Rescued and Remade (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Paul has been describing the greatness of the salvation that the Ephesians had experienced. He reminds them that they had been saved by grace. What does he mean by that use of the word ‘grace’? Of course, he could mean divine grace in general, but I suspect he is saying that they have been saved by God’s gracious power which was the way he fulfilled his great plan of salvation. They had not contributed anything to their salvation. 

The tense that Paul uses with regard to salvation here is the past tense – it is a perfect participle, and if we recall from English classes the perfect tense describes a past event with ongoing consequences. We know that salvation can have three tenses: past when we were rescued from the penalty of sin, present when are delivered from the power of sin, and future when we will be delivered from the presence of sin. We cannot have the middle aspect without the other two, but if we have the first aspect we will experience the other two. Salvation from the power and presence of sin are the consequences of being delivered from the penalty of sin.

Faith is essential
The instrument by which we obtain salvation from the penalty of sin is faith. Paul does not mean by faith the possibility that faith in general will save a sinner. It is possible to have a belief in God and never experience salvation. Rather, Paul means faith in Christ. It is always important for us to consider our faith to see that it is biblical because we cannot afford to make a mistake here.

So how would we describe a biblical faith today? 

First, it is dependence on Jesus, that is its basic feature. This expression of dependence needs a dead Christ, one who paid the penalty for our sin on the cross, who laid down his perfect life voluntarily for his people. Of course, it is not just a dead Christ we have, we also have a divine Christ, who is God and man forever. For him, death was not the end, and it could not be. So we also have a living Christ, one who was resurrected, and is alive forevermore. The Jesus we believe in is now Lord of all. He, in those basic ways, is the object of our faith.

Second, biblical faith is accompanied by repentance. The fact is, that in this life, it is always sinners who exercise faith. While this will mean that no one has a perfect faith, it also means that the believer is conscious that he himself is not perfect. This state of things is not something that he can forget. Faith is accompanied by repentance from the onset.

Third, biblical faith in this world is connected to the divine promises. If there are any parts of the Bible that the devil will try and prevent us focusing on, it is the many great and precious promises that the Bible contains. They are full of spiritual encouragement and they are the best way to strengthen our faith. And we know that it was because of certain promises that we believed in Jesus in the first place.

Calvin defined faith in this way when he preached on these verses: ‘Faith, then, brings a man empty to God, that he may be filled with the blessings of Christ.’ That is what faith does.

What is the gift of God here?
Paul mentions that something is the gift of God here. As far as the English translation is concerned, it could be one of three things – grace, salvation and faith, and each of these words could be placed after ‘this’, and each would make sense. Most people think it is faith because it is the last of the three that is mentioned. The Greek language is more precise than English. It has masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. The word translated faith is a feminine noun, as is grace and salvation, but ‘this’ is neuter, so it must refer to the whole idea of the sentence and not just part of it. 

It is important to realise that some biblical truths may not be the truth that is being stressed in a verse. So, while faith in Christ no doubt is produced by God and is his gift, that is not what Paul is stressing here, unless we want to include faith within the overall salvation that we experience. Instead, we should heed the comment of Calvin: ‘Many persons restrict the word gift to faith alone. But Paul is only repeating in other words the former sentiment. His meaning is, not that faith is the gift of God, but that salvation is given to us by God, or, that we obtain it by the gift of God.’

Paul is contrasting salvation as a gift and salvation by works. If my activities contribute anything to salvation, then it is not of grace, and I can boast in my performance. Any person who is inclined to highlight their own grasp of things does not really understand grace. All that we have, we received from a gracious God of mercy.

What happens after we believe?
Three benefits occur on first believing in Jesus. They each occur then, but there is an order to them, but an order without a gap between them. The first benefit is justification in which the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us and we are pardoned all our sins. The second benefit is adoption; having been pardoned, we become members of the divine family. The third benefit is sanctification, which means we are set apart to God. It is the third benefit that is described in verse 10.

The idea behind workmanship is works of art. It could be the case that Paul is highlighting the unity of Christians here because we can read his words as referring to all believers. He does not say that each Christian is an individual work of art, although that would be true, but that all Christians together are God’s workmanship.

Another way of looking at this is to ask where would works of art be found in the ancient world. They would be in palaces and temples or in city squares. Their location would highlight their importance and worth. Unlike earthly works of art, which are found in locations that will eventually themselves disappear, God’s work(s) of art will be on continual display in a permanent place, the new heavens and new earth.

A third aspect of God’s works of art is that unlike the works of art of humans his works of art are all alive. If we were to visit an ancient temple, there would be various items on display. But none of them could say anything or do anything. They did not even know that the gods connected to the temple did not exist. But God has a temple composed or redeemed people, each of whom is alive because of the work of the Holy Spirit. The church of Jesus is the liveliest place on earth because of the activities of the Holy Spirit.

All the divine works of art are capable of specific activities. They are new creatures and Paul tells us what we as new creatures do – they practice good works. By good works, Paul means righteous actions and not just acts of charity. These actions can and will occur because every believer is united to Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. They are performed out of love to God. Moreover, Paul says that the activities of this new life were all planned by God beforehand. This means that we should not say that we cannot do something, because if we do we are not believing that God has prepared it all before we attempted to practice them. On the other hand, when we have done something, we must give all the credit to God because he prepared the opportunity and all that was required for it to take place.

All of this can happen because of our union with Christ. Here Paul says that we have been created in Christ Jesus for good works. In a sermon on this verse, Spurgeon stated, ‘Our good works must flow from our union with Christ by virtue of our faith in Him. We depend upon Him to make us holy. We depend upon Him to keep us holy. We overcome sin by the blood of the Lamb. We reach after holiness by the constraining love of Jesus. Love to Christ is the impelling cause of putting away first, one evil, and then another — and the energy enabling us to follow after one virtue and then another.’

Some comments
People like to discuss what it means to be predestined to eternal life, a discussion that can at times be of little benefit if it descends into mere speculation. Not so many discuss that God’s people have also been predestined to do good works, and it is a lot easier to read them than to read the book of life. Sanctification is the real proof of genuineness.

Christian living is a thing of beauty, produced in the lives of sinners by the Master Designer, who remakes his people in the likeness of Jesus. We should be striking to look at, resembling Jesus by being Christlike. This should be the longing of our hearts. Recall the chorus:

To be like Jesus!
This hope possesses me,
In every thought and deed,
This is my aim, my creed;
To be like Jesus!
This hope possesses me,
His Spirit helping me,
Like him I'll be.

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