Tom Nettles on Ephesians 2:8-9

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

By grace. The unmerited favor of God is the source, established before the foundation of the world (1:4, 6) of every part of God’s restitution of sinners and fitting them for heaven.

1. “You have been saved.” Since he uses here a perfect passive form, he means that this event has occurred and has abiding results. We could say that salvation is initiated experientially in forgiveness of sins and justification. That already has taken place in the life of the Christian and he/she is freed from condemnation and granted the merits by which eternal life is granted.

2. “through Faith”. That aspect of God’s favor towards us is received on our part by our seeing the worthiness of Christ and his work and placing our full trust in him for acceptance before God. We rely on him alone and turn away from any possibility of acceptance through personal merit. No performance of ours escapes the verdict of condemnation but is cast aside as dung when we see the excellence of Christ (Philippians 3:7-9).

3. “And that not of yourselves” – The neuter demonstrative pronoun, “that” refers to the entire process of the grant of all that is involved in forgiveness and justification as well as the granting of faith. The merits are of Christ and the faith is from the power of the Holy Spirit granted to us in the moment of regeneration. While we are dead in trespasses and sins he raises us up to a new spiritual life, the immediate reflex of which is the response of faith toward the working of God and by the working of God. Compare Colossians 2:12, 13.

4. “It is the gift of God.” Literally, “of God, the gift.” No simpler or more absolute way could it be expressed. The fullness of the gift in its every part originates in the mind of God, is prepared by the power of God, and is granted by the grace of God. Its freeness in every part conforms to the trinitarian reality with every person operating to complement, undergird, and sustain the work of each other divine person so that in salvation God is all and in all. In eternal covenant, incarnation, the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, and the sending of the Spirit, Scripture gives evidence of a fitting engagement of Father, Son, and Spirit in each step.

5. “Not of Works” – This reiterates the insistence on grace as the all-encompassing reality of salvation. By “works” is meant our conformity to the law of God. We have broken his law in both tables and in all of its distinct parts and are under its curse. Should we be judged according to works, condemnation would be the result, for, as previously stated, we are “by nature children of wrath.”

6. “So that no one may boast.” At the cross of Christ, none will boast in themselves. Each will say, “Marvelous grace of our loving Lord; grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt; yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured, there where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.”

Adapted from God’s Work and Workmanship by Tom Nettles