There by the Grace of God Go I, Eph, 2:8-9
Ephesians 2:8-9 · Vern Peterman · Jul 11, 2004
Ephesians & Colossians, No. 26
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826239527056

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. This passage we have here this morning, 2.8 and 9, 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. The title we have on this is, There by the grace of God go I. Now Nancy, when she was looking at this, said, Vern, didn't you miss something? Isn't it, there but by the grace of God go I? We usually use that phrase as a term to express how, you know, if it wasn't for the grace of God, I would be in a position like that other person there. Some misfortune or misguidance, and I would be in the same spot.

And there's some truth to that, but there's also good reason for dropping the word but. There by the grace of God go I. What this doesn't reveal is the truth that the Lord hasn't just by grace kept us from this or that misfortune, but His grace is far beyond that. Remember last week we said that it will take eternity for Him to reveal the character of His grace to us. Eternity. That is a grace that is so marvelous, so fantastic, that it goes far beyond just keeping us from this misfortune or that misguidance, but instead is so phenomenal that eternity will be required for Him to reveal all the grace that is built into His very character. So we say, not, there but by the grace of God go I, but there by the grace of God go I. There by the grace of God I am seated in the heavenlies.

I am saved, and we'll take a look at what that means here this morning. One of the things you'll notice as you look at this passage is we had already looked at a part of this phrase before, by the grace, by grace you have been saved, showed up at the end of verse 5. And now the phrase shows up again, and so you have that in your handout. By the way, those who are visiting us this morning, this is the page number on your handout, okay? Page numbers given at the bottom. So what we see here is, by grace you have been saved is now repeated, but we need to point out something. There is a difference between the two. It doesn't show up in the English, most English translations.

The text behind these are identical except for there's a definite article in this passage in Ephesians 2.8. And so it's giving the sense of, by the grace you have been saved.

And why would he say the grace? It's the grace that he's made reference to before, in verse 5. It's the grace that he's made reference to in verse 7. And remember, he has just told them it is going to take eternity, rolling ages upon ages, for him to reveal all the grace that is part of the character of God himself.

That's the kind of grace by which you've been saved. See that? It is that amazing grace, that grace that after 10,000 years has gone by and had revealed to us the character of His grace, that will barely scratch the surface. 10,000 years is not even beginning to be enough time to reveal the depth and marvel of His grace. It's that kind of grace that He's telling you you've been saved by. not the kind of grace that's just enough to keep you from being as bad off as that other person, but the marvelous, marvelous grace that has saved you, the kind of grace that takes eternity for us to fully see and understand. That kind of grace. That's the grace that you've been saved by.

See his point? So what's Paul doing here? He's repeating this phrase, There's a couple of reasons, I think. One is it's certainly an emphasis. By repeating it, he's made emphasis of the fact, by grace you've been saved. He doesn't want us to miss that point. But there's another reason that comes out here. As soon as he says in this passage in verse 8, by grace you've been saved, he follows it up with further explanation. And so we've got both those reasons. Emphasis and explanation that he's brought up here. We'll want to take a look at those here this morning.

Last week we brought up a cultural insight, and that is that the people who are reading this for the first time, the people in the church at Ephesus, are looking at it, and all their lives prior to coming to the Lord, all their lives they have been thinking of their gods as people who didn't pay any attention to them unless you did something for them first.

You're going to have to work for it, even by the favor of the deity, otherwise the deity is just plain going to ignore you. This, however, is a god very different. that they had ever seen before. And so now these pagans have to learn the character of a God unlike any they've ever seen. This is not a God, it is the God.

So you can imagine what these pagans are starting to think. They're thinking, here's this God who went and did all these things for me, and went and saved me, and the first thing that's entering their minds is, That's going to cost you. They're thinking, oh no, Paul's laying out these things and boy, am I going to have to pay for this one. That's their thinking. He's trying to let them know, with emphasis, you need to understand how big the word grace is. You need to understand how massive a grace we're talking about here. A little background here.

This is a little arrow right below Lake Tahoe over there. That's where Nancy and I used to live, right where that arrow is there. We lived for 14 years and we sold the house to our son, and as a matter of fact, he's selling it this month. But when we were living there, there was a street right about here in Carson City, Nevada, and its name was Tomstoffel. And I thought, well, that must be a Dutch name or something. Well, I found out it's not.

As I was talking to some of the people who are involved with the development, no, it means this, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. This is the world's viewpoint, right? And it's true for this world that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. But, but, that's not the way God works, is it? As a matter of fact, this is way beyond free lunch. What Paul is telling him, he says, yeah, you're used to gods who use the Tom Stoffel principle. He says, I'm wanting to tell you the God that I'm telling you about operates nothing of the sort in the same way.

You see that? By the grace, if you take the Greek literally, by the grace you have been saved. Let's take a look at this word saved. And you've got to ask the question, just how saved is saved? What does he really mean by that word saved? Now, the Greek word there is sozo, okay? And it isn't so-so, it's sozo, okay?

This is a perfect passive verb. Now, you need to understand what this perfect passive means, okay? Now, here's me and Randy being perfectly passive about 27 years ago. That has nothing to do with it, okay? The question that we have here, just exactly how saved is saved, this perfect passive means Let's start with the perfect.

It means it's a completed past action with ongoing results into the future. When you were saved by that grace that is so infinite it will take eternity for you to understand it and to see it and to have it revealed to you. A million years is nowhere near enough. That kind of grace, when you were saved, saved you with a completed past action. It's done, folks. Ongoing results into the future. We've mentioned before that the mascot of the perfect tense is the ever-ready bunny, on and on and on, going and going and going. Now, the perfect tense carries with it the implication of permanence.

One of the things that we've noted before is we've been told in Scripture that we have been united with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. I can't find any verses that undo any of those. There's no verse that says you have been unseated with Christ. There's no verse that says you have been uncrucified with Him. There isn't any reverse in this transmission.

It carries the implication of permanence. Beyond that, the passive tense tells us that we didn't do it. It's done to us. We have been saved from something outside of ourselves. The message clearly here is that God is the one who does the saving. It's a completed action with the implication of permanence, the results are ongoing into eternity future, and you didn't do it. I didn't do it.

Now, to make it clear here, we have been saved from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin, and the presence of sin. We made this point in the past here. Though we have been in the past saved from the penalty of sin, though we are being saved now, processed right now, from the power of sin in the present, and we will be saved from the presence of sin in the future. This verb, since it's in the perfect tense, tells us as far as God's concerned, it's all a done deal.

God's not wringing his hands and pacing the floor of heaven and saying, man, I sure hope I can pull this off. I mean, that Vern, he's a tough cookie. How am I going to keep that guy saved? God's not doing that. God's not concerned. As far as God's concerned, this is a done deal.

It's from our human standpoint that we're looking at time taking place. That's the human perspective. Now, through faith. Through faith is the next message he's got there. For by grace you have been saved through faith. Key words that come together there is diapistis. Dia pistis. Dia means through, that is by means of. That's how it happens. This is the how it took place answer. And then pistis is a personal faith. It is faith that is put in the saving truth of the Gospel that causes us to depend upon God's message and provision.

You are putting personal faith in the pews that you're sitting on. You wouldn't sit there, of course, unless you had confidence in their ability to do that. And you've probably seen some chairs where you've looked at them and said, no, I'm not going to sit in that one. You determined, no, I'm not going to put my faith there.

That's what this is. This is putting your confidence such as to depend upon God's provision. In English, we have these little nuances of difference, The truth is, in the Greek, it's all one word. They don't use the different terms. Alright, now, through faith, by means of a personal dependence upon the message of the gospel. And he says, and that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

So this leads us to the question, is the $64,000 question. So what is that and it? Okay. Is it the grace? Is that the that and it? Is it the faith? Is that that and it? Is it the salvation? Such that when we ask this question here, is it, by grace you have been saved through faith and the grace is not of yourselves? Is that what it's saying? Or is it saying, for by grace you have been saved through faith and the faith is not of yourselves? Or is it, for by grace you have been saved through faith and the salvation is not of yourselves? Now, which one? Do we take a vote? Do you think God voted? Get the angels together and see what the consensus is? No, let's not do that.

Greek pronouns, it turns out, have gender. So do the nouns. Now, don't get me wrong, we're not about to take some Greek words and put skirts on them and things like that. That's not what our point is here. The point is this. They have gender, and so they have masculine, feminine, and neuter. Don't ask me how they decided this, but that's how it happened.

And typically they agree in the same context, the noun and the pronoun agree. Now, if we look at this verse here that's right in front of us, let's take that. What we find is, and we'll spread these out, and this is the way you have it in your handout. The word grace in the Greek is feminine. By the way, that's a girl's name, too, in English, right? Faith is also feminine, and that's a word that's used for a girl's name, just coincidentally. That, however, is neuter.

It doesn't match up with either one of those. Well, this doesn't give us a definitive answer, but it says the evidence leans against either grace or faith being that. But we're not done. All right, so we still have that question we want to get nailed down here, a definite answer. Let's try this way. Remember, here we saw, not a result of works. Remember, the that and the it is not a result of works. Ah, there's a test I can apply. Can I find any place in Scripture where it says something is a result of works, especially is it grace or faith? Well, let's take a look. And you've got this on page three of your handout. What is not of works?

Romans, a few places, Galatians 2.16 says justification is not of works.

Romans 9.11, 11.6 says election is not of works. Believers are justified, they have been elected, chosen.

2 Timothy 1.9 says God's salvation and calling are not according to works. And so what we find is that salvation and all the things involved in it are not according to works. We find that same thing repeated and summarized in Titus 3-5, but what we find, they all refer to salvation.

Aha! Salvation is not of works, but it doesn't say faith is not of works, it doesn't say grace is not of works. All right. How about the word gift? It is a gift of God. The word gift shows up a number of places in the New Testament, and let's take a look at those. John 10-14 says the gift of God is eternal life.

Romans 5.15-21, the gift is justification and life.

Romans 6.23, the gift of God is eternal life. Remember, the wages of sin is death. The free gift of God is eternal life.

2 Corinthians 9.15, the gift is Jesus Christ.

So what we find is nowhere is grace or faith said to be a gift. Further confirming our conclusions here. So when we come to Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, this, that is not grace, not faith, but it is salvation that is the gift. Salvation is the gift. We are not given faith as a gift, we are not given grace as a gift in this statement, but it is salvation in totals that is the gift. Now, so we end up with this sense, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and the salvation is not of yourselves. Now there's some truths that come out further in this verse here. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

Now there's something that comes out in the Greek we want to make sure comes out to us. And it comes out this way. This is the Greek word ek, and it's not ik, it's ek. Ek means literally out of. So let's put this graphically so we make sure we understand it. See that circle there? That's yourselves, okay?

And what this is telling us here is that salvation does not come out of ourselves. Now, we have a whole message in our culture, and a lot of it is coming out of the Eastern cultures, which is telling us that, oh, you've got to look deep within yourself. I know there's a lot of echo in there, but you've got to look deep within yourself, and if you look deep within yourself, you'll find this personal salvation. Guess what he just told us? salvation is absolutely not out of yourselves. You're not going to find it, you're not going to get there. It's not out of ourselves, very clear. It is, and we've seen salvation is, the gift of God. Think of this here, it's the gift of God for the believer.

Now, if you have a gift, someone comes to you with a gift, you would be very stunned if after receiving the gift, they said, I need to tell you that that was a really expensive gift and I got a work schedule. You got to work this gift off here, see? And so, for example, for Christmas, you get this nice gift and right along with it, it's that second envelope that's the real zinger. That's your work schedule, so you work the gift off. Would you like that gift? No. I'll say no thanks, right? A real disappointment when you open the second envelope. What he's telling us here is there is no second envelope. Forget the work schedule. This is really a gift, not a gift with a second envelope.

You have been identified with Christ in His crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension and seeding entirely as a gift, 100%, no work schedule attached. Good news, isn't it? Alright. Not as a result of works. Here's something that's real interesting. It doesn't come out of works. There is no work that we can do that contributes, that adds to that salvation. We can't enhance it. We cannot add to it. Salvation does not come as a result of works. And lo and behold, this not as a result of is eck again. Let's look at it here graphically. Here's works. That circle represents all the works that you could do.

Salvation would then come out of works, right? He's saying, nope, that's not the case. Salvation does not come out of works. Two very important things to get out of this. Salvation does not come out of ourselves. It doesn't come out of works, period. He doesn't say, oh, there's a certain percentage of work share and God did some and you've got to add some. Some of the different religions that are out there, and you can see them up and down the streets and their buildings and whatnot, will tell you that Christ died so that you can earn your salvation. This says, absolutely not. Salvation is not out of ourselves. Salvation is not out of works. Absolute statement. Absolutely not out of works. I put this turnip up here on purpose. I said, what? No blood? You don't get blood out of a turnip, and you don't get salvation out of yourself. You don't get blood out of a turnip, and you don't get salvation out of works. It just doesn't happen. Paul is making very clear, deliberate statements. Very explicit statements he's laying before us here.

Romans 6.23 is, I think, a good parallel passage for us to take a look at, because the first three verses of Ephesians chapter 2 has told us about the wages of sin is death, hasn't it? He has told us in these next several verses, 4 through 9 here, that the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. So he summarizes the truths there. but there are some insights here I'd like us to take a look at it.

In Greek, the word for wages is opsonia, and for free gift, charisma. It turns out that those words have an equivalent in the Latin, and the way it works out is like this. The Roman soldiers, when they would work for their wages, would be paid opsonia. That would be the wages that you get work for your wages. However, when a new emperor came to the throne, he would often give the soldiers a free gift. He says, your soldiers, you work for Rome, I'm going to give you a free gift that you didn't work for. And those are the words that Paul chooses to represent to them, to tell them, The wages of sin, the apsonia of sin, is death.

If you want to work for something, you get something you can work for. That's death. You want to work for your salvation? You can't get there, but you can get death. But the free gift, the charisma of God, because Christ ascended to the throne, and you with Him, because Christ ascended to the throne, Absolutely free. No working for it. Salvation does not come out of you. Works does not produce eternal life. You cannot earn it. Absolute statement. Clear statement.

And he used these words here in Romans 6.23. Why? Because Rome is the place where he had a lot of Roman soldiers, including the Praetorian Guard, who served the emperor and got three times as much as the rest of the Roman soldiers, and really knew what the words meant. because their charisma was also three times as much, the free gift that they received.

The wages, notice, are payment for work. If you want to work, there is a reward for that. That's death. If you want eternal life, there's only one way. It's a free gift. You cannot work for it. There's no salvation in your works. not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." Now, why did he add that to the end? No one may boast.

Boasting, it turns out, was really popular among certain parts of the Roman Empire, and it turns out that this word for boasting is used more often in the two letters to the Corinthians than it is in all the rest of the New Testament. I take it that the Corinthians were really big into it. Those who are going through the second Corinthians elective will have a chance to look at that in more detail. But you know, isn't there an inclination on our part to say, boy, look at what I did? And basically what's going to happen, he's making an absolute statement here.

The grace of the Lord is such that it will take eternity for Him to reveal it. We will not have anything to boast of. It will be entirely We can boast of the Lord, but not of ourselves. No one will have anything to boast of because salvation is not out of ourselves. Salvation is not out of works that I do. Entirely a free gift. Nobody has any basis for boasting who is saved. None of us. The position of each believer is the same. Identical. One of the things that comes out here, salvation isn't a mix and match. We can't say, Laura, I'll tell you what, you've done such great things for me, I'm going to do this other thing for you and between the two of us we'll pull this off. It isn't a percentage deal. It's not like, you know, I'm going to do this 60% and you'll do the 40 or the other way around. There's no percentage about this except 0 and 100. Those are the only percentages.

Salvation isn't something I can work for, earn, deserve. This is not something that I even hope to contribute to. I'm in no place to say, God help me. God isn't interested in helping me. This isn't something we have a part in contributing to. It is entirely His doing. The work of salvation is entirely God's work, and remember that perfect passive? Not the one where Randy and I are sleeping. Completely, totally, in the past, done deal.

It is only through faith that that's applicable. This morning, we gather, as we do every Sunday, a gathering of believers. But it is critical, if you're here this morning and are not a believer, if you have not, through faith, put your trust in Jesus Christ, it is absolutely essential that you know that there is no earning this gift of eternal life. It is only and absolutely through faith in Christ. As simple as that. No Tom Stoffel principle here. It's the absolute reverse of what we've become accustomed to. Yes, this is a free lunch. It's way beyond any lunch. And it is something we can't contribute to. Only by faith and trust in Christ. Let's pray.

Lord, as we look at this passage, how clear and simple the message is. Your grace, as we looked at last week, is infinitely marvelous. We will still be gasping in awe trillions of years from now, if years have any meaning at all. we will still be in wondrous gaze at the marvelous grace, the awesome and amazing grace that you have extended to us. Lord, we don't claim to even begin to understand it now, but one thing we ask that you would teach us to grasp here this morning, we have no part to contribute to it, we have nothing to add and nothing to enhance your salvation by. Indeed, all who believe in you, Lord, have eternally and fixed and untouchable in the heavens this marvelous salvation that comes not of ourselves, not of our works, or of any worth that we have. There is nothing we can boast of except your marvelous and awesome grace. Thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen.