Ephesians 2:8
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God
Reflection: Question #27… A doozy!
Written By: Pastor Jesse Caro
Question: How does the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ?
Answer: The Spirit applies the redemption purchased by Christ to us by working faith in us and thereby uniting us to Christ.
This is a “doozy” of a theological question. Here is the gist: Christ paid for our redemption, but how is that redemption applied to us? That is: what is needed in order for that redemption to be applied to us? Okay… the answer to that is faith. In other words, faith is what is needed in order for us have the redemption of the cross applied to us.
Are you with me so far?
The tricky part of this answer is in a small detail. The answer says that “The Spirit applies the redemption purchased by Christ to us by working faith in us.” Did you catch that!? The Spirit works faith in us. Ephesians says that the faith is a gift from God (in addition to our own salvation). That means that the very faith we have did not come from us. We did not invent it. We were gifted faith by the Spirit of God… and we applied that faith in the direction of God such that we eventually received the redemption God offers. I am amazed by this… namely that even the very element of faith was a gift from God. We apply this faith towards Christ, but that faith is part of his gift. I suppose I would like to urge you to consider how profound salvation is. The gift of salvation is not just great because God gave us freedom from hell and sin, or that Christ gives us eternal life with him. Salvation is great even in the small details, like this one: the faith you have for God is in itself a gracious gift! Praise be to God!
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that we have been saved through faith, and that it is all a gift from you, unmerited and undeserved.
