Salvation by grace through faith is not from us

Part of C's Sermon. H. Spurgeon released Thursday, 7 October 1915 al Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

“BY THANK YOU ARE SAVED BY FAITH; AND THAT DOESN'T COME FROM YOU: IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD” Ephesians 2:8

Salvation and faith and all the works of Grace, they don't come to us. First of all they are not due to our ancient merits: they are not the reward of old good attempts. No person not “born again” he lived so well that God is forced to give him a further grace and give him eternal life; in other words, he is no longer far from Grace, but from debt. Salvation is given to us, not earned by us. Our first life is always like a wandering away from God and our new life of returning to God is always a work of undeserved mercy, poured out on those who greatly need it, but they never deserved it. It doesn't come from us, in the most ancestral meaning, that is, it does not come from our originally demonstrated skill. Salvation comes from above; it is never produced among us. Can Eternal Life be produced from the bare ribs of death?

Some challenge us to say that faith in Christ is the new birth, they are only the consequence of good works, which are produced secretly in us by nature; but in this, like their father, they talk about themselves.

Gentlemen, if an heir of anger produces good works, it will get better and better to go… in the place prepared for the devil and his angels!

You can take an unborn man again and educate him in the best way, but he remains and must remain forever, died in sin, unless a higher power will come into him and save him from himself. Grace brings a completely foreign element into the heart. It does not improve and it does not perpetuate; kills and vivifies. There is no continuity between the state of nature and the state of Grace: one is darkness and the other is light; one is death and the other is life. The grace, when it comes to us, it is like an ember dropped into the sea, where it would certainly go out, was it not of some miraculous quality that prevents flooding and superimposes its realm of fire and light in the depths.

Salvation by Grace, through faith it does not come to us in the sense that it is the result of our power. We are obligated to see salvation as a divine act, that is, as a creation, or a providence, or a resurrection. At any point in the process of salvation this phrase is suitable: “It doesn't come from you”. From the first desire for salvation to its full reception through faith, this is always and only from God and not from us. Man believes, but that faith is only a result of a stronger implantation of divine life in the midst of man's soul by God Himself. Even the greater willingness to be saved by Grace does not come from us, but it is the gift of God. Here lies the crux of the matter.

Let's take a man who doesn't believe in Jesus at all: it would be his duty to receive Jesus, who would be the One whom God sent as a propitiation for the sins of the world. But that man will never believe in Jesus; he prefers anything to faith in his Redeemer. That man does not have the heart to believe in Jesus for eternal life, unless the Spirit of God convinces him of judgment and compels his will.

I ask that some saved person look back on his conversion and explain how it happened. You turned to Christ and believed in His Name: these were your acts and deeds. But what did this conversion cause you?? What sacred power converted you from sin to righteousness?
You attribute this singular renewal to yourself, or the existence of something better than you that has not yet been discovered in your unconverted neighbor? No. Confess, that you would be what he is now, if it hadn't been for something powerful that the springtime of His will communicated to you, enlightened your understanding and guided you to the foot of the cross.

With gratitude we confess the episode; it was like that. Salvation by Grace, through faith it is not of us and none of us would dream of bringing any glory to us following our conversion, or to any other effect of Grace that has flowed from the first divine cause.