Home pageSin is when we disobey God and do what we like. Salvation is when God forgives us, and then trains us to deny ourselves and do what He wants.
We are responsible for choosing to sin, and we are also responsible for choosing to receive and make use of the salvation which God offers us freely. Because of the sins we have already done, we don't deserve this salvation from God. Therefore, this offer from God is out of pure grace towards us.
Salvation is only by grace which is the undeserved favour that God offers us. This means that nobody can earn it from God no matter what they do. The Bible refers to things people do hoping to please God and earn His acceptance as 'works'. We must be clear in our mind that this 'works' people do is not the same as what they do in response to the grace of God. The motivations for both of these are entirely different. 'Works' are aimed at winning the favour of God through various activities.
Once we understand this distinction, we can then interpret this passage properly. "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph.2:8,9).
First of all, we see action on God's part by offering us salvation by grace, an undeserved favour from His side to us. Then we also see that it is through faith that we receive it. That is the reason why even though God offers His salvation to all the people in the world, only a few actually receive it. Only those who have faith in God and in Jesus who gave His life to pay for our sins can receive it.
No one can earn salvation by 'works'. It is a free, undeserving gift from God. Therefore no one who received it can boast about it because he did not earn it.
Now we can look at the confusion some people have about grace and works. We have already seen that works cannot earn or qualify us for salvation. We have also seen that there are 'works' that come out from us when we receive grace. These are the works that the apostle James mentions in the second chapter of his letter. He takes pains to point out that if these works do not result from someone's faith, it shows that such a faith must be a 'dead' faith.
What are some of these works that proceed from faith when someone understands the offer of grace from God?
He realises that he is a sinner in the sight of God and confesses his sins to God and asks God for forgiveness knowing that Jesus has paid for them when He died. He does not want to sin any more and asks Jesus for help.
At this point God washes away his sins with the blood of Jesus and declares him righteous and accepted. God adopts him as His child and gives him the Holy Spirit to dwell in his heart to strengthen, teach, guide and encourage him.
Now, with the strength that he has received from the Holy Spirit, he starts learning to deny himself whenever he is tempted to do wrong, and do what God wants him to do.
We can see very clearly that these things he does are not intended to qualify him with God, but a simple response to the work God has done in his heart, and in response to the work of the Holy Spirit in his life. He cannot boast about them.
But we must also see that if such a change does not happen in his life, he cannot claim he has been born again. These are the 'works' that are produced through faith, without which he cannot say he has faith.
Unfortunately, some people are not able to differentiate between the works that religious people do to gain favour with God and the works that faith leads them to. So, whenever they hear things we are expected to do as a result of faith, they start crying out, "Works! Works!"
In particular, those who follow Calvinistic doctrines, exaggerating the sovereignty of God at the cost of negating the responsibility of man to respond to grace, tell people, "You don't have to do anything but believe. Jesus has done it all on your behalf, and He will complete it. Some Christians who preach this do not realise that this is a false teaching from the Calvinists, because they think they are giving all the glory to God in this way and not taking any credit for themselves. What they are doing is to deny their own responsibility for what they choose to do with their life.
Just think about it. If it were entirely upto God, then everyone should be getting saved and everyone should be becoming like Jesus. But it is obvious that actually no one is becoming perfect like Jesus. There is clear evidence that many who claim to be saved do not show any signs of having been born again, and those who have been born again are making different levels of progress! God is not responsible for that. We people are.
Because they do not accept some other Calvinistic doctrines such predestination, God's choosing who are to be saved and who are not, etc., these people do not realise that they are already semi-calvinists when they believe that we have nothing to do in our salvation except believe, but that God will do everything for us.
Read up the number of commands, exhortations and instructions given for us by Jesus and the apostles all through the New Testament. Why do people still imagine there is nothing for them to do except to believe? Because they have been influenced by the preaching of Calvinism.