Every now and then, Scripture gives us a verse or a paragraph that is a succinct summary of a body of teaching. The words seem to bring a foundational truth into very sharp focus. Here is just such a seminal verse: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). 

There are four main statements here that appear to be inescapable─but that hasn’t kept many from doing their best to escape them anyway.

1. It is by GRACE we have been saved.
We all need God’s grace. In my writing I am big on picture stories. Admittedly they have a limited application, but they are vital sometimes to understanding so I will use one here. Sometimes we view what happens at conversion in the same way we view what happens at a body shop. One car goes in with a dented bumper and needs just minor repairs. The other has so much damage that it is a write off. One of the difficult things for us to realize is that we are all write offs. Both the prince and the pauper are equally write offs. It will take just as much ‘grace’ to save the refined business person as it will the most unrefined creature on earth. It is not grace and our best efforts at personal refinement─it is all of grace. 

It is only by God’s rich grace that he fully expressed in Jesus Christ that any of us can ever hope to experience or see God. We are all equally write offs; sinners by birth and certainly by practice. The grace of God fully released in salvation makes us ‘new creatures’─brand new, just as if we had been reborn again. Wow, I think I will coin a phrase─it is like we have been ‘born again.’
Before the foundation of the world was ever laid (see Ephesians 1:4-7), God made an executive decision that he would provide a gracious redemption for humanity and the Redeemer would be none other than Jesus Christ, his Son. 

2. We have been saved by grace through faith.
Faith─or rather our modern misconceptions about it─has been the Achilles heel of more than one Christian experience. I believe after 30 years of study and reflection, I am just now beginning to understand what it means for the just to live by faith. One of the challenges is that this doctrine has been so much maligned over the years that we are totally confused by it. I remember in one town I served in, the clergy were almost kicked out of the hospital because one group of charismaniacs put a lady emaciated by cancer into the horrors when they convinced her that there was something wrong with her faith and that was the reason she was not healed. She died a few days later with a great sense of guilt and agony. 

It begs the question: Can our faith eliminate our distresses? If we have enough faith can we be healthy and wealthy? There are plenty of white-suited preachers that will tell us so. Many people have gone to large healing crusades, or sat in churches where such promises were made, and not received the miracle promised. This causes spiritual depression, with the feeling that God has somehow overlooked them or that they’re being punished.

What is so frustrating and troubling is that we have significant clarity in the Bible that clearly refutes such teaching and we ignore it.
I have run out of space for now, but in preparation for the next instalment please read Hebrews 11─the faith chapter─and look at the difference between those people described in verses 32-35 and those described in verses 36-38.

Until next time,

Keep the faith. 

Major Lorne Pritchett is currently the District Director for the Canadian Bible Society in Newfoundland and Labrador. Married to Barbara, they have two children: Elizabeth (Christan Murphy) who is a high school teacher in Mt. Pearl, NL, and John (Michelle Burditt) who is the district manager for Zellers in the greater Vancouver area.