Faith is not the gift of God. “Faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God.”
Romans 10:17.
“…the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 6:23b.
WHAT ABOUT THAT? MAKES YOU THINK, DOESN'T IT? (sorry caps)
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers:
(1 b.)
Ephesians 2:8-10
(taking up and working out the parenthetical
“by grace ye are saved” of Ephesians 2:5)
form an instructive link of connection between these Epistles
and those of the earlier group, especially the Epistles to the Galatians
and Romans. (Comp.
Philippians 3:9.)
"In both there is the same doctrine of “Justification by Faith,”
the same denial of the merit of good works,
the same connection of "good works with the grace of God in us."
"The two phrases—“justification by faith” and “salvation by grace”
—are popularly identified, and, indeed are substantially identical in meaning.
"Grace is the moving cause of salvation:
faith is only the instrument by which it is laid hold of.
"And that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."—
This attribution of all to the gift of God
seems to cover the whole idea—
both the gift of salvation and the gift of faith to accept it.
"The former part is enforced by the words “not of works,”
the latter by the declaration,
“we (and all that is in us) are His workmanship.”
"The word here rendered
“gift” is peculiar to this passage;
the word employed in
Romans 5:15-16;
Romans 6:23,
for “free gift” (charisma) having been appropriated
(both in the singular and plural) to special “gifts” of grace."
...
Large, large, highly detailed handling:
Is Faith God's Gift? (10) (Ephesians 2:8-9): The Grammatical Issues.
"...I have looked at the testimony of nine ancient exegetes—I do not like to call them ‘fathers’ or their study ‘patristics’ (Matt 23:9), but ‘Christians’, ‘churchmen’, ‘exegetes’, ‘scholars’, ‘experts’—
concerning whether those familiar with Greek took the referent of the neuter demonstrative τοῦτο (‘this’) in Ephesians 2:8 as the preceding feminine noun in the genitive πίστις (‘faith’), located two words before, in spite of the fact that these two words do not agree in gender.
"I found that eight of the nine were demonstrably familiar with Greek grammar, none of the nine say that feminine nouns cannot be the antecedent to a neuter demonstrative, eight of the nine took the antecedent of the neuter demonstrative as a feminine noun, seven of the nine took the antecedent to be πίστις (‘faith’, a feminine noun), one of the nine took the antecedent to be χάρις (‘grace’, also a feminine noun), one of the nine took the antecedent to be χάριτί ἐστε σεσῳσμένοι (the conceptual ‘salvation by grace’),
"and another one of the nine suggested that the conceptual ‘salvation by grace’ is a second and alternative interpretation after giving a first interpretation of ‘faith’ as the antecedent. As far as I know, these 9 are the extant commentators on this passage of Scripture who have applied their mind to this question arising from the passage.
[1] All of this justifies Abraham Kuyper’s assertion that:
"Nearly all the church fathers and almost all the theologians eminent for Greek scholarship judged that the words “it is the gift of God” refer to faith.
1. This was the exegesis, according to the ancient tradition […]
2. Of those who spoke the Greek language and were familiar with the peculiar Greek construction.
3. Of the Latin church fathers, who maintained close contact with the Greek world.
[2]
"These facts seem to suggest that the onus rests on those who say that such an understanding is grammatically incorrect to show it to be so, rather than merely assert what all who can read the Greek text can see—that the demonstrative and the preceding nouns do not agree in gender—and then think that the work of exegesis is done. The key text is Ephesians 2:8-10.
"8 For [it is] by grace[3] you[4] have been saved[5] through faith[6], and this [thing][7] [is] not from you[8], [it is] the gift[9] of God, 9 not from works, so that no-one may boast. 10 For we are his handiwork, being created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that in them we might walk. (my translation)
"8Τῇ γὰρ χάριτί[10] ἐστε σεσῳσμένοι[11] διὰ πίστεως[12]· καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν, θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον· 9 οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων, ἵνα μή τις καυχήσηται[13]. 10 αὐτοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν ποίημα, κτισθέντες ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ἐπὶ ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς οἷς προητοίμασεν ὁ θεός, ἵνα ἐν αὐτοῖς περιπατήσωμεν.[14]
"This paper argues that it is not only an ancient exegetical view that the referent of ‘this’ (τοῦτο) in Ephesians 2:8-9 is ‘faith’ (πίστεως), even though they do not agree in gender and therefore faith is both οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν (‘not from ourselves’),
and θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον·(‘the gift of God’), and it is also οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων, ἵνα μή τις καυχήσηται (‘not from works so that no one can boast’), but also that this ancient exegetical view is quite acceptable in terms of what we know about ancient Greek grammar.
"Moreover, in this paper, I seek to do more than just show the evidence for the existence of such a rule from the fact of the ancient Greek and Latin exegetes approach to interpreting Ephesians 2:8-9. Here I want to find, in relation to the Greek demonstratives, a statement of the syntactical rule together with positive examples that illustrate the rule in other literature, preferably the New Testament, or in the LXX, or other Greek literature.
"To put the matter another way, finding similar constructions in Greek literature prior to and contemporaneous with the writing of the New Testament is evidence that the demonstrative can refer back to an antecedent of a different gender.
"The majority of ancient exegetical opinion concerning Ephesians 2:8-9 is evidence that the construction does mean what it can mean."
con't
