This is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God

Ephesians 2:1-9 (TNIV) -

1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

My thoughts -

Faith vs. works. Can you earn salvation? Does grace demand anything from the recipient? Do we really just have to "believe"? Is grace just a gift that only demands that we receive it? These are questions that those of faith go back and forth on constantly. But what does it mean to be saved by faith and not by works?

First, let's look at what Paul is starting off with here. He is telling the Ephesian church (and, by extension, us, as we're the ones reading it together now) that they were dead in their transgressions and sins. The old way isn't working. Our will is KILLING us. The things of this world are KILLING us. We are dead in them.

You don't desire to turn from sin and from the world and toward God if your sinful ways are working for you. You would have no reason to. I've never seen anyone repent because they were happy and fulfilled in their sin. Our will is death. Our ways are death. Even if the body is still alive in sin we're dead. It just doesn't work, not on an existential level.

So, our experience as "sinners" is that we are dead. Paul says that we are deserving of wrath. I would think that if God really wanted to punish us then, rather than wrath, which might alert us to how awful our depraved, sinful nature really is, God would simply allow us to continue in sin. God does not allow us to, however. God has provided a way out. By God's mercy and through Jesus we are given grace. It is a gift that does not just save us from the consequences of sin after death. It saves us from the death we have in sin right here in this life. Grace enables us to, having received forgiveness and restoration in our relationship with God, go and sin no more. Grace is no mere get-out-of-hell-free card but that which gives us new life in Christ.

There is nothing that we can do to "earn" grace. Grace is made available to us through Jesus by a merciful God. That said, though works cannot save us that in no way means that, given new life in Christ, we are to continue to live as though nothing has changed and nothing is demanded of us. Maybe "demanded" is the wrong word here. Let me rephrase: Grace enables us to do what God desires for us. It's not about what God requires necessarily, but what God desires.

If we are given new life in Christ how do we respond to this without doing what God desires? How do we, having received grace in response to our desperate cries for mercy, in response to our desperate cries for redemption, in response to our desperate cries to be lifted out of our despair and slavery to sin, how do we not respond by doing God's will? Was our will working? Look where it got us. Death. Was our way working? If it was why did we long for and seek after something better?

Are we believers because we are culturally expected to be? If so, what good is our alleged faith? Are we believers because that's just what you do, you go to church and believe in God? If so, what good is our alleged faith? If we weren't DEAD in our sins, if we weren't desperate and lost, if we weren't broken then how did we come to Christ? What did we need in grace? Why are we here?

We were dead in our transgressions and sin. We have been made alive in Christ. Works can't "save" us, only the gift of grace from a loving and merciful God. We respond to this gift of grace by no longer living according to our own sinful nature but according to God's will. And it is God's will that we share God's love with others. That is our "works". That's what we do not because it will "save" us but because it is a sign of our salvation. We are a new creation being made perfect in God's love, and that love is contagious. As we have generously received it we must generously give it. If we don't, what good was that "grace", really?