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16th January 2026
FridayReflection
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'Kendrick Diaz offers'
writer at Life, Hope & Truthg
'The Meaning of Ephesians 2:8
"By Grace You Have Been
Saved"?'
Some twist this verse to say something it doesn't. What saves a person?
What is required of a person to be saved?
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God."
Tragically, 'grace' has a lengthy history of being misunderstood and distorted.
According to Jude 1:4, the first-century Church faced "ungodly men" who perverted God's grace into "lewdness," or a "license for immorality," as the Berean Study Bible translates it.
Their flawed reasoning was that grace permitted, even encouraged, people to continue to lead sinful lives.
But, as we will see, this is totally contrary to what the Bible actually says about grace.
Many now believe that the only prerequisite for receiving God's grace and salvation is to (as it's commonly put) "trust in the finished work of Christ."
In other words, all someone needs to do is believe.
To suggest that there is nothing else to grace and salvation besides belief is a dangerous conclusion and an oversimplification of everything those concepts entail.
Grace comes from the Greek word charis, which at its core refers to God's gift of undeserved favour.
This phrase tells us how salvation is achieved: "by grace."
Notice Paul doesn't say we are saved "by merit" or "because we are so good."
On the contrary, Paul, speaking for all human beings, openly admits,
"I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells"
Paul has been making a contrast - what we did versus what God did, what we deserve versus what God has given us.
Our lives were directly influenced by Satan, and had nothing changed, our behaviour was going to take us straight into the lake of fire - the second death.
All of this, Paul says, resulted in our earning God's holy, righteous wrath (verse 3).
So, what happened?
Two words: "But God."
Grace comes from God's love and mercy.
It has nothing to do with whatever spiritual report card we may think we have.
Once-saved-always-saved proponents like to point to this part of Ephesians 2:8 as irrefutable proof of the so-called 'eternal security' doctrine.
The teaching basically states that once a person accepts Jesus, he or she is - from that point on - heaven bound without any fear of losing salvation.
Besides the fact that the Bible does not teach that we go to heaven when we die, does this verse prove that salvation is a one-and-done experience?
That there is a past aspect to salvation is undeniable - as this verse plainly shows - but there is more to the story that many in mainstream Christianity do not understand.
The same Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:1-2,
"Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel [of grace] I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you" (English Standard Version).
Notice he uses the phrase "being saved."
He describes salvation as something that is actively happening. It's ongoing.
But then in Romans 5:9 Paul says,
"Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him."
Here salvation is described as something that happens in the future.
So, which is it? Past, present or future?
By putting all of these scriptures together, we learn the fundamental truth that salvation is a three-step process - not something that happens all at once.
Salvation occurs in three stages:
You "have been saved" through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism and receiving of the Holy Spirit.
You are "being saved" through daily repentance of your personal sins as you strive to put them out of your life.
You "shall be saved" when Jesus returns and you're given a spiritual body with eternal life.
This is an edited version.
The full article is avaiable on request
'Kendrick Diaz'
is a full-time writer at the Life, Hope & Truth offices in McKinney, Texas.
He spends his workdays writing blog posts and articles for Discern magazine and LifeHopeandTruth.com
Kendrick attends the Sherman, Texas, congregation of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association.
He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.
He found his passion for teaching and writing while in high school and eventually went on to earn a bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in education from the University of California, Riverside.
He enjoys teaching English, but his favorite subject to teach is the Bible.
He takes pleasure in striving to convey biblical truths in a manner that is plain and easy-to-understand.
As the Church of God,
a Worldwide Association, our job is to share that message with the world and then care for those who respond to it - to give them a place to grow and flourish.
We are a community, a brotherhood of believers, marching together toward a common goal - the future promised to us by God.
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