The Gift of God
THE FIRST CHAPTER OF EPHESIANS TAUGHT US of our exalted position in Christ…
NAS Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
CHAPTER 2, AMONG OTHER THINGS, TEACHES US clearly about our past, our present, and, as we will see in the coming weeks, our future. Verse 1 of chapter 2 tells us of our past…
NAS Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
VERSES 4-5 TELL US WHO WE ARE NOW…
NAS Ephesians 2:4-5 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ…
OUR PASSAGE THIS WEEK WILL TELL US HOW GOD TRANSFORMED US in salvation…
NAS Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.
GOD SAVED US BY GRACE…
OUR SALVATION IS “THE GIFT OF GOD”…
IT IS ESSENTIAL WE KNOW AND REMEMBER THAT WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE. The fact that we are saved by grace and not our own good works should forever change and dominate our perspective on life…
“THE WAY YOU SEE YOUR LIFE, SHAPES YOUR LIFE…” – Rick Warren (I am not an avid fan of Rick Warren, but I think this is a good quote; I believe this is true.)…
CERTAINLY MOST OF YOU HAVE HEARD MORE THAN ONE SERMON ON the grand, fundamental subject of God’s grace, e.g., Grace is God’s unmerited favor, undeserved kindness. But I urge you to consider this blog on grace with new interest. Grace is bigger than a one-sentence definition, even one as deep and comprehensive as this familiar one…
ONE OF THE BIGGEST RESPONSIBILITIES OF A PASTOR/TEACHER IS to remind. Accordingly, the apostle Peter said…
NAS 2 Peter 1:12 Therefore, I shall always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you.
ALLOW ME TO REMIND YOU THIS WEEK OF “THE GIFT OF GOD” that we have been given. Even though I believe you know this, I am going to purposely be repetitious in stating this the fact that our salvation is “The Gift of God” in order to most effectively emphasize this most important reminder. I hope you’ll stay with me…
BACK IN THE RECENT DAY ON MOST COMPUTERS THERE WAS A “REFRESH” BUTTON. When you hit the “Refresh” icon on your screen it instantly straightened the files and documents that were on your desktop. The Bible is like that “refresh” capacity. The Word of God is a living Book, deep and multi-dimensional beyond our imagination, totally capable of renewing itself in wonderful ways in our present lives. Along with me I urge you to hit the “refresh” button on your mental computers during this blog and allow God’s Word to straighten up your spiritual desktop – in other words…
REVIEW…
“LOVE”… WHILE THE WORD IS NOT MENTIONED IN OUR PASSAGE this week, I would like to plant that great word firmly in our minds as we begin our study. The love of God is the major theme behind all other themes in this towering epistle. The love of God is the foundation of the doctrine of salvation…
NAS John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
GOD LOVES YOU. I don’t think most people review this most prominent fact enough. Over the years in counseling people as a pastor and teacher it is my observation that people generally make things harder on themselves, make their burdens heavier by failing to refresh that button in their minds. Allow me to repeat these incredible words with emphasis: GOD LOVES YOU! I think you will agree with me those three words have the power to instantly and amazingly transform our minds regardless of circumstance. The circumstance may remain hard and heavy but we’ll be different and better in facing them…
GOD LOVES YOU! I urge you to receive and believe those words. I have learned to discipline myself to remind myself that God loves me throughout each day. The practice doesn’t make me reckless or irresponsible but gives me a confidence to face any situation. I believe doing this can be proven to be essential to your health – not just your spiritual health, but your mental health and even your physical health as well. If we do not believe with our innermost being that God loves us, we are cutting ourselves off from most all that is good and wise and powerful. But if we live our lives secure in the knowledge that God loves us, we are empowered to live victoriously above all circumstances in Christ…
I’M NOT GETTING OFF TRACK FROM EPEHESIANS 2:8-9; I would argue that God’s love is really the focus of this passage. What is grace but an expression of His love? What’s more, God’s love is the focus of the entire Book of Ephesians, and the focus of the entire Bible…
NAS Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
FIRST OF ALL, PLEASE NOTE THE LITTLE WORD “FOR.” It is connecting v. 8 with v. 7; it is “providing support for Paul’s stress on the surpassing richness of God’s grace to believers in v. 7.” – Lincoln…
NAS Ephesians 2:7 in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
IT PLEASES GOD TO DEMONSTRATE THE RICHES OF THE GRACE He has lovingly bestowed upon us…
“VERSE 8 IS REPEATING, EXPANDING, AND EXPOUNDING the parenthetical statement made in v. 5.” – rewritten slightly from Foulkes. This repeating, expanding, and expounding is Paul’s way of making this awesome statement in v. 8 even more emphatic…
“HOW CAN THE LIFE OF HEAVEN BE POSSESSED HERE AND NOW? How is there such an exhibition of the love of God from which the whole creation of God can learn and wonder? Because by grace you have been saved.” – Foulkes…
WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE – SAVED FROM WHAT? The opening v. of chapter 2 tells us the answer clearly…
NIV Ephesians 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
WE HAVE BEEN SAVED BY GRACE FROM OUR SINS…
HERE IS A MODERN DYNAMIC TRANSLATION OF V. 1…
NLT Ephesians 2:1 Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins.
WE WERE SPIRITUALLY DEAD BEFORE WE ARE SAVED. If we do not fully grasp this fact we are unlikely to give God the credit he deserves in our salvation. We were dead! It’s in your Bible. Dead people can’t save themselves. God took the initiative…
GOD SAVED US FROM SPIRITUAL DEATH, OUR FROM TRESPASSES AND SINS…
NAS Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
NAS Ephesians 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
“BECAUSE OF HIS ABUNDANT MERCY AND GREAT LOVE” God made us alive together with Christ”…
WHAT AMAZING LOVE IS THIS! Because of His great love God saved people that were under His wrath, worldly, fleshly, sinners…
“THE GIFT OF GOD”…
THIS BLOG IS ALL ABOUT HELPING US COMPREHEND OUR POSITION in Christ…
NAS Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
COULD IT BE ANY CLEARER? We are saved by grace…
WITHOUT GETTING TOO TECHNICAL, ALLOW ME TO GIVE YOU THE LITERAL translation of the words “you have been saved by grace.” The verbal idea here is expressed by a perfect passive participle {a periphrastic construction}, which is literally translated, “you are having been saved.” The idea expressed by the Greek verbal construction is that you have been saved as a completed act in the past and that the results of that completed act are ongoing. “Have been saved” is a passive idea, which means you didn’t save yourself; you were saved by Someone else. All in all, this verbal construction strongly supports doctrinal position of Barabbas Rd. Church and most other conservative Biblical churches, in that it clearly expresses the fact that God takes the initiative and does all the work in our salvation; salvation is all of God and does not depend on us at all…
“GRACE GREATER THAN OUR SIN” – “Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt, Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured, There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt. Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that will pardon and cleanse within; Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin.”…
MORE ABOUT “GRACE AND WHAT IT MEANS… The Greek word from which we get grace is beautiful; χάρις (car-is). We get the words “charisma” and “charismatic” from χάρις. A person who has charisma is one who is gifted. Grace is a gift; “The Gift of God.” But it is more than that. In this context it is a gift that is given to someone who is undeserving. We say today when the bill is due the first of the month but the company won’t send a late notice until the 15th, that we have a two-week grace period. We have been shown favor we didn’t really deserve…
GRACE IS THE COMPLETELY UNDESERVED, LOVING COMMITMENT OF GOD to the believer. It is God’s provision for all that He requires of the believer, both at salvation and for the Christian life. It is God’s favor to us. A favor is something done or granted out of goodwill, rather than from justice or for payment…
WHAT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS GOD REQUIRES IS THE VERY RIGHTEOUSNESS HE provides – that’s grace…
“LORD, YOUR GRACE… Covering me like a soft summer shower… Raining down on me… Goodness and mercy… Loving me daily, Forgiving me freely.” We are never without God’s loving grace…
SCHOLARS DIFFER ON WHETHER OR NOT GRACE IS THE CAUSE OR THE MEANS of our salvation. One source I consulted this week said, “Grace is the basis of salvation, and faith is the means to salvation” (Garner). It may not seem like this is a major issue, but it is. It is important to our understanding that we try to comprehend as precisely as possible just how God saved us…
NO MATTER HOW THEOLOGIANS DEFEND AND EXPLAIN SALVATION, the Bible makes it clear that whatever salvation is, it is all of God. Human beings are incapable of saving themselves. Even the grammar of the key sentences about salvation, like those in Ephesians 2:8-9, make this inarguable. Salvation is by God’s grace, not by man’s works…
DANIEL WALLACE, ONE THE FOREMOST GREEK SCHOLARS OF OUR DAY, believes the best way to look at grace and faith in v. 8 is to see grace as the cause of our salvation and faith as the means. I like that. Grace is the cause or basis of our salvation and faith is the means by which we appropriate God’s gift…
FAITH, I BELIEVE YOU COULD SAY, IS THE RECEPTION OF THE GIFT of salvation but it is not a gift per se. Without going into unnecessary detail in this blog (it is a subject maybe more fitting for a seminary classroom), let me say that it is probably best to view faith generally as being part of the gift of God, which is salvation, than it is to specifically call faith a gift…
SOME HAVE DESCRIBED GRACE IN TERMS OF AN ACRONYM…
G = God’s
R = riches
A = at
C = Christ’s
E = expense
IN GRACE, GOD GIVES HIMSELF TO US IN CHRIST; He lovingly, mercifully, kindly, forgivingly connects us to Himself forever. No matter what we are going through, we are never alone; we are never without His provision…
“THE WHOLE INITIATIVE AND EVERY ASPECT OF THE MAKING AVAILABLE of this salvation is God’s. The phrasing ‘it is God’s gift’ is the rendering that shows best the emphasis of the word order in the Greek text.” – Foulkes…
SALVATION IS THE GIFT OF GOD…
CHUCK SWINDOLL TELLS THIS STORY…He was having dinner with his family in a little restaurant and as they were eating they noticed a couple from their church. They exchanged waves and smiles. After the couple finished eating they came over to the Swindoll’s table, shook hands, exchanged pleasantries, and left. When their meal was over, Pastor Swindoll and his family got up and walked over to the cash register. Chuck asked the waitress for the check. He was told that it had been paid by the couple who just left. Chuck said that he immediately said he would pay for the tip. The waitress said that, too, had been paid. Chuck later said it was the hardest thing for him to just accept the couple’s generosity. He said he wanted to call the couple and offer to at least split the check with them. That’s how we are sometimes with God. We have trouble accepting His gift of grace…
NOTICE WHAT THE SCRIPTURE SAYS IN V. 8, “BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH” WE RECEIVE THIS GRACIOUS GIFT OF GRACE BY FAITH… Faith is trust… We are saved when we believe the gospel and entrust our lives to Him…
F = Forsaking
A = all
I = I
T = trust
H = Him
“AND THIS NOT OF YOURSELVES; IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD”…Some believe the “this” or “that,” depending on your translation (“this” is more accurate), refers to faith. That may be. It is more likely, however, that it refers to the previous clause. The pronoun “this” is in the neuter gender, while “faith” is a feminine noun. The grammatical rule with pronouns is that their gender must match their antecedent [the word they modify]. Therefore, it is unlikely that “this” refers to “faith”…
VERSE 9…
NAS Ephesians 2:9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.
AFTER WHAT WE HAVE JUST SAID, I don’t believe this verse requires explanation… Salvation is a gift. You do not earn a gift. To attempt to compensate the giver for the gift is to insult that person. When we live independent from God and become proud – as if it was we ourselves who are responsible for our exalted position in Christ, we insult God…
GOD WILL ALLOW NO ONE TO BOAST…
NKJ Romans 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.
BECAUSE OF THE CLEAR AND REPEATED STATEMENTS ABOUT THE FUTILITY of human works in gaining salvation, some scholars suggest that it was part of God’s purpose and the reason for His bringing salvation as He did, to exclude human pride altogether. – Foulkes/TAR…
NAS Judges 7:2 And the LORD said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, lest Israel become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’
WHETHER IT BE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT OR THE NEW, salvation has always been “The Gift of God”…
CONCLUSION/APPLICATION – The inestimable value of this passage is that it sets us straight it “refreshes” us. The first 9 verses in the second chapter of Ephesians clearly tell us who we are and what we were, and who brought about this drastic change…
IF WE TRULY UNDERSTAND THIS PASSAGE, its application to our lives should produce…
- THANKFULFULNESS – These words should cause us to be
- HUMBLENESS – These words should cause us to bow down to this loving power who is greater than
- BOLDNESS – These words should cause us to live lives that openly declare the transformation Christ has wrought in
- MATURITY – The comprehension and acceptance of these words should cause us to grow in
- STRENGTH – The realization of this passage should strengthen us in our spirits. The God who has done all of this for us, the God who has brought us through so many trials; will keep on taking care of us into eternity – we are His children. He loves us…
- RENEWAL – We will not live as once we did (drinking, anger, defeatism)…
NAS 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
AND WE WILL NEVER BLAME GOD FOR THE TRIALS WE HAVE IN THIS LIFE… Knowing our true position and our true relationship – seeing life as God sees it, not as we see it – keeps us positive minded, hopeful, confident…
NO TEST WILL EVER EXCEED GOD’S grace…
IN ORDER TO LIVE SUCCESSFUL, PRODUCTIVE, AND JOYFUL lives in Christ – lives that honor and glorify God – it is essential that we understand and demonstrate in our lives that we are saved by grace. We will glorify God with our lives…
“THE WAY YOU SEE YOUR LIFE, SHAPES YOUR LIFE…” – Rick Warren
OUR SALVATION – OUR PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE LIVES IN CHRIST – is “The Gift of God”…
THANK’S BE TO GOD! Blessed be His holy and wonderful name!…
– Professor Thomas A. Rohm
