I am not sure where the idea of community service as a form of punishment came from, but I know the concept is as old as breaking the law itself. It fits right in with human nature. You broke the law. Now, instead of serving jail time or paying a fine, you perform community service, and those good deeds will make up for the bad deeds you have done. Community service handed down as a sentence is mandatory, or the perpetrator will have to face other forms of punishment.
God doesn’t issue community service sentences. Nonetheless, countless people are trying to earn God’s favor through doing good works or trying to keep the Law. But every time the Scriptures mention the deeds of the Law, they explicitly state that it is impossible to be saved by those deeds (Rom. 3:20, 28; Gal. 2:16; 3:2, 5, 10). Furthermore, Paul makes it plain in Romans 3 that merely keeping the Law does not excuse us for the times we have broken the Law. That would be like saying to a judge, “Why are you just focusing on this one time when I did rob a bank? Think of all the days I was a law-abiding citizen and didn’t rob any banks!” Yet this is exactly what a sinner does when he tries to justify himself before God by using the Law. This is why Paul says that, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
The purpose of the Law is not to make one righteous. The Law is there to manifest the standard of what is right and how we fall short of that standard. If we break the standard, we are no longer in the right and must pay the penalty. But praise God, it doesn’t end there! On the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ paid the penalty that was ours. In His substitutionary death on the cross, He took the punishment that we deserved and, by faith and trust in Him, we are saved from judgment (1 Pet. 2:24).
What about good works?
There is another way men look at the deeds of the Law. They think that if they go beyond merely keeping the Law and perform good things for their fellow man or for God, then this will somehow please God and atone for their sins. Once again, we go back to the court room for an analogy.
Suppose I had broken the law of the land, perhaps by stealing. If, when called before the judge, I said, “Your honor, I know I stole. But I want you to know that I really am a good person. Just to prove it, I went to your house today and mowed your lawn and washed your car.” What would the judge’s response be? If he were a good judge, he would say something like, “I appreciate those things you did, but that does not excuse you from the crime that was committed. You will still have to serve the sentence for your crime, and your attempts at bribery are cause for additional punishment.” Men don’t think of the idea of doing good works to earn God’s favor as a bribe attempt, but really that is all it is.
A higher standard
It all comes down to the heart. This is why simply keeping the Law does not save any more than going out of our way to do good. We have all inherited heart trouble. It is the sin nature passed on from Adam. We sin because we are sinners. We cannot possibly keep God’s law. And even if we could live a life where we constantly obeyed the Law and did good, we still would be sinners. Why? Because our good deeds and our abstinence from sin would be tainted by bad motives. Unbelievers attempt to do good in order to earn favor with God. That is self-serving and sinful.
The only proper motivation for doing good is love for our Lord Jesus Christ. We love Him because of what He did for us in dying on the cross. So instead of doing good to earn salvation (which is bribery), we do good because of our salvation (which is thankfulness and love).
No community service. No bribe attempts. There is no need! The sentence has already been carried out; the penalty has been paid by none other than God’s Son, Jesus Christ.