Salvation Doctrine

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2‬:‭1‬-‭10‬ - “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 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. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

In one of my favorite passages of Scripture, Paul spells out the basic salvation doctrine in a few short verses. Salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. There is no other way for man to be reconciled to God here and now, nor is there any other way by which man can be saved for eternity. We cannot merit salvation. Taking the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross in atoning for sin, resurrecting and defeating death, and adding anything to it as part of the equation we must follow to be saved removes the significance of the person and work of Jesus Christ. So many people argue that we must do additional things to be saved, such as saying a sinner’s prayer, being baptized, joining a church, stopping certain sins in our lives altogether, and the list goes on. While all of those things are good things, and things you should do once you become a Christian as you work out your salvation in obedience to the will of God, these are not going to justify you in the eyes of God. The only thing that ever justifies us in the eyes of God is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ that we only attain by grace through faith. If this isn’t what you have been taught to believe, I am sorry. But this is biblical truth from the foundations of the world. Let’s look deeper into what Paul is saying here.

Paul begins verse one by saying that we as humans were dead in our trespasses and sins against God. The Bible tells us that no one is righteous, not even one. Jesus teaches in His Sermon on the Mount that there are healthy trees and diseased trees. We all begin in this life as diseased trees unable to bear good fruit. God gave us the Law to highlight what a life of good fruit looks like, not to make us into healthy trees. The Law only exposed the rottenness of our fruit because of the disease of sin that we inherited as fallen men and women after Genesis 3. Then enters Jesus, and by His sinless and holy life, His unfair and sin-atoning death, His glorious resurrection, and His ascension and sending forth of the Spirit of God, we are now able (by that very grace) to place our faith fully in Him and be made healthy. As we now walk daily in the grace of God as Christians, we can reminisce on the lives we lived described by Paul in verses 1-3. We used to walk in the power of darkness as sinful, flesh-satisfying, depraved people of the world. We may have been considered “good people” by the metrics of this world, but we were totally unjustified and unrighteousness in the eyes of God. We were sons of disobedience as Paul puts it.

Then we get to verse 4, where Paul says, “But God.” But God. If not for God, we would have had no choice but to continue to walk in paths of unrighteousness. Even though we lived in total sin and rebellion to God, His rich mercy and love poured out on us as His grace was fully displayed in the person and works of His Son, who was sent to this world on our behalf to be our propitiation. He came and fulfilled the Law and Prophets, making eternal salvation possible to those who place their faith in Him. But the story doesn’t end with Christ’s work on the cross. When He resurrected, He slammed the door on sin and death, and soon He will cast sin and death into the eternal lake of fire, where there is nothing present but the absolute wrath of God. In the coming ages, Paul tells us, He will show us the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (verse 7). We have hope as Christians. We are no longer diseased and unable to bear good fruit. We have faith in the person and works of Jesus Christ. We have hope in what He has promised to do for us, and we now live a life of bearing good fruit as evidence of our faith to encourage others to place their faith in Jesus, longing for the day when we will be united with our Lord in heaven.

We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. That’s it. We are not saved as a result of works. Works begin after salvation as evidence of our faith and as obedience to the will of God. We cannot be obedient to God without receiving a new nature (a new heart) that longs for God after we have received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. To think we can do a work that grants us salvation is to trust in ourselves and not in Jesus. It’s to mock the work Jesus did. It’s to be like those in Matthew 7:21-23 who submit their religious résumé to Jesus on the day of judgment, rather than confidently placing all their hope in Him, the gateway into heaven. Jesus tells them to depart from Him and that He never knew them. This implies that just doing good works and calling Jesus “Lord” is not enough, especially if your faith is not genuine.

But don’t act as if you simply need to have faith and move on. Paul tells us in verse 10 that God saved us for these good works. If you have faith and don’t do anything about that faith, your faith (I would argue) is not genuine or is professed without full understanding of the gospel. Some people who feel that righteousness is based on works point to the book of James to highlight the need for works. James, however, is simply further proving the point that professed faith only proves itself to be genuine by the works it leads to. You and I cannot see one another’s faith. Faith is internal. But the obedient works performed in faith are evidence to others that you do have genuine faith in Jesus Christ. Works are important in revealing your faith to others and in following Christ’s commands as one of His followers, but they cannot merit us salvation. I, for one, am thankful for that truth. If I was relying on my good works to enter heaven, I know that my unrighteousness and sinful state would never be seen as holy and righteous by God no matter what I did for Him. I am thankful for the grace of God displayed in His Son, who offers salvation to all who believe in Him.

Have you been trying to “earn” your salvation by getting rid of bad behaviors and replacing them with good behaviors? Have you been fearful that you haven’t “done enough” to be saved. Stop trusting in yourself and building your religious résumé and simply put your full faith in Jesus Christ.