The World's 2nd-most Misquoted Bible Scripture
People quote Ephesians 2:8-9 all the time yet they gloss over what it literally says. Ephesians 2:8-9 says:
Faith is something you DO. It is not something that is DONE TO YOU. This is the difference between someone who is saved and someone who is not. For 25 years of my life I couldn't answer the question of who is saved and who is not, because I had grown up in a Calvinistic-leaning Christian persuasion that taught "once saved always saved". They took Bible verses that stated there was nothing we could do to EARN God's salvation, and twisted the logic to say something completely different, saying that salvation was not dependent on ANYTHING WE DO. But the Book of 2 Peter indicates that God's salvation is offered to everyone. And that meant that if salvation was 100% dependent on God and 0% dependent on us, then everyone should be saved. Or even worse, if not everyone would be saved, then I couldn't really tell if I or anyone else was ever saved, because it was up to God's choosing and not on anything I had any influence over. As the scriptures say,
Repentance and faith are acts that we do, not things God does to us against our will. They are not works that earn a reward. They are acts that change our heart from closed to open, from refuser of the gift to a recipient of the gift.
So don't believe the preachers whose twisted logic misleads with these words: "There's nothing you can do to be saved." That's a half-truth. The truth is there is nothing we can do to EARN our salvation. It is a free gift. But like a spoiled child with a Christmas gift that loses its luster, we can take the free gift of salvation and choose to throw it in the trash. Many people actually do this. They turn from Jesus with a bitter vengeance when they discover that following Jesus really means that life is not all about them. Though it is true that we cannot do any work to earn our salvation, the other half of the truth is that we must appropriate the free gift of salvation to our credit by accepting it through repentance and faith. Those who do not repent should not expect that they are saved. Those who do not place their faith (trust) in Jesus' sacrifice to cleanse their slate before God should not expect that they are saved.
From the twisted-logic error of "There's nothing you can do to be saved" comes its corollary from hell: "There's nothing you can do to lose your salvation." This is the "once saved always saved" conclusion. It doesn't flow from the Bible. There is no Bible passage that states it is impossible to lose your salvation. Some people will quote the following verse as proof that salvation cannot be lost:
Let's face it. Romans 8:38-39 has NOTHING to do with a person's salvation status. READ IT AGAIN! Where does it talk about salvation? These verses simply talk about being the object of God's love, not being the recipient of a spiritual check-mark that ensures you are on the right side of the sheep/goat separation that Jesus foretold. John 3:16 tells us that God loves BOTH the sheep and the goats. The entire world! John 3:16 tells us that WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM will not perish with the goats. That's conditional salvation! But that same verse tells us that THE ENTIRE WORLD IS LOVED BY GOD. Being loved by God doesn't mean you are saved. Romans 8:38-39 is irrelevant to the salvation discussion.
Others will quote Ephesians 1:13-14:
In Christ
WE (US) also
when we...
So back to Ephesians 1:13-14, we see that a person who is IN CHRIST by hearing the word of truth and believing in Christ is a recipient of a SEALING that occurs by the Holy Spirit. Some people then take a leap of logic and draw a conclusion from what the verse actually says. They infer that a person who is SEALED is a person who is IRREVOCABLY SAVED. And therefore they invalidate Paul's exhortation of 2 Corinthians 13:5. Why would a person need to examine themselves to see if they are in the faith, if they were in the faith 5 years ago and the Holy Spirit irrevocably sealed their salvation at that time so that it cannot be lost, altered, broken, or compromised? Again, they reason that since there is nothing we can do to be saved (an incorrect assumption), then there is nothing they can do to lose their salvation. They arrive at an incorrect conclusion not because of bad logic, but from good logic based on an incorrect assumption. There IS something we must do to be saved. We must ACCEPT the gift of salvation THROUGH FAITH AND REPENTANCE. Therefore, IF WE CEASE TO HAVE FAITH, WE CEASE TO BE BENEFICIARIES OF THE FREE GIFT OF SALVATION.
Let me state this plainly. If we lose our faith, we lose access to the grace by which we are saved, because we are saved by grace THROUGH FAITH according to Ephesians 2:8-9. And we gain access into grace BY FAITH according to Romans 5:2.
So what does Ephesians 1:13-14 mean, that we are "sealed" by the Holy Spirit? The verse answers that question. It says the Holy Spirit is the deposit guaranteeing the rest of God's promise for the believer. Just like you gave a down payment on your house to guarantee to the lender that you would pay back the rest of the loan. God will do his part. He will fulfill his promise. But his promise is to the believer. It is not to the ex-believer. Nowhere in Ephesians 1:13-14 can you find the implication that God will take away your free will and hold you prisoner against your will to a faith profession you made in the past - one that you now denounce.
"by grace you have been saved THROUGH FAITH. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
[Yes, I left out the first word "For" at the beginning of Ephesians 2:8. I left it out because after hearing these two verses ripped out of their context and presented as a stand-alone statement perhaps 100 times before, we are probably not too concerned that "For" means there were preceding arguments that led to the conclusion being quoted. Therefore there is no compelling reason to quote the word "For" at the beginning of Ephesians 2:8. It would be like walking up to an acquaintance and saying, "That's why you'll never have any real long-lasting friendships" and then walking off. It makes no sense to start with "For", just for the sake of starting the quote at the beginning of the verse, since the verse references are arbitrary anyway. The verse reference points were not part of the original text. They were added much later for ease of reference. So let's get away from the unthinking approach that most people take, starting with the "For" without mentioning what went before.]Most people ignore the "through faith" part of Ephesians 2:8-9. They as so stuck in the "salvation is not dependent on anything you do" mentality that they don't see that THROUGH FAITH is a conditional clause in Ephesians 2:8. This means that the statement is only true if the conditions are true. What is the statement here? "By grace you have been saved." What is the condition? "Through faith". Yes, YOUR SALVATION DEPENDS ON SOMETHING YOU DO. It depends on your FAITH response. We have been saved by God's grace THROUGH FAITH. Whose faith? Our faith in God, not God's faith in us, or God's faith imposed on us. Through our faith. Romans 5 says the same thing - that we gain entrance into the grace in which we stand through faith.
"We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access BY FAITH into this grace in which we stand." - Romans 5:1-2This passage in Romans switches the "by" and "through" clauses from the Ephesians passage. In Ephesians, it says we are saved by grace THROUGH FAITH. But in Romans it says we gain access into this grace BY FAITH. Both passages are really saying the same thing: That faith is a condition for entering God's grace.
Faith is something you DO. It is not something that is DONE TO YOU. This is the difference between someone who is saved and someone who is not. For 25 years of my life I couldn't answer the question of who is saved and who is not, because I had grown up in a Calvinistic-leaning Christian persuasion that taught "once saved always saved". They took Bible verses that stated there was nothing we could do to EARN God's salvation, and twisted the logic to say something completely different, saying that salvation was not dependent on ANYTHING WE DO. But the Book of 2 Peter indicates that God's salvation is offered to everyone. And that meant that if salvation was 100% dependent on God and 0% dependent on us, then everyone should be saved. Or even worse, if not everyone would be saved, then I couldn't really tell if I or anyone else was ever saved, because it was up to God's choosing and not on anything I had any influence over. As the scriptures say,
"The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that ANY should perish, but that ALL should reach repentance." - 2nd Peter 3:9Here's what we miss though. The word "but" above means "here's the alternative." The alternative to perishing is to reach repentance. The alternative to perishing is to repent. REPENTANCE IS SOMETHING YOU DO. Where YOU repent. Where I repent. Not where God repents on our behalf. Not where God picks us up like a puppet and makes our mouths form the words, "God I am sorry for my sinning." Repentance is not something done to you. It is something you do. So the alternative to perishing is to repent and believe. If these are not things that you do, then you cannot answer the question, "What is the difference between a person who is saved and one who is not?" Faith and repentance are the things that we do that distinguish whether or not we have OBTAINED salvation. We cannot EARN salvation by anything we do, but we must DO the acts of faith and repentance in order to BECOME THE RECIPIENT OF THE FREELY OFFERED UNEARNABLE GIFT OF SALVATION.
Repentance and faith are acts that we do, not things God does to us against our will. They are not works that earn a reward. They are acts that change our heart from closed to open, from refuser of the gift to a recipient of the gift.
"to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" - John 1:12God won't be dragging people to heaven against their will, though some people believe that God's grace is supposedly "irresistible". The problem for Calvinists with 2 Peter 3:9 is that since God is not willing that ANY should perish, then that means logically that all people will eventually be saved, since God's grace is supposedly "irresistible". But Jesus clearly taught many times about those who will be shut outside the gates of heaven. He talked about those who will be in a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, a place of immense regret. I don't want anyone to go to that place. God doesn't either. But the requirement to get in to that place which Jesus has earned us the right of entrance is this: Repent of our sins and trust (HAVE FAITH) in Jesus as our righteousness.
So don't believe the preachers whose twisted logic misleads with these words: "There's nothing you can do to be saved." That's a half-truth. The truth is there is nothing we can do to EARN our salvation. It is a free gift. But like a spoiled child with a Christmas gift that loses its luster, we can take the free gift of salvation and choose to throw it in the trash. Many people actually do this. They turn from Jesus with a bitter vengeance when they discover that following Jesus really means that life is not all about them. Though it is true that we cannot do any work to earn our salvation, the other half of the truth is that we must appropriate the free gift of salvation to our credit by accepting it through repentance and faith. Those who do not repent should not expect that they are saved. Those who do not place their faith (trust) in Jesus' sacrifice to cleanse their slate before God should not expect that they are saved.
From the twisted-logic error of "There's nothing you can do to be saved" comes its corollary from hell: "There's nothing you can do to lose your salvation." This is the "once saved always saved" conclusion. It doesn't flow from the Bible. There is no Bible passage that states it is impossible to lose your salvation. Some people will quote the following verse as proof that salvation cannot be lost:
"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8:38-39Read that verse again. What does it actually say? Where does it talk about SALVATION? Just like Calvinists gloss over the "THROUGH FAITH" conditional clause of Ephesians 2:8-9, the once-saved always-saved position glosses over the fact that Romans 8:38-39 is talking about God's LOVE. But wait, doesn't John 3:16 say that God loves THE WORLD? The UNBELIEVING WORLD? Doesn't it say that God gave the life of his son because he loved THE UNSAVED WORLD? So here's the million dollar question: What does being an object of God's love have to do with my salvation status? The answer: NOTHING. If God loves the entire world as John 3:!6 states, does that mean the entire world is saved? No. Because the entire world has not repented of its intentional sin. Because the entire world has not believed in the one that God has sent to rescue us from our sin.
Let's face it. Romans 8:38-39 has NOTHING to do with a person's salvation status. READ IT AGAIN! Where does it talk about salvation? These verses simply talk about being the object of God's love, not being the recipient of a spiritual check-mark that ensures you are on the right side of the sheep/goat separation that Jesus foretold. John 3:16 tells us that God loves BOTH the sheep and the goats. The entire world! John 3:16 tells us that WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM will not perish with the goats. That's conditional salvation! But that same verse tells us that THE ENTIRE WORLD IS LOVED BY GOD. Being loved by God doesn't mean you are saved. Romans 8:38-39 is irrelevant to the salvation discussion.
Others will quote Ephesians 1:13-14:
"In him [Christ] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."Let's break down the sentence structure of this passage so we understand it better. It says...
In Christ
WE (US) also
when we...
- Heard the word of truth (the gospel of our salvation), AND...
- Believed in him
we were SEALED with the promised Holy Spirit (who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we actually possess it).
What do the first two words say? IN CHRIST. So this entire verse applies ONLY to those who are in Christ. What happens to those who embrace Christ initially but then permanently denounce him? This happens. Are they still in Christ? Typically the cop-out goes something like this, "Well, they were never saved in the first place, because their faith didn't endure." That's circular reasoning. And that's the kind of response that means you can never ever really know if you are saved because you will never know if your faith will someday fail and supposedly prove you didn't have real faith in the first place. But the Apostle Paul wrote something different.
"Examine yourselves, to see whether you ARE in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—UNLESS INDEED YOU FAIL TO MEET THE TEST!" - 2nd Corinthians 13:5Paul tells believers to EXAMINE OURSELVES IN THE PRESENT TENSE, to see if we CURRENTLY ARE IN THE FAITH IN THE PRESENT TENSE. Paul does not tell us to examine ourselves to see if we WERE in the faith, or if we can recall a conversion experience. Paul does not tell us to examine our memories searching for a time when we placed faith in Christ in the past. He tells us to examine ourselves NOW to see if we ARE NOW in the faith. That's the test that Paul gives to determine if a person is in Christ, RIGHT NOW IN THE PRESENT MOMENT!
So back to Ephesians 1:13-14, we see that a person who is IN CHRIST by hearing the word of truth and believing in Christ is a recipient of a SEALING that occurs by the Holy Spirit. Some people then take a leap of logic and draw a conclusion from what the verse actually says. They infer that a person who is SEALED is a person who is IRREVOCABLY SAVED. And therefore they invalidate Paul's exhortation of 2 Corinthians 13:5. Why would a person need to examine themselves to see if they are in the faith, if they were in the faith 5 years ago and the Holy Spirit irrevocably sealed their salvation at that time so that it cannot be lost, altered, broken, or compromised? Again, they reason that since there is nothing we can do to be saved (an incorrect assumption), then there is nothing they can do to lose their salvation. They arrive at an incorrect conclusion not because of bad logic, but from good logic based on an incorrect assumption. There IS something we must do to be saved. We must ACCEPT the gift of salvation THROUGH FAITH AND REPENTANCE. Therefore, IF WE CEASE TO HAVE FAITH, WE CEASE TO BE BENEFICIARIES OF THE FREE GIFT OF SALVATION.
Let me state this plainly. If we lose our faith, we lose access to the grace by which we are saved, because we are saved by grace THROUGH FAITH according to Ephesians 2:8-9. And we gain access into grace BY FAITH according to Romans 5:2.
So what does Ephesians 1:13-14 mean, that we are "sealed" by the Holy Spirit? The verse answers that question. It says the Holy Spirit is the deposit guaranteeing the rest of God's promise for the believer. Just like you gave a down payment on your house to guarantee to the lender that you would pay back the rest of the loan. God will do his part. He will fulfill his promise. But his promise is to the believer. It is not to the ex-believer. Nowhere in Ephesians 1:13-14 can you find the implication that God will take away your free will and hold you prisoner against your will to a faith profession you made in the past - one that you now denounce.
