Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us that we are saved by God's grace which is not from ourselves nor of works which no one can boast. I found myself wondering why Paul said that "no one may boast." The reason for that is if we are to boast in our salvation, it should be for what Christ has done.
If we are saved by works, then we would be like Paul in Philippians 3:3-8 and start bragging about our list of accomplishments. We would start boasting about our church attendance, how many Bibles we have in our homes, how many people we witnessed to, and how many pieces of fried chicken we consumed (if you are a Southern Baptist, you would understand). We would mark our performance as the means of grace to be saved instead of what God has done through Christ's finished work on the cross.
Paul writes in Romans 3, after he said that Jesus satisfied the righteousness of Christ by being the propitiation for our sins, "Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded" (Romans 3:27). We have no right to boast on our good behavior or our righteous deeds, we are to boast in what Christ has done on the cross:
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Galatians 6:14)
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