"By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God" - Ephesians 2:8. Understanding that sin makes us thick-headed, unwilling to accept certain truths when they receive minimal emphasis, the biblical authors repeat foundational doctrines so that they might penetrate our hearts and minds. The man-made religions of this world prove that without the work of the Holy Spirit, people think that they are basically good and can contribute something to their salvation. This strips glory from God and gives it to us, for if we can do even one thing to merit salvation, then we deserve some credit. All belief systems except biblical Christianity encourage us to believe that we contribute to our salvation, even if they deceitfully assert otherwise. It should have been clear from reading Ephesians 2:1β7 that the Lord owes us nothing but justice and wrath. (Moreover, this is taught throughout the Bible: Gen. 6:5β7; Deut. 7:6β11; Ps. 51:4; Rom. 1:18β3:20; James 2:10β11). But in case we missed it, Paul in Ephesians 2:8β10 tells us one more time that we bring nothing with us to our redemption, and that any good works we perform are not the ground of our status before God but result from us having been chosen and gifted with salvation: "By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). Grace, by definition, excludes the slightest hint that human merit contributes to our righteous standing before the most holy and perfect Creator, and faith, which admits our inability to help ourselves and rests wholly on another for salvation.
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Larry Wessels graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, Texas in 1981 with a degree in Advertising & on May 16 of that same year he had a supernatural "born again" experience (John 3:3-8, Romans 8: 8-17, etc.) by a sovereign act of the God of the Bible. Larry has been...