Commenting
on Eph 2:9, John Muddiman (Anglican) wrote the following which Latter-day
Saints will appreciate as it corrects many of the common misreadings of the
text:
9 Salvation by faith does not come from works lest anyone should
boast. Paul drew a sharp contrast between faith and works, meaning not good
works (morality) but ‘works of law’, the marks of Jewish identity, chiefly
circumcision, Sabbath observance and the food regulations. And the boasting that
he rejected, in the name of the one God of Gentiles and Jews, was the Jewish
boasting of ethnic superiority as God’s chosen people (Rom. 3.27). Ephesians
has refocused the issue from ethnicity to ethics. Good works (see v. 10) are
the result of salvation, not its cause; otherwise human beings could be said to
earn their standing with God and that would render grace redundant. While Paul
probably considered idolatry the cardinal sin (Rom. 1.18ff.), on this view it
becomes pride, i.e. the refusal to acknowledge the need of God’s forgiveness.
The parable of the Publican and the Pharisee in Luke 18.9-14 illustrates a
similar ethicization of the Pauline doctrine of justification of the Pauline
doctrine of justification (see Luke 18.14). (John Muddiman, The Epistle to the Ephesians [Black’s
New Testament Commentaries; London: Continuum, 2001], 111)
