Thru the Bible-4

Thru the Bible-4 2022. 3. 6.

 

God’s grace and human response

 

◎ Ephesians 2:8

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”

 

◎ Explanatory Notes

☞ Grace, without any respect to human worthiness, confers the glorious gift. Faith, with an empty hand, and without any pretence to personal desert, receives the heavenly blessing. (Wesley)

☞ This is a true doctrine, and continues to be essential to the salvation of man to the end of the world. God gives the power, man uses the power thus given, and brings glory to God: without the power no man can believe; with it, any man may. (Clarke)

☞ John Wesley organized his understanding of the “way of salvation” under the three headings of “prevenient grace”(God’s grace coming before we believe in Christ), “justifying grace”(God’s grace enabling us to believe in Christ), and “sanctifying grace”(God’s grace leading us to holiness). (Campbell)

☞ “By grace you have been saved through faith,” the phrase “by grace” refers to the gradual work of the Spirit acting preveniently and convincingly, leading to an awareness of sin and the need for repentance. “Through faith” refers to what I call the “I give up.” (Tuttle)

☞ Justifying faith implies, not only a divine evidence or conviction that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” but a sure trust and confidence that Christ died for my sins, that He loved me and gave Himself for me. (Wesley)

☞ For in it[the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

 

◎ Summary

“Grace is the source, faith the condition of salvation.” “Christian faith is, then, not only an assent to the whole gospel of Christ, but also a full reliance on the blood of Christ; a trust in the merits of his life, death, and resurrection; a recumbency upon him as our atonement and our life, as given for us, and living in us.” (Wesley)