1. What does this verse teach about salvation?
Eph 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God– not because of works, lest any man should boast.
2. What do you understand by the word grace?
The following verses may help us to understand what grace is not.
Rom 11:6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
Rom 4:4-5 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (KJV)
If grace is not that, then what is grace?
3. What do you understand by the word works?
Eph 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God– not because of works, lest any man should boast.
Tit 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost (KJV)
4. Why must salvation be through faith and not works?
Rom 3: 22-24 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Isa 64:6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags. (KJV)
5. Why do Paul and James seem to contradict each other on whether faith alone without works is sufficient to save us?
Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God– not because of works, lest any man should boast.
Jam 2:14 What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?
Since the Bible cannot contradict itself, how do we reconcile these two seemingly contradictory statements?
6. If salvation is by faith, why did the Bible say that Abraham was justified by works?
Jam 2:21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?
Answer is in the following verse:
Jam 2:22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works.
7. Does relying on faith to save us mean that we are not interested in doing good?
John 14:15″If you love me, you will obey what I command.
8. If a person be saved and yet not have the slightest evidence of moral uprightness in his life?
2 Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
9. Whose righteousness do we rely on to save us?
Rom 5: 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
(1 Cor 1:30 NIV) It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God–that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
10. Can we rely on another person’s righteousness to save us?
Rom 3: 10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one.
Isa 64: 6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
Ps 49: 7-9 No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him- the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough- that he should live on forever and not see decay.
947 “Since all the faithful form one body, the good of each is communicated to the others…. We must therefore believe that there exists a communion of goods in the Church.
11. Is it possible for one to lose his salvation?
According to this verse, we are saved through what?
Eph 2:8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.
If faith is the key to salvation, how could we lose this salvation?
12. Does the Bible teach that we can lose our salvation through repeated sinning?
Do the verses below teach that we can lose our salvation through sinning?
Heb 10:26If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?