Summary: Ephesians 2 indicates that faith does not initiate our salvation; rather, God initiates it, and after He makes us alive, He saves us through our faith.
Text: Eph 2:1-10
Before we were saved we were “dead”, and “children of wrath, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind”; then all of a sudden, “even though we were dead, made us alive”. What made that change in us? Was it our own desire for God? No, because our desires were as described before. Was it our own faith? No; how could faith, which is conditioned on believing God and desiring the rewards He gives to “those who diligently seek him”, be present in a “dead” “child of wrath”?
Something happened, and Paul describes it: God “made us alive together with Christ.” God didn’t wait for our faith, because if he had, we’d still be as much children of wrath and as dead as we were in verse 1. After God quickened us, He didn’t wait for further assent or understanding; He “raised us up with Him and seated us in the heavenly realms…” (Eph 2:5-6). He did this graciously (which means of his own free will), not out of obligation because their faith earned it; this is clear from the meaning of grace, and also evident from this passage, in which faith is not invoked to explain this bringing alive.
So faith's presence in us is due to the gift of God, and is part of the gift of God that constitutes our salvation. And remember, whatever that gift is, NONE of it is something we get by our own effort, “lest any man should boast.”
