"⁸ Because in loving kindness you are being made to be delivered through faithfulness, and this is not from you. It is the gift of God, ⁹ and not from works so that no one may boast."

 

(DLT: torahtimes.org, Eph. 2:8-9).

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Simple Commentary

 

       We are delivered from sin and death by the loving kindness of God  while we travel the road of faithfulness.   The deliverance from sin that we are receiving is totally from God.   It does not originate from us.   But we must be on the road of the faith.    That part does come from us.   God requires a commitment of loyalty to Him, through his Son Yeshua.   This is his covenantal framework.   The road of faithfulness, however, is not just our faithfulness,    the road itself is composed of the faithfulness of Messiah to pay the penalty for sin, and it is smoothed out by him to avoid many dangers and snares that God knows we cannot handle.   Our faithfulness consists in staying on the road, and not ignoring the sign posts along the way, which are God's commandments.   God will test our loyalty and faithfulness to see if we will stay on the road, or if we truly want to heed the sign posts, but no test will be beyond our ability to pass.

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Technical Notes

 

     1. The referent of the word "this", τουτο, has been debated, but the best view, and agreeable to the context, is that the neuter gender refers to salvation.

      2. "being made to be delivered" renders the "perfect tense", εστε σεσωσμενοι.  It is an almost totally misnamed "tense".   The verb εστε is a true present tense, which is rendered progressive.   The type of action in σεσωσμενοι is imperfective (action seen close up and from the inside in a progressive sense),  I used the the piel stem in Hebrew to represent this in this case.

 

 

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Commentary on the Heretics

 

     Antinomian Christians (most modern Evangelicals, Calvinists, Lutherans, Dispensationalists) do not believe that salvation depends on repentance, which is avoiding sin.  Some of them only say that salvation results in repentance. They have fallen victum to the mystery of iniquity.   Once God has put us on the road of faithfulness, we must remain in his love by doing his commandments (John 14:21).  That is we must stay on the road and not return to the sin that he has brought us out of.   For this reason, Calvinists (but not Calvin himself), and others misinterpreted this text so that "this is not from you" refers to "faith" as if faith does not come from us.  This is wrong (see technical note 1).  On the simplest level it is contrary to human experience.  We perceive oursevles deciding to follow.  We do not perceive ourself as  puppets.  More importantly, this do nothing teaching is dangerous to salvation.   It is amazing that some who believe it manage to do the right things anyway, however, as long as the belief is held growth in Messiah is stunted.   For the dogmatic heretics, this belief, that repentance is not required to remain in God's love is all important.   It is their cardinal and highest doctrine.  They do not regard anyone as a real believer who keeps God's laws beyond a simple moralistic subset they maintain to show themselves religious, and they require anyone who would be accepted by them to forsake obeying  commandments that show a connection to Israel, like the Sabbath.   There are many Christians who are afraid of them and thoughlessly repeat their repentance denying doctrines, and who thoughtlessly condemn those observing God's laws, and many of these have indeed chosen to be loyal to sin and not Yeshua, and the truth is not in them.  Yeshua will separate the wheat from the chaff, and then he will burn the chaff.

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"In grace", χαριτι = בחסד (Franz Delitzsch) = in loving kindness.   The faithful one is in a state of YHWH's loving kindness.

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(DLC: torahtimes.org)

Daniel's Literal Translation and Commentary: (http://www.torahtimes.org/translation/eph0208.html)