Adam Clarke on Ephesians 2:8-9
provided by SEA member, Roy Ingle
I am studying to teach this weekend from Ephesians 2:1-10 and I was reading from Adam Clarke’s commentary on the passage and I loved his words on verses 8-9:
“As ye are now brought into a state of salvation, your sins being all blotted out, and you made partakers of the Holy Spirit; and, having a hope full of immortality, you must not attribute this to any works or merit of yours; for when this Gospel reached you, you were all found dead in trespasses and dead in sins; therefore it was God’s free mercy to you, manifested through Christ, in whom ye were commanded to believe; and, having believed by the power of the Holy Spirit, ye received, and were sealed by, the Holy Spirit of promise; so that this salvation is in no sense of yourselves, but is the free gift of God; and not of any kind of works; so that no man can boast as having wrought out his own salvation, or even contributed any thing towards it. By grace are ye saved, through faith in Christ. This is a true doctrine, and continues to be essential to the salvation of man to the end of the world.
But whether are we to understand, faith or salvation as being the gift of God? This question is answered by the Greek text: th gar cariti este seswsmenoi dia thv pistewv? kai touto ouk ex umwn? qeou to dwron, ouk ex ergwn? ina mh tiv kauchshtai? “By this grace ye are saved through faith; and THIS (touto, this salvation) not of you; it is the gift of God, not of works: so that no one can boast.”The relative touto, this, which is in the neuter gender, cannot stand for pistiv, faith, which is the feminine; but it has the whole sentence that goes before for its antecedent.” But it may be asked: Is not faith the gift of God? Yes, as to the grace by which it is produced; but the grace or power to believe, and the act of believing, are two different things. Without the grace or power to believe no man ever did or can believe; but with that power the act of faith is a man’s own. God never believes for any man, no more than he repents for him: the penitent, through this grace enabling him, believes for himself: nor does he believe necessarily, or impulsively when he has that power; the power to believe may be present long before it is exercised, else, why the solemn warnings with which we meet every where in the word of God, and threatenings against those who do not believe? Is not this a proof that such persons have the power but do not use it? They believe not, and therefore are not established. This, therefore, is the true state of the case: 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.”
For the original post, go to: http://arminiantoday.com/2012/11/19/adam-clarke-on-ephesians-28-9/
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