This is a sample chapter from my Systematic Theology project "Theology for Thriving". 📎MORE TO THE STORY notes are not part of the main text of the book, but additional resources, charts, or other materials from Biblical Theology class resources.
Ephesians 2.1-10 [1] You were dead through the trespasses and sins [2] in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. [3] All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. [4] But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us [5] even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— [6] and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, [7] so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [8] For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— [9] not the result of works, so that no one may boast. [10] For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
🗝️ Key Concept: Grace
We have now mapped the great drama of God’s rescue mission: A world infected with Sin, and a loving God who enters into our suffering through the Incarnation to bring about our At-one-ment. This brings us to the final piece of the Soteriology puzzle: How is this healing actually applied to our lives? The answer is a single, beautiful, and often misunderstood word: Grace.
Grace is the free, undeserved, and often unsought gift of God’s own life and love. It’s the power that makes salvation a reality for us. A common acronym for it is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. While this rightly points out that grace is a gift that flows from Christ, the word “expense” can be problematic if it suggests a transaction with an angry God. A better way to frame it, more in line with the God we’ve come to know, might be God Reconciles As Christ Embodied, or even God's Restoring And Creative Energy.
Implied here is that Grace works in two interconnected ways. First, grace is a declaration: God speaks a new reality into being for us. Through grace, God declares us forgiven, adopted as children, and justified— made right— in His sight. Second, grace is an energy: it is the active work of the Holy Spirit within us, transforming us from the inside out to become the very people God has declared us to be.
Some have argued that for grace to be truly gracious, it must be limited, offered only to a select few. But this is to map God’s reality with a human-sized pencil. An infinitely abundant God is an infinitely gracious God. Grace does not need to be stingy to be special. Thus, grace is for all people, because all people are beloved. We could even use another acronym to express this: God's Grace is for every Gender, Religion, Ability, Culture, and Economic status.
🔎 How is the Trinity involved in giving grace?
The gift of grace is a Trinitarian act, a perfect symphony of Divine Love in which each Person of the Divine plays a distinct and beautiful part:
The Father is the eternal Source of Grace. Out of the depths of His love, the Father elects Christ from before time to be the one who will enter our story, take on our consequences, and enact our at-one-ment. It is from the Father’s heart that the entire plan of salvation flows. In grace, the Father also sends the Spirit to work in the world in two crucial ways. The first is prevenient grace (from Latin meaning "to come before"). This is the grace that goes ahead of us, preventing the absolute worst effects of Sin and giving every person the genuine ability to respond to and cooperate with God. The second is persistent grace. This is the stubborn, patient, unrelenting Love of God that never gives up on us, that works throughout our lives— and even beyond— to bring us to a place where we can freely choose to receive the gift of salvation.
The Son is the Embodiment of Grace. Jesus is God’s grace made visible, the Word made flesh. He is the one elected before time to be the Savior of the world, and all who find their identity in him share in that election. Through his life, death, and resurrection, he becomes the channel through which the Father’s grace flows to all creation. We are adopted into the family of God through his perfect Sonship.
The Holy Spirit is the Energy of Grace. The Spirit is the one who makes this grace a personal reality in our lives. The Spirit calls us to new life, opens our eyes to the truth, and actualizes the divine potential that lies dormant within us. The Spirit is the very lifeblood of God, poured into our hearts to make us alive in Christ.
But if the Trinity is the giver of all grace, this raises the perpetual concern about how grace is given: Who gets it? Who doesn't? Why does God seemingly give grace to some and not others? There has been an obsession across Christian history about figuring out who exactly is elected to receive God's grace and predestined to receive salvation (and who is not!). These debates are all built on the individualistic assumption that grace must be limited to a few individuals to be grace. Some propose that if grace was given to all of God's children, it might be "diminished" somehow. But that is not the case at all: A generous Giver who gives life to all is even more generous than one who gives life to few.
Theologians like Karl Barth help us cut the Gordian Knot here and realize that God's election and predestination is centered on Christ: Because "Christ was destined before the foundation of the world" (1 Peter 1.20), it is Christ himself who was predestined to receive the full consequences of our sin and condemnation, and it is Christ himself who is elect to overcome those consequences and offer salvation to everyone. As Jesus himself says "When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself" (John 12.32). Thus, Christ wants all people to be elect in himself, and all who are in Christ are predestined to be conformed to his image (Romans 8:29). Passages like Ephesians 1 focus election solely on Christ, because God "chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world", and God's ultimate plan is to "gather up all things in heaven and on earth into Christ". All in Christ are elect, and Christ elects all in himself.
📖 Scriptural Reflection: Ephesians 2.1-10
This passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is one of the most concentrated and powerful descriptions of grace in the entire Bible. It begins with a stark diagnosis: left to ourselves, we are "dead through the trespasses and sins," following the broken patterns of the world. Paul isn't being melodramatic; he’s describing the state of alienation, of being unplugged from our life-giving Source.
But then comes the great turning point of the entire gospel, hinged on two small words: "But God." God, who is rich in mercy and motivated by a great love, intervenes. Even when we were spiritually dead, God "made us alive together with Christ." This is the core of grace. It is not something we earn or achieve; it is an act of divine resurrection. God reaches into our death and raises us up with Jesus, seating us with him "in the heavenly places."
Paul repeats the central theme to make sure we don't miss it: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast." Our salvation, from beginning to end, is a gift. It is initiated by God's Love, accomplished by Christ's life, and received through the simple act of trusting faith. This completely removes any room for human pride or spiritual scorekeeping.
However, the passage doesn't end there. Paul immediately adds, "For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." Grace does not save us by our works, but it absolutely saves us for good works. This gift is not a ticket to a celestial retirement; it is a commission to a new way of living, a life of love and service that is the natural, beautiful fruit of a heart made alive by grace.
🔎 Must we add "good works" to be worthy of God's grace?
The short answer is an emphatic no. We absolutely cannot make ourselves "worthy" of God's Love. The prophet Isaiah rightly says that in comparison to God's holiness, "all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). This isn't because we are worthless, but because we are finite. There is an infinite, qualitative gap between our finite goodness and God's infinite goodness. No amount of good deeds can bridge that chasm. And yet some forms of Christian Theology have taught that we can "merit" salvation and make ourselves "worthy" of grace by what we do, or how we believe, or what group we belong to.
This all misses the point. To think we can earn God's Love is to get the entire relationship backward. We are not worthy of God's Love; it is God's Love that makes us worthy. We do not clean ourselves up to present ourselves to God; God’s grace cleanses us. Divine Love is what makes us lovable. A helpful analogy is a marriage. A healthy marriage is bound by love and constituted by trust. It would be ludicrous for one person to say, "I want to know the absolute minimum I must do to stay married to you." That is the logic of a contract, not a covenant of love. The actions within a marriage are not payments to earn love; they are the natural expressions of a love that has already been freely given and received. So too with our relationship with God.
Paul was passionate about this point because in his day, many insisted that certain "works of the law"— ritual acts like circumcision, dietary restrictions, and festival observances— were necessary to be right with God. These were identity markers that distinguished one group from another. Paul argues forcefully that our salvation is NOT based on these ritual works, because "no human being will be justified in God’s sight by deeds prescribed by the law" (Romans 3:20). Our right standing with God is based entirely on the faithfulness of Christ, received by us through faith, not on our ability to perform the right rituals.
🔎 How are "good works" the fruit of God's grace?
While ritual works are rejected as a basis for salvation, ethical works— deeds of love, compassion, and justice— are presented as the necessary and inevitable result of a life transformed by grace. They are the result, but never the cause. As Paul says in the same breath that we are saved "not the result of works," he insists we are "created in Christ Jesus for good works" (Ephesians 2:9-10).
The relationship between grace, faith, and works is not a sequence, but an organic, intertwined unity, much like the Trinity itself. Grace is the root, the divine life that is gifted to us. Faith is the inner, subjective fruit of that grace: Our trust in God and reliance on His power. Works of love are the outer, objective fruit of that same grace: The actions that demonstrate the new life within us. As the book of James famously states, "faith without works is dead" (James 2:26). A living organism responds to its environment; a life that has been touched by the living God will naturally and spontaneously respond with love.
Think of it like plugging in a lamp. The electricity is grace: The unseen power. The lamp being switched on is faith: The act of connection. The light it produces is good works: The visible evidence of the power flowing through it. You cannot have the light without both the power and the connection.
This is the beautiful paradox St. Paul describes: "I worked harder than all of them— yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me" (1 Corinthians 15:10). The Christian life is one of active, diligent effort, but it is an effort entirely empowered and sustained by the grace of God. We are called to "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling," precisely because "it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13).
This is a messy, dynamic, and magnificent description of how God's Love saves us. It cannot be reduced to a neat formula. When the grace of God, embodied in Jesus Christ, takes hold of us, we begin a lifelong process of transformation. Our beliefs change, our trust deepens, and our actions begin to conform to the pattern of Christ's own life of self-giving love. This is the journey of grace.
📚 Topical Scriptures
Here are some Scripture passages which explore and elaborate on the themes of this chapter. As you look them up and study them, think about how they relate to the Key Concept and Guiding Questions.
John 1:9-18
This passage contrasts the Law given through Moses with the "grace and truth" that came through Jesus Christ. Look for how it describes the Word made flesh as the source from which "we have all received, grace upon grace."
Romans 3:9-31
This is a core text on justification, explaining that God's righteousness is a gift given through the faithfulness of Christ. Notice how this grace is available to all, since "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
Romans 5:1-21
Paul contrasts the trespass of Adam with the free gift of grace in Christ. Observe the emphasis on God's "abundant provision of grace" that reigns through righteousness, overwhelming the reign of sin and death.
Romans 6:1-4
Paul powerfully argues that grace is not a license to continue in sin, but the very power that enables our transformation. He uses the imagery of baptism to explain how, through grace, we have died to our old selves and been raised with Christ to walk in a completely new way of life.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
In the context of his own weakness, Paul learns that God's grace is made perfect in weakness. This passage reveals grace not just as a gift for salvation, but as a sustaining power for daily life, demonstrating that God's power is most evident when we are not relying on our own strength.
Galatians 2:15-3:14
Paul forcefully argues that we are justified not by "works of the law," but through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. This passage is crucial for understanding the distinction between ritual identity markers and the gift of grace that creates a new life in Christ.
Ephesians 1:3-14
This opening to Ephesians is one long, magnificent sentence in Greek that unfolds the way God gives grace in a Trinitarian pattern. It details the distinct but unified work of each person: the Father who chose and blessed us, the Son who redeemed us, and the Holy Spirit who sealed us as a guarantee of our inheritance.
Titus 3:3-8
This passage provides a concise summary of salvation, explicitly stating it is "not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy." Notice the Trinitarian shape of grace: the Love of God, the mercy of our Savior, and the renewal of the Holy Spirit.
James 2:14-26
This is the classic text on the relationship between faith and works. Notice how James argues that genuine, saving faith will inevitably produce the fruit of good works, declaring that "faith without works is dead."
1 Peter 1:3-5
This passage is a beautiful doxology celebrating the "great mercy" of God, which is the source of our salvation. It describes how God's grace has given us a "new birth into a living hope" through the resurrection of Jesus, a hope that leads to an inheritance that is imperishable and protected by God's power.
Wisdom of Solomon 9:1-18
This is a prayer for Wisdom, which is understood as a gift of grace from God. It shows that humans cannot understand God's purposes or find salvation without the divine gift of Wisdom and the Holy Spirit sent from on high.
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