“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
The grace of God, the ‘loving-kindness’ of God, the ‘favor’ of God, is never to be understood as something that is manifest among men based on anything apart from the sheer ‘benevolence’ of the LORD. By grace are you saved, if you are saved at all. By grace are you saved through faith, or through believing God. Yet the ‘grace’ of God prevents our laying claim to any personal worthiness or our taking any credit, and the faith is a gift and not something that we possess apart from the giving of God (Romans 4:1-5, Ephesians 2:8-9, 2 Peter 1:1, Philippians 1:29).
God saves a soul by His own will and power alone and simply because He is pleased to do so. In demonstrating grace, the only thing that matters is that the purpose of God according to election …show more content…
“Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9). Salvation belongs to the Lord and it is a reality for men only as the result of His blessing upon His people (Psalms 3:8). Salvation is ‘from above’ (John 3:3). It is never the result of human will, free or otherwise, nor of the works of men (John 1:13, Romans 9:16, Ephesians 2:9, 2 Timothy 1:9). Those who ‘receive’ Christ do so only because they are given power by God to do so (John 1:12). What the believer has, of grace and faith, he has because he has received it from God and not for any other reason (1 Corinthians 4:8).
In considering the grace of God we must always perceive of the unalloyed nature of God’s grace. If we say that we have done anything of ourselves, if we say that we are good and deserving people or that we can make a free-will decision to be so, we have contaminated the grace of God by making its introduction into our lives at least partially dependent upon something of and from ourselves. In contaminating it we do not merely add impurities to it we utterly sacrifice
The grace of God, the ‘loving-kindness’ of God, the ‘favor’ of God, is never to be understood as something that is manifest among men based on anything apart from the sheer ‘benevolence’ of the LORD. By grace are you saved, if you are saved at all. By grace are you saved through faith, or through believing God. Yet the ‘grace’ of God prevents our laying claim to any personal worthiness or our taking any credit, and the faith is a gift and not something that we possess apart from the giving of God (Romans 4:1-5, Ephesians 2:8-9, 2 Peter 1:1, Philippians 1:29).
God saves a soul by His own will and power alone and simply because He is pleased to do so. In demonstrating grace, the only thing that matters is that the purpose of God according to election …show more content…
“Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9). Salvation belongs to the Lord and it is a reality for men only as the result of His blessing upon His people (Psalms 3:8). Salvation is ‘from above’ (John 3:3). It is never the result of human will, free or otherwise, nor of the works of men (John 1:13, Romans 9:16, Ephesians 2:9, 2 Timothy 1:9). Those who ‘receive’ Christ do so only because they are given power by God to do so (John 1:12). What the believer has, of grace and faith, he has because he has received it from God and not for any other reason (1 Corinthians 4:8).
In considering the grace of God we must always perceive of the unalloyed nature of God’s grace. If we say that we have done anything of ourselves, if we say that we are good and deserving people or that we can make a free-will decision to be so, we have contaminated the grace of God by making its introduction into our lives at least partially dependent upon something of and from ourselves. In contaminating it we do not merely add impurities to it we utterly sacrifice