For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph 2:8-10, NIV)
I have discussed Eph 2:8-10 and how it is not a valid proof-text for the material doctrine of Protestantism, Sola Fide, a couple of times on this blog:
Reading Ephesians 2:8-10 in light of Colossians 2:11-13 (cf. Simpson and Bruce on Colossians 2:12 and Water Baptism)
To add to the discussion, let me quote Catholic apologist Trent Horn on this pericope, as his analysis is pretty good here, as is the entire section of his volume on soteriology (“Part III How Am I Saved?” [pp. 179-257]):
One of the most common verses that is cited in defense of justification by faith alone is Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast” . . . In Ephesians 2:8-9 Paul is not teaching that the process of salvation involves only faith. Paul is talking about initial salvation, because he speaks about being saved as a past, completed reality. Catholics [and Latter-day Saints] agree there is no action, including acts of faith, that merits the gift of initial justification, so this verse does not prove justification is by faith alone. In fact, the next verse says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Notice that Paul says we were not saved because of “works” but were created for “good works”. This implies that the works in verse 9 that Paul is speaking of are inferior to the good works God wants us to do in verse 10. This makes sense if Paul was saying to his audience that salvation “is the gift of God—not because of works of the Law [or works of Torah]”. Paul is telling the Gentiles that they don’t come into God’s covenant through works of Law like circumcision. Instead, like everyone else they come into the covenant through faith that is a gracious gift from God. That this is Paul’s meaning is evident in the fact that verses 11-12 speak of uniting estranged Gentile believers to God through faith in Christ rather than observance of the Torah.
Paul personally addresses the Gentiles (v. 11) and reminds them of both their separation from Christ and their alienation from God’s promises (v. 12). He says this separation has been taken away by the blood of Christ (v. 12). He says this separation has been taken away by the blood of Christ (v. 13), and in its place God has given us peace because he “has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances” (vv. 14-15). The law is the Torah, and Paul identifies it with the “dividing wall”, which some have taken as an allusion to the wall that separated the court of the Gentiles from that of the Jews in the Jerusalem Temple. Now that this boundary marker of the Old Covenant has been abolished, all people can enter into God’s covenant by faith in Christ. But this does not mean that works play no role in our salvation after this initial entry.
In I Corinthians 15:2 Paul speaks of the gospel “by which you are saved, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in faith”. The word “saved” (Greek, sozesthe) can literally be translated “you are being saved” because it is in the present tense. Just because we have been saved in the past, as Ephesiasn 2:8-9 says, that does not mean that our salvation was settled once and for all in the past . . . The Protestant biblical scholar Brenda Colijn notes that
salvation, for Paul, is predominately future. As we have seen, even his uses of salvation in past and present tense have a forward-looking aspect . . . Believers were already saved from their trespasses and sins (Eph. 2: 1, 5). In the present, believers are being saved from the power of sin (Phil. 2:13; 2 Cor. 5:15, 17; cf. Eph 2:1-10). In the last day, believers will be saved from God’s wrath (his righteous response to sin) and from death (the result of sin). (Brenda Colijn, “The Three Tenses of Salvation in Paul’s Letters,” Ashland Theological Journal 22 (1990): 33). (Trent Horn, The Case for Catholicism: Answers to Classic and Contemporary Protestant Objections [San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 2017], 234-36, comment in square brackets added)
One can find the Colijn article, “The Three Tenses of Salvation in Paul’s Letters” online here and is worth the read.
