Ephesians 2:8-10
2:8-10: God Saves Us for Life in Christ
The new state which is ours due to God’s decisive action for us in Christ is Paul’s subject of this third and last section of this first part of Eph.2. Paul picks up on his mention of “grace” in v.7 and his shorthand phrase “for by grace you have been saved” in v.5 to expound our new life in Christ. It’s important to notice Paul’s progression here. Too often, I believe, we consider salvation only as God’s redeeming us from the death into which sin had embalmed us. But Paul does not stop there. He moves on from the liberation, the freedom “from,” of vv.4-7 to what we find here in vv.8-10, the freedom “for” which we were liberated. It’s important, as I said, to recover this fullness of salvation – the freedom “from” and the freedom “for”. I like to call this God’s reclaiming and restoring work. The former we have just worked through, but that is not the end. God reclaims us from the stupor of death that we might inhale and exhale the elixir of divine life and become the people God always intended us to be!
This classic statement of salvation by grace through faith is worth a close look. It is not a simple as it might seem to us who are perhaps over-familiar with it. Those of us from Reformation traditions read this in terms of the struggles of that time over the role of faith and human “works” in salvation. How much does God do? How much do we do? Is grace what God does and faith what we do? We get all tied up in this old debate which then gets linked with debates about predestination and free will and down the rabbit hole we go!
However, the word translated “faith” can also mean “faithfulness” or “trustworthiness”. Recent study has identified one of the core issues for Paul to explain to his largely Gentile churches (like those addressed in Ephesians) was how it is that God has been faithful to his promises to Israel. Perhaps, this recent study suggests, the “faithfulness” or “trustworthiness” Paul intends here is not ours but God’s. We might then interpret v.8 like this: “For by grace you (Gentiles) have been saved through (God’s) faithfulness or trustworthiness in keeping his promises to his people through Christ, not your own efforts. It is all God’s gift to you – nothing you have done. Nothing you can boast about.”
Gentile inclusion in the church is the direct result of God’s keeping his promises to his people. Gentile inclusion in the blessings of God has been God’s purpose since he called Abraham and Sarah and promised that through their family he would bless the rest of creation (Gen.12:3)! Therefore Paul might well be reemphasizing to his largely Gentile churches their debt through Christ to the Jews and, thus, that they had no reason at all to boast. This reading makes good sense in light of the historical ministry of Paul and the issues he faced.
If we stick with the traditional reading that the “faith” Paul mentions is our faith, our response to God’s grace, we still need not get caught up in some of those intractable debates mentioned earlier which are largely a heritage from the Reformation era. Paul protects himself against such debates by the careful way he says what he says.
Paul is careful to identify grace as the saving activity of God alone and faith as simply a receptive response on our part – the empty hands we hold open to God to receive the gifts he alone can give (i.e. salvation). But he goes even farther than that. He does this through the gender of his nouns and pronouns: “For by grace (feminine) you have been saved through faith (feminine), and this (neuter) is not your own doing; it is the gift (neuter) of God”. In Greek pronouns normally take the same gender as the nouns to which they refer. Here, as we can see, the pronoun (“this”) does not agree in gender with either of the two nouns which precede it (“grace” and “faith”). So “this” cannot refer to either of them. Most likely Paul has the whole process of “salvation by grace through faith” in mind by using the neuter “this” and following this up by calling the whole thing a gift which excludes any kind of boasting (v.9).
For my money, the reading which takes both “grace” and “faith(fullness)” as referring to God’s action in keeping his promises to and through the Jews – after all, Jesus was a Jew! – makes the best sense here. But on either way of reading this passage, it is clear that the victory over death is God’s doing through Jesus. He needs no help from us, nor does he require any. Thanks be to God!
What God does require of us is that we act on our new status as his people reclaimed from the horror of their being dead to him! God has not simply reclaimed us as his own, he has restored us to what humanity was always supposed to have been: “For we are what he has made us” (v.10) or perhaps better, “We are God's work of art” (Jerusalem Bible ). We were “dead” (v.1) but through Jesus Christ we have been reclaimed by God and are now restored to that for which he made us.
The gift of this salvation is not the result of any works we have done - as if we could lay claim to God’s benevolence by our deeds! No, salvation is not the result of our works, but it does result in our works (v.10). Specifically, we can take up anew the mandate to be God’s image and reflect God’s will and way in the creation, to be its protectors and caretakers as humanity was always meant to be, God’s royal priests in the temple of his creation (Gen.2:15). Now we can anew take up the dignity and duty of the destiny to which God appointed us (“which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life”).
Now, Paul tells us, God has completed his work of reclamation and is about his work of restoring all who will trust him as participants in his subversive counter-revolutionary movement. The church are those who are to be what humanity always should have been and will one day be. Thus we live to counter the revolutionary sinfulness of rebellious humanity; we live to subvert the patterns and systems of that original rebellion that have become embedded in human life but only work to demean, divide, and ultimately destroy people and, indeed, the creation itself. The church is in this sense “back from the future,” demonstrating here and now how life will be then and there, thereby bearing witness to and inviting all it meets to “catch the wave of the future” with it and discover their lives aligned with God’s purpose and filled with meaning!
As is clear here, in Paul’s mind faith and works are indissolubly tied together. The former is the condition of the latter; the latter provides the credibility of the former. New Testament scholar Michael Gorman says it well:
“This text does not in the least minimize the role of ‘works’ or deeds. In fact, it stresses them in an extraordinary way, for in verse 10 Paul says the very purpose of this resurrection experience, or (new) creation in Christ is . . . good works, which God has prepared . . . Even the forgiveness of sins is not the (sole) purpose of Christ’s death and our resurrection ; forgiveness without new life is no redemption! The question, then, is not whether deeds matter, but rather how – not as the cause of salvation bit as its purpose and proper result.’
On this note Paul concludes his report of God’s first great “skin on the wall,” his victory over death, our last and greatest enemy (1 Cor.15:54-57).
The new state which is ours due to God’s decisive action for us in Christ is Paul’s subject of this third and last section of this first part of Eph.2. Paul picks up on his mention of “grace” in v.7 and his shorthand phrase “for by grace you have been saved” in v.5 to expound our new life in Christ. It’s important to notice Paul’s progression here. Too often, I believe, we consider salvation only as God’s redeeming us from the death into which sin had embalmed us. But Paul does not stop there. He moves on from the liberation, the freedom “from,” of vv.4-7 to what we find here in vv.8-10, the freedom “for” which we were liberated. It’s important, as I said, to recover this fullness of salvation – the freedom “from” and the freedom “for”. I like to call this God’s reclaiming and restoring work. The former we have just worked through, but that is not the end. God reclaims us from the stupor of death that we might inhale and exhale the elixir of divine life and become the people God always intended us to be!
This classic statement of salvation by grace through faith is worth a close look. It is not a simple as it might seem to us who are perhaps over-familiar with it. Those of us from Reformation traditions read this in terms of the struggles of that time over the role of faith and human “works” in salvation. How much does God do? How much do we do? Is grace what God does and faith what we do? We get all tied up in this old debate which then gets linked with debates about predestination and free will and down the rabbit hole we go!
However, the word translated “faith” can also mean “faithfulness” or “trustworthiness”. Recent study has identified one of the core issues for Paul to explain to his largely Gentile churches (like those addressed in Ephesians) was how it is that God has been faithful to his promises to Israel. Perhaps, this recent study suggests, the “faithfulness” or “trustworthiness” Paul intends here is not ours but God’s. We might then interpret v.8 like this: “For by grace you (Gentiles) have been saved through (God’s) faithfulness or trustworthiness in keeping his promises to his people through Christ, not your own efforts. It is all God’s gift to you – nothing you have done. Nothing you can boast about.”
Gentile inclusion in the church is the direct result of God’s keeping his promises to his people. Gentile inclusion in the blessings of God has been God’s purpose since he called Abraham and Sarah and promised that through their family he would bless the rest of creation (Gen.12:3)! Therefore Paul might well be reemphasizing to his largely Gentile churches their debt through Christ to the Jews and, thus, that they had no reason at all to boast. This reading makes good sense in light of the historical ministry of Paul and the issues he faced.
If we stick with the traditional reading that the “faith” Paul mentions is our faith, our response to God’s grace, we still need not get caught up in some of those intractable debates mentioned earlier which are largely a heritage from the Reformation era. Paul protects himself against such debates by the careful way he says what he says.
Paul is careful to identify grace as the saving activity of God alone and faith as simply a receptive response on our part – the empty hands we hold open to God to receive the gifts he alone can give (i.e. salvation). But he goes even farther than that. He does this through the gender of his nouns and pronouns: “For by grace (feminine) you have been saved through faith (feminine), and this (neuter) is not your own doing; it is the gift (neuter) of God”. In Greek pronouns normally take the same gender as the nouns to which they refer. Here, as we can see, the pronoun (“this”) does not agree in gender with either of the two nouns which precede it (“grace” and “faith”). So “this” cannot refer to either of them. Most likely Paul has the whole process of “salvation by grace through faith” in mind by using the neuter “this” and following this up by calling the whole thing a gift which excludes any kind of boasting (v.9).
For my money, the reading which takes both “grace” and “faith(fullness)” as referring to God’s action in keeping his promises to and through the Jews – after all, Jesus was a Jew! – makes the best sense here. But on either way of reading this passage, it is clear that the victory over death is God’s doing through Jesus. He needs no help from us, nor does he require any. Thanks be to God!
What God does require of us is that we act on our new status as his people reclaimed from the horror of their being dead to him! God has not simply reclaimed us as his own, he has restored us to what humanity was always supposed to have been: “For we are what he has made us” (v.10) or perhaps better, “We are God's work of art” (Jerusalem Bible ). We were “dead” (v.1) but through Jesus Christ we have been reclaimed by God and are now restored to that for which he made us.
The gift of this salvation is not the result of any works we have done - as if we could lay claim to God’s benevolence by our deeds! No, salvation is not the result of our works, but it does result in our works (v.10). Specifically, we can take up anew the mandate to be God’s image and reflect God’s will and way in the creation, to be its protectors and caretakers as humanity was always meant to be, God’s royal priests in the temple of his creation (Gen.2:15). Now we can anew take up the dignity and duty of the destiny to which God appointed us (“which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life”).
Now, Paul tells us, God has completed his work of reclamation and is about his work of restoring all who will trust him as participants in his subversive counter-revolutionary movement. The church are those who are to be what humanity always should have been and will one day be. Thus we live to counter the revolutionary sinfulness of rebellious humanity; we live to subvert the patterns and systems of that original rebellion that have become embedded in human life but only work to demean, divide, and ultimately destroy people and, indeed, the creation itself. The church is in this sense “back from the future,” demonstrating here and now how life will be then and there, thereby bearing witness to and inviting all it meets to “catch the wave of the future” with it and discover their lives aligned with God’s purpose and filled with meaning!
As is clear here, in Paul’s mind faith and works are indissolubly tied together. The former is the condition of the latter; the latter provides the credibility of the former. New Testament scholar Michael Gorman says it well:
“This text does not in the least minimize the role of ‘works’ or deeds. In fact, it stresses them in an extraordinary way, for in verse 10 Paul says the very purpose of this resurrection experience, or (new) creation in Christ is . . . good works, which God has prepared . . . Even the forgiveness of sins is not the (sole) purpose of Christ’s death and our resurrection ; forgiveness without new life is no redemption! The question, then, is not whether deeds matter, but rather how – not as the cause of salvation bit as its purpose and proper result.’
On this note Paul concludes his report of God’s first great “skin on the wall,” his victory over death, our last and greatest enemy (1 Cor.15:54-57).
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