When it comes to our salvation from sin, it is essential that we understand the source of this salvation! It comes from GOD!
The grace of God is wonderfully beautiful and so desperately needed! What is grace? Greek scholars define the term as “favor and kindness which bestows upon one what he has not deserved; the favor, grace and goodness of God to man, of the worthy to the unworthy, of the holy to the sinful.” Think about those words. A short definition of grace is “unmerited favor.” It involves man receiving from God what he does not deserve. Our God is an awesome God!
Scripture affirms the only way that man can be saved from sin is by the grace of God. None of us deserve this! Twice in Ephesians 2, the Scripture states, “By grace you have been saved” (2:5, 8). Scripture also affirms that this grace is available to all. “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men” (Tit. 2:11). God wants every human being to be a recipient of His gracious salvation. However and unfortunately, not everyone will be. A person’s receipt of God’s saving grace is not something that was arbitrarily and unconditionally predestined by God, but it is dependent on how one responds to the gospel.
Look carefully at these passages. We can only be “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). Did you notice where God’s grace is extended? It’s the same place as stated in First Timothy 1:14, “The grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant…in Christ Jesus.” One must be “IN Christ Jesus” in order to be saved by the grace of God.
One is saved by grace but not by grace alone. If salvation was actually by grace alone, then all would be saved, for God’s grace has “appeared to all men” (Tit. 2:11). But the rest of that text shows us that salvation by grace is accessed by obeying its “teaching” (2:12). Did you know that God’s grace is “teaching” us how to obtain it? We obtain His grace “through faith” (Eph. 2:8). We obtain His grace “through the washing of regeneration” in baptism (Tit. 3:5-7). We must meet the God-given conditions to get “in Christ” (Rom. 3:24; 6:3) to access the God-given grace.
There is no doubt that it is impossible for man to earn or merit his salvation. Salvation is a “gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). The Greek word for “gift” in this verse signifies a gift which involves a “sacrifice”—God sacrificed His Son as a “gift” for our salvation.” Wow! Man does not earn or deserve this “free gift” (cf. Rom. 6:23), but he can “access…into this grace” (Rom. 5:1-2) by a proper response to God’s revealed will.