Ephesians 2:10
Ephesians 2:1010For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.
Jehovah's Witnesses cite as scriptural warrant for the life of "good works" required of every Witness — field service hours, meeting attendance, public talks, Memorial attendance, refusal of blood, and the long list of organisational obligations. The verse is read as a job description: God created you for a programme of works; the programme is the means by which you "walk in" what Jehovah has prepared. The literary hinge is consistently broken — verse 10 is quoted without verses 8-9, so the works appear as cause rather than as consequence, and the "for" (epi/ktisthentes en Christō Iēsou epi ergois agathois) is read as "in order to" rather than as "with a view to the natural output of."
is the verse that finishes the thought begun in 2:8-9 and unmasks the Watchtower scoping move. Read together, the three verses form a single argument: (8) "by grace you have been saved through faith — and this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God"; (9) "not by works, so that no one can boast"; (10) "for we are God's handiwork (poiēma), created in Christ Jesus FOR good works which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them." Two grammatical points carry the weight: first, "created" (ktisthentes) is aorist passive — the creating happened, it is done, the believer is already God's workmanship before any work is performed; second, the good works are downstream of the creation, not upstream — they are the destination, not the ticket. cannot be used to support works-righteousness because the verse explicitly inverts the order: God's prior creating in Christ is the cause and the works are the effect. The verse is therefore a Watchtower self-refutation when quoted in full. Used as a core text in arguments 049 (ephesians2-new-creation), 056 (ephesians2-grace), 101 (repentance-faith-gospel), 119 (just-and- merciful), and 154 (romans2-13-doers-justified).
NWT renders ktisthentes en Christō Iēsou as "created in union with Christ Jesus" rather than "created in Christ Jesus" — the systemic NWT en Christō → "in union with" pattern (compare , ). Noteworthy here because the aorist passive "were created" (ktisthentes) carries completed- creation finality: the believer is already God's workmanship, located in Christ, before any work is performed. "In union with" shifts the sense toward a relational status the believer enters and maintains, weakening the already-completed creation force that argues for together.