What is “That”?

Ephesians 2: 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God

Loaded terms: “grace,” “saved,” “faith,” and, perhaps most loaded of all, “that.”

While I have begun to scratch the surface of the early Church Councils, I am far from expert. Yet, I don’t believe that there has been any ecumenical council that directly addressed the meaning of any of these terms. So, I will attempt to fill these out from the understanding of various Christian traditions.

Grace

The word is used in Scripture in the context of kindness and beauty; it is a free gift from God; grace is unmerited, undeserved; God’s grace actively and continuously works in us; it is participation in the life of God; it is participation in God’s energies.

I imagine each of you can recognize the terms of phrases in the above specific for your tradition. To varying degrees, we can probably all accept most of these descriptions. In other words, perhaps not the most loaded of these terms.

Saved

In Scripture, it is usually used in the context of deliverance. To be saved (delivered) from something, saved (delivered) for something, saved (delivered) through something.

This term is fairly loaded: some see salvation as little more than a get out of jail free card: I avoid hell, I avoid the punishment that I deserve. A one-time event.

Others see it as something more – not merely “saved from,” but “saved for.” Saved for a specific life, a life of growing evermore Christ-like. I was saved, I am being saved, I will be saved. Call it sanctification, call it theosis – even if there are some differences in the meanings of these two terms, they are similar enough to describe the life we are meant to live. To grow into.

Yet, I have found, when conversing with even the most fundamental, Calvinist-influenced pastors, they will agree: salvation is more than a get out of jail free card, something more than justification, something more than a determination in a courtroom.

Salvation involves – it must include – a healing of the entire body, to grow ever more like Christ. It is a journey, a road of growth. It requires – it demands – our participation.

From Fr. Theodore Stylianopoulos:

The mystery of salvation is a duet, not a solo. It is a life-time engagement with God. It has ups and downs, twists and turns, with opportunities to grow in the love of God, knowing that we can turn to Him again and again and receive forgiveness and a new birth.

He is an Eastern Orthodox priest. You might say, well yes, of course he would say that salvation is a duet, requiring our participation. It does require our participation, but this isn’t a black and white thing; it isn’t so simple:

The work of salvation belongs entirely to God. …It is God through Christ and the Holy Spirit who alone provides justification, forgiveness, and new life to sinners who come to Him with faith.

Which brings us to that other word in this verse…

Faith

Perhaps the closest thing we get to a Biblical definition is in Hebrews:

Hebrews 11: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Faith isn’t something in the air, fluffy. It has substance; it offers evidence. This is demonstrated immediately after this opening verse: the passage identifies the many ways that faith was made manifest (given substance) in the Patriarchs.

Here again, so many definitions and understandings. Faith is something you trust, but cannot prove; intellectual assent; it requires living in accord with what you trust but cannot prove; trust or confidence in something or someone.

I really like something that C.S. Lewis said:

You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.

Faith is that which I choose to not see “through.” It is that which I say, with conviction, “on this, I will live my life, whatever gets thrown at me.”

Some people describe faith as belief in the unbelievable. This is not only wrong, it is the opposite of right. Faith is belief in that which is most believable, of primary importance. The basis on which I act is on that which I most fundamentally believe.

It doesn’t get more real, more true, than this.

That

…and that not of yourselves…

And “what” not of yourselves? Grace, saved, faith? To which is Paul referring that is not of myself? Is it merely linked to the last word in the chain? Faith?

Greek, being an inflected language, actually depends on "tags" that are attached to words for guiding the reader. If our writer had desired readers to connect faith directly to this [“that”], these two words should have matched each other as grammatically feminine. We find, however, that this [“that’], being neuter in gender, likely points us back several words earlier - to the idea of salvation expressed by the verb.

Accordingly, we should read the text with a different line of connections as follows: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this [salvation is] not from yourself, [this salvation] is the gift of God."

But it cannot be limited solely to the word “salvation.” Certainly, grace is also a gift from God.

Obviously, we are not saved through works. In fact, we are not even saved by faith. We are saved by grace. Faith does not make you alive, raised, and heavenly seated. Neither can works. Only divine intervention, God’s grace invading this world, can take you as an individual and join yourself to Someone who is alive, raised, and heavenly seated.

Rather, by the "that" (touto) Paul refers to the whole process of "salvation by grace through faith."

Conclusion

All of it is a gift from God: grace, salvation, faith. It is all God’s doing

Again, from Fr. Theodore Stylianopoulos:

God provided the grace, faith received the gift.

Sometimes the best way to define something is to merely describe its functional reality.