Sola Gratia
// August 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // Theology
Ephesians 2:1-10 (ESV)
“1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
In the above passage, from Ephesians 2:1-10, a word and the idea behind that word are repeated a number of times. That word is grace. One of the issues raised during the Reformation was how one comes about to be acceptable to God. The reigning understanding of the day involved something called the “via moderna” (the modern way). What this was that God had grace to give to people, however, they had to merit that grace. Sure, there was initial grace that gave the ability in one to cooperate with God so as to merit the further graces necessary to become acceptable to God. It ultimately meant that one had to merit God’s favor to be assured of eternal bliss. In this understanding, grace makes possible our salvation. In order for one to receive grace, he or she had to take the first step on their own, regardless of how big or small. Once that step is taken, God will grant grace.
However, the scripture above paints a different picture. It paints the human condition as one that is dead and under God’s wrath. It paints a picture of humankind as those who being dead, need someone outside of themselves to bring them life, to bring us out of a state of being “dead in sin” and “being under God’s wrath”. The first few verses paint a rather bleak picture. However, in verse 5, we see the answer, “But God”. Because of His great mercy, he made us alive together in Christ Jesus. It also says that “by grace you have been saved”. Notice the language of the the text. It says that by grace, the Ephesians had entered into a state of possessing salvation from God. It was not merely made possible, but granted freely because of his mercy. Take note of the one doing the working in the passage: it is God in his mercy found in Christ Jesus. Our working is not found until verse 10, and then as a response to the salvation we possess.
Again, in v. 8-9 we have an oft quoted passage of scripture. “By grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God, and not by works so that no one can boast”. This passage leaves no room for a person to boast in his cooperation with God, in their merit or in anything they have done. The only boast is in the grace of God. All of salvation, the grace behind it and the faith by which we believe, is all a gift of God. And a gift, to be a gift, must be unmerited. If it is merited, it is no longer a gift but a reward. By grace, one is granted new life, receives justification (right standing with God), the gift of the Holy Spirit, and assurance of eternal life. This gift is dispensed by God Himself through the person of the Holy Spirit and is in connection with the the Gospel being spoken to the one being saved.
What about merit, what about good works, you may ask? Isaiah says that our deeds are as filthy rags. Why would this be? It is because they are tainted with sin. The Psalmist says in Psalm 51 that “in sin I was conceived” and can be applied universally, and therefore we are filthy and unfit regardless of how many good works we might do or how good we might try to live to stand in God’s presence in heaven. Someone else needs to merit it for us. That person was Christ Jesus: son of God and God the Son. He lived the perfect life demanded by the Law, and died a death reserved for criminals and rose from the dead. He absorbed God’s wrath against the sin of His people thereby, by His life and death, merited salvation for all who would look to Him. I won’t go any further into this so as not to steal my own thunder for when I get to Solus Christus. As for good works, God has given good works for His people to do, but not to merit his salvation, but to bring Him honor and to express our thankfulness for His great gift. Because of our sinfulness, someone else has to save us.
As for the current milieu of things, there are many lessons to be learned from this historical outlook. First, it is a reminder that it is only by the grace of God that anyone can be accepted by God. You have no boast, and if you think you do, I urge you to turn to God.
Many american Protestant Evangelicals, with regards to this, have lost our way. We give lip service to grace alone, but will not often be consistent with it. We will often hear of people exalting how creative someone is in winning people to Christ. We will often start trusting our creativity more than we do the mighty grace of God. Our methods often become the perceived means by which someone comes to Christ and often all sorts of things are done that contradict the scriptures. I will leave with the following thoughts from the Cambridge Declaration:
Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official commitments of our churches.
God’s grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We confess that human beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating grace.
We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.
We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.
Sola Gratia,
Mark Bahr
