Grace vs. Works (Age Old Debate?)

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV) "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast."

I have always found it interesting how historical, theological debates can often exclude Paul's exhortation about the conduit through which we receive God's grace: FAITH. And just what is "faith?"

I have an even deeper appreciation for Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 9: He says, "We don't play the major role." Grace, the eternal, perfect gift from God in Jesus, plays the MAJOR role, but that role seems as though it is not played out unless the conduit (faith) is in place.

Paul said it is by grace that we are saved THROUGH faith, but the word for faith from the original Greek is a derivative of the verb "persuade." Faith is that substance of which we are persuaded, and persuasion does not exist in a vacuum. It's like what the Hebrew writer says about faith being the "evidence" of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1) Evidence is not something we can hold quietly in our hearts, or else it is evidence of nothing.

Similarly, no one can be truly persuaded by anything with which they have done nothing. It simply won't happen. Say I was to tell you that I had accidentally overdosed on a potentially lethal drug, and then say I was to hand you a giant syringe and needle with adrenalin in it just moments before going into cardiac arrest. Then suppose I was to tell you that the only way you could save me from a violent, painful death was for you to stick that needle into my heart and inject the adrenalin. Now, you could say to me that you have total faith in my judgment. You could swear on your great, great, great, great grandfather's grave that you believe in me with ALL YOUR HEART, but the truth is...until you plunge that needle deep in my chest, between ribs and dangerously close to my lungs, YOU HAVE NO FAITH. The faith part is not the statement you made of your belief, nor a sympathy or emotion in your heart, but the reality of its existence! It is the PERSUASION, NOT THE BELIEF! And persuasion is non-existent in latent belief.

It is true that we do not play the major role, but Paul never intended that we were to do nothing but simply "believe with all our hearts" or simply pray a prayer of belief (an act not even written anywhere in the Scripture). The major role was paying the price, alleviating the cost of salvation and making the blood sacrifice that was the required expense...it HAD TO BE perfect, and we were incapable; hence the reason Jesus' sacrifice is THE MAJOR ROLE.

But even Christ himself laid the conditions of salvation down in black and white, when, in John 3:16 he states that whosoever should believe in Him will be saved; then in Matthew 10, Jesus proclaims that he will only defend us before His father if we confess Him (Christ) as Lord; then in Mark 16 He said, "He who has believed and has been baptized will be saved;" and in one of Jesus' VERY FIRST messages of salvation from Matthew 4, he commands that all men repent because the kingdom of heaven is coming. These actions are (in and of themselves) FAITH, and who among us can claim to be so wise that we have the God-given right to pick and/or choose which commands of Christ can truly activate our faith?! Do not mistake these commands to be the "works" of which Paul speaks. They are the conduit of grace...a REAL faith!

But my favorite part about this faith, realized by action, is that we, as humans, can't be the judges of its reality nor its existence. Is it possible that you could have true faith in my instructions without ever plunging that needle into my body cavity? Maybe. Is it possible that a bed-ridden patient or death row inmate can have this true faith and never ONCE actualize it? Maybe. But we are not the judges. While we can know and teach what Christ has commanded, we cannot dictate the eternal condition of any soul, except our own. The best part is that we serve a perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful God who knows the faith of the heart, even if it is unable to carry out that faith. Our God can SEE the future AND the POTENTIAL future of every man! And for a God like that, I'm not only willing to do anything and EVERYTHING he asks, but I've done it.