Ephesians 2:8–9 is one of the clearest statements in the New Testament of how a person is saved:

For by the grace you have been saved through faith; and this [is] not from you; of God [is] the gift;

Ephesians 2:8 · Open Word Bible, Literal Read it with the reasoning →

The Literal level keeps one small word that has been argued over for centuries: “this”. This is not from you. But what is not from you? Grace? Faith? Or something larger?

Three candidates

The word is τοῦτο. In the sentence before it there are two obvious things it might point back to, χάριτί (“grace”) and πίστεως (“faith”). Some readers have taken it to mean that faith itself is God’s gift; others, that grace is.

The record for the verse decides that “this” is the whole of what Paul has just said: being saved, by grace, through faith. Three reasons are given:

  • Gender. Greek nouns are masculine, feminine or neuter, and a word that points back to a noun normally matches it. “Grace” and “faith” are both feminine. “This” is neuter, which is how Paul often points back to a whole statement rather than one word (compare Philippians 1:28).
  • What follows. The thing in question is “not from you”, it is “God’s gift”, and in verse 9 it is “not from works”. That last phrase does not fit faith on its own. It fits salvation as a whole.
  • The point of the passage. From verse 1 Paul has been saying that the readers were dead and God made them alive. The emphasis is on God: the Greek puts θεοῦ (“God’s”) first in its clause, against ἐξ ὑμῶν (“from you”).

Faith is part of what is given. But Paul’s point is that salvation, from first to last, comes from God. The decision is not marked uncertain, and a footnote mentions the other readings.

Saying it in English

Here the English wording has real work to do. Put “this is not from you” directly after “through faith”, and most readers will hear “this” as “faith”. The English is less clear than the Greek, which has the gender to guide the reader.

So the Balanced level says “None of this”, which points to the whole statement:

For it is by this grace that you have been saved, through faith. None of this comes from you; it is God’s gift.

Ephesians 2:8 · Open Word Bible, Balanced Read it with the reasoning →

Readable names it outright:

You have been saved because of God’s grace, and it came to you through faith. Being saved does not come from you. God gives it as a gift.

Ephesians 2:8 · Open Word Bible, Readable Read it with the reasoning →

Notice the division of labour. The meaning decision, what “this” refers to, is made once and shared by every language. The rendering decisions, “None of this” and “Being saved”, are English choices about how to make that meaning clear. A Spanish or Swahili translation starts from the same meaning and solves its own wording problem. See Showing our work for how the two layers fit together.

Verse 9

Verse 9 finishes the thought:

It is not the result of what anyone has done, so there is no room for anyone to boast.

Ephesians 2:9 · Open Word Bible, Balanced Read it with the reasoning →

“Works” here has no qualifier, unlike “works of the law” in Galatians, and Paul is writing to Gentiles as well as Jews. So the record takes it to mean anything people do that might be thought to earn God’s favour. Verse 10 shows that good works still matter: they are the result of salvation, not its cause.

Open Ephesians 2 and tap verse 8 to see the whole record.