natural sensibilities. We naturally think justification ought to go to the good, those who are trying to do their best. But not to the ungodly!

HIS FAITH IS RECKONED AS RIGHTEOUSNESS: logizetai (3SPPI) e pistis autou eis dikaiosunen: (Ro 4:3; Hab 2:4)

Faith (4102) (pistis) is synonymous with trust or belief and is the conviction of the truth of anything, but in Scripture usually speaks of belief  respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervor born of faith and joined with it.

Denney writes that

“The whole Pauline gospel could be summed up in this one word— God who justifies the ungodly”

Arthur Pink explaining "righteousness" writes that

"It is called “the righteousness of God” (Ro 1:17; Ro 3:21) because He is the Appointer, Approver, and Imputer of it. It is called “the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (2Pe 1:1) because He wrought it out and presented it unto God. It is called “the righteousness of faith” (Ro 4:13) because faith is the apprehender and receiver of it. It is called man’s righteousness (Job 33:26) because it was paid for him and imputed to him. All these varied expressions refer to so many aspects of that one perfect obedience unto death which the Saviour performed for His people."

An Acrostic on Faith

Nothing For Something (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved)

f you're looking for a great deal, you'll want to carefully examine the ad for a national donut store chain:

FREE! 3 MUFFINS WHEN YOU BUY 3
AT THE REGULAR HALF-DOZEN PRICE

If that rather confusing statement means you can buy six muffins for the price of six, it's not exactly a bargain!

So many of the seemingly great buys in our world are like deceptive advertisements. You end up receiving nothing for something, when you thought it would be the other way around. Think about it in spiritual terms. Various religions require a long list of activities in exchange for what amounts to hopelessness. One Eastern religion, for example, expects its adherents to eat only leftovers, never injure a living thing, and denounce all preferences of sounds, colors, smells, and people. In return for all this meaningless (and impossible) self-denial, the individual hopes to be reincarnated to a better life.

In reality, spiritual rewards are God's to give, and He does so on the basis of His grace. Only God's plan of salvation offers something that is truly free (Rom. 4:5). Jesus paid the price for our redemption; all He asks is that we put our faith in Him. Any other plan is nothing for something. --JDB

Nor silver nor gold has obtained my redemption,
The way into heaven could not thus be bought;
The blood of the cross is my only foundation,
The death of my Savior redemption has wrought. --Gray

If we could earn our salvation,
Christ would not have died to provide it.