Ecclesionomy vs. Ephesians, part 1

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve noticed that before Christmas I had a little fun with something I called “Fractured Christmas Bible studies.” One of these studies focused on whether children need to do good works in order to get presents from Santa Claus, or if they merely need to believe, or have faith, in him.

I’d like to elaborate on this idea a little (with all joking aside), because this raises the real-world question of whether one needs to do good works in order to get to heaven, or merely believe (have faith) in Jesus. One of the best biblical passages on this matter is Ephesians 2:8-10, so I will use that as a basis for my discussion, with an assist from other sections of the Bible.

Ephesians 2:8-10

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—

9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Verse 8 makes it clear that a person is saved by grace. Saved means that a person is forgiven of his sins, given a new status as a child of God, and will spend eternity with Him after he dies. Grace means that this salvation is unearned, in that there is nothing a person can do in terms of human effort to receive it. As verse 8 says, this grace is “the gift of God.”

Verse 9 makes the point even more clearly. Salvation is not by works. Let me put it this way. If God really is a divine, perfect being, and your salvation depended on doing good works, then how many good works would it take to get to heaven? A million? Ten per day for the rest of your life? How could we even define the requirement for good deeds, knowing that God is the perfect, almighty creator of the universe? In my view, this defines the human predicament. There is no way any of us can do enough good works to satisfy a perfect God.

So if we can’t earn our way into heaven through human effort, then how do we get there? Let’s go back to verse 8 for a second. It is through faith. Faith means placing our trust, or believing, in God. What’s more, the verses preceding these in Ephesians 2 (as well as many other Bible passages, such as 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 and Romans 10:9) make it clear that “saving” faith in God involves believing that His Son, Jesus, died on a cross and was subsequently raised from the dead.

Salvation, then, does not come by doing good works, but by placing one’s faith in God by believing in Jesus Christ—that is, believing that Jesus was God made flesh (what we celebrate at Christmas), that He lived a perfect life, died in our place though He was totally innocent of any wrongdoing, and was raised to life again, defeating death.

But this might logically raise a very important question in one’s mind. If a person is saved by faith alone, what then is the role of “good works?” Certainly, a Christian is supposed to live a good life, right? He’s not supposed to live in an immoral, unethical, selfish, or evil way. I will elaborate on this question in an upcoming blog entry.