For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). 

Is faith a product of free will or is it a gift from God? If it can be shown that faith is a gift from God, then there is absolutely no place for free will in the receiving of salvation. If faith is not from God, but self-generated, then one can argue that there is something for which a believer can boast. Let me illustrate.

Charles Blondin was a tight-rope artist, who famously rode a bike on a tight-rope across Niagra Falls. He went back and forth several times to everyone's delight. Then he asked the crowd, "Do you believe that I can do this with a person on my shoulders? The whole crowd shouted, "Yes!" Then he asked, "Can I have a volunteer?" Not one hand went up.

This story is often told to illustrate faith. And it does so marvellously. It shows that faith is not as passive as we imagine, as receiving a gift at Christmas is passive. It demands a recognition of our desperate need, an acknowledgement of God's power to save us, and a stepping out from our self-directed way of living to embrace God's way. It would have been no small matter for a person to volunteer to jump on Blondin's back and to trust him completely to take them safely across the Niagra and back. This would certainly be a boast-worthy act and would have likely made the day's headline in every news channel. And Blondin's amazing feat would have been overshadowed by this individual's great courage and faith. 

Friends, this is why when we claim that faith is a free-will act, we make faith into a work for which we can boast. Have you ever wondered why Jesus said that even a mustard-seed faith (note: a mustard seed is the smallest seed) could remove mountains? Was it to show how powerful even little faith on our part can be? Do we even need Jesus? If we simply believe in ourselves, we can do anything, right? No! Jesus was showing that it is not in faith that we generate but faith that only God can give that there is power. Even if God granted just a mustard-seed faith, it could remove mountains. Therefore, the power is not in faith but in God. 

Paul writes in Romans that even when the Gospel was preached, people did not believe. Why? His answer, often misunderstood, is profound. He writes it is because...

"faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).

Why didn't Paul simply write, "Faith comes by hearing the word of God?" Instead, he writes that "hearing comes by the word of God." If he wrote that faith came simply by hearing the Gospel, or God's Word, then he would be contradicting himself, for he just wrote that people heard but did not believe. No, dear friends, Paul wrote as he did to show that hearing, even a hearing that leads to faith, comes by God's word. What is also noteworthy is that Paul does not use the typical term for "word" here, namely logos, which speaks of a body of information, like the Gospel message. Instead, he uses the term rhema, which is most often used of the spoken word or a decree. How appropriate for Paul's point. Paul is arguing that the hearing of faith does not spontaneously arise out of hearing the Gospel message but rather as a result of God's decree. As Jesus says in the Gospels, "Whoever has (been given) ears to hear, let them hear." When God enables the hearing, the hearing produces saving faith. This is certainly consistent with Jesus' words in John 6:65, where He declared, "No one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled him." 

Now, let's turn back to Ephesians 2:8-9 and look at it from a grammatical perspective:

For by grace (feminine/singular) you have been saved (masculine/plural) through faith (feminine/singular); and that (neuter/singular) not of yourselves, it is the gift (neuter/singular) of God; not as a result of works (neuter/plural), so that no one may boast.

What does "gift" modify? It is in the neuter gender; therefore, it cannot modify "grace" or "faith" because they are in the feminine gender. The participle "have been saved" is in the masculine, so it cannot modify it either. And even if we try to replace the participle "have been saved" with the noun, "salvation," it too is feminine. Paul makes "gift" neuter, so that it has no single referent. The clear implication here is that the entirety of salvation, which includes God's grace, Christ's work of salvation, and our faith, is a gift of God.

Now, that said, to say that God's grace is a gift or that Christ's work of salvation is a gift is what in logic would be considered a tautology, that is, an unnecessary redundancy, for it is clear that God is the agent of grace and salvation. Therefore, the only non-tautological referent for "gift" would be "faith." This would be the corrective for any, who entertained the false notion that saving faith was exercised of their own free will rather than being a gift from God. 

What is more, Paul then goes to contrast this "gift" with "works." Everyone should be familiar with Paul's contrast between "faith" and "works," especially in the Book of Romans. In keeping with his normal manner of writing, it would be most logical to presume that, just as Paul had done numerous times elsewhere, he intended to contrast "works" with "faith" when contrasting "works" with "gift" here. Therefore, this argues even more strongly in favor for seeing "faith" as a gift of God. 

I began my sharing with a contention: if I can show that faith is a gift of God, then there is absolutely no place for free will in the receiving of salvation. In fact, those that think that their faith was willed rather than received may have a wrong idea of salvation and may be stumbling over the same kind of stumbling block that the Jews stumbled over. Consider what Paul wrote about his zealous countrymen:

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it is written:

“Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense,
And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 9:30-33).

The Jews stumbled over the stumbling stone of faith, thinking that they could earn God's righteousness by their own effort in keeping the Law (cf. Romans 10:1-3). Christians today may be stumbling over a similar stumbling stone of faith, but not so much in thinking that they can obey a set of rules but that they can trust in Christ by their own effort or free will. 

Remember, the Old Testament is chalk full of commands for Israel to obey the Law of Moses. The New Testament is chalk full of commands for Christians to believe. It was not that Israel could not obey whatsoever, but they could not obey perfectly. And it is not that Christians cannot believe whatsoever, but they cannot believe perfectly. In the one as well as the other, the faith that saves as the obedience that saves, comes only by God's sovereign grace.

Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— (Ephesians 2:11).

 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— (Ephesians 3:1).

This letter to the Ephesian saints was written specifically to Gentile believers, as the above two passages clearly show.

This will give some perspective when he speaks about the mystery of the church that was given to him by revelation, namely, that Gentiles and Jews would become one body and share in the eternal promises of God.

This will also add light to Paul's interchange of pronouns in chapter 2 between the second person ("you") and the first person ("we"), which would include Paul and other Jewish believers:

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest (Ephesians 2:1-3).

When reading the above passage with this Gentile/Jewish interchange in mind, we can more clearly understand the universality of sinful depravity. This argument is repeated in the Book of Romans:

What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin (Romans 3:9).

What is more, we can better discern what Paul had in mind when he wrote, 

Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory (Ephesians 3:13).

Most of the persecution that Paul received in the Book of Acts was the result of Jews attacking him for his pro-Gentile ministry. His suffering was clearly for the sake of the Gentiles. Consequently, this was his life calling when he was converted to the Christian faith, for we read,

But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name" (Acts 9:15-16).

Friends, one of the keys to properly understanding and interpreting Scripture is knowing who the audience is to whom Paul is writing. As another example, consider this passage in Colossians:

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ (Colossians 2:16-17).

The letter to the Colossians carry many of the same themes as the letter to the Ephesians. Again, the Colossian recipients were Gentiles. And just as Paul suffered on behalf of the Gentile Ephesians, he suffered for the sake of the Gentile Colossians as well (cf. Colossians 1:24-27; 2:1). The enemies, then, were the Jews, who wanted to force these Gentile believers to submit to the Law of Moses. That is why Paul wrote, "Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day." These were all the things that the Jews did in keeping with the Law of Moses.

Understanding that the readers of Paul's letter were Gentiles helps us to more clearly discern who the enemies were and in what manner they were trying to wrongly influence the churches. 

Friends, today, there are some that still try to put believers under the yoke of slavery to the Mosaic Law again. They do it with sincerity, even as the Jews in Paul's day did, but they are sincerely wrong.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in 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. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Friends, don't hurry through the first verses of Ephesians 2; otherwise, you will miss the unimistakeable point Paul is trying to make. He describes a universal and incapacitating depravity that touches every human being prior to the advent of God's grace. We were dead in sin. We were slaves to the world system and Satan. Every one of us pursued our selfish desires. And just like every other human being we were by nature hell-bound. 

Paul makes a similar point elsewhere with even more graphic language:

For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.” Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes"... There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:9-18; 22-23).

Just between these two passages of Scripture, we should recognize that human beings apart from the grace of God are totally depraved, such that there is no way that we would seek God, nor trust in His Son, nor even understand the message of salvation. How then can anyone claim that people receive the Gospel by their own free will, apart from God's first enabling it through His Spirit. 

The Bible clearly teaches that apart from the Spirit, no one would understand and accept any spiritual truth:

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Jesus says it even more strongly:

Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again... no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit (John 3:3, 5-6).

Yet, those who reject this will cling to obscure verses like this one:

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

Unwilling to claim universal salvation, since the verse seems to say, as they claim, that God wants everyone to be saved, they instead argue that He doesn't save everyone because He doesn't want to violate their free will. How is this not reading into the verse something completely foreign to it?

They don't even take the time to consider who is being addressed. They are quick to hone in on words like "anyone" and "everyone" but fail to perceive the qualifer for these in the word "you." If I am the shepherd of a group of believers in Jerusalem, and I say something like "every one of you" or "any one of you," would you think that I was speaking of everyone in the whole world, including unbelievers and Gentiles? Of course not! 

But if they perceived correctly, that Peter was just addressing believers, then they would at least ask in what sense God would be patient with these believers. Weren't they already saved and secure from God's judgment? Apparently not, if we read just a few verses later:

Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 3:17-18).

Peter was not convinced that they all properly embraced the Gospel of God's grace, by which they could stand "spotless, blameless and at peace with God":

So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him (2 Peter 3:14-15).

Therefore, Peter simply expresses God's desire that none of those in that church perish because of their failure to correctly perceive and believe God's truth.

God does not want to lose any of those that He has chosen. Does this sound like I'm also reading something foreign into this context? What if I tell you that this is exactly the way Jesus spoke to Peter and the other disciples when He was walking among them. For example, Jesus said,

All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day (John 6:37-39).

None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled (John 17:12).

Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. If you are looking for me, then let these men go.” This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled: “I have not lost one of those you gave me" (John 18:8-9).

Now can you see what Peter meant when he said that God did not want any of those believers to perish but for all of them to come to repentance? God did not want to lose any of the believers that He called, and He would not. This is not universal salvation but rather God's ordering of events so that His sovereign election might be fulfilled.

In Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible, he writes this regarding Peter's words "he is patient with you (or "us" in some translations):

but is longsuffering to us-ward (KJV): not to all the individuals of human nature, for the persons intended by us are manifestly distinguished from "some men" in the text, and from scoffers, mocking at the promise of Christ's coming, in the context, 2 Peter 3:3; and are expressly called beloved, 2 Peter 3:1; and God's longsuffering towards them is their salvation, 2 Peter 3:15, nor is it true of all men, that God is not willing that any of them should perish, and that everyone of them should come to repentance, since many of them do perish in their sins, and do not come to repentance, which would not be the case, if his determining will was otherwise; besides, a society or company of men are designed, to which the apostle himself belonged, and of which he was a part; and who are described, in his epistles, as the elect of God, called out of darkness, into marvellous light, and having obtained like precious faith with the apostles; and must be understood either of God's elect among the Jews, for Peter was a Jew, and they were Jews he wrote to; and then the sense is, that the delay of Christ's coming is not owing to any slackness in him, but to his longsuffering to his elect among the Jews, being unwilling that any of that number among them should perish, but that all of them repent of their sins, and believe in him; and therefore he waits till their conversion is over, when a nation shall be born at once, and they that have pierced him look on him and mourn, and so all Israel shall be saved; or rather of the elect in general, whether among Jews or Gentiles, upon whom the Lord waits to be gracious, and whose longsuffering issues in their conversion and salvation. And upon account of these the Lord stays his coming till their number is complete in the effectual calling; and for their sakes he is longsuffering to others, and bears with a wicked world, with the idolatry, superstition, heresy, profaneness, and impiety, with which it abounds; but when the last man that belongs to that number is called, he will quickly descend in flames of fire, and burn the world, and the wicked in it, and take his chosen ones to himself. The Alexandrian copy reads, "for you", or your sakes; and so the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions. A passage somewhat like to this is met with in a book of the Jews (f), esteemed by them very ancient.

We know that Peter read and approved of Paul's writing as Scripture (2 Peter 3:15). Here's Paul's perspective on the patience of God:

What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared (lit. middle voice, "who prepared themselves") for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? (Romans 9:22-24)

Paul tells us that God is patient in not bringing swift judgment on "the objects of his wrath" because he wants to magnify the riches of his glory on "the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory." Again, God's interest is not in the salvation of every single person in the world but rather on His elect, those "whom he prepared in advance for glory."

Both in Peter's day and ours, those whom God has ordained for salvation will be saved. If God does not destroy the world today, you can believe that one reason is because not everyone that He has predestined to be saved has been saved. Praise God that He waited for our day, when we too came to repentance and faith, because we too were numbered among those that God has chosen for salvation.

Paul is writing to encourage the church at Ephesus, reminding them of Christs vast love for His people.

 14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

As I was reading Ephesians this morning I was taken back by the vastness of God. We are often unable to grasp the mysteries of life and our world, much less the vastness of God. In Genesis it says in the beginning…God. God was there before everything, before us, the world and the universe. Now Paul writes of Gods love - that we cannot grasp how wide, how deep and high is love is. Gods love is so vast that inexplicably he gave up his son for us (for you).

So this morning I pray for you that your hearts would be full of faith and love in Christ. And that you would lay your concerns and fears at the feet of Christ and have hope, because God can do 'immeasurably more than we ask or imagine".

Friends, Ephesians 1-3 is often considered the doctrinal portion of the book, while Ephesians 4-6 is the more practical portion. This is how Paul often constructs his letters. For example, in the Book of Romans, the first eleven chapters are primarily doctrinal, whereas the latter five are more practical. This is true of most of his letters. By this practice Paul demonstrates that practice must always be preceded by and be built upon right teaching. This was the primary error of the Jews. Being so zealous to practice what they preached, they did not consider whether their preaching was in keeping with God's truth. And so Paul would write about them,

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness (Romans 10:1-3).

Therefore, as a general rule, let us neither be in a hurry to preach nor be too quick to put something into practice, but rather let us first discern the truth. We don't need to know everything, and it is even dangerous for us to go beyond what God has designed for us to know in His Word. But even if we know only a little, let us try to know it rightly and thoroughly. Then, I believe, if we put this into practice, we can truly be transformed into Christ-likeness and can more effectively bring the transformative Gospel to the world.  

Let us for a moment consider Ephesians 1-3. Did you notice that in Ephesians 1:3-2:10 Paul's emphasis is the individual believer's experience of salvation "in Christ." Now, there's a lot about God's sovereign choice and predestination here, but Paul is not making an argument for it here. Instead, his emphasis is simply the believer's position in Christ. 

Then, in Ephesians 2:11-3:21 Paul shifts emphasis from the individual believer to two groups, namely, Jews and Gentiles, to show how again in Christ these two disparate groups have been brought together into one body of Christ. Remarkably, Paul says that this was a mystery, and so unknown, in the Old Testamament, but it has now been revealed and established through his apostles and prophets (Ephesians 3:3-6; 2:19-22). And, as I have shown elsewhere, this mystery was established through the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" with accompanying signs (e.g. "speaking in tongues") in Acts 2,8,10, and 19.

Within the context of this explanation of the mystery, Paul makes a signficant point about the Mosaic Law. He called it a "middle wall of separation" between the Gentiles and the Jews (Ephesians 2:14). Now, some have tried to argue from this text that Paul only had the curse of the Law in mind, so that when he says "the law of commandments contained in ordinances" was "abolished in His flesh" (Ephesians 2:15), he only meant that the curse, that is, the punishment associated with disobeying the Law, was abolished and not the ordinances themselves. But that's not what the text says, nor is it what the context suggests.

First, the context reveals that there there was a covenantal separation between Jews and Gentiles. The Jews were connected to God by a covenant, that of Abraham and also of Moses. And with respect to these covenants, the Gentiles were "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the promises, having no hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12). Thus, the separation was not merely one of curse and no curse but rather covenant and no covenant, a more fundamental separation. 

The Mosaic Law itself, as it was given specifically for the Jewish people, was the covenant that uniquely separated the Jews from Gentiles. Therefore, the whole law needed to be made powerless, so that the Gentiles could be one people with the Jews. Furthermore, if only the curse was in view, why would Paul speak of "the law of commandments contained in ordinances." He is saying that the whole law, which includes the ten commandments as well as the 605 ordinances, were abolished. Therefore, both the context and the immediate verse argue for the setting aside (a Greek word meaning "to make of no effect") of the law. This is consistent with the testimony of Hebrews 8:13, where we read,

In that He says, “A new covenant, ” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Why is this understanding so important? First, it takes the legs out of what goes for "prosperity preaching" today, because it means that all the Old Testament promises that they claim to justify their prosperity message do not apply to Christians. The OT promises of health and wealth are all connected to the Mosaic Law, as blessings for obedience to it. If that Law is obsolete and abolished, then it can no longer be claimed by Christians today. What is more, the Old Testament cursings, including the so-called "generational curses" also would not apply to Christians.

There are millions that follow the prosperity message. The largest church in the U.S. today, which is in Houston, is built on this sandy foundation. Remember, just because millions of people follow it does not mean that it's true. There are millions of Muslims, Hindus, atheists, etc. They are all without Christ and without hope in the world. Now, even though many of the prosperity crowd may be saved, their perspective on the Christian life is badly skewed.

Also, this understanding is important for people that insist that Christians must keep the Sabbath, even the so-called Christian Sabbath, namely "Sunday worship." Other Scriptures may be cited to support a regular gathering for worship, but not the Sabbath requirement based on the Mosaic Law. This relates also to the collection of "tithes and offerings." While some have tried to argue for a "principle of tithing" from the OT, these practices were clearly tied to the Law of Moses, and, therefore, not a Christian obligation. The same may be said for the keeping of certain religious holidays, restrictions in dress and food, etc.

Finally, understanding this will help you correctly interpret and apply the Old Testament. Knowing that much of the OT is tied to the Old Covenant Mosaic Law, if you understand that we are no longer under the dispensation of Law, you will be less prone to try to apply something that stems from it to yourself and even less likely to claim the promises associated with it.