How are God’s work and your activity related in the matter of salvation? In Ephesians 2:8–10, Paul tells you that you are saved by grace through faith, but God’s purpose, as he works in you, is for you to do good works.
Your salvation is by grace through faith. God, not you, receives the credit for your salvation. Paul began this chapter on a negative note, describing us as being dead in sin, unable to initiate our salvation, being enemies of God, and walking in disobedience. That led to a focus on what God has done in raising us with Christ and seating us with him in the heavenlies. Now he repeats for emphasis, reminding you in verse 8 (as he did in verse 5) that it is by grace that you have been saved. Salvation means deliverance from the guilt, condemnation, and enslaving power of sin. Grace is God’s free, undeserved gift. If we were dead in sin, our salvation is indeed gracious. This time he adds that our salvation is by grace through faith. Faith is a gift of God (as we will see), but that does not mean that God believes for us. We are the ones who exercise faith. Faith is not passive–but at its heart it involves receiving and resting upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation, see the Westminster Confesion if Faith 14.2. Salvation is 100% God’s work. Faith is instrumental. We are saved through faith, not on the basis of faith.
Paul reminds you that faith is God’s gift. To what does “this” refer? Grace is a free gift, so saying that grace is a gift is redundant. And if salvation is by grace, it sounds redundant to have it apply to it (though Paul sometimes uses redundancy and repetition for emphasis). “This” might refer to all three words. Though we cannot be dogmatic, it probably refers to faith, see Ephesians 6:23. Faith, though we believe, is not something that we come up with on our own. Even your faith is a gift from God. When Paul talks about faith, he often has in the background Abram, later called Abraham, the father of he faithful. You see it explicitly in Romans 4. But here in Ephesians 2, Paul is about to discuss how God has brought the uncircumcized Gentiles to be his covenant people. Abram must be on his mind. In Genesis 14, Abram has prospered as a sojourner in the promised land — without owning one square inch. But now as God appears to him in Genesis 15, Abram reflects on his childlessness. God had promised to make a great nation come from him, but that promise had been made years ago, and Abram wasn’t getting any younger. His heir would seem to be Eliezer, his faithful servant. But God renews his promise, calling Abram to count the stars, and promising that resembled the number of his offspring. How does Abram respond to the promise? He believed God! And Moses tells us that God counted it to him as righteousness. Don’t fall into thinking that although you bring no works to the table, all you bring is your faith. Faith, rather than being something that you can take credit for, is casting yourself on Christ alone for salvation. The gospel falls or stands with that principle.
Live as one who is God’s workmanship. You are God’s workmanship. Don’t fall into thinking that obedience to God is unimportant, something that is optional and secondary in the process of salvation. God is a master workman, and you are his workmanship. He is busy now making you into the kind of person that you will be for eternity. The process is always incomplete this side of glory, but it is the saints in Ephesus in Paul’s day, and you today who are God’s workmanship. Richard Gaffin points out the danger of the slogan, “I’m not perfect, just forgiven.” That tends to depreciate sanctification. God does not simply declare you just, forgive your sins, and then turn you loose, saying, “Now do the best you can!” Rather, he continues to work in you his Spirit, that powerful Spirit who raised Christ from the dead. That sanctifying Spirit is powerful enough to enable you to grow in grace, putting off drunkenness, idolatry, adultery (physical and virtual), gossip, hatred, etc., etc. And you are 100% responsible to live as someone who is the product of the master workman!
John Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, at Ephesians 2:8-10
“Wherefore, let us throughout our life walk in such a way that we may still from year to year, from month to month, from day to day, from hour to hour, and from minute to minute, continually acknowledge ourselves indebted to God of the goodness he has given us through his pure mercy alone. And let us regard ourselves as holding all things from him.”
Walk in good works. Sanctification, no less than justification, flows out of your union with Christ. Sanctification is never the basis of your salvation. Don’t fall into thinking that the only, or even primary role of sanctification is just to be evidence of the fact that you are justified. Rather, the reason that God has justified you, raised you up with Christ when you were dead in sin, is so that you can walk in good works. Note the parallel with verse 2. When you were dead in sin, you were a dead man walking, living in rebellion against God.
Richard B. Gaffin Jr., By Faith Not By Sight, p. 88
“The point here is that ‘the path of good works runs not from man to God, says Paul, but from God to man’ [quoting G. C. Berkouwer]. Ultimately, in the deepest sense, for Paul ‘our good works’ are not ours, but God’s. They are his work, begun and continuing in us, his being ‘at work in us, both to will and to do what pleases him’ (Phil. 2:13). That is why, without any tension, a faith that rests in God the Savior is a faith that is restless to do his will.”
Sin, as we saw last week, used to permeate your life. God does not simply forgive you and put you in neutral territory. Rather, having been raised with Christ, he continues to work in you by the same Spirit who did that, shaping you into what he wants you to be.
Salvation by grace, through faith. That is a gift of God. It is a gift that makes you live every moment to God’s glory—always looking to your Lord.