Have you noticed that the number three seems to be a big deal for the apostle Paul in Ephesians? For example, in the first fourteen verses we read of the three-fold role our Triune God has in our salvation: God the Father chose us before the foundation of the world (1:3-6), Jesus the Son made our redemption possible (vv. 7-12), and the Holy Spirit sealed us for the Day of redemption (vv. 12-13). We see it in the way Paul prays for the Ephesian Church: “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the boundless greatness of His power toward us who believe” (vv. 18-19a).
I thought one way to help you see this was to reimagine Paul’s series of three’s as his answer to a series of questions by Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, a character from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, a book first published in 1678 and is currently listed as the fifth most translated book in the world. If you are not aware of who John Bunyan was, all you know for now is that he wrote Pilgrim’s Progress while in prison for twelve years for preaching the gospel, his book is an allegory on the Christian life.
In Bunyan’s book, the protagonist, Christian Pilgrim leaves his home, The City of Destruction, to embark on a pilgrimage for the salvation of his soul and to find the Celestial City where he can live for all eternity in the company of God. While on his journey he is helped and guided by other characters such as Evangelist, who is known as a preacher of the Holy Word and is eager to help those who are seriously concerned about the state of their souls. Christian also meets Interpreter who shows Christian many wonders and shows Christian many “exhortations” on the way he should go. There are others who join Christian on his journey such as Pliant who quits the pilgrimage after facing his first obstacle, and Hopeful, a refugee from Vanity Fair, who proves to be a faithful companion to Christian all the way to the Celestial City.
There are others who Christian encounters that try to turn him away from the narrow way to the Celestial City who go by the names of Giant Despair, Apollyon, Flatterer, and Mr. Worldly Wiseman. Bunyan described Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, in this way: “…not an ancient relic of the past. He is everywhere today, disguising his heresy and error by proclaiming the gospel of contentment and peace achieved by self-satisfaction and works. If he mentions Christ, it is not as the Savior who took our place, but as a good example of an exemplary life. Do we need a good example to rescue us, or do we need a Savior?”
Imagine what a conversation might look like if Mr. Worldly Wiseman visited the Apostle Paul in prison during the same time the epistle to the Ephesians was written:
Mr. Worldly-Wiseman: Paul, tell me how you can be sure that you are Christian since you are now in prison?
Paul: Regardless of my circumstance, I am a Christian for these three reasons:
- I was chosen by God before the foundation of the world (1:4-6),
- I am redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ for sins I am guilty of (vv. 7-12), and
- I am sealed by the Holy Spirit for a full and future redemption (vv. 13-14).
Mr. Worldly-Wiseman: Why spend your years in prison and suffer when you can be free so long as you don’t keep blabbing about Jesus in places people don’t want to hear it? You know, you can be a Christian and be compliant too!
Paul: How can I be quiet about something so important? Jesus commands me not to be quite about my relationship with Him and how he saved me even though I was,
- Dead to God (2:1),
- A slave to sin (vv. 2-3a), and
- A child of the wrath of God because of the sins I committed against Him (v. 3).
What this means, Mr. Worldly Wiseman, is that I was once like you:
- A friend of the world (2:2a),
- A child of the devil (v. 2b), and
- A slave to my own flesh (v. 3).
Mr. Worldly-Wiseman: I’m not sure if I should feel insulted or pity for you because you believe such rubbish. So, tell me, what is so different between you and me?
Paul: Jesus is the difference between you and me! Jesus lived a perfect sinless life that I could never live; He died a death I deserved on a cross for sins I committed, and He validated all of that by rising from death on the third day. What is true of me is true of every real Christian, and this is why I have chosen to follow Him:
- I was dead in my sins, but now I am alive in Christ (1:7; 2:4)
- My nature was bound by my sins, but now I have been raised with Christ (v. 6a)
- I stood condemned by a holy God, but now I am seated with Christ and am covered by His righteousness (v. 6b).
Mr. Worldly-Wiseman: Come on Paul! I am a religious person and I admire Jesus as a great example to aspire to. We need to do our best and let God do the rest, but you have taken your Christianity too seriously!
Paul: No one can do enough for the kind of salvation you and I need! The only thing God required of me was a faith that was only possible because of His grace. It is a grace that I could not, nor ever will earn, by anything I could ever do! I am the recipient of,
- A rich mercy we did deserve (v. 4a).
- A great love God was not obligated to give (v. 4b).
- An all-sufficient grace no one could earn (v. 5)
All of which is only possible in and through Jesus Christ alone!
So, now we come to Ephesians 2:8-10 and are immediately faced with another set of three words and why it is that God saved us in the first place. If you were asked the same questions or interrogated in the way I had Mr. Worldly-Wiseman interrogate Paul, how would you answer? My two points are in the form of two questions that this passage answers for us in a way that should be deeply discouraging or encouraging to you.
How Does God Save?
Now, considering all that we have studied together, we find ourselves at the threshold of Ephesians 2:8-9. What I want to do with you this morning is to walk you through these verses in light of the context of Ephesians 1:3-2:7. I want us to look at these verses together against the backdrop of my warning at the beginning of this sermon series which was this: Beware of imposing your view and thoughts of what God should be like, upon the text of His holy Word. You must allow the authority of God’s Word to impose it’s teaching upon your heart for the purpose of shaping it in a way that the eyes of your heart are able to see God more clearly.
Now, before I go any further, let me say first and foremost that I want you to make your own conclusion with these verses based on the evidence of what you see in Ephesians and the rest of the Bible. I am not concerned if you end up seeing things differently than the way I see them so long as you do not impose what you think the Bible should say upon what it actually says. My only concern before you this morning is that I preach and teach the Bible in such a manner that I am faithful to the Word of God so when I stand before Him, I will do so knowing that I was faithful with what He has entrusted to me.
So, here we go! Buckle up because it is going to be a fun ride. Let’s start with verses 8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” The three words I want you to see in this verse are grace, saved (i.e. salvation), and faith. To answer the question, “How does God save?” we need figure out what is the gift that He gives so that no one may boast. Is “grace” the gift given by God, or is “salvation” the gift given by God, or is a person’s “faith” the gift given by God? Whatever the gift is, it eliminates any notion on our part that we did something to get it, otherwise Paul would never have felt the need to include verse 9, “…not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
If I am right about what I see in Ephesians 2:8-9, it will open up verse 10 in a way that will encourage you and blow your mind at the same time. So, what have we seen in Ephesians so far leading up to these verses? Permit me to put what Paul lists concerning our salvation in sequential order from spiritual death to life:
We were spiritually dead in our offenses and sins (2:1)
We know we were spiritually dead because we were slaves to our sin (2:2a)
Because we were slaves to our sin against God, we were by nature children of His wrath (2:3).
But God, whose mercy is rich, love is great, and grace is sufficient, did three things (vv. 2:4-5):
- He made us alive with Christ (2:5b).
- He raised us up with Christ (2:6a).
- He seated us with Christ (2:6b).
As a Christian, you can know that your salvation involved three acts of God…
- Before the foundation of the earth, God chose to adopt you as His child through Jesus (1:4-6).
- In order to adopt you as His child, God redeemed you through the blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of all your wrongdoings (1:7-12).
- Because God will not lose any who He has redeemed, He has sealed you with His Holy Spirit until your redemption and salvation is complete (1:13-14).
So, in light of all that Paul wrote concerning what God has done for the Christian, what does he mean by Ephesians 2:8-9? Let me offer up some fair and legitimate questions: If I am spiritually dead, how can a spiritually dead person respond to God in faith? If I am able to respond to God in faith in order to receive salvation through Jesus, then is my “faith” exempt from the kinds of “works” Paul is talking about in verse 9? If “faith” is a gift God imparts on me on some level, then how is my trust in Jesus for the salvation of my soul legitimate? Does your brain hurt from trying to process these sorts of questions?
I have wrestled over these verses for nearly 30 years and have understood them in three different ways that I think may help give you some perspective. In my early years, I was convinced that the gift of God was a salvation that could only be received by faith. Sometime after I started reading guys like Jonathan Edwards and St. Augustine, I leaned towards thinking that it was “faith” that was the gift of God. To be honest, what makes all of this even more confusing is the Greek allows the person interpreting these verses to make either one of these conclusions. Here is where I sit now, and I believe that how I see it fits best with everything Paul has written leading up to these verses, and it fits with the rest of the Bible. So, what is the gift of God? It is His Grace, our faith, and our salvation… in that order! The “this” is God’s grace, our faith, and our salvation.
Think about what grace is for a moment. Biblical grace is God’s unmerited favor; it is favor given to someone who does not deserve it. Do you remember what I said in the second sermon I preached in this series on Ephesians 1:4-6? I told you that at the very least, when it comes to God, what we read in these verses leads to the conclusion that God moved first. We see the very same thing here in Ephesians 2:8! At the very least, it is the sheer grace of almighty God that I had reached a point in my life on July 18, 1991, when all that I heard about Jesus made sense and I surrendered my life to Jesus and was genuinely and categorically saved from the wrath of God and forgiven all my sins! Every step and experience leading up to that moment was also the demonstration of a God who pursued me, found me, and overcame my sin because His mercy was rich, His love was great, and His grace sufficient to do what a 16-year-old teenage boy could not do. God made me alive with Christ, God raised me up with Christ, and God seated me with Christ… on that summer’s day on July 18, 1991, but He did not believe for me; I had to believe to be saved. He did the same thing with you Christian, but He did not believe for you! But my believing in Christ for the salvation of my soul, and your believing in Him for the salvation of your soul is not only a testament of God’s grace, but the proof that miracles happen.
For What Purpose Does God Save?
So, why did He do it? Why did he save you? Why did He choose you, redeem you, seal you, and made you, who were once dead, the recipient of the, “…boundless riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (2:7)? After all, what Jonathan Edwards said concerning what we bring to our salvation is the resounding testimony of all of Scripture: “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” God didn’t have to do it! God was not morally obligated to do it! But God did it; He saved you and redeemed you for the forgiveness of all your sin according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon you (1:7). But why? The answer is found in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
The first word in verse 10 is the word “For,” which is telling us something. What it is telling us is that considering Ephesians 2:1-9, the following is true! You who were dead in your sins, walked according to the course of this world, lived in the lusts of your flesh, indulged the desires of the flesh and of the mind as a child of the wrath of God (vv. 1-3), God made you alive in Christ, “…for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that you would walk in those good works.” This is exactly why God choose you, Christian, before the foundation of the world; listen to Ephesians 1:4 again: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.”
What this means, and this is so important to see with the eyes of your heart: We were not saved to coast until we enter into the presence of God in heaven but were saved so that God could reveal His presence through us because of His resurrection power to change us! It is absolute nonsense to think and believe that you can encounter Jesus on the level Paul describes in Ephesians and remain unchanged! It is like saying that you can remain the same after you walk in front of a bus traveling 65 MPH; the force of the bus will change you permanently. Listen carefully, the God who spoke 300 billion suns into existence is the same God who makes alive the spiritually dead through the power of the Gospel of a resurrected Christ! How is it that a person can remain unchanged by a power greater than 300 billion suns? I will tell you; it is because that person has never truly encountered Christ, whose mercy is richer, love is greater, and grace more sufficient than all of our sins and the sins of 8.1 billion people combined!
What we read in Ephesians 2:8-10 is that in light of the resurrection power of God through the redeeming work of Jesus the Son, and the empowering work of the Holy Spirit who seals us, it is the grace of God that leads to faith in God, for our salvation by God, for the purpose of a life of good works that glorifies God. The work that God is doing in your life is ongoing. I feel that it is fitting to close with something Sinclair Ferguson wrote concerning these verses:
Heaven may be the final showroom; but here on earth God is already ‘showing what he can do.’…. The church triumphant is an art gallery where God displays reflections of his glory. It is a portrait gallery in which the family likeness is seen in countless different individuals who together display his infinite glory.
The church visible, here, and now, is a workshop. The Divine Artist is still painting his likeness on the canvas of our lives, the Divine Potter still has the clay in his hands. The time for final exhibition has not yet come. But one day it will. Then all that God has done in us in secret, invisible to the naked eye, will become visible for all to see. What a day that will be![1]
