Slight Change, Big Difference (Pt. III)

A Slight Change Creates a Great Difference (Part 3)
Changing "Savlation by Grace, through Faith"
to "Salvation by Faith, through Grace."

I know this might not be an enjoyable subject for many, and you might be tired that I keep writing about it; but, in truth, that's the reason I keep writing about it - I'm literally begging whatever audience I have to consider the subject of God's sovereign role in salvation. There's a lot at stake here; it isn't a minor theological argument that has no impact on your life. From personal experience and the testimony of many others throughout history and today, I know that this one point changes everything! It changes your worship, worldview, evangelistic practices, perspective on prayer, praise toward God, and very simply your joy. Those aren't just random things I chose to say, I really mean that it effects each one of those - and I could write an 'article' on each one of those. So bear with me as I lay the final nail to this coffin.

When Paul talkes about our salvation, he writes,

For it is by grace you have beend saved, through faith,
and this is not from yourself, it is the gift of God,
not of works, lest anyone should boast.
(Eph. 2:8)

I wanted to focus in on the "by grace, through faith". It's very important to break this up and think about it. There are several points to draw from this:

1. We are saved by grace.
2. We are not saved through grace.
3. We are not saved by faith, but through faith.

Let's cover these three really quick.

Number One: We are saved by grace. This verse is telling us what it is that actually saves us. To our suprise, it isn't our response of faith that is saving us here, but the grace of God. Paul defines that a little when right before this verse he writes,

You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked,
following the course of this world, following the prince of the power
of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience--
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh,
carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature
children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--
by grace you have been saved.
(Eph. 2:1-5)

So the "by grace you have been saved" is referring to the fact that God mercifully made us alive with Christ "even while we were dead in our trespasses." Paul repeats this just a few verses down in 2:8 as quoted from the beginning. We're born again into Christ by God's doing while we are by nature "children of wrath", or in other words, we were saved by grace.

Number Two: We are not saved through grace. This is important to make note of. This verse does NOT say we are saved through grace, but by it. As it is often taught today, God gives all men a "common grace", and then waits patiently for them to respond in faith. So they make the grace of God a passive thing, and turn our response of faith into the active. In other words they are saying salvation is by faith through grace. But that isn't what the verse says.


Number Three: We are not saved by faith, but through faith. Our faith is not the object that saves us, but it's the instrament, the door, in which God chooses to save us. He chooses to save us through giving us the gift of faith. As greek scholars will point out, there is absolutly no grammical reason to insist that the "gift of God" is merely grace. The greek allows that the whole thing (the grace and the faith) could be the gift of God and not of works. But let's go to some other texts. Hebrews calls Jesus the "founder and perfector of our faith". It's hard to argue that this verse isn't saying that Christ is the one who works in us faith. The greek word for 'founder' literally means "chief leader". Think about that! Christ being the chief leader of our faith simply makes us lowly followers of our faith; in other words, we don't lead ourselves to faith. He says something related in His Gospel,

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son
except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and
anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
(Mt. 11:27; Lk 10:22)

But there's another solid verse that teaches us that faith is a gift from God,

...think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith
that God has assigned.
(Rom. 12:3)

Looking up the greek word here translated 'assigned' brought up 'apportion' or 'bestow'. God apportioned His chosen with faith.

Scripture also plainly says in another place,

So then it (salvation) depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
(Rom. 9:16)

The context of this verse won't allow much room to believe that this is simply talking about the "common grace" most pastors talk of. Previous to it, the Spirit teaches us that God chose to hate Esau even before he was born and had done any good or evil. This "common grace" wasn't alloted to Esau it seems. Also, the verse just after explains that Pharaoh was raised up by God for the sole purpose of hardening and destroying him. It ends with the phrase, "So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills" (9:18). Verse 18 allows no room for the theory of common grace. We are saved through faith, not by it. No one would ever dare say that one can be saved apart from faith, for that is the channel God has chosen to justify a man.



I hope this wasn't too confusing. Please carefully consider these things. I encourage you to be like the Jews of Berea who "received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so" (Acts 17:11). Yes, many questions will and should be brought up, but that doesn't change the truth of the matter. And the truth of this is truly a freeing reality, that allows a person who is in Christ to 1) rest that his salvation never depended on himself in the first place, and that God will complete the work He began (Phil. 1:6), and 2) that when witnessing, our sole responsibility is to preach the word in simple language, and not to be cunning and crafty in convensing people to belive because that's for God to decide (1 Cor. 3:6).