Faith is NOT a gift (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Is faith a gift?

If it is, then God must decide who can be saved and who cannot be saved. If He gives you the gift of faith, you will believe and be saved. If He does not give you the gift of faith, you cannot believe and be saved. Therefore, it would seem that Calvinism may be the preferred soteriological view.

But, is faith a gift? It sure seems like it when we read Ephesians 2:8-9.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

If we put this verse under greater scrutiny, we might find out that it says something entirely different. Let’s break it down a bit to understand it better.

The big question is this: To what do “that” and “it” refer? If “faith” is the antecedent, then faith is a gift. We might further assume that it is a gift that God only gives to some people. On the other hand, the antecedent could be “grace,” making grace the gift.

I would like to first point out that the word “it” is not in the original language. The verse actually reads like this: and that not of yourselves, of God the gift.

So, we have to focus on the word “that.” Herein lies the interesting factor: in Greek, both “grace” and “faith” are feminine words, whereas “that” is neuter. Apparently, “that” does not then refer to either “grace” or “faith.”

It seems to me, then, that the word “that” (and, in English, “it”) refer to the whole preceding phrase, which describes salvation.

The phrase “For by grace you have been saved through faith” is the plan of salvation, and that is the gift of God. It is not something we can provide for ourselves.

The “gift of God,” then, is the plan of salvation—the gospel.

This gospel is available to us through grace, but applied to us through faith. It is of grace because we have done nothing to deserve it, in which case it would be a reward rather than grace. And if we had to earn it, it would not be grace because the best we could do is fail miserably. Neither would it be good news to offer me something that I cannot afford. God’s offer, however, is good news. We cannot afford it, but that’s OK because the price has been paid. For us, it’s free.

God makes salvation available to everyone through grace, but it is only applied by faith. Faith, by the way, is not a system of religious works. It’s more like a response.

God’s grace offers the gift of salvation; it’s up to us to choose if we want to apply it to us through faith.

That is why it is “gospel”—good news. We cannot earn it, so God, in His grace, gives is to us freely. We just have to accept it by faith.

Special note: Some point out that we can find a neuter pronoun pointing back to a feminine antecedent in other places in the Bible and ancient texts (one New Testament possibility is Philippians 1:27-30, which to me seems comparable to Ephesians 2:8). Even if this were true, I have attempted to show that at the very least, Ephesians 2:8 can be interpreted without a Calvinistic frame of reference.