Page 25 - Discipleship Ministries Student E-Book

God gives that dead person faith. Faith comes wholly from God and man, without God’s gift of faith,
CANNOT believe, because he is dead. They claim that Ephesians 2:8 declares that faith is a gift from
God. They interpret this verse this way: “You have been saved by grace through faith, and the faith you
have is not of yourselves, but the faith is a gift from God...” They say that the Holy Spirit will give faith to
those who are the elect of God. Those who are pre-damned will not be given the gift of faith from the
Holy Spirit. Since they are dead, they will die in their sins. A few are chosen, but the majority are not.

Now let’s look at our interlinear verse above and see if this verse supports this errant doctrine. Note
that the first noun phrase is “by grace.” The other noun of importance is “faith” and the importance
phrase, “it is of God”. So, let’s look at these words in detail.

The word, “grace” is N-DFS which means Noun – dative, feminine, singular. Nouns have number (either
singular or plural), gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and case (nominative, genitive, dative,
accusative, or vocative). So, the key here is “grace” is feminine in gender. The word “faith” is N-GFS
meaning noun, genitive, feminine, singular. The key is that the word “faith” is feminine. Now the next
important word phrase is “this is not of yourself.” The important thing we need to find out is whether
the word “this” is referring to “FAITH” or “GRACE.” If it is referring to faith, then God has to give us the
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faith to believe.

The Greek word for “this” is, “touto” and is listed at DPro-NNS which means, demonstrative pronoun,
nominative, neuter, singular. The important part of this is that the word, “this” is neuter, not feminine.
So, since it is neuter, it cannot be referring to “faith” which is feminine. The antecedent of “it is the gift
of God “ is salvation by grace through faith (verse 9). It is SALVATION BY GRACE, which is the gift of God,
not the faith to believe.

We can conclude that man can exercise FAITH or belief in Christ of his free will. It is a choice. That
makes sense since John 3:16 is an invitation to any person to believe in Him and receive eternal life. In
Hebrews chapter 11 we read of the faith dozens of people had and that faith was “reckoned” unto them
as righteousness. Each of the persons listed are honored because of their faith and belief in the
promises of God.

Commenting on this passage, the great New Testament Greek scholar, A. T. Robertson noted:
“Grace” is God’s part; “faith” is ours. … So, the act of being saved by grace is conditioned upon faith on
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our part.”

This verse, using our small understanding of the Greek language, does not support the Calvinistic view
that men are dead and cannot believe, but rather states all men can be saved by an act of free will, if
they will reach out to Christ by faith, and believe. Remember, God is not willing that any perish, but
every man come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9)

At the Great White Throne Judgment, every lost man will stand before God to be judged. No man will
be able to say to God, “This is unfair because you never gave me faith to believe.” Each person will
stand judged because he chose not to believe. Whosoever believes will receive eternal life. Whosoever
who DOES NOT believed, will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. (John 3:16-18)

12 See Norman Geisler’s book, Chosen but Free, p. 228-229 for validating explanation
13 A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament – see Chosen but Free, p. 229

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