The Weight of Every Word

In 1881, B.B. Warfield sat in his Princeton study, examining the Greek text of Ephesians 2:8-9 with painstaking precision. Every word mattered. Every tense carried theological freight. Paul did not write loosely. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he chose "saved" in the perfect tense — a completed action with enduring results. Not "being saved," not "might be saved." Done. Finished. Accomplished.

Consider what the text actually says, word by word. "By grace" — the unmerited favor of a holy God toward sinners who deserve wrath. "Through faith" — the instrument, never the cause. "And that not of yourselves" — lest anyone smuggle human contribution through the back door. "It is the gift of God" — sovereign, free, unearned. "Not of works" — and Paul slams the door shut — "lest anyone should boast."

This is not a suggestion. It is not poetry open to private interpretation. It is propositional truth, breathed out by God Himself, preserved without error in the autographic text. When Scripture speaks, God speaks. And here God declares with unmistakable clarity that salvation originates entirely in His grace, received entirely through faith, and produces zero ground for human boasting.

If you trust the Bible completely, then trust it here completely. You cannot earn what God has freely given. Rest the full weight of your soul on the inerrant Word — and on the grace it so precisely proclaims.