Does Ephesians 2:8 Prove That Faith is a Gift? (03/05/2023)

Ephesians 2:1-7 and the Doctrine of Total Depravity

I'm happy to do it. So I think this morning you might find it interesting. So let me get you to turn to Ephesians chapter two, verse eight, very familiar verse for us. And I'm gonna read it and then I'm gonna ask you a question brother Otis style.

I'm gonna, I'll have to ask Kenner why God doesn't think. Okay, so Ephesians two, eight, for by grace are you saved through faith and it not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Okay, so my question is, does that verse teach that faith is a gift?

So be thinking about that and let's pray together. Lord, thank you so much for another Lord's day in a still slightly free America, all by your strong hand because Lord, we see our country tumbling in so many areas.

And yet Lord, you have your people in different quarters and help us to be salt and light. Thank you for this time to study and may you be the teacher and we ask it in Jesus name, amen. All right, so it's kind of a trick question, but I think you'll enjoy mainly what this lesson is.

It's a study on how to study and it gets into the Greek a little bit. Now, if you can load onto your computer a software called Lagos, you don't have to study Greek to learn how to use the Greek tools.

And it's a wonderful piece of equipment you can have as a Christian because it gets into the details and what's interesting about it is Greek. You know, there are a lot of little arguments. I don't mean argument in a bad way, but just little discussions you have with family at Christmas when they come in, where you disagree on some doctrinal issue or friends at work.

I remember he always had the most interesting ones. So, you know, but a lot of the arguments could be solved if you went to the Greek, cause it would just prove it because it's like math. It is what it is most of the time.

It is what it is and it will just tell you what it means most of the time. And when it doesn't, you have to go by the context, right? But you always have to look at the context anyway, which we'll do today also on this, but Hebrew is a little different.

It's not quite as definitive because a lot of the words can mean multiple things. And so you have to use the context in that case to tell what the word is. What it means in that case. So guess what that means?

It means you have to be filled with the Holy Ghost to know what it means. And that's not a bad thing, is it? You know what else that means? A lot of the seminary professors that are lost people get it wrong cause they're not filled with the Holy Ghost.

So they choose the wrong meaning. And so anyway, so let's read it in context, Ephesians 2, 1. And you, now, if you wanna go out and find out who you is, you can go to the first chapter, first few verses and figure out who you is, but it's talking to the elect in this particular verse, you meaning you Christians.

You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. So even if we wanna call the elect people sheep and the non-elect people goats, that's a good biblical terminology. So let's do that for this morning.

So even if you're a sheep, there was a time when you were a lost sheep and some of you got saved as little lambs. A lot of our grandbabies and our children, when they grow up in Christian homes, get saved at young ages.

But a lot of us get saved later in life. Like I did, I was 24 when I was saved. But there's a time when you're a lost sheep, you're never a goat. Goats don't turn into sheep and sheep never turn into goats, but you were a lost sheep.

Well, it kind of talks about this a little bit. It says, before you were born again, now God always knew you as his child, by the way, but in time and in space on this planet, when you're living your life, there is a point of spiritual birth for the sheep, where they're dead spiritually and they become alive.

And Jesus called it being born again. So it's very similar to physical birth, only it's spiritual. So many things relate one-to-one with physical birth, or the same things are true of spiritual birth.

But this is talking about the moment you were quickened, that means brought to life by the Holy Spirit. And this is talking about the cause of salvation, not the effects of it. This is the direct cause, is the Holy Spirit calling you and quickening you.

And that is the moment of salvation. And you hath he quickened who were dead. So we were walking dead men just like the goats, weren't we? We were just as dead spiritually as they are, which is creepy.

But you know, what's interesting is they have a human spirit, don't they? They're human. They actually have a conscience that knows God is there. And so, you know, Romans chapter one deals with that. It says they have to willfully put him out of their mind to stay lost.

But they do because that's what they want to do. Naturally, in nature, by nature, a lost person wants to stay lost. And we do what we want to do, don't we? And so the Holy Spirit has to change our want to.

That's one of the things he does when he calls us. It's miraculous. Well, this is talking about that point in time. Now we were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air.

This is why we say there is no such thing as free will. You do have a will and you make choices and your choices are extremely important, but they're not free, they're influenced. Free would mean like the king.

A king can make choices without asking anybody. Everyone under him has to ask the king or the enemies of the king, right? And so we're not the king and we're not God. And so therefore we don't have free will.

We have influenced will. And I know I'm being technical and you have to notice this when your friends ask you, the ones that are not in the word, and they ask you, you don't believe in free will? I wouldn't say, no, I don't believe in free will.

I'd say, well, tell me what you mean by that. Because what they mean by it is they just mean you make choices and we agree with that, don't we? So if you say no, they think you think that you're a robot and you don't wanna go there because then you'll spend the whole next two hours arguing that you're not a robot, right?

Because they misunderstand. So I wouldn't like with a baby Christian or someone that just may not even be saved and they ask you that question, don't reveal your whole hand yet. Just say, what do you mean by that when you say free will?

Well, like we make choices and God made us where we can make choices. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe that. And maybe just skip the rest till the next visit because you have to use wisdom to know when to actually explain it as it is.

So otherwise you might choke them with too much meat when they're not even ready for milk yet. So this verse two though, it shows clearly that even when we were lost, we did not have free will. We had a will that caused us to walk according to number one, the world system.

So the world system influenced your thinking and your choices. And secondly, according to the prince of the power of the air, which is Satan. So Satan and him using the world system influenced every decision you ever made before you were saved.

So the lost people don't have free will. And there's other verses we could go into that prove saved people don't either, but that's not what the lesson's on. But I thought it's interesting that it mentions that right there in verse two.

The spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. So Satan works in all of the lost people, the children of disobedient, including the lost sheep as well as the goats, and he influences their decisions.

Among whom also, we all had our conversation. I mean, our lifestyle in times past. So we used to run with the goats when we were lost sheep. We didn't know the difference. We just ran with the goats and in time past.

According to the lust of the flesh. So now we've talked about the world and the devil and now it brings in the flesh. So now you have three things that influence your decisions. So you don't have free will.

The things that you choose to do are determined and influenced greatly by your flesh, by the world system, by Satan. And when you're saved by the Holy Spirit, by the Bible, by your saved grandmother, your saved mom and dad, and so forth, your preacher, all these different things influences.

Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and we're by nature, children of wrath, even as others. So even the sheep are born with a lost nature, a sin nature, right? And we have to be saved.

Mercy, Grace, and Being Made Alive in Christ

But God, and that word, first word in verse four is so important, but. Because it just shows God didn't leave us there. He did not leave us in this state. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love over with he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, because he knew us from the beginning of the world, before the beginning of the world, as his own children.

He's always loved us first, before we ever loved him. Even when we were dead in our sins, has he quickened us together with Christ. By grace, you are saved. Boy, isn't that a beautiful passage? If you got stuck on an island with only a little bit of scripture, that'd be pretty good choice right there.

While we were yet sinners, he quickened us. So while you could extrapolate that and say, you put in all the things the Bible tells us sinners are, which some of them were mentioned here, while we were yet dead, he quickened us.

Because it says we were dead, right? So while we were still dead, he brought us to life. You cannot bring yourself to life. You cannot birth yourself physically, can you? You can't make yourself be born a baby into this world.

Others are in charge of that, right? All right, so same way spiritually. So, all right, then we come to our verse. I'll skip down to verse eight. For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So the chapter begins with a statement that if anyone would understand it, it would really help them understand how salvation works. In other words, it starts out with the depravity of man.

We were dead in sins, but most people in the world, even the teachers and preachers don't start there. They like to start with John 3 16 or something like that. They don't start with why we need John 3 16.

Why do we need Jesus? And that's a big mistake because the Bible starts in the book of Genesis. It started the very first topic after creation is the fall of man, the depravity of man. That he will, whatever, God can give him everything in the world except one thing and he'll want that one thing because he's born with that nature.

And so the chapter begins there with verse one, quicken who were dead. All right, so you were dead in trespasses and sin. This is the ultimate statement of total depravity. There are people out there all over the internet, YouTube, everywhere that will argue, well, but God doesn't mean, Calvin was wrong when he called it total depravity.

Well, Calvin didn't invent the idea and that's where they're so ignorant. It's just sad because theologians talked about it 1100 years or more 1400 years before he ever talked about it. Maybe not quite that long, but if you go all the way back to Paul and Jesus, that's true, isn't it?

So he did not invent this idea. And what they'll say is, well, yeah, they'll agree with you that man was depraved, but not totally. He still had the ability to make a choice for Jesus. That's what they'll say.

Now, that's just a pure logical argument based on what they want to be true, not based on scripture. So if they really wanna talk scripture with you, they're going to lose that argument. But if they're with a bunch of other weak babies like themselves, and you're the only one that knows it, you're gonna lose the argument probably, because unless you really know how to argue, which you need to learn that, you argue by asking questions.

And you get them to do a circular argument where they argue with themselves. And then you point out the foolishness to the other friends standing around works really well. Works really well. But Jesus did that, didn't he?

So there we have total depravity. And when I say, when I call it total depravity, I am using a theological term because that exact term may not be in the Bible, but it just like the word rapture is not in the Bible, it describes a thing that is in the Bible.

You with me? So when you use total depravity, you have to understand that there's a lot of Christians that are Armenians that will immediately just click their brain off because they think you're a Calvinist all of a sudden.

So I'm using it with you in class as a theological term that you need to understand because it helps us categorize our doctrines. Not the best word to use when you're talking to your friends. Are you with me?

Because when you use Calvin's terms, and I'm not saying he invented the term, but it just turns their mind off and you don't wanna do that. You want their mind to be open. So you gotta tiptoe. Don't lie, don't say you believe something that you don't, but ask them enough questions to figure out what are they really asking?

What are they really, how are they defining their terms? And it's always fair game to come back and say, well, yeah, I agree with you, but I don't define the terms exactly like you do. Well, what do you mean?

Well, like free will to me means sovereign will, and I think only God has that. Oh, where do you get that? Well, think about it. Free means nothing influences your will, but we're influenced by lots of things.

Wouldn't you agree? Get them to answer the question and you go that way. So total depravity means what it means to us. And there it is right there in the very first beginning of this passage in the context.

So here, the whole thing starts with, you are totally depraved. You cannot make a choice for Jesus in and of yourself because you won't. It's not that you can't, but you won't. Well, you can't because you won't, all right?

You're just not gonna do it. And so it begins with that idea. Now in Genesis 2, verse 17, it says, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die, all right?

And then verse five in Genesis 5 says, in all the days of Adam, he lived to be 930 years and he died. So God kept his word on that one, didn't he? The truth is he died before that because the moment he ate that fruit, he died spiritually.

And we know that from Genesis 3, 7, and the eyes of them both were open and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together, made themselves aprons, and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden who they had walked with every day since they existed in the cool of the day.

And Adam and his wife hid themselves. Now they're lost, you see? It's just the depravity certainly is there at this point with them. And that's where it started. Now, people wanna argue about whether Adam and Eve had free will.

I don't think they ever had free will. I think they were humans and they had it. And they'll argue with, well, okay, when they did that sin, is that what invented or created the sin nature? All theological works you'll read says, yes, that's where it was created.

I don't agree with that. They already had a human nature. They were humans. Now, I do think, I don't wanna go there, we don't have time, but you have to ask the question if they didn't have some type of nature that was different than Jesus's nature, then why'd they sin?

Why didn't they choose not to eat it? If they didn't have some kind of nature that had a propensity to sin, all right? So that's a whole nother discussion. It's very interesting. I love talking about that.

And it's got a lot of things you can talk about. Where did the sin nature start? But as far as the depravity part, they were not totally depraved because they walked with God and they knew him. Don't you think they had a relationship with, at least we know Adam did for a long time and we don't know how long he walked before he was created, but after she was created, it says they walked with God in the garden in the coolness of the day.

They both had a relationship with God. So they were not totally depraved at that point, but as soon as they ate that fruit, they were, because they ran and hid from him, didn't want anything to do with God.

That's where that started. That I can assure you. We can debate about the sin nature part some other time, but we know where the depravity started. And it's part of the sin nature, but it got worse on that day.

It got embedded in the human genome, if you want to say it that way. All right, so we know that the Bible begins with this great doctrine of depravity of man. It teaches it through and through the Old Testament and New Testament because without it, we will never understand the beauty of God's plan of salvation.

Why Romans 3 Teaches Universal Human Guilt

All right, now Romans chapter three, verse 10, gives 12 reasons man cannot and will not initiate his own salvation. Right there, if you just need one good place to have where you always know where to go, go to Romans chapter three, start with verse 10, go down to verse 24, and there's 12 reasons why a natural person cannot choose to save himself.

He cannot choose to believe in Jesus. He cannot initiate his salvation. He cannot save himself. Why would we even use the word save if you could save yourself? Because save implies someone bigger and stronger has to save you or you don't need saving.

Does that make sense? It's just a total violation of the definition of the word saved to believe in Arminianism, which means that you play a part in it, that you have something to do with initiating your own salvation.

It's such a sad lie of Satan and it knocks out so much of the beauty of God's word on that. So if you look at verse 10 there, Romans 3 .10, as it is written, there's none righteous, no, not one. So we're asking ourselves the question, can a person initiate their salvation?

Can they save themselves? Well, first of all, it says, none of them are righteous in and of themselves. So they can't just walk into heaven, right? We know that, right? There is none that understands.

There's none that seeks after God. So now look at this, you don't have anyone that's right with God, but it says there's none that righteous. So you have no humans in their natural state that are right with God.

You have none that understand. Now let's look into this word just a little bit deeper. Sunni, Sunni Ami is the word. And it means to put something together. To put it together is the base meaning of it.

It comes to mean to mentally comprehend something. So first of all, there are no righteous humans. Secondly, there are no humans that can put together in their understanding. They cannot put together how God saves people.

They get it wrong every time. They don't put it together right. So that tells you, you're in for an argument at Christmas, right? I mean, they're just not gonna get it. Even going to church, they don't get it because the preachers don't get it anymore.

The gospel that's preached predominantly in churches day is not even the gospel. And that's an interesting discussion. We could have that at another time too, but it's not and it's sad. It's tragic and it's lethal from the human viewpoint anyway.

So here they don't understand. They don't comprehend. They don't put it together. And one of the meanings that this Greek word can come to have in other places in scripture is to act piously. So it's not my favorite definition, but you're certainly not gonna act godly if you can't put together how God saves people, right?

So you're not righteous and you can't be pious, which means you can't live a good life. You can't be, you know, you said, well, that's a good man. Well, if you knew everything about him, you probably wouldn't think so, right?

If you knew all of his thoughts, if you knew all the secret actions, you probably wouldn't think so. But this right here says, well, not only are they not good, they don't understand how it works. And then where it says, there's none that seek after God, that Greek word means to search something out, to investigate, to crave something, or to worship something.

It has all those meanings in different places in the Bible where it's translated. And so you put that together, there's none good, there's none righteous. In other words, there's none that understand how it works.

And there's none that seek after God. In other words, they don't crave God. They're not looking for God. They don't investigate to figure out God and they don't, certainly don't worship God. So there's none that seek after God.

Now that one verse is also, I think it's in Isaiah, it's somewhere in the Old Testament, I should have looked it up. I meant to, and I forgot actually while I was doing this, but when you think about that, that one verse proves that humans cannot initiate their own salvation because they're not seeking it.

So you might say that it's not so much they can't, it's they won't, they won't do it because they're not looking for it. Well, they don't understand how it works. So if they found it, they wouldn't understand it.

If it just, they walked right up to it and saw it, they wouldn't understand it. How many people walked right up to Jesus Christ and tell, well, you're filled with the demon. The religious leaders of the day said that.

So they walk right up to it and they still wouldn't understand it, but they're not seeking it in the first place. So they're probably not gonna walk right up to it. So verse 12 says, they are all gone out of the way.

I mean, listen, this is like 12 reasons people cannot save themselves and won't save themselves. They're all gone out of the way. They are altogether become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, not one.

So it's already said, we're not righteous. Now it says, you can't do any good works. You can't do true good works. I remember brother Otis asking me if you, brother David, if you knew you did a good work, was it really a good work?

Interesting question. But here they've gone out of the way. The Greek word is very interesting here. At clean, it means to deviate. So like God says, okay, here's the path you need to walk. And so they go this way or they go this way or they turn their back on him.

That's the last step, by the way. And they go that way and they deviate. Gone out of the way means to deviate. It also means to shun. Now, how are you gonna save yourself if you're shunning the one who can save you?

But that's what our nature does when we're in a lost state. We shun God. It also is translated into these two words in other places in the New Testament, to avoid. So how are you gonna save yourself if you're avoiding salvation?

You're avoiding God, all right? And to eschew. Now there's a good word we don't use much anymore. To eschew. Webster says eschewing something is to avoid it habitually, especially on moral and practical grounds, Webster says.

So you are habitually avoiding God and his salvation and his son, Jesus, and you've gone out of the way, you deviate from his way. You're not seeking it, you don't understand it, and you're not righteous.

And yet most gospels and most churches today say, look, if you'll just choose Jesus, he'll save you. Just say you want him, just give in to him, yield. They're telling you to do things you can't do and saying that that's how you get saved.

So that's their little, that's their formula. All of those things I just said are effects of salvation. They can't cause it. Yielding, well, you won't yield till after you're saved. Repenting, you won't repent till after you're saved because repent means to change your mind.

The Holy Spirit has got to come to you and call you and quicken you in a moment of time. Now I understand how they misunderstand because it happens at the same time. In fact, I've studied this. It actually happens outside of time.

It's not a time thing. It's just, boom, it's all there. And when he quickens you, there's 33 things he does to you. And I say it in a moment of time because it's the only way I can talk as a human. We're in time, right?

But it's actually an outside of time thing. It's just boom, and you've got it. Isn't that great? So all those things that churches say you've got to do to get saved, he gave them all to you as a gift.

But my question today is does Ephesians 2, 8 specifically teach that faith is a gift or do you have to go find that somewhere else? So we'll keep looking here. It's a trick question though, but they're fun, don't you think?

The Grammar of Ephesians 2:8 and the Meaning of "That"

Okay, so none doeth good. Their throat is an open sepulcher. Their tongues they have used to deceive people. Their mouth is full of like poison of asps under their lips whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

You know, you can almost tell by a person's words if they're saved or not, unless they're a new baby Christian or saved late in life like me where a cuss word may slip out once in a while followed immediately by repentance and running from my wife.

It's flyswatter. Don't you say that C word. Y 'all know what the C word is? We can't say it in our house. We like, we did not say that when mama's home. But anyway, Otis was kind of that way too though, wasn't he?

Like he, any word you would say like dang, he had a list he printed out for me. He had like 50 of those things in there and he went back into old, old literature in his library and showed what that word actually meant when they first started using it.

And they all mean the thing that they sound like. And he said, so don't say those either, brother David. Dang good point, brother Otis. I sure as heck won't. But anyway, it was hard to stop saying them.

You know, they still slip out sometimes, but anyway. So wow, their throat is an open sepulcher. The words that come out of their mouth are words coming from a dead person. That's what that's saying, a dead person.

And it says that their lips are like poison from an asp. This is all talking about the words of a lost person. The words that come out of their mouths are words of dead men, full of deceit and poison, cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. So they're murderers, a lot of them. In their mind, they are. I murder people in my mind sometime and I'm saved. I have to repent of that too. Gentlemen, have you ever thought about what you would do if someone came in your house and did something to your wife and kids and killed them and you could find that person?

Have you ever thought about what you would do? I have, I'd be swift to shed blood. I'd be slow actually, because I live in a country. I'd take them out, tie them to a tree and mess with them for a while.

Now, would I really do that? The Lord hopes I wouldn't. You know, I don't think I would, but my flesh would want to. Well, the flesh is part of the old nature. And here it is, we're swift to shed blood.

And then it says destruction and misery are in their way. So murderers, full of destruction, full of misery, wretchedness, calamity is what this word misery means in Greek, wretchedness, calamity. And the way of peace, they don't know.

Have no peace in their life. There's no fear of God before their eyes. Now think about that. Bible says the fear of God is what brings wisdom. They have no wisdom. They have no fear of God. It's debatable if you study scripture, Old New Testament, whether a person could even be saved if they didn't fear God.

The answer is yes, they can, because they get saved in a state of not fearing God. But the very first effect that happens when you get saved is you fear God when you didn't used to. Now, let's see if you agree with this.

So here's a theory, okay? This is not Bible. I have a theory that a lost sheep is different than a goat, even in his lostness. And that a lost sheep will pray and sometimes get his prayers answered, whereas a goat does not care about that stuff.

A lost sheep worries about dying and going to hell, but a goat may not even think about that. And I can never prove this. I only know the side of the lost sheep, which was me. I don't know what it's like to be a goat, but so it's a theory.

But I think that a lost sheep does fear God. Did you fear God before you got saved? I did. I felt like he's watching me all the time. Anybody else? Raise your hand if you felt that way. So some of these things are goat symptoms, but a lot of these as lost sheep, we had them also.

But I mean, there's enough here. There's 12 of them. There's 12 reasons for a lost sheep and a goat why they will not save themselves. Would you agree? Now we know that what thing soever the law says, it says to them who are under the law, that's the lost people, right?

So that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. That tells you a couple of real interesting things when you are getting in a debate with people is first of all, what does it mean when their mouths are stopped?

It means that if they're arguing that you get saved by works, which is what every cult group and every false Christian group argues, you're saved by, oh, I believe in Jesus, but you gotta, right? And you add that in there.

Their mouth needs to be stopped. And this right here is saying that the fact that the law is there will stop their mouth. What does that mean? You just ask them, well, how perfect are you at your belief?

Like how well are you doing with this, the you gotta stuff? Are you doing it consistently? Because if you miss it in one point, you're lost, right? So you can use that, that every, the law itself stops every mouth that tries to claim that they're saved by the law.

That's what that means. And it says all the world becomes guilty before God because of the law. So there it stops their mouth. And what was the last part? Oh, it says they become guilty before God. Yeah, I guess so.

Look at verse 20, therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be made righteous. That's what justified means. No flesh is justified by keeping the law, not in God's sight. So there you have it.

The law is all about the knowledge of sin. It doesn't fix the sin problem. Points it out. Verse 21, but now the righteousness of God without the law, like there's a great gulf between salvation by grace and law.

There's a gulf in between this over here has nothing to do with this. It has nothing to do with the salvation. So now the righteousness of God without the law is manifest being witnessed by the law and the prophets.

Even the old Testament taught that like Abraham was saved by belief, not by works. So even the old Testament, the law and the prophets agree with this statement. Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference.

Now that you've heard me talk at length about this interesting phrase you find in the King James, but no other English version, but it is in the Greek where it says you're saved by the faith of Christ, not by faith in Christ.

You see the difference. So I got to ask you this, if it's Jesus's faith that saves you, then if you have it, wouldn't that have needed to have been a gift? You see my point? Like if it ain't yours and you get it, it's because someone gave it to you.

So we know that faith is a gift, but that's not my question. My question is, does Ephesians 2 .8 teach that? So we'll keep going here. We've got, it's weird. You got way more time in Sunday school to teach than you do in church.

We need to switch that around. I'm going to start teaching at 10 and let y 'all teach Sunday school after all the singing and all that stuff. All right, this is better. I like this. Okay. Except I lost my place.

Oh, by the faith of Jesus. That's so huge. When the Lord showed me that, that totally changed my life. I mean, I was saved. I know I was saved, but it changed my understanding of salvation a lot. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

There's your depravity of man. It's always placed in with the salvation verses in the Bible. Being justified freely by his grace. Now that teaches us that grace is a gift because it's free. So we know grace is a gift through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.

Redemption means to be set free by paying a price. So we are justified, made right with God as a free gift because it's because Jesus paid the sin debt. That says that all in one verse. Freely, the Greek word means without a cause.