Many of our Protestant brothers and sisters will point to Ephesians 2:8-9 as their “silver bullet” Scripture verse to attack the Catholic understanding of faith and works. See, for example, this blog post.
The verse says this, “By grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not because of works, lest any man should boast.”
Protestants will emphasize that the text says that salvation is “not because of works” and that only “faith” is mentioned as saving us. They will use this verse as a passage against the sacrament of baptism, saying that such a ritual is a “work.”
Let’s look at the context of Ephesians 2 to understand this verse.
Back up a few verses and read Ephesians 2:5, which says, “Even when we were dead through our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ.” St. Paul is emphasizing to the Ephesian community that they used to be living in sin, separated from God (v. 16), and devoid of Christ’s life-giving Spirit (v. 18). They were a pagan city, just like every other city. However, when they “were” (past tense) dead, stuck in the mud of sin, God showed up. God came and gave them life and cleansed them of their sins.
Paul preached to the Ephesians about Christ coming to reconcile God to man, and the Ephesians accepted this message. They took Christ as their teacher, got baptized (Eph. 4:5, 5:26-27), received the Spirit (2:18), and became Christians.
Let’s now hop into verse 8. “For by grace you have been saved . . .”
The text says that when the Ephesians were saved, they were saved by “grace”—meaning that it was God’s gift to them, through Paul. The Ephesians did not do any works to “get” Paul to preach to them. They did not do any works to “get” Christ to die for them. Their salvation was simply a present from God for them to be reconciled to him.
Catholics agree with this, for the initial grace of salvation is completely unmerited. The initial transfer from death to life has nothing to do with works. As the Council of Trent says, “none of those things which precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace itself of justification” (session 6, chapter 8). The grace comes as a gift and is received through faith. Read more on the ancient understanding of “grace” here.
From here, the text says that the Ephesians were saved by grace “through faith.” Catholics agree with this as well. To be saved, the Ephesians entered into the Christian faith by believing Paul’s gospel message to them. God’s gift of salvation from sin and death was immediately received first by faith—faith, in part, that there is a spiritual world filled with invisible realities, such as Jesus, who offers a new way of life towards a new goal (heaven).
The salvation of the Ephesians was not because of how good and godly they were, so they have zero ability to boast or act superior to other cities. The gospel is offered free of charge to absolutely any person, regardless of his goodness. God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth (1 Tim. 2:4).
However, this does not mean that works are unnecessary after coming to faith. For the Greek word for faith, pistis, means both “faith” and “faithfulness” (see Rom. 3:3). Scripture scholar N.T. Wright says, “Indeed, very often the word ‘faith’ itself could properly be translated as ‘faithfulness’” (160). In fact, Theresa Morgan’s Oxford book Roman Faith and Christian Faith covers how the Greek Old Testament word for “faith” is a virtue and includes the other virtues of hope and obedience! Faith is an umbrella term.
So the Ephesian people received the gift of salvation by believing the gospel, but the implication is that such a gift is preserved in their lives by staying faithful to that gospel. A life of faith and faithfulness is essential to Paul’s message.
If the Ephesians were to act unfaithfully toward the gospel, then they would destroy their present from God. Paul says, “Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Eph. 5:5). Staying faithful to the gospel maintains your salvation. Serious sins of immorality, impurity, and idolatry result in God the Father refusing to gift his children their inheritance of heaven. Being unfaithful to the gospel damages your salvation.
What about the “work” of baptism? Some Protestants will include the sacrament of baptism under Paul’s condemnation of “works” here. To respond to that, I would suggest that they read the writings of the founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther. If somebody today says baptism is a work and cannot save us, Luther would declare the opposite. Baptism is not a work of man, but a work of God. He says in his large catechism, “To be baptized in the name of God is to be baptized not by men, but by God himself. Therefore, although it is performed by human hands, it is nevertheless truly God’s own work” [XIII, part fourth on baptism]. See also this post by a Protestant author. Luther was completely correct on this.
Baptism is a passive action, where God acts through the priest in pouring water over the individual. The person does not baptize himself. Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong once said that it is similar to being in jail and getting bailed out by someone else, yet having to cooperate in signing the paper that you accept bail.
The Ephesian church was baptized. This godly work is connected to faith, not divorced from it. Faith is not only an interior matter, but makes itself exterior. This is why the Catholic Church calls baptism the “sacrament of faith” (CCC 1253).
To finish up, remember that the Ephesians have no ability to boast over other cities. For prior to Paul’s arrival and their entrance into the New Covenant, the Ephesians could have fed the homeless or gave alms to those in need all they wanted. They were still dead in sin and needed a savior to free them (Eph. 2:5). It was only when Paul preached the gospel to them, they believed, and they got baptized (4:5, 5:25-7) that they were saved from sin. That was how they received the Holy Spirit and became Christians. And that was a gift that was completely unmerited. Good works do not offset the debt of sin prior to baptism. Only Jesus can do that. The question of good works post-baptism into Christ is another question entirely, though.
Ephesians 2 is all about salvation being a gift. That gift is given when a person believes and gets baptized. If it only took works to enter into heaven and not Jesus’ death, a person’s faith, and baptism, then Paul’s preaching would be in vain.
Anything done prior to baptism, whether it was Jewish ceremonies or good works, does not matter. This is why the church baptizes even babies, who have done absolutely no works whatsoever. Salvation is initially unmerited. That is what Ephesians 2 is about. If the context had Paul railing against post-baptismal works, then it would contradict Catholic teaching. But the Protestant-versus-Catholic salvation debate is not in view here. Finally, baptism is not a condemned work by Paul that is excluded from salvation. Rather, it is a work of God, completely unmerited (Titus 3:4-6).