ANNOUNCER: What does Ephesians 2:8-10 say about works being required for salvation? That is our discussion topic for today, friend. We’re glad you’re joining us here on Grace In Focus. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society, and you can find us at faithalone.org. Online registration for our national annual conference has closed, but you can still be involved if you want to join us. Come and register on site at Camp Copass in Denton, Texas. The dates are May 18 through the 21st. We’d love to have you with us. Get information at faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, everybody. This is part three in a series we’re doing. Kind of a free-form discussion response to a recent YouTube video called Free Grace vs. Lordship on a channel called Smart Christians channel. And I just want to say again, I think this guy is very intelligent. He’s a very studious student. It’s not a great way to say that. A studious student of God’s word. He has a very even temperament when he’s explaining these things, but we think that he is misguided and he is not interpreting all the passage that he’s using to prove Free Grace theology wrong. So we just want to go through some of those passages. I encourage you to go listen to the previous two episodes for a better explanation. We talked about John 3:16 and 2 Timothy 2:13. Today, we’re actually going to talk about Ephesians 2:8-9 because we ran out of time last time. 

BOB: Right. These are the verses the Lord used for me to come to faith and I’ll talk about it more in a minute. How could he use these verses to prove Lordship salvation when Ephesians 2:8-9 proves Free Grace? 

SAM: Yeah. In his video, he says this is a key passage, something like that, for Free Grace theology. But he doesn’t seem to have too much problem disagreeing with us on it. So we’ll go through, first I want to point out in the video, he says when he’s talking about this verse, he says we were, skipps ahead to verse 10 and says that we were created for good works. So the first problem here is he doesn’t talk about the Church or the body of believers or the body of Christ or anything like that. He’s interpreting this verse as individuals. Ephesians 2:8-10 is just talking about you and Jesus and nobody else. That’s basically what he’s saying. There’s a problem with that and we’ll talk about that later. 

The context of this passage is very important. But even before you get there with Ephesians 2:8-9, his viewpoint is yes, we are saved by grace through faith and it’s apart from works. Works aren’t what saves us. It’s the grace through faith. That is what saves us. But it is necessary for a believer to continue in good works in light of verse 10. Therefore, if you believe in Jesus Christ for everlasting life, but do not continue in good works like Ephesians 2:10 is talking about, then you have proven that you didn’t actually believe. 

BOB: Okay. So let’s take the speaker himself, the Smart Christian. Let’s say he himself, how old is this guy, by the way. 

SAM: I don’t know, middle age. 

BOB: Okay. So let’s call him 50. Let’s say 10 years from now, he falls away and he dies as an alcoholic. By his own theology, where would he go? 

SAM: Hell or the Lake of Fire because he has proved that he never had everlasting life to begin with. 

BOB: And what happens if he dies and he thinks he’s doing the works that he should be doing, but he wakes up in Hades. Wouldn’t he then realize, oops, I didn’t have enough good works to prove I was saved. 

SAM: I guess he would have to, yeah. 

BOB: Wouldn’t this be a matter of degree? In other words, I’m assuming this guy doesn’t believe in perfectionism. 

SAM: He doesn’t say that and he I don’t see how he could, but it’s, logically, it’s hard to understand what he’s saying. If that’s not what he means. 

BOB: Right, because if he believes that we all sin,1 John 1:8, 1 John 1:10 or even Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and,” present tense, “fall short of the glory of God.” If he believes we all sin, then our righteous deeds are at most a matter of degree. In other words, there’s no one that’s absolutely righteous, no, not one. 

So in his view, you would go through life going, man, I sure hope I have enough good works to prove I’m going to make it. Remember the old, the old balance pans where if you want an ounce of gold, they would put a one ounce weight on one side and they would put the gold on the other, and once it balanced, you were now buying an ounce of gold, right? And this idea that somehow we’re going to get in if our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds. We were taught by Campus Crusade it’s not like that, but that is the way this guy’s going, except it’s not just our win. You have to have a whole lot of good deeds, right? 

SAM: Well, that’s what’s unclear, but it’s funny, you mentioned that because that’s what Egyptian mythology, they’re, the Egyptian religion. They believed when you die, you walk through the whatever line into the afterlife and your heart is weighed against a pile of feathers or something. And if your heart is heavier than these feathers, then crocodile God eats your heart and then you’re condemned to the bad afterlife. It sounds silly, but that’s almost what this is. The problem is there is no metric. There’s no amount. It’s completely subjective. If God, through inspired Scripture said, if you commit a hundred bad deeds, then that’s it. You’re done. Then, okay, then that’s what the Bible says. 

BOB: Or the opposite, or if it says, let me give you a list and say, if you go to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage and stay there for a week and you do this five times, now you know you’re going to make it. Or if you witness to a thousand people over the course of your lifetime, you know you’re going to make it. But there’s no list that says if you do these eight things, these 10 things, or like you say, if you do this bad thing, your guaranteed you’re going to hell and—

SAM: We don’t need that because that’s not what the rest of Scripture teaches. We know from the Gospel of John that the starting point, the foundation is believe in Jesus Christ for everlasting life and nothing in the rest of Scripture contradicts that message.

BOB: And by the way, I believe the Smart Christian is saying that we view Ephesians 2:8-9 as kind of a crucial passage. 

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BOB: I believe the Smart Christian is saying that we view Ephesians 2:8-9 as kind of a crucial passage. No, what we view as crucial is the Gospel of John, John 3:16, John 5:24, John 6:35, John 11:25-27, etc. Let me say in terms of my own testimony, beginning of my senior year in college, I met with a Campus Crusade for Christ staff member Warren Wilkie, and I told him I lacked assurance, I’d invited Jesus in, I felt something, but I wasn’t sure I was saved. I didn’t see the works that proved I had enough good works. And he took me to Ephesians 2:8-9, and I was like, yes, but what about James 2? And so he explained it, but he said, whatever James 2 means, it can’t contradict Ephesians 2:8-9. Then I said, what about Hebrew 6:4-8? He gave some explanation, but whatever that means, we met five times. Each time I kept raising objections. By the fifth time, he must have quoted Ephesians 2:8-9, 50 times. And at the end, I finally got it, and I was like, wow, I get it. I don’t understand all these other passages, but I know they can’t contradict that we’re saved by grace through faith apart from works. 

Later on, I learned that some people want to go to verse 10 and say, verse 10 somehow modifies our understanding of 8 and 9, right? It’s not of works, but yes, it is of works. And what they miss, well, first of all, starting in 2:1, he says you “who were dead in trespasses and sins,” these were people who were slaves of sin. And in verse 5, he says He “made us alive.” That’s regeneration. And then he says, “by grace you have been saved.” And then in verse 8, he says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” Notice “you” is what person, first, second, or third person? 

SAM: Second. 

BOB: And in 8 and 9, is he talking about the first person, the second person, or the third person? 

SAM: 8, we’ve got second. 9, that doesn’t have a person, but “anyone.” 

BOB: So in 8, “By grace you have been saved,” “that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” So both of those are second person. “It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” So anyone would be third person, but anyone would be anyone among you, right? We’re still dealing with the readers. But then he switches in verse 10 to “we,” but I’m sure our Smart Christian didn’t mention that. And the “we” here is different than the “you.” The “you” refers to the Gentiles in the church at Ephesus. “We” refers to Jews and Gentiles united in one body. And we know that because of verses 11 and following. In verse 11, “Therefore remember that you,” second person, “once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision…that at that time you were without Christ.” And then he goes on to say, “He himself is our peace” and that He’s “made both one,” Jews and Gentiles, we’re one in the body Christ. So “we” in verse 10 is corporate, it refers to Jews and Gentiles, united one body. 

And it’s saying the Church is designed to produce good works. Does that mean that individual believers are free from producing good works? No, we’re called to do good works too. But it doesn’t mean that every local church is a shining example of good works. Nor does it mean that every individual believer in every individual church is a shining example of good works. That’s what we’re called to do, but read the book of 1 Corinthians or 2 Corinthians. That local church was not doing real well. Or read Revelation 2 and 3. Many of those seven churches were not doing so well. And so to take 2:10 as saying, if I’m truly born again, I’m going to persevere to the end of my life in faith and good works is to totally misunderstand Ephesians 2:8, 9 and 10. 

SAM: The overall problem, I think, with Lordship theology is not understanding a separation between salvation and discipleship. They fundamentally don’t understand that an author writing to people that are already believers could be writing about something other than eternal salvation. This entire book is not about salvation. It’s about discipleship. It’s about the unification of Jews and Gentiles in the Church. And he mentions 2:8-9 is really an aside from what he’s really talking about. He’s mentioning, okay, here’s this fundamental truth. You’re saved by grace through faith, apart from works, we all know that. Now, let me get to what I really want to talk about, but they flip it and say, okay, if Ephesians 2:8-9 is about salvation, that means everything around this passage has to have some kind of condition or indication about what we understand about salvation. 

BOB: I think you’re so right. Not every verse in the Bible is about what I need to do to have everlasting life or to prove I have everlasting life. In fact, the only thing I have to do to prove I have everlasting life is to profess that by faith in Jesus, I know I’m secure forever. That’s it. I don’t look at the fruit. I look at the root. 

SAM: We appreciate everybody listening and we hope that you all keep grace in focus.

ANNOUNCER: We invite you to check out our Monday, Wednesday, and Friday five minute YouTube videos at YouTube Grace Evangelical Society. You will love the content and learn a lot. Maybe you’ve got a question or comment or feedback. If so, please send us a message. Here’s our email address: it’s radio@faithalone.org, that’s radio@faithalone.org. Please make sure your question is as succinct and clear as possible, that would be a great big help.

On our next episode: how can you know if someone else is saved? Please join us again and in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.