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By Grace Through Faith
Ephesians 2:4-9
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, 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 surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
What was Paul thinking? When he wrote those words, did he not understand that some might misapply them and mislead thousands, if not millions, of people? Could he not understand that by not teaching the “whole plan of salvation,” some would teach that grace is free and without condition? Could Paul not comprehend how much future generations would struggle to understand this message in light of the necessity of baptism? The answer is that even if he did not, The Holy Spirit certainly did, yet the passage still teaches that we are saved by grace through or because of faith.
At one time, it would not have been easy to write that statement without five different qualifications of my meaning. Still, the irrefutable message of scripture is that God’s offer of salvation has very little to do with me. It’s not that the message is hard to understand, but that we have become so adept at defending the necessity of our response to this grace, in other words, baptism, that we fail to acknowledge that it is itself a part of the grace of God.
Our discussions of salvation by grace, even among brethren, often devolve into back-biting, name-calling, and insinuations of false teachings. It’s almost as if we are incapable of discussing faith and grace without including the “work of baptism.” But is that biblical, and should we be thinking of baptism as a work at all?
Baptism is not separate from grace. Nor is it ever referred to as man’s part in his salvation, as is so often expressed. Baptism is, first and foremost, God’s grace in action. When Peter speaks of baptism in 1 Peter 3, he likens it to God’s saving of Noah by the flood. Telling the reader in verse 21 that baptism, in a similar manner, saves us, but it’s not the putting away of the filth of the flesh but the appeal to God of a good conscience. In other words, the salvation found in baptism is not in the outward washing, but instead, in baptism, we are pleading with God to be washed of our sins. Said another way, baptism is much less about what I am doing than what is being done to me.
Perhaps this is why Paul told the Corinthians that he was glad that he baptized none of them and that he had not been sent to baptize but to preach. If there is a context in which baptism is a work, it is more appropriately the work of the one who is baptizing and not the baptized.
This is why, in writing to Titus, Paul speaks about the washing in this way:
Titus 3:5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.
The term washing of regeneration is literally to bathe and be regenerated or renewed. Here Paul proclaims that salvation and its regenerative washing are not based on our deeds of righteousness but according to the mercy of God and the work of His Spirit. Having attributed the grace of God, now available to everyone, to Jesus in the previous chapter, we see in these 8 verses that The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are all credited for the work of salvation. This is not merely an argument of semantics but a clear illustration of how Christians should speak of their salvation. Another example of this can be found in Colossians chapter 2.
Colossians 2:8-14 8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
In urging them not to be taken captive by men’s philosophies, Paul clearly teaches about the new life they have only in Christ. Proclaiming that it is in Christ that we are baptized, he compares it to a circumcision of the heart and that our resurrection in Christ is through faith that God is able to take away our sin because He raised Jesus from the dead. In this, Paul proclaims that baptism is absolutely part of the cancellation of the debt of sin as it is tied to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. But he also demonstrates that it is both a part of grace (we are buried with him when we are baptized) and the expression of our faith that God is able to remove our sins and raise a new man. In essence, baptism is now both the request (1 Peter 3:21) and the proclamation of our confidence (Colossians 2:13-14) that God is able and willing to take away our sin and nail it to the cross. In other words, baptism is the work of God. None of this denies that baptism is necessary, nor is it affirming that salvation comes prior to this washing of regeneration. Still, it raises the question, is baptism something that I am doing, or is it being done to me?
If baptism is the biblical response of faith to an offered grace, then shouldn’t our teaching reflect the one in whom we place our trust and through whom came this grace? Should we, as those who better understand, connect the truth of biblical baptism to both grace and faith, just as Paul and Peter have done? While we may see it as teaching against error when we express that baptism is an alternative to the common misunderstanding of grace, whether we intend to or not, we imply salvation by works. So long as one is presented in opposition to the other, we offer a view of salvation that harmonizes neither with itself nor the scripture. Grace and baptism are not different doctrines opposed to one another as neither can be fully understood without the other. If baptism is not seen through the lens of “by grace through faith” but presented as the antithesis or, at the very least separate from that understanding, we are teaching that the confidence in our salvation is in our obedience to baptism rather than the one to whom we are submitting. By that same coin, if our understanding of grace is not leading us to the expression of faith where Paul proclaims we are united in death and resurrection with Christ, then we are not expressing our confidence in God’s salvation. This might seem like an argument of semantics. We all acknowledge that without the death of Jesus, there is no possibility of salvation. But it is for argument’s sake that we need to consider our words and actions.
The Bible goes to great lengths to impress upon the seeker how small they are in the working of their salvation and how little God asks of them. Whether Ephesians 2 or Romans 5:1-5 the Bible affirms that our faith justifies us by bringing us into God’s grace. In this message, Paul proclaimed in Romans 1 that he found no shame because it is the power of God that brings salvation. The Bible definitively asserts that we are saved by grace, we are saved through faith, and that I have nothing to boast about except Jesus (2 Corinthians 12:9, Galatians 6:14). All who name the name of Jesus should confidently profess those things. As those who take a high view of scripture, we should not be any more fearful of asserting our absolute confidence in these truths than we are in asserting our confidence that we are saved in baptism. As those who believe in the harmony and inspiration of the word of God, we, from these starting points, should be able to teach the entirety of God’s plan of salvation and proclaim without reservation that we are saved by the Grace of God and by dying with Jesus in Baptism which is the fullest expression of our faith in Him.
Without fully understanding how all of salvation, including the baptism that saves us, is by grace through faith, we are left in the unenviable position of defending truth by denying it. Many today among the Lord’s people have a very dim view of the grace of God and how it works in us. Whether that’s the fault of past generations, an overcorrection to false doctrine, or because we’re afraid of being misunderstood and labeled, we need to return to speaking as the Bible speaks. Instead of questioning those who are emphasizing the grace of God, perhaps we should ask ourselves if we are teaching His whole counsel.
