Saved FOR (not BY) Good Works – EGP Blog post from September 5, 2012

Ephesians 2:8–10 (NASB)

^[8] For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that° not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ^[9] not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. ^[10] For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Ephesians 2:8 I.e. that salvation

We are not saved BY good works, but FOR good works. If it was by works, then “grace is no longer grace.” Yet, James tells us that “faith without works is dead” and that we are “justified by works and not by faith alone.” So what’s the deal?

Justification is defined as “to show (an act, claim, statement, etc.) to be just or right; to show a satisfactory reason or excuse for something done.” So, while we are not saved or “made right with God” BY our works, they SHOW that we are saved. That being said, we are not to do good works so that people will see them and glorify us, but so that people will see them and glorify God!