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Ephesians 2:8-9
One Saturday morning, I was perusing through a copy of the local newspaper. Every Saturday this particular paper has a “Faith & Values” section containing the latest news about local congregations or featuring some form of charity taking place that coming week. The obligatory “Events” section is usually followed by a Bill Graham question and answer column, and so on. However, on the front of the “Faith & Values” page, I found an article that caught my attention immediately entitled, “Grace Is Not Cheap; We Should Pay Dearly For It.” The blog reads as follows:
There are few men I admire as much as Billy Graham. I first heard him preach in 1970 at Cowboys Stadium in Irving, Texas. The legendary teams of Tom Landry had not yet played in the stadium which was in its last stages of construction. I listened to Tom Landry share his own testimony of faith in Christ, then sat with more than 50,000 others in rapt silence as Dr. Graham preached. At the close of the service, thousands flooded the aisles and came forward in response to his invitation to trust Christ.
On Sunday evenings, I listened to Dr. Graham’s radio broadcast, The Hour of Decision, and I read most, if not all, of his books. Throughout his ministry he avoided the excess of other evangelists, placing himself on a limited salary and avoiding scandal. I watched him join hands with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in support of racial integration.
Every President since Harry Truman has sought him for counsel and prayer, both Democrat and Republican. Some tried to use their friendship for political advantage, others credited him with strengthening their faith. He is now 94 years old and lives at his home in Montreat, North Carolina where a few friends and nurses attend him since his wife's death six years ago.
Thirty years ago, when he was already in his sixties, Dr. Graham reflected on his evangelistic ministry and asked some sobering questions. “I look back on my many years as an evangelist, and I wonder, have I made the Christian faith look too easy? … Of course our salvation is a result of what Christ has done for us in His life and death and resurrection, not what we can do for ourselves. Of course, we can trust Him to complete in us what He has begun. But in my eagerness to give away God’s great gift, have I been honest about the price He paid in His war with evil? And have I adequately explained the price we must pay in our own war against evil at work in and around our lives?”
Last year my wife and I spent the summer in Nuremberg, Germany working with a new church. While I was there I read Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Before he was martyred by Adolph Hitler, Bonhoeffer raised similar questions in his book, The Cost of Discipleship.
Bonhoffer wrote, “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace. … Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘ye were bought with a price,’ and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.” Speaking of his generation, Bonhoeffer wrote, “We poured forth unending streams of grace. But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was hardly ever heard.”
Billy Graham’s probing reflections on his ministry and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s prophetic book written during Hitler’s rise to power raise questions about our own faith. Have we responded to Jesus’ invitation to follow Him? Are we His disciples? Are we seeking to keep His commandments in all our relationships at home, at school, at church and at work? Are we opting for cheap grace that costs us nothing or are we embracing costly grace that cost God his Son?
A few points strike me as troublesome. First, it is interesting that there is no citation of Scripture, either in the text or in support of the author’s conclusions. Second is the confusing nature of what it is to believe in Christ (justification) and what it is to follow Christ (sanctification), which is a common mistake found all throughout Christianity today. But the most disheartening thing was that the Biblical picture of “grace” has been greatly distorted to unrecognizable proportions. Our day and age has lost the essence of biblical “grace,” and in doing so, it has been ultimately turned into works; something that the Apostle Paul abhorred, which moved him to write the book of Galatians. To say that we should pay dearly for grace is to fail in understanding Biblical grace altogether.
Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Ian Giatti writes, “At least a third of senior pastors in the United States believe one can earn a place in Heaven by simply being a good person,” after his examination of a 2022 survey conducted by the Cultural Research Center of Arizona Christian University. It is no wonder that such unbiblical conclusions are being espoused. Two decades before, famed preacher John MacArthur asserted that “The gospel invitation is not an entreaty for sinners to allow the Savior into their lives. It is both an appeal and a command for them to repent and follow him. It demands not just passive acceptance of Christ but active submission to him as well.” Maybe you have come across some of the typical phrases that often accompany this works-based philosophy of redemption. Here are some examples:
“If you’re really saved, you will hate the things you once loved, and love the things that you once hated.”
“If you haven’t forsaken all of your sin, you were never really saved to begin with. You had a head belief, not a heart belief.”
“If you haven’t repented of all of your sin, you are not saved yet. You have to really quote/unquote mean business with God and repent of all your sins.”
“If you’re still desiring the things of the world, you are probably not saved.”
“You can’t go to heaven if you’re hanging on to the world.”
“If Christ is not Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all.”
“If you are practicing sin, you are not saved.”
“If you’ve grown cold towards the Lord, you were probably never truly saved to begin with.”
“If you do not endure and persevere as a Christian to the end of your life, you were never a real Christian to begin with, because all true Christians endure to the end.”
But does biblical faith consist of submission to Christ and following Him in order for eternal life and the forgiveness of sins to be a reality in eternity?
The quoted statements above are unbiblical to say the least. Justification (which is being declared “righteous” by God because of one’s faith in Jesus Christ) cannot be said to be an instantaneous event if good works are required in order to authenticate it. If you hold to the necessity of good works in order to validate one’s faith in Christ, then you believe that salvation is a process, being ultimately by works. This is a majority-view take on salvation in the twenty-first century and it is without biblical warrant or proof. This is where desperate clarity is needed when engaging the book of Ephesians, and especially 2:8-10.
Ephesians 2:8
Believers are trophies of God’s grace (Eph 2:7). We will be on full display, shown by God before the coming ages of history future as demonstrations of His immeasurable riches of kindness as to the glorious extents of His power (1:19) simply because we are in Christ. As we have observed throughout this letter so far, being in Christ qualifies us as automatic recipients of numerous undeserved blessings that we already possess in their totality. All of the riches that the Apostle Paul has unfolded in 1:3-14, the epignōsis truths found in 1:17-19, and our undeserved, exalted position alongside Jesus Christ in the other dimension of the heavenlies (2:6) are shown to be acts of God’s grace toward believing sinners.
With Ephesians 2:8, we immediately notice the word “for” (gar), which serves as a coordinating conjunction that elaborates on the idea that was previously stated in 2:5 when he burst forth with the glorious truth, “by grace you have been saved.” (It should also be noted that the use of the word “grace” finds connection with “the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness” as seen in 2:7b.) The word “for” should serve as a mental prod for us to keep the preceding context in mind. “So important is ‘grace’ that he not only repeats the parenthetical statement but now amplifies it as an explanation of (gar) all that he says.” Having completed his thought on the eternal extents of the power of God toward us who believe (1:19b) in 2:7, Paul is now providing a detailed understanding of what was meant in the parenthetical portion of 2:5.
Grace
Now, what is “grace?” This has been touched upon previously, but our present passage and the popularity that has surrounded it demands a more precise definition. The word “grace” is the Greek word charis which means, “a beneficent disposition toward someone, favor, grace, gracious care/help, goodwill.” The ABP translates this word as “favor.” In the Scriptures, we see that Jesus Christ is full of “grace and truth” (John 1:14), and that “grace and truth” come through Him (John 1:17). We also see that “grace” is a notable favor of God that rests upon a people, always in the context of being undeserved (Acts 4:33; 6:8; 11:23; 13:43; Eph 3:2,7-8). The good news itself is understood as God’s grace (Acts 14:3; 15:11; 18:27; 20:24, 32). “Grace” is also considered a customary greeting of well-wishes (1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Gal 1:3; Eph 1:2; Phil 1:2; Col 1:2; 1 Thess 1:1; 2 Thess 1:2; 1 Tim 1:2; 2 Tim 1:2; Titus 1:4; Phlm 1:3; 1 Pet 1:2; 2 Pet 1:2; Rev 1:4). God’s grace rescues the believer from any obligation to the Law (Rom 6:14), and within the sphere of works, we find no mixture with grace (Rom 11:6; Gal 2:21).
Grace is the unmerited favor of God being freely distributed upon those who are infinitely undeserving. YHWH is gracious. It is simply who He is in His very person! Tozer supplies some worthy contemplation on this matter, writing:
Grace is God’s goodness, the kindness of God’s heart, the good will, the cordial benevolence. It is what God is like. God is like that all the time. You’ll never run into a stratum in God that is hard. You’ll always find God gracious, at all times and toward all peoples forever. You’ll never run into any meanness in God, never any resentment or rancor or ill will, for there is none there. God has no ill will toward any being. God is a God of utter kindness and cordiality and good will and benevolence. And yet all of these work in perfect harmony with God’s justice and God’s judgment.
He distributes His grace freely, and He has done so most prominently in the provision of a sacrifice for the sins of every man, woman, and child that would ever live in the Person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. God has no obligation to anyone to redeem the human race, but because of the motivation of His great love (Eph 2:4), He has chosen to pay the price for sin in full (John 19:30), drawing the human race to Himself through Christ (John 6:44; 12:32; cf. 3:14; 8:28). Any obligation in the matter is due to His character, His attributes, and His very being.
God cannot help but to love people, and He does not sit idly by when His creatures have chosen to plunge themselves headlong into spiritual calamity. His grace makes rescue a reality, His love motivates Him to get involved, and His Son perfectly bridges the gap between us.
MacDonald writes, “It all originates with the grace of God: He takes the initiative in providing it. Salvation is given to those who are utterly unworthy of it, on the basis of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.” What the sinner deserves is cast upon the Savior, and what the Savior is and always has been (righteous) is cast upon the sinner (2 Cor 5:21). This is grace!
Bing provides an excellent summary of the insurmountable blessing that is grace.
It simply means “free gift.” By free, we mean that it is totally undeserved; nothing that a person does, commits, surrenders, or promises can earn or merit grace. It is therefore an unconditional gift. By unconditional we mean that God, as the Giver of grace, does not put any such conditions on people before they can receive His gift. When someone tries to earn the gift of grace, it ceases to be grace.
He goes on to write,
Grace, then, is a gift given freely and without conditions. If we work for it, it is no longer grace but a wage, a paycheck for our work. When it comes to our eternal salvation, God does not pay wages. He gives eternal life only as a gift. When you receive a paycheck for a week of hard work, do you tell your employers, “Thanks so much for this wonderful blessing- I really don’t deserve it”? It’s more likely that you feel you deserve to be paid more!
Biblically, grace is understood as being free, as when Paul writes in Romans, that one is “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (3:24-emphasis added). We also find that grace is something that must be received in order for one to benefit from it. God’s exercise of grace is seen in Christ dying for the sins of the world (John 1:29; 1 John 2:2). But just because the full payment for sin has been made does not mean that all are benefiting from its full payment. As Meisinger notes, “It is one thing to say that God in Christ no longer imputes sin to man (2 Cor 5:19), thus making sin a non-issue at the Great White Throne, and it is quite another to say that the world stands forgiven. The only place where forgiveness is available is ‘in Christ’ (Col 2:13-14).” And one is not “in Christ” until they have received the gospel message that Christ has died for our sins and has been raised from the grave. As Romans 5:17 tells us, “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ” (emphasis added). This “receiving” of God’s free gift of grace is what is understood as “believing,” or “faith” (John 1:12).
As will be entertained in Ephesians 2:9, human works are incapable of holding a place in this divine arrangement. Grace and works are found to be incompatible much like oil and water. Paul, when speaking of God’s grace toward Israel as His beloved and privileged people writes, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace” (Rom 11:6). Grace involves God’s prerogative while works emphasize man’s accomplishments. Grace finds superiority reaching up while works are the upward-reaching evidence of prideful and self-worthy individual unable to recognize the quicksand beneath them.
In his personal Bible, Moody recorded these meditations:
Works may be good crutches to go upon, but they are bad christs to lean upon.
Works magnify man, grace magnifies God. We had better let works go, and build alone upon free grace.
Good works may be our Jacob’s staff—to walk with on earth; but they never can be our Jacob’s ladder to climb up to heaven.
Faith
The word “faith” as used in Ephesians 2:8 is the Greek word “pistis” meaning a “state of believing on the basis of the reliability of the one trusted, trust, confidence, faith.” This lexical entry deserves careful attention because it shows “faith” to be one’s response to the reception of reliable information about “the one trusted,” being the Lord Jesus Christ, making Him the object of one’s faith. In using the word “object,” I am not promoting in any way the notion that Jesus Christ is common, insignificant, or meager, but I wish to convey that He alone is the sole focal point for which one’s faith is directed when it is exercised seeing that the information that has been ascertained about Him has created a firm conviction that He is one’s Savior from the penalty of sin, which is spiritual death. Since Matthew 1, this has been the revealed “content of faith” in which one is to place their faith.
This is no different than what can be seen in Genesis 15:6, where Moses writes, “Then he (Abram) believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” In Abram’s dilemma, he calls out to the Lord for clarity regarding the promise of offspring (Gen 15:1-3). YHWH responds with an object lesson from the stars, stating that Abram’s descendants would be just as numerous. With this information provided, Abram responds in faith and is subsequently declared as “righteous” by Him. The content of Abram’s faith was not the Lord Jesus Christ but the Word of God as conveyed in the promise of future progeny (Gen 15:4-5). Some may deem this confusing, or even illogical, but Ryrie provides a clear analysis. “The basis of salvation in every age is the death of Christ; the requirement for salvation in every age is faith; the object of faith in every age is God; the content of faith changes in the various dispensations.” Regardless of God’s Word to Abram in the Old Testament, or the Lord Jesus Christ stating, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life,” the requirement of “faith” remains the same. The progressive revelation of Scripture from the Old Testament to the New Testament has provided more content to the reader, just as the persons of the biblical accounts learned more over their lifetimes and beyond as to the precise “content of faith” in each dispensation when they were presently living.
The definition of “faith,” despite the passing of various dispensations, has not changed. Hoehner observes:
In the NT it is used 243 times, 142 times by Paul and eight times in Ephesians. Much study has been done on the word, but again it basically has the idea of “trust, reliance, faith.” As one who trusts in a chair for support because it is trustworthy, so one trusts in God’s gracious salvation because God is reliable or trustworthy. In short, one does not work to support oneself in the chair, nor does one work to obtain salvation. Rather, one relies on what God has accomplished in his Son at the cross 2000 years ago.
From this summation, we must make the obvious known. “Faith” in no way should be considered as the cause of salvation, nor does it stand as the basis of salvation. The basis is the shed blood of Jesus Christ and the cause is God’s initiative in sending His Son. “Faith” is simply the means by which the available salvation is appropriated to the one believing. Some have understood “faith” as the channel by which the benefits secured by Christ are supplied to the sinner.
In salvation, one does not bring anything to the table, save the sin that condemns him or her to the Lake of Fire. “Faith” is believing in the Son of God, Jesus Christ because He alone has paid in full the price for sin, thus being an all-sufficient sacrifice that requires nothing more to accomplish the task at hand. Both “faith” (pistis) and “believe” (pisteuō) speak to being persuaded or convicted (Rom 4:20-21) about something, which in the case of Christianity, that persuasion or conviction is concerning the Lord Jesus Christ due to His ability to save through His work on the cross. Again, He alone is the sole object of one’s faith. It is precisely the completed work of the cross and the glorious resurrection that testify to the factual credibility of Jesus as being the trustworthy object of salvation. For these precise reasons, we should understand that Jesus Christ is the “content of faith” (as per Ryrie) in this present Church Age Dispensation.
It is also vital to understand that “faith” is the only sufficient channel by which salvation can come to a sinner, seeing that it is a passive response that is devoid of works, wages, or merit. “The words, ‘through faith,” Wuest states, “speak of the instrument or means whereby the sinner avails himself of this salvation which God offers him in pure grace.” By God’s grace this salvation is provided fully and freely to the recipient, but one becomes a recipient of this salvation only by responding in faith. Let it be plainly stated that salvation is not cheap as some would categorize the notion of “cheap grace” but was costly, being measured by the earthly life and death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
In providing an excellent summary, Hawley writes:
“Faith” and its verbal counterpart, “believe,” consist of nothing more than passively accepting certain propositions as true. We should not twist faith into something meritorious or give the impression that it has to impress God to result in salvation. Jesus saves, not faith. Even the feeblest faith that is persuaded of the truth in Christ is sufficient for Jesus to save the lowest of sinners.
Any claims of “disingenuous faith,” “little faith,” or “false faith” should only be seen as such because the proper object of the Lord Jesus is not in view. It is not the degree of faith that one responds with that would result in a false conversion, but a failure to respond with the smallest amount of faith in the trustworthy object of Jesus Christ. The focus in salvation must remain on the Savior, not the one needing salvation.
Salvation
When we read that it is by “grace you have been saved through faith,” we must recognize that there has also been a great deal of confusion regarding the concept of what salvation actually entails. In BDAG, the definitions of the words “saved” and “salvation” are:
1. “to preserve or rescue from natural dangers and afflictions, save, keep from harm, preserve, rescue”
2. “to save or preserve from transcendent danger or destruction, save/preserve from eternal death”
Therefore, we see clearly that there are many possible meanings of the word “saved,” but as has been previously stated, the surrounding context determines the meaning. When one makes the mistake of reading the same meaning into a word every time that they read it, this practice is called an illegitimate totality transfer. This neglects the context of the passage at hand (regardless of what the literature is) and makes an assumption upon the text due to the reader’s biases or viewpoint and not due to the author’s original intent in writing.
With Ephesians 2:8, we must consider the context of 2:1-3, speaking of our time of being “dead” spiritually before we knew the Gospel of Christ, and 2:4-7 when we were “made alive” spiritually by the grace of God. So we see that what the Apostle Paul means in using the word “saved” is that we were “made alive” by God when we believed in Jesus Christ. Again, the cardinal rule comes to the forefront: The surrounding context should always determine the meaning for us. We do not need to speculate or guess at the author’s meaning. Paul is plain in this passage. We simply need to accept what he has put forth under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
At this point, we now deal with another common assumption that has created theological dividing lines within evangelical Christendom. This quote from Barnhouse sets forth the dilemma.
God is the source, grace the stream; Christ’s blood is the ground or cause, His resurrection the proof. And now, the means by which the great and free gift is communicated to the individual. The water of life comes to us by the channel of faith. But we are not to think that we have dug this channel, for even faith is the gift of God (Eph 2:8) -emphasis added.
If “faith” is a gift from God, and a sinner can only be saved by “faith alone,” and only God can give “faith” to a person, how can the sinner ever be held responsible for not believing in Jesus as their Savior? If “faith” is a God-given gift to whomever He chooses, why does He not give this gift to everyone so that they can be saved if the Scriptures are clear that He loves everyone and desires for them to come to a knowledge of the truth (John 3:16; 1 Tim 2:4-6; Heb 2:9; 1 John 2:2)? The contradictions are self-evident.
“Faith” being a gift that only God can give to whomever He chooses is the position of those who would hold to the Reformed/ Calvinist persuasion. For instance, in citing Acts 3:16, Steven Lawson writes:
Peter declared that faith in Christ is faith that comes through Him. This means that saving faith is a gift of God. It is the divinely bestowed ability to trust Christ for salvation. God must grant this grace or no sinner will believe. This is because true faith that lays hold of Christ cannot originate from a spiritually dead sinner. A living faith cannot arise out of a dead soul. Out of nothing, nothing comes. So saving faith must be given to the elect sinner as the supernatural gift of the risen Christ (emphasis added).
This understanding sees those who are spiritually dead as remaining so without any hope of being redeemed unless God decides to give them the gift of “faith.” This view ignites some concerning implications.
Holding to the notion that one does not have the ability to believe paints God into a corner, making Him the one who has failed in saving everyone, since only He has the power to regenerate sinners and give them the “gift” of faith (according to this line of thinking). If this were true, it should relieve the unregenerate from any responsibility before God to believe in Jesus Christ. The unregenerate would be judged to the Lake of Fire based on God’s refusal to “choose them,” a decision reflecting gross injustice and thus showing YHWH to be both cruel and untrustworthy. This does great harm to the character and integrity of God. Bing writes, “If faith is the gift of God’s saving power, the demand for people to ‘believe’ seems misplaced.” If we simply let the context speak for itself, we see that the saints are “made alive with Christ” (2:5) “by grace… through faith” (2:8), which as a whole, is the grace of God. Because of His great grace and abundant mercy (Titus 3:5-7), and the resounding motivation of His love (John 3:16; Rom 5:8), He has made salvation possible through the giving of a perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2). The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the giving of His life to save the unworthy is the ultimate manifestation of the grace of God.
While this is theologically true and wholly defensible from the Scriptures, it is also seen to be grammatically undeniable. The use of the word “that” in “and that not of yourselves,” has been used to conclude as referring to God giving the dead individual faith as a gift. However, the grammatical construction of this verse quickly puts this assumption to rest. “And that…” is the demonstrative pronoun in the NASB95, while some translations opt for “and this…” Regarding the grammatical structure and how these words should be understood in English, Greek scholar A.T. Robertson writes:
And that (και τουτο [kai touto]). Neuter, not feminine ταυτη [tautē], and so refers not to πιστις [pistis] (feminine) or to χαρις [charis] (feminine also), but to the act of being saved by grace conditioned on faith on our part. Paul shows that salvation does not have its source (ἐξ ὑμων [ex humōn], out of you) in men, but from God. Besides, it is God’s gift (δωρον [dōron]) and not the result of our work.”
The importance of this grammatical fact cannot be overstated; especially in regards to the assumed and faulty notion that God gives faith as a gift only to those whom He wishes to redeem. Beal and Radmacher write, “A rule of Greek grammar is that a demonstrative pronoun should agree with the gender of its antecedent.” The fact that the demonstrative pronoun “that” is in the neuter gender shows that it does not refer back to the antecedent “grace” (being in the feminine gender), nor to the antecedent “faith” (also being in the feminine gender). Therefore, “that” is not synonymous with either “grace” or “faith” but is found to be referring back to the concept that “salvation by grace through faith” has even been made a possibility. Salvation being by grace through faith is the gift.
Another Greek scholar, Daniel Wallace, explains that “touto refers to the concept of a grace-by-faith salvation. As we have seen, touto regularly takes a conceptual antecedent. Whether faith is seen as a gift here or anywhere else in the NT is not addressed by this.” The idea that “faith” is the “gift of God” finds no grammatical support. Steve Lewis writes, “If saving faith is a gift imparted by God, then what must an unsaved person do to get this gift? The important question regarding salvation then becomes, ‘What must I do to believe?’ rather that the biblical question, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ (Acts 16:30).”
Ephesians 2:8 is plain that the “gift of God” is the provision of salvation, and the condition for this provision of salvation is faith alone. Anything else added to Christ as the object of faith desecrates the saving power of the Gospel message and anything required other than simple faith in Him elevates the promises, commitments, and creeds of man to a “Savior-like” level, when it does not save at all. The fact that Paul states that it is “not your own doing” makes it clear that we bring nothing to this gift; we are simply receiving as a fact the work that has already been done for us. The word “gift” in 2:8 is dōron and is used in such passages as Matthew 2:11 when speaking of the “gifts” that were brought to Jesus after His birth. A gift is something freely offered that must be received in order to be enjoyed, and cannot hold an expectation of “payback” in order to be valid. To try and pay one back for a gift that has been extended to you is to turn the gift into a transaction. This cheapens the gift and discredits the Giver.
Ephesians 2:9
Ephesians 2:9 continues the Apostle’s thought, transitioning from the positive notion that salvation is by grace through faith and its emphasis on being a gift from God to the negative that it is not a result of works. But bragging and boasting can only be done in alignment with where the credit is due. If one is presented with works that must be done in addition to the work of Jesus Christ, two things occur:
1. Boasting and bragging with inevitably take place, just as it did when I asked a lady how she knew that she was going to Heaven when she died. Her response was that she had been teaching Sunday School for twelve years. Her response was about her works. When I pressed a little further, the Lord Jesus Christ seemed to be an afterthought to the questions that I was asking her. Such answers zero in on self, are self-validating, and are also self-deception.
2. The person is not truly saved. If anything has been added to the work of Christ in order to assure one that they are saved, they are not because the focus is not on Christ alone. Merida writes, “Many adhere, sometimes without even realizing it, to a Jesus-plus-something-else gospel: Jesus plus baptism, Jesus plus church attendance, Jesus plus quiet times. But if we add anything to the gospel, we lose the gospel. Gospel math works like this: Jesus plus nothing equals everything. The work of Jesus Christ is totally sufficient.” If it is not Jesus alone as the focal point of our faith, then our focal point is deficient since we believed that we must add something else to Him in order for salvation to occur. Regardless if it is well-meaning or ignorantly embraced, if it is not Christ alone, that person is not saved.
By holding fast to the gospel message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, and maintaining that “alone” should be strictly defined as “by itself,” we will assure the purity and effectual nature of the gospel, garnering the blessing of God when we share it, and ensuring that those who respond with a conviction that these things are true are truly saved having placed their trust for eternal life and the forgiveness of sins in the Person and Work of the Son of God.
Notice the chiastic structure of Ephesians 2:8-9. Paul’s emphasis is on the “gift of God.”
A- For by grace you have been saved through faith;
B- and that not of yourselves;
C- it is the gift of God; <------- The emphasis in the chiastic structure.
B’- not as a result of works,
A’- so that no one may boast.
The elimination of human works removes any grounds for boasting. For a gift to be truly free, it must be unstained by hands that wish to settle the score. Human beings are born into this world with a bent toward pride and a craving for recognition and credit. Bragging is encouraged in our society and many have embraced “the credit due” as if it were their own. This is exactly the reason why we have so much confusion over the gospel message and why the well-meaning demands that spring from some ministries like a call for commitment, surrender, submission, and forsaking everything has overshadowed the grace of God with the expected performances of man.
Richard Seymour offers up an excellent summary:
God is not looking for man’s righteousness; it is His own righteousness that man can receive only by faith. Changing or improving one’s life does not make a person one step closer to God, nor does it qualify him one bit more for salvation. If it did, then he would have something about which to brag. However, Ephesians 2:8-9 states, “For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (emphasis added).
Since salvation is by grace, then a person can do nothing to deserve it, including turning from sin or changing his life. In salvation, faith and works are diametrically opposed to one another. “But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for, ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Yet the law is not of faith, but ‘the man who does them shall live by them’” (Gal 3:11-12).
Changing one’s behavior for the better cannot and will not cause God to be any more gracious toward a person than He already is. Since salvation is a gift of God, it is incorrect to think that by some change in one’s conduct a person can move God or bribe Him to consider him a candidate for salvation. Salvation results in the fact that no one will be able to brag or boast. All man’s efforts and all his attempts to get God’s attention or to coerce God to save him are fruitless, unnecessary, and damning. Because salvation cannot be obtained by any human effort, repentance in regard to salvation cannot mean reformation.
And yet the call for the unregenerate to reform in some way is precisely what we see. For example, the Lutherans and the Catholics with their necessity of baptism (amongst other things) in order to validate one’s salvation is actually found to be preventing that one from being saved. This is known as a “front-loading” of the gospel message, loading it down with weights and requirements that must be met in order for God’s acceptance to take place. If this were to take place, would there not be some grounds for boasting?
In similar fashion, Reformed proponents have called for complete submission and surrender of one’s life at the moment of salvation due to the “loose living” that was observed by many Christians after they had believed in the gospel. But “loose living” is a discipleship issue, not a salvation issue. Living in a way that is not pleasing to the Lord is either due to their personal ignorance, of which the church needs to be making disciples with the understanding that born-again believers are but infants in the spiritual realm, or it is a willful ignorance of refusing to apply the knowledge and instruction that has come from the mature believers around them, of which they will suffer loss of reward at the Judgment Seat of Christ (1 Cor 3:15), though they do not lose their position in Heaven.
Of equal concern is what is known as “back-loading” the gospel message, which permits one to receive eternal life through faith in Christ, but then the demands of a dynamic moral life are immediately thrust upon them as a litmus test for authenticity. Those of certain Pentecostal or Charismatic persuasions have stipulated the need for one to experience the “second blessing,” or to speak in tongues in order to demonstrate their salvation. Again, the performance of man is called to center stage while the redemption of Christ is held waiting in the wings. Again, if the back-loading requirement were attempted or met, would there not be some grounds for boasting, with the person having “done their part?”
With both of these grave errors, the Scriptures scream “No!” Salvation is through faith ALONE in Christ ALONE (John 14:6) without any additional criteria required. Each of the above errors finds the pendulum of salvation swinging too far in each direction. There are not requirements but simply believing in Jesus Christ, which gives no grounds for boasting but in the Lord and His perfect work on the cross. The “credit” in salvation goes to God alone. This should not be surprising, seeing that the chief end of all created history is a doxological one. God will receive all of the glory and salvation is one avenue in the enormous expanse of history that will lead to this wonderful end.
Let us abandon all avenues of boasting but one.
Thus says the Lord, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.
-Jeremiah 9:23-24