Word of Salvation – Vol. 38 No. 09 – March 1993

 

By Grace, Through Faith

 

Sermon by Rev. John Haverland on Ephes.2:8-10

Scripture Readings: Ephes. 2:1-10, Rom. 6:1-14.

 

Congregation, beloved in Christ,

One of the most controversial areas of Christian theology is the doctrine of election.  When people hear about God’s predestination they often react strongly and negatively.  Through the centuries of church history the doctrine of election has been a much debated issue and it still is today.

The Christian church basically divides into two camps on this matter.

On the one side are the Arminians.  They understand the Bible to teach that people not only have a responsibility to believe, but also the ability to do so.  Man has a free will.  Salvation is seen as a co-operative venture between God and man.  God has sent Christ into the world to die for the sins of all people.  Now God calls people to believe.  God has done his part; now it is up to us to do our part.  Described like this salvation is a sort of 50/50 arrangement.  This is the Roman Catholic position as well.  God does His work and then we need to do our share.

On the other side are Reformed Calvinist believers.  We understand the Bible to teach that we have a responsibility to believe but not the ability to do this.  So if we are going to be saved, it is God who must save us.  God must work graciously, powerfully, effectively in the heart of the sinner to bring him to faith and salvation.  This means that there is no room for – boasting all the glory for our salvation must go to God.

This we believe is the clear teaching of the Bible.  This teaching is summarised for us in the Reformed Confessions.  However, this teaching raises a number of questions and objections.  The writers of the catechism, having looked at how we are made right with God, anticipated these questions: What about good works?  Why can’t the good we do make us right with God, or at least help make us right with Him?  And won’t this teaching regarding salvation by grace make people indifferent and wicked?

To deal with these questions we turn our attention to these verses in Ephesians.  This is one of the classic passages about salvation by grace and the place of good works.  It teaches us that we are saved by grace, through faith, for works.  That is the theme of these verses.

1.  The cause of our salvation is grace

2.  Its means is faith.  And

3.  Its result is works.

This is how we will examine this subject.

‘Salvation’ refers to the life that God has given us.  It is a broad term for all that God has done for us in Christ.  The one thing that everyone in the world needs is salvation; to be right with God.

1.  The first thing we want to look at is the cause of this salvation.  How are we saved?  How do we get into a right relationship with God?  The first point to note is that this cannot be achieved through our works.  ‘Not by works’ (vs.9).  We cannot be saved by being good and honest.  That will not do.  No, we are incapable of meeting God’s standards, or measuring up to the demands of His law.  We cannot do it.  If we could have done this there would have been no need for Christ to die.  Had we been able to save ourselves Christ’s death would have been quite unnecessary.

We cannot save ourselves because we are dead in transgressions and sins.  That’s how Paul describes us in vs.1.  If you went into the city morgue and stood in the middle of the room among the dead bodies there and spoke to them, you wouldn’t get any response.  You could shout and tell them all to get up, but nothing would happen.  Those people are dead.

When Paul talks about being dead he is applying this to the spiritual life of the sinner.  The person who doesn’t know God and who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit in their hearts is spiritually dead.  You speak to them about spiritual things and there is no response.  They are dead and are therefore incapable of helping themselves.  They are unable to save themselves.  No amount of good works will save them.

The Bible reinforces this point again and again.  God knows how proud we all are and how much we would like to take some of the credit for our salvation.  We are all inclined to look at what we are doing and think that this must make some contribution to our salvation.  My church attendance, my kindness, my regular Bible study – surely all this helps my standing with God!  The answer of the Bible is, No!  Nothing we do can earn salvation.  There is no room for boasting, for self-congratulation, for patting ourselves on the back.  It is all the work of God.  ‘It is because of Him (i.e. God) that you are in Christ Jesus… therefore…let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’ (1Cor.1:30-31)  Our boast is in the Lord because the work of salvation is His work.  By grace you have been saved.

We are more familiar with the idea of merit than of grace.

Someone comes first in the 400 metres – they are given a prize because they deserved it.  A person does a solid weeks work and they get their pay-check – money which they have earned.  A student works hard at university and at the end gains a degree – we congratulate her because she deserved it.

But God does not save us on the basis of merit or because we earned it.  No, the cause lies in His grace.

Grace is God’s favour.  The children know what this is.  If someone comes to you and says, ‘Will you do me a favour?’ they are asking you to do something for nothing.  They are asking you to be kind.  To help them or give them something even though they can’t repay you.

This is what God does for us.  He gives us something for nothing.  Grace is God’s unmerited favour shown to the completely undeserving.  It describes the gift of God’s salvation, given without us earning or deserving it.  Grace is the kindness, the mercy, the goodness of God.

One of the catch-phrases of the Reformation was Sola Gratia – by grace alone.  That is well put: The cause of our salvation lies in God’s grace alone.

2.  This grace is given to us through the means of faith.  Sometimes you hear people describing their conversion and they will say things like: ‘I gave my life to the Lord’; ‘I opened my heart to Him’; ‘I decided to follow Jesus’.

Without doubting the sincerity of their faith, we could question the accuracy of their theology.  We don’t open our hearts, it is the Lord who opens them.  We don’t give our life to the Lord; no, He gives us life.

We can say, I believed in Jesus, or I received Jesus, because those are words the Bible uses; yet ever as we say that we must recognise that God enabled us to believe, to receive.  We exercise faith, but God gives us this faith.  This is a paradox – a seeming contradiction, but the Bible teaches both of these truths.

We have a responsibility to believe.  If there is someone here who does not believe then you need to realise this too.  God urges, commands, exhorts you to exercise faith.  This is something God expects of you: You must believe.

Yet faith is also a gift of God.  Vs.8: the priority, the initiative rests with God.  Salvation is not a result of God providing grace and us providing faith.  No, it is a result of God providing grace and faith.

This faith is the means by which we are saved.  You could compare this to a rope thrown out to a drowning man.  The person who throws the rope is the cause of that man’s salvation; the rope is the means, or the instrument of that salvation.  In the same way, God saves us through the means of faith.

Faith is the empty hand that grasps hold of God’s salvation in Christ.  One writer says this: ‘Faith is nothing but accepting the golden coins from the generous one.’  Faith is to accept, to receive the free gift of life that God gives.

When we do this it seems as though this is our work; but once we have believed we realise that God gave us eyes to see the gift, the desire to reach out to it, the strength to grasp hold of it.  In this way salvation is by grace, through faith.

But now we need to come back to those objections we raised at the beginning.  If our salvation is solely by grace, received through faith, won’t this idea make people indifferent?  Won’t people sin so that grace may increase?  Not at all, says the catechism: ‘It is impossible for those grafted into Christ by true faith not to produce fruits of gratitude.”  This simply echoes the words of Paul in Romans 6: ‘We died to sin, how can we live in it any longer.’  James makes the same point: A true believer must produce fruits of gratitude.  Faith without works is dead.

Paul and James are complementary.  Paul argues that we aren’t saved by good works; James argues the equally important truth that we aren’t saved without them.

3.  This is the third point we must notice.  Our salvation must result in works.

Good works are the fruit, the evidence, the result, the proof of the Christian faith.

This is why God created us in Christ – to do good works.  Even from before the creation of the world God chose us in Christ so that we could live to please Him.

This lays a great responsibility on us.  God expects us to obey Him, to serve Him, to produce the fruit of the Spirit, to love Him and our neighbour.

It would be well for us to ask ourselves: How am I expressing my gratitude to God?  What good works am I doing?  What fruits of thankfulness are evident in my life?  What evidence do I give of God’s grace shown to me?  We should ask ourselves these questions because we are God’s workmanship.  The word used here refers to a work of art.  It was the word used to describe a beautiful piece of furniture that a craftsman had made, or a masterpiece created by a skilled painter.

We are God’s workmanship in Christ Jesus.  In his letter to the Corinthians Paul tells us that ‘If any man is in Christ Jesus he is a new creation.  First God created us as His image-bearers, then He recreated us into the image of His Son.  God is at work in us, shaping, polishing, crafting us into people who will eventually be mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Someone has compared the Christian to a tree.  The roots are God’s grace, the trunk is faith and the fruit are good works.  All three of these things must be present in a true Christian.

We are saved by grace, through faith, for works, and even these works God has prepared in advance for us to do.

I mentioned that one of the catch-phrases of the Reformation was, Sola Gratia – by grace alone.  Another of their phrases was – Soli Deo Gloria – To God alone be the glory.

This is the point Paul is making here.  Salvation is God’s work – to Him alone be the glory!

AMEN