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Home -- English -- Ephesians -- 023 (By grace alone!)

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EPHESIANS - Be Filled With The Spirit
Meditations, Reflections, Prayer and Questions over the Epistel to the Ephesians
Part 2 - A doctrinal theology of the Apostle Paul so that Semitic and Greco-Roman church members might live together in peace (Ephesians 2:1 – 3:21)

By grace alone! (Ephesians 2:8-10)


Ephesians 2:8-10
2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:8-10).

Paul confessed that all the promises of Jesus, the revelations of His Spirit and the realities of spiritual life were in no way the recompense of human achievement. Rather, they are alone the merciful gifts, favours and mercies of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The doctrines of both Jewish and Catholic faith are deceptive errors when they profess and teach that a person can earn the grace of the Creator by keeping divine laws. Paul and Luther fought with all of their strength and gifting against these erroneous conceptions – established upon the assumption that the redemption of sinners is based upon their “good works”. All the Spirit-led service, prayer, fasting, sacrifice and deeds of love of the believer in Christ are fruits of the grace of God, and are not of human achievement. What they are able to realize and accomplish is no reward of the pious. Rather, it is a proof of the merciful Savior and compassionate Redeemer.

Whoever believes that by “good works” heaven can be earned is naïve, and has not understood the incomprehensible greatness and majesty of the living God. To be sure, Jesus did command: “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). Yet the one who thinks he can, with all his prayers, sacrifices and other good deeds, be perfect, just as God is perfect, has not yet understood the glory of the love and the holiness of God.

No person can, of his own strength, become like God or even reflect His great attributes. This can only happen by grace! The Father, who is Himself complete, gives to all who follow Jesus, His Son, the hereditary constituents of His goodness and mercy through the power of His Holy Spirit. The Son alone had the right to say: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father!” (John 14:9).

Paul, while under house arrest, recognized in his meditations still fuller truths. He wrote to the saints in Ephesus that they and all true believers were, in the end, a work of the grace of God. Through their and our being embodied in the living Christ we become, through grace, called and enabled to practice “good works”. These fruits of His goodness are not, however, our own deeds, but rather, signs and tokens He planned in advance to reveal His love and omnipotence. It is not we who can rightly fulfil our duties, offices and calling. Much more it is God who planned and favoured us long in advance, that we might so live as to do all that He created us to do.

Whoever truly recognizes this “hidden predestination” of all our so-called “good works” will quickly bury even the smallest tinge of pride, for all that flows from our lives which is acceptable and good does not arise with us. Rather, these fruits manifest only the thought and the deed of our God. Do we thank Him for this grace?

Prayer: Father in heaven, we praise You for all the manifold greatness of Your grace. We have earned nothing other than wrath. You, however, have pardoned us through the atoning death of Jesus Christ. Have mercy upon us, that we might be transformed to the praise of Your glorious grace. Help also those who have gone astray, who believe they can earn their own salvation with “good works”. Amen.

Questions:

  1. Why is it that no man can be saved through his so-called “good deeds”?
  2. How can Paul say that the “good works” of the saints were planned and carried through by God in advance?

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