“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
The spirit of Judaism had attacked the church and Paul reassured them that it was not necessary to comply with the doctrine of the law in order to be saved. This included the act of circumcision. Salvation is a free gift. There was no requirement of works in order to be saved. The law should not be used to please God. We are only saved through faith and not by our works.
The law bears fruit that leads to death (Romans 7:5). The law brought about the awareness of sin but it was lacking in the power to save and to remove sin. If we are truly saved, we shouldn’t go back to the old law. We are under a new law, the law of the Spirit. The law just showed man that he was a sinner in need of salvation by grace. The law was our schoolmaster teaching us what sin is. The law was good and holy but was insufficient to bring salvation (Romans 7:7,12). Grace is not in opposition to the commandments but it enables us to live by them. Under grace, we obey the law. Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.
We can’t be saved and still be a sinner. Now we are saved by grace and we have the power to say no to sin. Once saved is not always saved. God keeps us but we can remove ourselves from His hand. We remain saved by choice. Salvation is a choice.
The law cannot justify us, we are saved by grace (Romans 8:2-4). We are justified by faith in Christ Jesus. When we are saved, we have the nature of God and His seed is within us (1 John 3:9). We have a new nature therefore we are not called sinners. We are saints and not sinners in the eyes of God. When we sin, we should ask for forgiveness quickly and get back up.
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!” And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. Genesis 15:1-6
Abraham did foolishness in the sight of God but he was still saved (Genesis 20:1-7). He was still righteous. He was saved and justified by faith. Sometimes we do a lot of religious stuff but we don’t need anything else but faith. God will always correct us when we are going the wrong way and bring us back to the right path, sometimes gently and sometimes with force.
We do good works now that we are saved (Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 15:10). We will be judged according to the good works that we do (Romans 2:6-7).
Our salvation is glorious. It is a good life, a life of abundance. God’ s grace is more than sufficient in every situation, even in these tough economic times. We are not ruled by a King who can’t provide or who doesn’t have a solution for our problems. We are not ruled by the kings of this world or by a worldly government but by a different King, by another government and by a higher authority.
