Salvation
by James Morison
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.” - Ephesians 2:8
Calvin supposed that it is not faith but salvation that is said in Ephesians 2:8 to be the gift of God. We presume, however, that it is to faith that the Apostle parenthetically refers. And we conceive that he is drawing attention to the fact that we are indebted to the grace or lovingkindness of God not only for the Saviour and for the salvation which he procured, but likewise for the link of connection that unites us to the Saviour and thus makes us partakers of the great salvation.
Not that the Apostle means to constrain us into the conviction that we are utterly passive in the matter of faith. It would be no glory to God if we were merely acted on and did not act. Our responsibility would be gone. We would be things, not persons. It is necessary that we be more than mere recipients and cisterns. We are well-springs of living activity. And assuredly we act, and act voluntarily, when we send out our thought believingly to the Glorious Object who is revealed in the glorious Gospel of God's grace.
There is indeed something involuntary in faith. We cannot absolutely determine what we shall believe and what we shall not believe. Evidence is sometimes overwhelming, and we must believe, however strongly we might desire to come to a different conclusion. But in multitudes of cases we are required to go in quest of evidence, or if it is brought to us and spread out before us, we are required to direct our minds to its consideration. We are required to sift and measure it, and to weigh detail after detail. If there be apparently conflicting evidence, we are required to consider it too. Hence the need for voluntary activity. And hence it is that men are accountable for their belief or for their unbelief in reference to the Gospel of salvation.
Faith in the Gospel is the gift of God, in a sense consistent with our voluntary activity and accountability. The facilities for faith are from God. All the grand inducements are from Him. The chief motives are from Him. It is He who gives the light. It is He who draws the heart, though he will not drag it. "No man can come to me," says Jesus, "except the Father who has sent me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day." But he immediately adds, in a way that is finely explanatory of what he means by drawing, "as it is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that has heard and has learned of the Father comes unto me" (John 6:44,45).
It is thus in the way of teaching that the Father draws. He reveals realities by his Holy Spirit and presses them home upon human attention by the same divine Spirit, so that whenever anyone believes he is ready to lift up his heart adoringly and gratefully to his Heavenly Father and to say, It is through thy grace that I see, and understand, and believe! It is through thy grace that I am what I am! Unto thee be all the glory.
