What does God do to a person when He saves them?
When God saves a person, He does not leave them like a wreck. He makes them a new person, gives them a whole new personality, and they are no longer the old person they used to be. God imputes His righteousness to their account, making them His workmanship—a created thing.
Les teaches that salvation is not of works, lest any man should boast, and he connects this to Abraham in Romans 4. As a result of faith, and because of the finished work of Christ accomplished on our behalf, which is appropriated by faith, God has imputed His righteousness to our account. God then expects something: we are His workmanship. Les explains that when God saves us, He does not leave us like a wreck; He makes us a new person and gives us a whole new personality, so we are not the old person we used to be. We are a created thing. Les also suggests, with a caveat about Greek scholars, that the word workmanship has the same Greek connection as our word symphony. He illustrates this with a symphony orchestra, where various instruments meld together for a beautiful sound, and asks what brought all that together.