Salvation By Grace

“8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Eph 2:8-9 AV)

Recently a man posted a picture of Noah’s ark on the internet with the caption: Noah wasn’t saved by grace. He was saved by obedience. He went on to explain that in spite of God’s grace Noah would have drowned just like everyone else if he hadn’t been obedient and entered the ark when God told him to.

There was a firestorm of comments that followed, which showed how a simple foundational doctrine of Christianity could become so confusing to so many people. A lot of the confusion comes about because of our Christian rhetoric that is much more common than Christian teaching. Although I imagine even among Christian theologians and pastors we could create a lively debate on this subject. So why is there so much confusion and differences of opinion amongst Christians about how and why we are saved? There probably are several reason and I won’t focus on them here, but I will try to simply show how we are saved by grace.

Obviously this verse in Ephesians is part of a letter written to the saints, the faithful in Jesus Christ. So this is not instruction of how to get saved, but insight as to how it was accomplished. Simply put; you are saved by grace through faith and this is something that God has accomplished, a gift of salvation for you.

The grace of God is not something that we can take lightly. For without God’s grace we cannot be saved and will perish in our sin. Grace in itself is not a thing, but it is the favor of God. Grace for salvation is the actions of God on our behalf to rescue us from the consequences of our sin (which is death). None of us comes to God with a full understanding of the fullness of the riches of God’s Grace. But even with our limited understanding we come overwhelmed with the goodness and mercy of the love of God’s marvelous grace.

“6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight” (Eph 1:6-8 NAS95)

So, grace for salvation is the revealed plan of God to redeem us from the death that comes from sin. That plan and the revelation of it culminates in Jesus, His death on the cross, His declaration that it is finished, and His resurrection to life. This is the grace by which we are saved.