Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. Grace here means God's free gift. Our salvation is entirely God's gift to us; and it must be so, because we cannot make it or get it for ourselves; we have no power of our own to make it for ourselves, nothing of our own to offer in exchange for it. If our salvation does not come to us as God's free gift it can never come to us at all. But, though our salvation is entirely God's free gift to us, it is never forced upon us without our consent. Freely as it is offered to us, we must, on our parts, freely accept it when it is held out to us; we must acknowledge it thankfully; and unless we do acknowledge it and lay hold on it, it can never become curs. It may go on lying within arm's length of us all our lives through, and yet be of no more service to us than if it were hundreds of miles away; we must reach out our hand to take it, and this hand of ours which we have to put forth to take it with is faith. "By grace are ye saved, through faith." This reaching out of faith, in answer to God's stretching out His hand to save us, is the second step which is necessary to be taken in the matter of our salvation. But here St. Paul finds it necessary to put in a word of caution to those who are the very foremost in accepting his teaching, and the most earnest in looking to their faith as the sole instrument of their justification. He foresaw that men would come to pride themselves upon this faith of theirs as something peculiarly their own, which very few besides themselves had any share in, and which entitled them to look down upon the rest of mankind with something like a feeling of contempt. And so, after saying, "By grace are ye saved through faith," he goes on to say, "and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." Your salvation, yes, and your faith, too, by which you lay hold of your salvation, is all God's free gift to you; you did not make your faith for yourselves any more than you made your salvation; you had nothing of your own with which to make it. And how dare you, then, presume upon your faith, and pride yourselves upon it, as if it were your own creating? And now that St. Paul has secured his position against attack on one side, he turns cautiously round, like a skilful general, to secure it on the other: "Not of works," he proceeds to say, "lest any man should boast." And here, after all, is the quarter from which an attack is chiefly to be looked for. It is in man's nature to make as much of himself as he can; it is in his nature to seek to justify himself, to work all out by himself, to set his own account straight with God. But now, of course, if he can earn his salvation for himself, he can make a merit of what he has done, he can claim his justification as his own work. And so, in order to put a stop, once for all, to such notions and attempts on the part of man to justify himself, the apostle lays down his next great principle in the doctrine of justification: "Not of works, lest any man should boast. For," he proceeds to say, "we are His workmanship." So far from having any works of our own with which to purchase our salvation, we are ourselves nothing but a piece of work of another's making. God made us, and not we ourselves; He put us together, just as a workman puts a piece of machinery together, piece by piece, and we have no more ground for boasting or making a merit of what we do than a clock has ground for boasting of being able to point to the time or to strike the hours. We are simply, then, a piece of workmanship, designed and put together by God. Still, a piece of machinery is designed for some set purpose or other, and so are we; we have been made, and made over again, "created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them." (H. Harris, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. |
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