Ask Pastor Mike Live

Matthew: Hey Pastor Mike, I have a question on faith being a gift. I'm looking at Ephesians 2:8 and just trying to understand this a little bit more because I've always understood it that grace is the gift, but it says "it" is the gift of God, singular. I am just wondering how faith is also a gift and if there are any other passages that help answer that.

Pastor Mike: Well, you have to say if you read the scripture—I'm thinking of John chapter 1, for instance, verse 13—it talks about being born of God. It says we're born not by the will of the flesh nor by the will of man, but the will of God. All these passages speak of the fact that we've got a problem. Ephesians chapter 2 talks about how you are dead in your transgressions and sins, but all of a sudden, now we're made alive in God.

Even at the beginning of that chapter, you've got this concept of a problem that's so serious that we're not going to be able to fix this problem without an exercise of God's grace. If I'm dead in my transgressions and sins, then I have to, as it goes on to say in verse 4, "God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, he made us alive together with Christ."

If that's the point, and then that's the first expression in the bottom of verse 5, it says "then by grace you've been saved." You'd think that gift must mean the whole kit and caboodle. The whole point of this is God is gifting us this amazing gift of grace to be saved. It is through faith, and that grace is through faith, but the whole point of how this is set up is that God is doing this great thing, this expenditure of grace, to give us this thing.

It even starts with, as the Bible talks about in John 16, the Spirit is sent out into the world to convict us of sin, righteousness, and judgment. In other words, I can't even get started without the Spirit of God coming and convicting me. That is why people, even if they're in different camps regarding their theological labels, all start with the fact that if the Spirit didn't get involved, if the Spirit didn't do the work to convict me of sin, I would never have the inkling to think that I needed salvation.

Regardless of your label, I think that's where we come to the sense that this is something that while I experience a decision, I experience the conviction, I experience my need for Christ, and I experience that I've got to throw myself on the mercy of God, at the end of it all, the faith expression and the repentance are a gift that you're granting me.

Of course, the grammar in Ephesians 2 about the faith being a gift is debated. Grammatically, it's debated. I think it can be understood that way; there's no doubt about that. But other passages you can't debate, like in Acts 11, verse 18. The other side of it, because it's always not just faith, it's repentance and faith—a penitent faith.

In Acts 11, they're discussing Gentile salvation and it says when they heard these things, they fell silent about the Gentiles being saved and they glorified God saying, "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life." We know we're talking about penitent faith. We know we're talking about the thing that makes them Christians that leads to life, and it says God has granted them this repentance.

If it is going to lead to life, then we know it's the kind of repentance that is this faith-repentance, this trusting in Christ, this penitent faith. In that passage, it says that it's been granted and given to them. Because repentance and faith are, as I like to say, two sides of one coin. They are distinguishable in the sense that you can define repentance and faith differently, but they're inextricable.

We can't separate the two. In the response to the gospel, if you have biblical faith, you're going to have biblical repentance or you're not going to be saved. Repentance and faith go together; they are two sides of one coin. If saving repentance is granted, then the faith has to be granted. While people can debate Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, you can't debate grammatically Acts chapter 11 verse 18.

I think that helps us sometimes go back to Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 and conclude that when you look back, "it" is the gift of God. The "it" must not just be salvation, but the faith as well as the grace. I think that's the easier way to go than trying to argue with someone about the grammar of verse 8 because it can be argued that it's somewhat ambiguous. Does that help at all, Matthew?

Matthew: That was really good. Thank you.