Ephesians 2:9
9 Not [ou] of [ek] works, [ergon] lest [hina
me] any man [tis]
should boast. [kauchaomai]KJV-Interlinear
9 not
as a result of works, that no one should boast. NASB
Man has no credit of any
kind in his course toward salvation. You
cannot earn salvation. You cannot do anything
that would make you deserve it. You
cannot wish your way into eternity with God.
You cannot earn salvation by being sincere or righteous or emotional or
by singing hymns or by attending church on Sunday’s or by hitting or cutting
yourself or by suffering or by placing yourself in a position of suffering or abstinence
or poverty. There is absolutely nothing
that you can do that will qualify you for salvation or even a better spiritual
position with God.
Brownie points do not
apply here. Goody points with God do not
apply.
God has defined only one
way for salvation and that is through faith and faith alone. Faith is a belief, a mere thought from within
your mind. It is not raising your hands,
or walking out in front of a crowd or reciting scripture to others. Faith is a thought which applies between your
own mind and God. God reads and hears
all of your thoughts, so you cannot fool Him.
Works, ‘ergon,’ is a reference
to all of mans plans. Works of man are
mans attempt to substitute his own plan in place of Gods plan. To substitute ones own plan is to reject Gods
plan, and to reject Gods plan means that you do not accept His plan and are
making the presumption that your plan is a better deal for you.
To reject Gods plan means
that you desire for God to compromise His perfect essence and adopt something
lesser that you are offering, namely sin and evil, for the substance of your
essence is dust and evil. You cannot
offer anything better than that.
If God allowed you
anything of yourself as a credit for your salvation, then you could easily
boast of your accomplishment.
However, the
accomplishment of Christ, who is God by the way, is far superior than anything
you can do or even imagine. And to
suggest that you need to do anything is an insult to God, implying that God
somehow did not do enough or did not complete His work for Salvation.
God is truth. God is perfection. Anything beneath that is false and when you
adopt the false then you adopt pretense, and that is committing yourself to a
nothing life. Pretending that whatever
it is that you adopt for your life’s beliefs, is what you are doing when you
substitute untruth for truth. You have
to pretend that your untruths are in fact true, and that is the disillusionment
of a life without truth.
So, be sincere and fail,
be a hard worker and fail, adopt a life of poverty or self-suffering and fail.
So, mans effort is out,
and mans credit is out, and anything and everything that man attempts to do to
somehow earn or do extra for salvation is a lie.
God gave every human being
the same opportunity for salvation, which is faith. Every human can accomplish a thought at some
point in their life. None of mans plans
can be equally applied to every human being in all of history.
E-Books, E-Book Reader
Your Comments
Daily Bible Study Quick Links
Subscription Options
