"For by grace you have been saved through faith." (a paraphrase of 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 I believe there is 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 in which a believer may boast. Let me illustrate.

Charles Blondin was a tightrope artist famous for crossing the gorge at Niagara Falls on a rope. As the story is often told, after crossing several times to the crowd's delight, he asked, "Do you believe I can do this carrying a person on my shoulders?" The crowd shouted, "Yes!" Then he asked for a volunteer — and not one hand went up.

This story is often told to illustrate faith, and it does so marvelously. It shows that faith is not as passive as we imagine, like receiving a gift at Christmas. It requires recognizing our desperate need, acknowledging God's power to save us, and stepping out of our self-directed way of living to embrace God's way. It would have been no small thing to climb onto Blondin's back and trust him completely. Such an act would seem boast-worthy and would likely have made the day's headlines. Blondin's own feat might even have been overshadowed by that person's great courage and faith.

Friends, this is why I believe that when we claim faith is an act of free will, we make faith into a work in which we can boast. Have you ever wondered why Jesus said that even mustard-seed faith — the smallest of seeds — could move mountains? Was it to show how powerful even a little faith on our part can be? Do we even need Jesus, then? If we simply believe in ourselves, can we do anything? No! I believe Jesus was showing that the power is not in faith we generate but in faith only God can give. Even if God granted only mustard-seed faith, it could move a mountain. So 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: "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17).

Why didn't Paul simply write, "Faith comes by hearing the word of God"? Instead he writes that hearing comes through the word. If he had written that faith comes simply by hearing the gospel, he would be contradicting what he had just said — that people heard but did not believe. No, dear friends, I believe Paul wrote as he did to show that hearing, even the hearing that leads to faith, comes by God's word. It is also noteworthy that Paul does not use the usual term for "word" here, logos, which refers to a body of information like the gospel message. Instead he uses rhema, most often used of a spoken word or decree. How fitting for Paul's point. I believe Paul is arguing that the hearing of faith does not arise spontaneously from hearing the gospel message but comes as a result of God's decree. As Jesus said in the Gospels, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." When God enables the hearing, the hearing produces saving faith. This is consistent with Jesus' words in John 6:65: "no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."

Now let's turn back to Ephesians 2:8–9 from a grammatical perspective. "Grace" is feminine singular; "you have been saved" is masculine plural; "faith" is feminine singular; "this" is neuter singular; "gift" is neuter singular; "works" is neuter plural.

What does "gift" modify? It is neuter, so it cannot modify "grace" or "faith," which are feminine. The participle "have been saved" is masculine, so it cannot modify that either. Even if we substitute the noun "salvation," that too is feminine. Paul makes "gift" neuter, so that it has no single grammatical referent. The clear implication, I believe, is that the entirety of salvation — God's grace, Christ's saving work, and our faith — is the gift of God.

That said, to say that God's grace is a gift, or that Christ's saving work is a gift, would be a tautology, an unnecessary redundancy, since it is obvious that God is the agent of grace and salvation. So I believe the only non-redundant referent for "gift" is "faith." This would correct anyone who entertained the notion that saving faith is exercised of one's own free will rather than received as a gift from God.

What is more, Paul then contrasts this "gift" with "works." Everyone should be familiar with Paul's contrast between "faith" and "works," especially in Romans. In keeping with his normal manner of writing, it seems most logical to presume that when he contrasts "works" with "gift" here, he intends what he elsewhere expresses as the contrast between works and faith. This argues even more strongly, in my view, for seeing "faith" as a gift of God.

I began with a contention: if I can show that faith is a gift of God, then there is no place for free will in the receiving of salvation. In fact, I believe those who think their faith was willed rather than received may have a mistaken idea of salvation, stumbling over a stumbling block similar to the one many in Israel stumbled over. Paul wrote that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness attained it — a righteousness by faith — while Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not reach it, because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works; they stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling," and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame (a paraphrase of Romans 9:30–33).

Many in Israel stumbled over the stumbling stone of faith, thinking they could earn God's righteousness by their own effort in keeping the Law (cf. Romans 10:1–3). I believe Christians today may stumble over a similar stone — not by thinking they can keep a set of rules, but by thinking they can trust in Christ by their own effort or free will.

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

AI-Expanded Reflection

The grammatical argument the comment makes is a long-standing one, and it is worth knowing how interpreters weigh it. Many Greek scholars agree that the neuter "this" (touto) in Ephesians 2:8 does not refer narrowly to "faith" (which is feminine) but to the whole preceding clause — salvation by grace through faith — which is why most translations render it "this is not your own doing." Some conclude from that reading that faith is not specifically identified as the gift here, while others, like the comment, argue that since salvation as a whole is the gift, faith is included within it. Importantly, both sides agree that Ephesians 2:8–9 excludes all boasting.

The question of whether saving faith is itself God's gift is answered elsewhere in Scripture as well. Philippians 1:29 says it "has been granted" to believers "to believe in him"; Acts 13:48 and 16:14 describe God opening hearts; and 2 Peter 1:1 speaks of a faith "obtained." Reformed Christians read these texts, as the comment does, to mean that regeneration precedes and produces faith. Lutheran, Wesleyan, Arminian, Catholic, and Orthodox believers hold that God's grace enables a genuine human response without coercing it — a view often called prevenient or enabling grace. Both traditions insist that no one is saved by their own effort and that all glory belongs to God. See the notes at #1779, #1933, and #1943.

Paul tells them to remember that at one time they were "Gentiles in the flesh," called the uncircumcision by those called the circumcision (a paraphrase of Ephesians 2:11). "For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles..." (Ephesians 3:1).

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

This gives perspective when Paul speaks of the mystery of the church revealed to him: that Gentiles and Jews would become one body and share in the eternal promises of God.

It also sheds light on Paul's alternation of pronouns in chapter 2 between the second person ("you") and the first person ("we"), which includes Paul and other Jewish believers. The Gentile readers were dead in the trespasses and sins in which they once walked, following the course of this world and the prince of the power of the air; and among them "we all once lived" in the passions of our flesh, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest (a paraphrase of Ephesians 2:1–3).

Reading this passage with the Gentile/Jewish alternation in mind, we can see more clearly the universality of sinful depravity. The same argument appears in Romans: are Jews any better off? No, not at all, for both Jews and Greeks are all under sin (cf. Romans 3:9).

We can also better discern what Paul had in mind when he wrote, he asks them not to lose heart over his sufferings for them, "which is your glory" (Ephesians 3:13).

Much of the persecution Paul received in Acts came from those who opposed his ministry to the Gentiles. His suffering was clearly for the sake of the Gentiles. This was his life calling from his conversion, for the Lord told Ananias that Paul was His chosen instrument to carry His name before the Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel, and that He would show him how much he must suffer for His name (a paraphrase of Acts 9:15–16).

Friends, one of the keys to properly understanding and interpreting Scripture is knowing the audience to whom Paul is writing. As another example, consider Colossians: let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival, a new moon, or a Sabbath; these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ (a paraphrase of Colossians 2:16–17).

The letter to the Colossians shares many themes with Ephesians. Again, the Colossian recipients were Gentiles. And just as Paul suffered on behalf of the Gentile Ephesians, he suffered for the Gentile Colossians as well (cf. Colossians 1:24–27; 2:1). The opponents, then, were those who wanted to require these Gentile believers to keep the Law of Moses. That is why Paul told them to let no one judge them about food and drink, festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths. These were practices of the Law of Moses.

Understanding that Paul's readers were Gentiles helps us discern more clearly who the opponents were and how they were trying to wrongly influence the churches.

Friends, today there are some who still try to put believers back under the Mosaic Law. They do it sincerely, as did those in Paul's day, but I believe they are sincerely wrong.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Ephesians 2:11–22 is one of the New Testament's great passages on reconciliation, and its central image comes from the Jerusalem Temple itself. The Temple courts included a stone barrier separating the Court of the Gentiles from the inner courts, with inscriptions warning that any foreigner who passed it would be responsible for his own death; two of these inscriptions have been discovered by archaeologists. Paul writes that Christ "has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility" (2:14), creating "one new man in place of the two." Ironically, Paul was arrested in Jerusalem on the false charge of bringing a Gentile past that very barrier (Acts 21:28–29).

On the identity of the opponents in Colossians, scholars differ. The "philosophy" Paul warns against in Colossians 2:8–23 seems to have combined Jewish observances (food laws, Sabbaths, new moons) with other elements — "worship of angels," visions, and ascetic rules — that suggest a local blend rather than simply the Judaizers of Galatians. The comment's broader point stands on any reading: Paul insisted that Gentile believers were full members of God's people through Christ alone, without adopting the Mosaic Law. Christians today differ on how the Old Testament's moral teaching applies to believers (see #1943), while all agree with Paul that none of it can add to the sufficiency of Christ.

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 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 (a paraphrase of Ephesians 2:1–3).

Do not hurry through these verses or you will miss the point Paul is making. He describes a universal and incapacitating condition affecting every human being prior to God's grace. We were dead in sin. We were subject to the world's system. Every one of us pursued our own desires. And like everyone else, we stood under wrath by nature.

Paul makes a similar point elsewhere with even more graphic language, in the catena of quotations in Romans 3:9–18, concluding that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The passage is one of the strongest statements of human inability in the New Testament, and the comment's instruction to slow down is well taken — the three verses pile up descriptions before the sentence's main clause even arrives.

That grammatical point is worth making, because it is the passage's architecture. Verses 1 through 3 have no main verb; the sentence hangs unresolved through the whole description of deadness until verse 4 supplies it: but God, being rich in mercy. The diagnosis is deliberately extended so that the intervention lands where it does. Reading verses 1–3 as a standalone statement about human nature takes the wind-up without the pitch.

On the doctrine itself, this project has noted the range before. Augustinian, Reformed, Wesleyan, and Eastern Orthodox accounts describe the extent and mechanism of the fallen condition somewhat differently, and all of them affirm what this passage states and what verse 8 concludes — that salvation is by grace through faith and not from ourselves.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Existentialism, says that you are what you do. This is not a Christian paradigm. We operate by an ontological paradigm, saying we are who God says we are, even if we don't operate conforming to that.

Similarly, our common talk favors the existential paradigm. For example, if you ask a scientist "why, do I have a thumb?" You will get an answer based on its function and an accepted theory explaining what lead to its becoming. Since people think scientifically, the common person would also at least explain by its function - "To grasp better!"

An honest scientist though will admit that a 'why' question is irrelevant to science. It is not quantifiable, instead they admittedly answer as if the question started with a 'what.'

We often may ask "what is God's purpose for my life?" We then look to our skills, passions, experiences - our functions. If you could title all the things God has purposed for us it could be this passage: Ephesians 2:10 "The prepared good works"

Your purpose may be in the function of your skills, passions, or experiences. We often think that must be, after all they were given to us, right?! They must be where we could be or are successful, right?!

I would challenge you to consider your purposes could be where you lack, fail, or struggle. Doing good works there, I would posit, is more likely where you will find your purpose.

This is not about your glory, which we 'feel' in success, but God's glory which we partake in our Joy (biblical 'joy' - not necessarily 'happiness').

James wrote about considering struggles as a good thing. Jesus tells us of our doing well if we're persecuted because of him. Paul embodied it, as did all the apostles and many other saints, when imprisoned, burned, fed to animals and killed. Even Stephen who died asking for forgiveness for his murderers.

Your purpose is to do everything, respond to everything, every moment, in honor of Jesus; your success, your failures, your mundaneness or exceptionalness (re:Col3:17;1Cor10:31). This moment and moments to come were given to you by God, how will you return it to him, by digging a hole and preserving it or returned with interest! The Taskmaster is Returning!

AI-Expanded Reflection

Ephesians 2:10 follows the exclusion of boasting in verses 8–9. The sequence matters: believers are not saved because their works have made them worthy, but the salvation they receive creates a life directed toward good works. Paul’s language of workmanship places the initiative with God. The works belong to the purpose of grace rather than its purchase price. Consequently, identity and conduct should be distinguished without being separated into unrelated worlds.

The original uses philosophical categories to challenge the assumption that usefulness or success determines a person’s identity. That challenge is worthwhile, although “existentialism” covers diverse positions and cannot be exhausted by the slogan that one is what one does. Similarly, science can investigate causes and functions even when questions about ultimate purpose require a different kind of argument. These illustrations are most helpful as limited comparisons, not complete accounts of philosophy or scientific explanation.

The reflection’s strongest insight concerns vocation in places of weakness. A Christian need not wait for an exceptional talent or a successful platform before finding an opportunity for faithful action. Patience during a setback, truthfulness after failure, and care for another person during one’s own uncertainty may be precisely the good works presently at hand. Yet difficulty is not itself proof that a particular task is one’s calling. Gifts can also be received gratefully and used responsibly; the contrast should not make competence spiritually suspect.

Colossians 3:17 and 1 Corinthians 10:31 direct ordinary activity toward the Lord. That includes work that is mundane, repetitive, and largely unnoticed. The closing stewardship image is therefore apt when it encourages active faithfulness rather than anxious speculation about a hidden, perfect career plan. Ask what obedience is possible in the circumstances actually given: whom can I serve, what wrong can I repair, and what truth can I practice? The prepared works of Ephesians 2:10 become an invitation to live from grace with purpose, not a demand to prove one’s worth through exceptional achievements or unusually difficult experiences.

Paul writes to encourage the church at Ephesus, reminding them of Christ's love. For this reason he kneels before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, praying that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen them with power through His Spirit in their inner being, so that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith — and that, being rooted and established in love, they may have power, together with all the Lord's people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that they may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power at work within us, be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations (a paraphrase of Ephesians 3:14–21).

Reading Ephesians this morning I was struck by the vastness of God. We are often unable to grasp the mysteries of our own world, much less the vastness of God. Genesis begins: in the beginning, God. He was there before everything. Now Paul writes of God's love — that we cannot grasp how wide and deep and high it is. So this morning I pray that your hearts would be full of faith and love in Christ, and that you would lay your concerns and fears at His feet.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The paradox in Paul's prayer is deliberate and worth stating: he asks that they would know a love that surpasses knowledge. He is not praying for comprehension, which he has just declared impossible, but for something closer to apprehension — the difference between measuring an ocean and being in one.

Note also that he prays they would grasp it together with all the Lord's people. The dimensions are not offered as a private discovery. Paul seems to assume that the scope of Christ's love is too large to be taken in from one vantage point, and that the church is the plural instrument by which it gets perceived at all.

The closing doxology has a clause that gets dropped when the verse is quoted alone: immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us. The measure of what God can do is not located somewhere distant. Paul points at the power already operating in the people he is writing to.

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 Testament, 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 significant 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 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 other ordinances, was 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.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Ephesians moves from God’s saving work toward the conduct appropriate to it, and the original rightly emphasizes that practice should arise from truth. Yet the first half is already practical in its effects: thanksgiving, prayer, humility, reconciliation, and hope are woven into the exposition. Likewise, the later commands continue to make theological claims. The distinction between doctrine and practice helps readers follow the letter, provided it does not suggest two unrelated kinds of Christian life.

The movement from Ephesians 1 to 2 also involves more than an individual section followed by a corporate one. The repeated plural language and the image of a people chosen in Christ already have a communal dimension. Ephesians 2:11–22 then makes the Jew–Gentile reconciliation explicit. The mystery is not simply that Gentiles could ever receive blessing; earlier Scripture already envisioned blessing among the nations. Ephesians 3:6 specifies their shared inheritance, membership in the same body, and participation in the promise through the gospel. The precise form and fullness of this unity have now been disclosed.

The treatment of the law in 2:14–16 should be read toward that goal. Christ removes the hostility and establishes one new humanity, reconciling both groups to God through the cross. The law’s role as a covenantal boundary is therefore central. The author’s objection to limiting the passage merely to cancellation of curses has textual force, since commandments and ordinances are named. But the further conclusion that the law has no instructional bearing requires qualification: Ephesians 6:2–3 itself cites the command to honor parents. A changed covenantal role does not make Scripture disposable.

The same precision improves the critique of prosperity teaching. Promises tied to Israel’s land and covenant cannot simply be announced as guarantees of wealth to every Christian. At the same time, not every Old Testament statement about material blessing belongs exclusively to the Mosaic covenant, and Christian prayer for provision is not itself a prosperity gospel. The misleading step is turning God’s generosity into a predictable entitlement measured by wealth or health.

The practical question is what the cross has made possible between formerly separated people. A church may reject legalism verbally and still erect boundaries of class, ethnicity, or cultural preference. Ephesians demands more: shared access to the Father and a common household. Studying covenant distinctions should equip believers to welcome one another truthfully, not merely provide a vocabulary for correcting another group’s theology. The new humanity is part of the doctrine’s intended visible result.