For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV)
Three main arguments have been used to demonstrate that salvation is the gift of God. 1) Common sense
recognizes that Paul’s main theme in Ephesians 2:8-9 is salvation, not faith. 2) Grammatical considerations
strongly point to the antecedent of the pronoun as being salvation and not faith. 3) The New Testament
teaches elsewhere that salvation or other terms referring to salvation constitute the gift of God.
Consider the Reformed View.
Let’s think about the Reformed view. Most Reformed men believe that Ephesians 2:8-9 is teaching that faith is the gift of God.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that they are correct. So if faith is the gift of God, then how do I get
that gift?
Reformed theology has two basic answers to what a person needs to do in order to receive the gift of faith.
First Answer: “You can do nothing. All you can do is hope that God will sovereignly bestow the gift of
faith upon you. It is totally up to God. There is nothing you can do.”
This answer is contrary to Scripture. When the Philippian jailer cried out and said, “What must I do to be
saved?” what did Paul and Silas say? Did they say, “You can’t do anything. Just hope that God will decide
to give you the gift of faith.” No, Paul and Silas said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved” (Acts 16:31). Men are responsible to believe, men are commanded to believe and men are blamed
and judged if they refuse to believe.
Actually the Bible does have an answer to the question, “What must I do to have faith?” We read in Romans
10:17 that “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” If we want people to believe on
Christ, let us make sure that we use the sharp sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God (Heb. 4:12).
D.L. Moody once said, “Some say that faith is the gift of God. So is the air, but you have to breathe it; so
is bread, but you have to eat it; so is water, but you have to drink it. Some are wanting some miraculous
kind of feeling. That is not faith. me to sit down and wait for faith to come stealing over me…it is for me to take God at His Word.”
So one Reformed answer is that you cannot do anything to get the gift of faith because God must sovereignly bestow it upon you. Yet some in Reformed Theology have another answer to the question, “What must I do to receive the gift of faith?”
Second Answer: “You need to pray and ask God to give you the gift of faith.”
Let me illustrate this from the lips of Dr. John MacArthur. MacArthur believes that you should urge the
sinner to pray for the gift of faith. At the end of one of his messages he gave a salvation appeal and said the
following: “Faith is a gift from God…it is permanent…the faith that God gives begets obedience…God gave
it to you and He sustains it…May God grant you a true saving faith, a permanent gift that begins in
humility and brokenness over sin and ends up in obedience unto righteousness. That’s true faith and it’s a
gift that only God can give, and if you desire it, pray and ask that (God) He would grant it to you.”4
Notice carefully what MacArthur is doing. He is not telling the sinner to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
(Acts 16:31), but he’s telling the sinner to pray and ask God to grant the gift of faith! This perverts the
gospel of Christ by making the condition of salvation prayer instead of faith! Sinners are commanded to
believe on Christ. They are not commanded to pray for the gift of faith.
Believing on Christ:
Did God Have Anything To Do With This?
We have seen that Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches that salvation, not faith, is the gift of God. Having concluded
this, there is yet one passage we must carefully consider if we are to be governed by all the facts of God’s
Word. We must not ignore certain Scriptures when they may seem to conflict with what we might believe.
We don’t want to have the attitude: “I have my view; please don’t confuse me with the facts.” If we are
wrong, then we need to let God’s Word correct us, and we should never be afraid of further light. As we
expose ourselves to God’s Word we will learn, and sometimes unlearn and sometimes relearn.
The passage we want to consider is found in John chapter 6. This passage does not say that faith is the gift
of God, but it seems to be saying that faith or the act of believing is given to us by God. Consider the
following:
John MacArthur, Tape GC 90-21 on Lordship salvation, these comments were made during
the closing invitation, emphasis mine.
“No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him” (John 6:44). No man can come
or no man is able to come to Christ unless God the Father draws him.
What does it mean to “come to Christ”? This question is clearly answered in the context of John chapter
6. Coming to Christ is synonymous with believing in Christ. For example, if a person really believes that
a surgeon can help him, then he will come to him and allow him to operate. Likewise, if a person really
believes that Christ is able to save, he will come to Him and allow Him to do His saving work.
In John 6:35 we see that these two expressions are synonymous: “He that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he believeth on Me shall never thirst.” What does it mean to come to Jesus? It means to believe in Him.
Applying this meaning to John 6:44 we learn that no one is able to come to Christ or believe in Christ, unless the Father draws him. God’s drawing is wonderfully described in Jeremiah 31:3—“I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”
So John 6:44 is saying that we cannot come to Christ, we cannot believe on Him, unless God the Father does something. He must draw us. With that in mind, consider John 6:65: “Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto Me, except it were given unto him of My Father.” No one can come to Christ or believe in Him unless it were given unto him from the Father.
This leads us to an important question: When a person believes on Christ, does he do this totally on his own or does God have anything to do with it? There are several passages that shed some light on this question:
“Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which
is in heaven” (Matt. 16:17). Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living
God. Did he figure this out on his own or did God supernaturally reveal it to him? When you believed, did
God have anything to do with it? Did God reveal to your sin-blinded heart who Jesus Christ really is?
Consider Acts 16:14 regarding Lydia’s conversion. Did God have anything to do with her salvation? Did
He open her heart? Have you thanked God for opening your heart so that you could understand the messageof the gospel? Remember, our hearts were once blinded (1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 4:4).
In Acts 18:27 we find an interesting expression. These people had “believed through grace.” If they believed
through grace, doesn’t that imply that God had something to do with their believing? We were saved by
grace (Eph. 2:8) and certainly that indicates that God was deeply involved in our salvation. If it is by grace,
then God must get the credit! If we believed through grace, this implies that God had something to do with
our believing. These people believed through grace. These people came to faith in Christ, and God was
involved. God in His grace was working in their hearts.
Consider finally Acts 26:18. When you believed in Christ, did God open your blind eyes? Once I was blind
but now I can see, and I give God the credit for giving me spiritual sight!
As you think about your salvation testimony, do you see God’s hand in bringing you to faith in Christ? Can
you think about how God worked in your life to bring you to that point where you trusted in the Saviour?
Perhaps God brought the right person to you at just the right time to give you just the message you needed
to hear about Jesus and His love.
One of the most remarkable examples of the sovereignty of God in salvation is Saul of Tarsus. This fierce
persecutor of the Church was headed for Damascus to imprison Christians, and suddenly God met Him,
Saul’s eyes were opened as to who Jesus Christ really is and he was instantly converted. Saul was not
seeking salvation; he was not desiring salvation. Instead, he was seeking to imprison Christians. But the
Saviour suddenly met him on that road to Damascus and conquered him.
Dr. John Whitcomb, in one of his Seminary lectures on the attributes of God, made this statement: “The
story of our salvation is that we resisted God, fought Him every inch of the way, and finally He won, we lost
and we are His.”
We all believe that God must do a work in the heart of unsaved people if they are to believe. We believe
this because we pray this way. We ask God to work in their hearts. We often pray in this manner: “Lord,
draw this person to yourself; open his eyes to the truth of the Gospel; help him to see what Christ has done
for him. Lord, do whatever You need to do so that this person might come to the end of himself and see his
need for Christ. Lord, may the Holy Spirit convict this person and move in his heart, that he might believe
on Christ and pass from death unto life.”
By praying in such a way, we are acknowledging that if a person is going to be saved, God must do that
wonderful inward work in the heart that only He can do. So I not only thank God for the gift of salvation,
but I also thank Him for working in my heart in a wonderful way and bringing me to faith in Christ.
Conclusion
What Do We Learn From Ephesians 2:8-9?
God has an amazing gift. It is the best gift that any person could ever receive. A person could never find
this gift at Walmart and could never order this gift on Amazon. It’s a priceless gift, worth more than all the
gold at Fort Knox. It was paid for at the infinite cost of the shed blood of God’s perfect Lamb, the Lord
Jesus. And yet this gift, so costly, is presented to us as a free gift, fully provided, fully paid for; all we need
to do is believe and receive it. Jesus paid it all.
This priceless gift is offered freely to all men, to everyone, to each and every individual, to every hell-bound
sinner, to every child of Adam, to every member of the human race. It is offered freely to every person for
whom Christ died, and thank God, He tasted death for each and every man, for every one of us (Heb. 2:9;
Isa. 53:6).
Those who receive this gift have eternal life and they will never perish. They have been justified freely by
His grace. They have the Son (1 John 5:12) and they also have the Holy Spirit living within (1 Cor. 6:19-
20). This gift, this salvation package includes everything a person will ever need. It includes justification,
righteousness, eternal security, no condemnation and an eternal home in heaven.
Every day the believer should gladly thank God for this unspeakable gift, and I trust that everyone reading
this booklet has received God’s free gift of salvation. If not I would strongly urge you to do so. You do not
need to wait until God sovereignly gives you the gift of faith. The wonderful divine working in your heart
is God’s business. God will do His part. Your responsibility is to take God at His Word and believe on His
Son. God says, “Now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). The time to receive His gift is right now, without
delay. You do not need to pray for the gift of faith, but you do need to obey God’s command to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who died and rose again for you so that you can be saved.
Hallelujah What a Saviour!
Appendix #1
“Not of works”–New Testament Usage
“Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:9). What is not of works? Is Paul saying that faith
is not of works or is he saying that salvation is not of works? Here again it is helpful to do a study of New
Testament (Pauline) usage:
In Romans 3:20 Paul says that justification is not of works.
In Romans 3:27 Paul says that justification is not of works.
In Romans 3:28 Paul says that justification is apart from works.
In Romans 4:2,6 Paul says that justification is not of works.
In Romans 9:11 Paul says that election is not of works.
In Romans 9:32 Paul says that righteousness is not of works.
In Romans 11:6 Paul says that election is not of works.
In Galatians 2:16 Paul says that justification is not of works.
In 2 Timothy 1:9 Paul says that God’s salvation and calling are not according to works.
In Titus 3:5 Paul says that salvation is not of works.
If Ephesians 2:9 means that salvation is not of works, this would be in harmony with all of these above
passages. That salvation is not of works is repeatedly taught by Paul, but nowhere in the New Testament
does Paul ever say, “Faith is not of works.” Again and again Paul says that salvation (justification) is not
of works, but he never says that faith is not of works. It would be foolish to say such a thing. That faith is
not of works is so obvious (or as Alford says “irrelevant”) that it does not need to be said. As John Eadie
has said, “you may declare that salvation is not of works, but cannot with propriety say that faith is not of
works.”
This is why men like Charles Hodge are forced to put a parenthesis in this passage. This view could be stated as follows:
“For by grace are ye saved through faith (and this faith is not of yourselves, this faith is the gift of God), not
of works [that is, this salvation is not of works] lest any man should boast.” Hodge wants to make the verse
say that faith is the gift of God (because this fits in well with his Reformed Theology). However, Hodge
knows that Paul would never say that “faith is not of works.”
Charles Hodge is correct in saying that salvation is not of works; he is wrong in saying that this passage
teaches that faith is the gift of God. If salvation is the antecedent of the pronoun, then no parenthesis is
needed.
The Bible repeatedly says that we are not saved by works (see the verses cited earlier). Also the Bible
repeatedly says that we are saved or justified by faith (Romans 5:1; etc.). If a man is not saved by works
but by faith, then faith is obviously not a work: “but to him that worketh not, but believeth…” (Romans
4:5). Faith and works do not go together. Faith is not a work. Work is something that we take credit for.
Work is something that we can be rewarded for. Work is something that we can boast about. Work is
meritorious. Faith is non-meritorious. A person cannot “take credit” or “praise himself” for his faith
because faith is not meritorious (deserving of reward or honor). Faith is not something that a person can
boast about. Faith does not take credit for itself. Faith gives all the credit to Christ. Faith acknowledges
that Christ gets all the credit and praise and honor, for He did it all! Faith is not something “good” that a
man does; it is simply a recognition on the part of man that “I cannot do any good thing, and therefore I need a Saviour.” Only someone totally ignorant of the gospel and of the meaning of “faith” would ever try to take credit for faith. There is no merit in the act of believing.
To say that faith is a work is totally contrary to what the New Testament teaches on salvation. Salvation
is “not of works” and entirely “apart from works” (Romans 3:28; 4:6). Those who believe are those who
“do not work” (Romans 4:5). What then do they do? They merely rest upon the finished work of Christ
who did it all and paid it all!
If Ephesians 2:9 speaks of faith as being “not of works,” then this is the only place in the New Testament
where Paul makes such a statement. If on the other hand the verse is saying that salvation is not of works,
then this would harmonize with Paul’s frequent teaching elsewhere and this would be one of many verses
in the New Testament which teaches this truth.
As a practical example, think of how we share the message of salvation with those who are lost. Often we
tell them that salvation is not of works. All false religions teach some form of salvation by a system of
works. In our sharing of the gospel we make it clear to people that salvation is not of works and there is
nothing that they can do to work for their salvation or to earn favor with God. On the other hand, we do
not tell the sinner: “My friend, faith is not of works. There is nothing that you can do to believe.” No,
faith is something that the sinner is responsible to do. The sinner is responsible to take God at His Word
and to rest his all upon the WORTH (who He is), the WORK (what He has done) and the WORD (what He
has said) of the Saviour. Even though faith is not a meritorious work, it is a work that man must do: “Then
said they unto Him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto
them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent” (John 6:28-29). It is
something that man is responsible to do, and condemned for not doing (John 8:24; 3:18).
Appendix #2
A Very Lively Corpse
Some extreme Calvinists tend to speak of faith as if it is something that man cannot do. This results in an
unbiblical understanding of man’s inability. The question the Philippian jailer asked was this: “What must
I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). Some might answer in this way: “Nothing! You can’t do anything! You
are dead and totally unable to respond to God until you are regenerated. You have no part in salvation. God
must do it all. You cannot exercise saving faith.” This answer might harmonize with one’s theological
system, but there is only one problem. This is not how Paul and Silas answered the question! Paul and
Silas told the jailer that there was something that he could do and was responsible to do: “Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ!” (Acts 16:31; compare how Peter answered a similar question in Acts 2:37-38).
Regardless of one’s theological system, Acts 16:31 is very clear. GOD MUST DO THE SAVING; MAN MUST
DO THE BELIEVING. The saving is something that God alone must do. The believing is something that the
sinner must do. God does not do the believing for man. Even William Hendriksen (who is Reformed in
his theology and who believes that faith is the gift of God in Ephesians 2:8) says, “both the responsibility
of believing and also its activity are ours, for God does not believe for us.” Another illustration would be
the account of the deadly serpents in the wilderness in Numbers 21. Should we say that the Israelites had
no part in their deliverance from the deadly snakes? Of course not! Their part was to look; God’s part
was to heal. They did the looking and God did the healing.
Faith is when the sinner humbly recognizes his desperate need and acknowledges that God must do all the
saving. SALVATION IS WHOLLY THE WORK OF GOD; FAITH IS WHOLLY THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MAN.
Man does not contribute to his own salvation. It is the work of God. God alone must do the saving; man
must do the believing (Acts 16:31). Those who are saved have only God to thank; those who are lost have
only themselves to blame. God gets all the credit for man’s salvation; the unsaved man must take full blame
and responsibility for his eternal damnation. The saved person thankfully says, “I’m in heaven because of
God!” The lost person must truthfully say, “I’m in hell because of me.” His damnation is based, not on
God’s rejection of him, but upon his rejection of God (Mark 16:16; 2 Thess. 2:10,12; John 5:40).
No one will ever stand before God and say, “I am condemned because God never gave me the gift of faith.”
No such excuse will ever be uttered. All men are responsible to believe. All men are commanded to
believe and to repent (1 John 3:23; Acts 17:30). God says, “Look unto Me [that’s faith!] and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 45:22). According to 1 Timothy 2:4, God desires all men to come unto
Himself (and coming to Christ is equated with believing on Him–John 6:35). Men are responsible to
believe and to come and to repent. Men are condemned eternally for their failure to do this (John 8:24; 3:18; etc.).
I would recommend an article by Roy L. Aldrich entitled “The Gift of God.” The author convincingly
shows that the interpretation of Ephesians 2:8 which says that faith is the gift of God leads to a hyper-
Calvinistic doctrine of faith, which in turn leads to an unscriptural plan of salvation. For example, Shedd
says: “The Calvinist maintains that faith is wholly from God, being one of the effects of regeneration”
(Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II, p. 472). This results in a strange plan of salvation. According to Shedd,
because the sinner cannot believe, he is instructed to perform the following duties: 1) Read and hear the
divine Word; 2) Give serious application of the mind to the truth; 3) Pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit
for conviction and regeneration (Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 512-513). Aldrich’s comment is as
follows: “If the sinner is so spiritually dead that he cannot believe, then how can he hear the divine Word,
give serious application of the mind to the truth and pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit? The extreme
Calvinist deals with a rather lively spiritual corpse after all.”
Arthur Pink agrees with Shedd saying that the sinner is to “ask God…to bestow upon him the gifts of
repentance and faith” (The Sovereignty of God, pp. 198-199). Here is Roy Aldrich’s excellent comment:
“The tragedy of this position is that it perverts the gospel. The sinner is wrongly instructed to beg for
that which God is already beseeching him to receive. He is really being told that the condition of
salvation is prayer instead of faith” (Aldrich, p. 249).
Appendix #3
The Neuter Gender
[This material is somewhat technical, but I have included it in case any have been influenced by Mr.
Parker’s argument.]
There are some who give another explanation for the neuter gender being used. Mr. Stephen Parker, for
example, argues that the pronoun is attracted to the neuter gender of the word “gift,” and he cites Mark 15:16 as an analogy.7 It is true that attraction does take place in Mark 15:16 as Mr. Parker correctly points out.
This is one of those rare cases where the pronoun agrees with the predicate when explanation. Another example would be in Ephesians 6:17: “the sword (feminine) of the Spirit, which (neuter) is the Word (neuter) of God” (the antecedent is “sword” but the pronoun is attracted to the neuter gender). However, we do not really have the same thing in Ephesians 2:8. First of all, in Mark 15:16 we
have a relative pronoun, but in Ephesians 2:8 we have a demonstrative pronoun [ôïÿôï]. In Mark 15:16 the
verb is explicitly stated, but in Ephesians 2:8 the verb is understood (the words “it is” are in italics). The
greatest problem, however, is that in Mark 15:16 the word “praetorium” comes right after the word “hall”
but in Ephesians 2:8 there is a whole additional phrase which comes between “that” and “gift,” and this
would make attraction much less likely: “…through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift…” In
other words, in Mark 15:16 there is only one word (the verb åóôéí) which comes between the pronoun and
the word to which it is attracted. In Ephesians 2:8 there are five Greek words which come between the
pronoun and the word which Mr. Parker claims it is attracted to. This explanation seems highly unlikely,
and I did not find this argument in the respectable commentaries that I consulted, even among those men
who believe that the antecedent is “faith.” It could also be noted that Mr. Parker is wrong when he says that
the words “hall” and “which” in Mark 15:16 do not agree in number. They do agree. They are both singular
in number.
Appendix #4
Can Infants Be Regenerated?
Concerning regeneration preceding faith, some Calvinists take this to a ridiculous extreme. Though it seems unthinkable, they actually teach that a person can be regenerated by God and then not come to faith in Christ until years later.
The Reformation Study Bible (formerly called The Geneva Study Bible) claims to be a clear statement of
Reformed Theology. On page 1664 there is an article on Regeneration. It is a shocking statement relating
to infant salvation: “Infants can be born again, although the faith that they exercise cannot be as visible as
that of adults.” I wrote to R.C. Sproul (General Editor) to ask for clarification of this statement. I received
a written response from Sproul’s assistant, V.A. Voorhis (dated 1/6/2000) in which he made the following
statement which is even more shocking:
When the RSB speaks in the notes of John 3 of “infants being born again,” it is speaking of
the work of quickening God does in them which inclines their will to Him. In Protestantism,
regeneration always precedes faith and if God quickens them, the person will surely come….
Often, regeneration and our subsequent faith happen apparently simultaneously but logically,
regeneration must precede faith. An infant’s faith may not come until years after God has
worked by His Holy Spirit to regenerate him or her [emphasis ours]. Two Biblical
examples of infants who were born again are seen in Psalm 22:9-10 and Luke 1:15.
According to this teaching a child can be born again or regenerated as an infant and not come to faith in
Christ until years later! This may or may not have been the teaching of the Reformers, but it certainly is not
the teaching of the Word of God.
By George Zeller (http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/)