Compendium of Salvation by Grace

Recap of Ephesians 2:1-7: God's Author, Motive, Method, and Goal in Salvation

0:02 The second chapter of Ephesians, as we continue our careful examination of the words and thoughts God has contained in this portion of his word, particularly for the benefit of those visiting with us who have not had the benefit of the previous expositions, I will very briefly remind you who have been here and pass on to you who have not been here the general flow of thought in this particular portion that we are studying, Ephesians 2, verses 1 to 10.

0:40 In this paragraph, in the most vivid language, the Apostle Paul describes the state of the Ephesians and all men prior to the coming of God's grace into their lives. In verses 1 to 3, we are told that by nature we are dead, we are bound by the world, by the devil. And by the dictates of our own depraved passions, and in that condition we are lying under the wrath of Almighty God. Then from verses 4 to 10, the Apostle gives us this equally vivid description of the great transformation that grace has wrought in the lives of the Ephesians and which grace also brings to pass in the life of every true Christian. We have seen that the author of this transformation is God himself and God alone. Verse 4, but God, and throughout the rest of the paragraph, our attention is directed not to the activity of the sinner who is transformed, but to the God who effects the transformation. Having drawn our attention to the author of the transformation, the Apostle secondly shows us something of the matter.

2:02 The motive which moved him to effect this transforming work in men, and that motive is described in these words, great love and rich mercy, the latter part of verse 4. Well, then what method does God use? What channels are cut by this great love and rich mercy in effecting the transformation? Well, the answer is found in verses 5.

2:32 In 6, it is a method that involves uniting the sinner to Jesus Christ in the virtue and power of his saving work. We are quickened together with Christ, raised together with Christ, and seated in the heavenly places together with Christ. Well, what is the goal of God in all of this? Having shown us that God is the author, that his motive is love and mercy, that his method is union with Christ, what is God's goal in doing so mighty a work?

3:07 And verse 7 is the answer to that question, that, in order that, in the ages to come, he might show or display the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. God's goal is nothing less than to make his quickened people the showcase of his grace. Grace throughout all of the coming ages, grace that is manifested in kindness towards elect sinners, kindness that comes to them within the orbit of union with Jesus Christ. Now we come this morning to our initial study in verses 8 through 10. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. God. God.

Ephesians 2:8-10 as a Compendium of Salvation by Grace

4:01 God of works, that no man should glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God aforeprepared that we should walk in them. These verses, as a unit, address themselves to the nature, means, and immediate results of this transformation, all of which serve the goal. Notice the connecting word, for, with which verse 8 begins, for, by grace she hath been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, etc.

4:46 In other words, the apostle is connecting verses 8 to 10 with the statement of verse 7. Verse 7 told us that God's conscious goal in conferring this merciful grace is to make the people of God, the people of God, the people of God, the people of God, the people of God, the people of God, the people of God. And the mercy upon us in Jesus Christ was that he might, through the coming ages, display his grace. Now, if that's his goal, then everything about the salvation conferred must be calculated to serve that goal.

5:19 If his goal is to display his grace, everything he does in the salvation of sinners will underscore and bring into sharp focus the amazing grace of God. amazing quality of that grace. Let me illustrate it this way. Imagine an artist such as Norman Rockwell, whose great gift, whose artistic genius is found particularly in taking human interest situations and making them live, so the minute you look at it, you kind of chuckle and say, I know what's in that picture. He may take the young fellow, the girl, the boy, who for the first time is going to the doctor to get a shot, and who but Norman Rockwell can get all of the expressions of that family doctor looking down very paternalistically upon this boy or girl, trying to fulfill the role of mother and father and comforter and nurse, everything at once, and the frightened look upon the face of the little child as he doesn't want to see the needle go in, and yet he's sort of half-looking. You see what I'm saying? Only Norman Rockwell can do it. That's his particular artistic genius. Now, he obviously,

6:30 understands perspective. He obviously understands something about the human form, anatomy, physiology. He has many of those attributes necessary to make a good artist, but his peculiar strength, his crowning artistic genius is to be found in taking human interest situations and conveying them so that they communicate to Mr. and Mrs. Average American. Well, you see, if Norman Rockwell's concern in his artistic, artistic compositions is to display his outstanding quality, you are not going to find coming from the brush of Norman Rockwell an abstract of some landscape. You're not going to find something that looks like a product of Salvador Dali or some other artist who draws things that I don't for the life of me know yet how they can legitimately be called art, but that's due, I'm sure, to my limitations and not to their

7:31 lack of ability, at least so I'm told. Or take the pianist, the pianist who has many skills, many artistic skills. He knows how to read music. He knows something about shading and he knows all of the things necessary, but this particular pianist, his crowning skill musically is that of impeccable execution of the most difficult passages of piano composition. Now, if that is his crowning skill, what does he do? Well, he does not choose compositions when he concertizes which are calculated to show a man's ability primarily in the area of form, in the area of shading or other things, but he will choose the compositions which had made some of the greatest masters get their fingers tangled up with one another, and he will seek to execute those things in such a way that his crowning artistic gift musically will be shown to the fullest. And I checked that illustration out with Sam and it's accurate. Now, do you see what God is saying in this passage? In salvation,

8:46 God displays power. In salvation, God displays wisdom. In salvation, God displays grace and displays mercy and kindness and all of his glorious attributes, his holiness, his justice. But what attribute is he supremely concerned to display according to verse seven? That in the ages to come, he might display his grace. Now, if that's the crowning attribute that he wishes to display, then what he chooses to paint, what he chooses to play will bring into the sharpest focus that particular attribute. That particular quality in God. And therefore, verses eight to ten are simply a comprehensive statement of how every facet of man's salvation is calculated to point to grace at every single

9:55 point that that salvation impinges upon man, the creature, in order that he might display his grace. Grace for by grace ye have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. So then verses eight to ten form what is probably, I am not dogmatizing, but I am saying they form what is probably the most condensed yet comprehensive statement of salvation by grace to be found anywhere in the word of God. One eminent, student of the word of God has gone on record as suggesting that the entire teaching, the entire argument of Romans three and four and Galatians three is all here in these three verses. And I would add to that that the basic argument of the entire book of first John and James is also to be found in these three verses. In other words, they comprise the entire argument of the entire book of first John and James is also to be found in these three verses. In other words, they comprise a compendium of salvation by grace.

11:10 Now some of you kids say, oh there goes the pastor again using nickel, I mean 25 cent words. Well, you ought to know what a compendium is. You know what a compendium is? You don't?

11:19 Alright, I'm going to tell you. So you better know when I'm done, or you haven't been listening. A compendium is a summary of the essential information in brief form.

11:31 Suppose some of you got a new toy for Christmas and it had all kinds of instructions, instructions as to what to do and the rest. And after you went through all of that and your mom or your dad helped you to learn how to operate that new toy, one of your friends came over and you wanted him to enjoy your toy. Well, you don't hand in that big manual to get all lost. What you say is, well, this is how you do it. And you give him a little summary of everything that's in that instruction manual and you reduce it all down to its essential elements. You have given him, and you didn't even know it, a compendium of the instructions as to how to operate. That's what a compendium is. It is a concise but comprehensive statement. It omits no essential element, though it only treats it in brief form. What is Ephesians 2, 8-10? Ephesians 2, 8-10 is the inspired, God-given compendium of salvation by grace. Would you desire to know the leading lines of biblical teaching concerning salvation?

12:34 Salvation by grace? Then master these verses. In fact, I will be so bold as to say this morning, the person, be it man or be he, man, woman, child, who understands the meaning of the words, the phrases, and the thought relationships of these three verses, is a true theologian in the doctrine of the grace of God. I dare to assert that any boy, any girl, any man or woman who can sit down with Ephesians 2, 8-10, and explain correctly the meaning of the words, the phrases, and the thought relationships to each other,

13:22 is the man, the woman, the boy, or girl who is a theologian in the biblical doctrine of grace. Furthermore, I will be bold to assert that the man, or the woman, or the boy, or the girl, who has entered into a hearty embrace of the spiritual realities conveyed in these words, thoughts, and ideas, is a true saint by the grace of God. You say, those are pretty bold statements, pastor. But I make them thoughtfully. I make them as the mature reflection of spending hours with this passage, and I am convinced that this is indeed the true saint. And I am convinced that this is indeed the true saint. And I am convinced that this is indeed the true saint. A true compendium. There is no essential line of biblical truth from Genesis to Revelation

Why the Repetition? The Human Heart's Problem with Grace

14:15 concerning salvation by grace that is not to be found, at least in germ form, in this passage. Now, before commencing a careful analysis of the verses, I want to raise a question this morning, and then attempt to answer it. And in the raising of the question and answering of it, I hope I shall be whetting your appetites to master these three verses. I hope you'll just chomp at the bit and pray that God will give us a week in which He'll shrink the days, because you can't wait for the next study. That's my hope. And the question is this.

14:50 Why is it so essential that all of the people of God be grounded in this compendium of grace? Or, to put the question in a more pointed form in terms of this passage, why must the apostle, having already made it abundantly clear in all of the preceding verses that salvation is all of grace, that the goal of that salvation is the display of grace, why does he go back over the same ground, enlarging, expanding, explaining, and underscoring grace? Isn't it obvious after the description of verses 1 to 3 that if the sinner is dead, he can contribute nothing to his spiritual life? If he is found, he can contribute nothing to his liberation? If he is under wrath, he can contribute nothing to his deliverance? Isn't it just excessive repetition to go back and underscore grace? He's already told us in

15:54 verses 4 and following that God does the transforming, God unites us to Christ, and in that union God quickens us, raises us, and seats us, and as if we were really dunce and didn't get the message, right in the middle of it, he says, in a parenthesis, verse 5, for by grace ye have been saved. He must really think we're thick, because then he goes on to verse 7 and says the purpose of all of this, if you didn't get it yet, is that in the ages to come he might display his grace, and then like we're really dunce, he says, for by grace you're saved, and then he enlarges the whole thing all over again. Now why in the world does he do it? You got any idea? Or ideas? Well, let me answer it. The answer to that question is this.

16:39 It is that there is a fundamental problem in the human heart whenever it would contemplate the subject of grace. And the Apostle Paul knew that the Ephesians had that problem, and the Holy Ghost knew that the church, until it is glorified at the coming of Christ, would always have that problem, and therefore God is careful to give us this compendium of grace after all the previous emphasis upon grace, because God knows that there is this fundamental problem arising from the sinful human heart with reference to the grace of God. Now let me explain what I mean and flesh out that answer in a way that I trust will be helpful. You see, the grace of God flows out of God's heart in the direction of sinful men as a pure, crystal clear stream of undeserved mercy to sinners. So that whenever a sinner looks in the direction of the God against whom he has sinned, and thinks of finding acceptance, forgiveness, and pardon, he must think of that acceptance and pardon coming only in terms of that crystal clear stream of pure grace, undeserved kindness, unmerited favor.

18:11 Now the problem of the human heart, is that by the time that stream touches man's consciousness, he will naturally pollute it with the dung and the refuse of his own human merit. He will not have the stream flow in as pure grace. He's got to stick something into it. And whatever he puts into it, no matter how good it may appear in his own eyes, God reckons it nothing but foul dung and refuse that pollutes the stream. Furthermore, you have this problem that when the grace would flow out,

18:57 it would always flow out unto purity, unto holiness, and man will always defile it so that it flows out to something else. So that to use a figure that will carry through for the rest of our study this morning, man by nature will pollute the stream at the inlet, and he'll pollute it at the outlet. The stream of pure grace will never flow into a man's heart in saving him, and out of a man's life governing him, it will never flow in pure and out pure unless almighty God preserves its purity. For man left to himself will pollute it at the inlet, and he'll defile it at the outlet. Now let's examine those statements in a bit more detail. First of all, the inlet. He will always be mixing into the stream of grace the dung and the refuse of human merit.

Guarding the Inlet: Grace Unmixed with Human Merit (Verses 8-9)

20:01 For by nature, no man will consent to be saved by pure grace for the simple reason, and it's alluded to right in our text, if salvation is by pure grace, then there is not an atom of grounds for the sinner to boast in anything. That's why the little phrase occurs in our text, that no man should glory. Man's pride is his crowning sin. He must have somewhat in which to glory.

20:35 If not in his supposed superior character as the Pharisee in Luke 18, it will be in his religious performances as the Pharisee in that same passage. If not these, he will boast in his decision or in his wisdom in choosing Christ as we so often hear in our own day. But man must have something upon which he can lay his hand and say, this contributed to my acceptance with God. This contributed to my finding favor with God.

21:11 God's salvation comes in this stream of pure grace that says the cause of your forgiveness, your deliverance, your quickening and all of the blessings we've already expounded lies solely in myself and in my son. It is wholly undeserved, unsolicited by anything you are, anything you can do, undeserved. Grace comes giving.

21:38 And the sinner says, I will not be saved on those terms. I must contribute something. There must be some area where I can point and say, this moved God to give it to me. This triggered my entrance into it. Salvation by pure grace, the human heart will have nothing of it because salvation by pure grace utterly strips the human heart of every last vestige of pride as our text says. But God's concern is to keep that stream of grace pure at the inlet. Therefore every man who is saved by the grace of God must understand that his salvation is all of grace. Verses 8 and 9 then are like a sentry guarding the inlet.

22:29 Verses 8 and 9 are like a sentry guarding the inlet that no one shall defile it. Look at the words. For by grace ye have been saved. And even the word orderers will see next week is emphatic. He could have said, for you are saved by grace. And the emphasis would have been, ye are saved. But he says, oh, I want you to get the emphasis. And in the original it just leaps out at you.

22:54 For by the grace you have been saved. Never think of your salvation under any other shadow but the shadow of grace.

23:05 By means of faith. Aha, someone says, that's something we do. We contribute our faith. Paul says parenthetically, and that not of yourselves, of God is the gift.

23:21 Ah, but there is something not of works that no man should glory. Do you see what an effective sentry verses 8 and 9 are to preserving the inlet? They say, no, grace comes as grace to the sinner. Grace unmixed with any human effort.

Guarding the Outlet: Grace Producing Good Works (Verse 10)

23:42 But now what about verse 10? Well, that's God's sentry on the outlet. For you see, there is a devilish logic which says, if I'm saved on the basis of the doings of another, then what I do is of no importance. In the words of Scripture, let us sin that grace may abound.

24:01 Or again in the words of Scripture, let us turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, a license for sin. Well, you see, the sentry guarding the outlet of grace is verse 10. Having told us that we are saved by grace, pure grace, grace that was even operative in the impartation of faith, and I'm fully aware of the problems of the mixed genders, and I'm prepared to speak to those problems next week. For any who aren't here, I'm aware of the problem, but I'm convinced with the great traditional exegesis of the most competent Greek scholars that it's proper to say that not of yourselves does indeed refer to faith. I'll support that.

24:44 I'll just assert today and support and prove next week. But now we come to verse 10. There's the grace that comes to the man. What will man by nature do? He'll say, alright, I'm content to be saved by grace, but since I'm saved, by the merits of another, by the work of another, by the worth of another, then it doesn't matter how I live. And you have that cursed, abusive grace throughout the history of the church turning the grace of God into license. Now look what verse 10 says. For we are His workmanship.

25:16 If God has taken hold of you in grace, you're the product of His almighty created work. And if He has done a work in you, He has created you in union with Christ unto good works which He afore prepared that you should walk in them. The grace of God can never be turned into license because the only positive proof that grace has come in pure at the inlet is that it flows out pure at the outlet in a life of holiness out of gratitude to the forgiving God. Oh, do you see the beauty of this passage? I've just been thrilled through and through. In meditating upon it this week to see the doctrine of the grace of God guarded that great stream at the inlet with the century of verses 8 and 9, at the outlet with the century of verse 10.

Historical Examples of Polluting Grace

26:15 Now that I'm not building too much on these verses, may I simply remind you that this was the great problem encountered in the very first years of the proclamation of the apostolic gospel. What's what is the book of Galatians? The book of Galatians is an extended attack upon those who were trying to pollute the inlet. They were saying, no, no, not saved by pure grace.

26:45 You've got to put a little Jewish circumcision in there. You've got to put some ceremonial works and you've got to put the keeping of days and months and years and Paul waxes vehemence, not a word strong enough. He becomes almost like a man possessed. It is logic was not so clear and his reasoning so close and well developed. You'd say he'd gone mad in his viciousness. He says, let God damn any man who would pervert the stream at the inlet. That's what he says in the first few verses. Let any man be a curse who would throw the dung of human effort, the refuse of even God ordained ceremonies from the Old Testament. Any

27:32 man who says you must do, you must become in order to be accepted. Paul says, if anyone preaches that gospel, let him be accursed of God. In the book of Galatians is this violent spirit directed attack upon those who would pollute the inlet.

27:55 But early in the Christian church, there were those who were defiling the outlet.

28:00 The book of 1 John. If a man say, I know him and keeps not his commandment, he's a liar. If we say that we know him, and we hate our brother, we lie, and the truth is not in us. John is attacking those who professed to have grace come in its pure, refreshing streams into their hearts.

28:23 But it was not flowing out in lives of godliness and conformity to the law of God. He says, you know nothing of grace. The whole book of James. That's the purpose of the book of James. People say, oh yeah, we're saved by grace through faith. James says, is that so? Has that faith been productive of works of obedience and godliness? If not, it is the faith of demons, not the faith of God's elect. That faith of which God is the giver.

28:57 And very early in the history of the church, we find man's inbred disposition to fight grace clearly expressed in apostolic history. And that's been the history of the church down through the centuries.

29:13 And one of the saddest things is to trace in church history how the stream at various periods in the life of the church has been polluted at the inlet or polluted at the outlet. And when men are trying to clear it up at the outlet, it isn't long before in their efforts to do this, they've allowed so many enemies to begin to pollute it at the inlet. And while men are guarding it at the inlet, it becomes polluted at the outlet. Isn't that church history with reference to the doctrine of justification and sanctification?

29:49 While men are fighting to preserve the freeness of grace in the period of the Reformation, along them come the fanatic antinomians who say we have no relationship to the written word, no relationship to the law, no relationship to the civil government. We just do what the Holy Ghost tells us. It's amazing what the Holy Ghost was telling them to do. Sleep with other men's wives, and every other form of licentious living. What happened?

30:18 They were so guarding the inlet, the outlet became defiled. Then there is a reaction, and people say, no, there must be holiness of life, there must be obedience, there must be piety. But you know what happened before long? People began to think that their exercises of prayer and fasting and self-denial and their works even done according to the Scripture somehow earned merit.

30:39 And before long, the preciousness of free grace was lost at the inlet. My friends, we could spend hours just giving historic examples. And God has given us in Ephesians 2, 8-10 what I believe is an adequate antidote to polluting influences. He's let it outlet! And that's why I plead with you, if you've never given yourself with holy abandonment to the study of a portion of the Word of God that you'll cry to God for the illumination of the Holy Ghost, and you'll bend every faculty of mind and spirit to these verses, because I assert again, the person who understands the meaning of the words, the thoughts of the phrases, the relationship of one to another, has in his hands a theology of grace that under the blessing of the Holy Ghost will preserve him from pollutions at the inlet and at the outlet.

Pastoral Appeals: Embrace God's Indictment and Master the Compendium

31:46 Now I appeal to your conscience this morning, and my appeal to your conscience is this. Have you ever taken seriously what God says about you in verses 1-3? Look in your Bibles.

32:01 When ye were dead, ye once walked according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the powers of the air,

32:13 among whom we all lived in the lust of our flesh. We were by nature children of wrath. My friend, sitting here this morning, sitting downstairs in the overflow room, there in the balcony, have you ever taken seriously this incisive indictment against you? Almighty God says this is what you are by nature. Dead, bound under the canopy of divine wrath and indignation.

32:45 If you've ever taken that seriously,

32:49 then you know if your deliverance is ever to come, it's got to come from a source outside of yourself. And the only way the biblical doctrine of grace is maintained as a living principle and conviction in the hearts of any people who profess to be a body of Christians is if the indictment of verses 1-3 is taken seriously.

33:15 Men do not wish a salvation of pure grace. They start by minimizing the plight that we're in. Men know better than to say, alright, let's pollute the stream by simply coming with a big bucket of garbage and throwing it in, saying, man's works, man's merit, man's activity. No, no, they come more subtly and they begin to pollute the stream by just injecting a little question mark over the seriousness of how bad man is in his natural state. Well, dead is just a figure. He's not quite dead. He's just sort of in a coma.

34:03 Is it? My friend, listen. If you value your soul, you better take seriously God's harsh words against you. For until you've embraced them, His sweet words to you in the gospel will be despised and ignored and cast aside as of no account.

34:25 And I say to you as a church, committed with an awesome responsibility for the defense and proclamation of the gospel in this generation, and I pray God for unborn generations, hold to tenaciously to the obvious meaning of verses one to three in this passage. For the minute you begin to soft-pedal any of the ugly reality of what it is to be dead, to be bound, to be condemned, it won't be long before the words by grace are ye saved, if used at all, will have been bled of their true biblical vigor and of their majestic glory. The second word I would address to your conscience is this. If you have any real regard for the maintenance of the truth of the gospel in your generation,

35:26 then do not rest content with indistinct vague notions of the grace of God.

35:37 Pure religion is maintained in any individual or group of individuals only so far as the nature, the means, the immediate results of salvation by grace are understood as we have in this passage.

35:59 One of the tragic fruits of mental laziness is that of sowing the seeds of departure from God's truth.

36:12 You see, if you just have some vague notion of grace and how it works in the salvation of sinners, as opposed to a clear understanding of every word here in Ephesians 8-10, every phrase, the relationship of one to another, you see some smooth talking person who uses the words grace will be able to begin to undermine the real truth of the doctrine of grace, and you won't detect it. He'll say all of grace, but faith is your part.

36:51 Or as one liberal said to a man who was speaking as an evangelical,

36:56 trumping up the cause of free will, he said, it seems to me, sir, we used to call it the spark of divinity, you just give it a different term. But it's the same old thing. It's something we bring to the process of salvation. The old liberal had a lot of discernment.

37:11 He said, we called it the spark of divinity. You point a finger at us and say, no spark of divinity! He says, you just call it by a different name. Free will. That poor liberal man had more discernment than many evangelicals. Why? Spiritual laziness. Master this compendium.

Taste the Sweetness of Grace

37:32 And my final word addressed to your conscience is this. You will never appreciate this compendium of grace unless you've begun to taste the sweetness of grace in your own heart. Oh, my friend, can you say this morning, sitting in this place with some little degree of understanding and true heart experience, amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

38:06 I once was lost. I once was blood. I once was dead. I once was bound.

38:20 But grace has wrought deliverance. Or in the words of Charles Wesley, can you say long? My imprisoned spirit lay fast bound by sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off. He didn't say I sat there with the pincers of free will and cut them. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went out and did as I pleased.

39:01 I rose, went forth, and what? Followed thee. There's grace in its purity at the inlet. God came in grace.

39:13 God broke my chains. God set me free. And the same God who set me free disposed my heart to walk in those works which he before ordained as his will for me. Dear ones, verses 8 to 10 of Ephesians 2 are God's inspired compendium of the doctrine of the grace of God.

39:39 May the Lord move us to pray and to study until we have mastered its contents and its contents have mastered us. Let us pray.