NOTES for Eph 2:10

How to understand the words of the apostle that we are prepared by God for good works in Christ Jesus besides, according to the sense of the original text, prepared from the beginning of time? Does it mean that we can practice no other work, except the good ones? Or is it possible to break the initial preparation? And what to say then about this freedom of the choice of the spiritual way, of which is spoken so much in various biblical books?

It would have been possible of course to say that God really prepared man for good works at the very moment of his creation, and if we assume that God's plan on the man appears at the same moment with the plan about all the creation, it could have then been possible to speak of the beginning of times. But this plan, as seen, included the freedom of man, a freedom so complete that was even possible for man the fall, the direct violation of the ban imposed by God. As seen, preparation is preparation, and freedom is freedom. But the apostle indeed, does not speak simply about the preparation, but about the preparation in "Christ Jesus".

Such an approach somehow changes things: it is not just about man and not simply about the people of God, but about the Messiah and about this messianic remnant, of whom spoke the prophets. The traditional representations of the Messiah included exactly the doctrine according to which the Messiah and the people of God were already conceived by God before even the creation of the world, at the beginning of times.

And if that was the case, then everyone, who became Christian, is involved in this plan and in all that is connected to it. Of course, there is no say here about any predetermination as regards a concrete person: because, we are not born Christian, each decides for himself, and naturally, and completely freely, if to follow Christ or not. But when the choice is made and the person becomes Christian, he turns out a collaborator in the realization of such plan, which was indeed conceived by God at the beginning of times. And he receives a new preparation for good works in Christ Jesus.

The apostle Paul speaks of our salvation as an accomplished fact. The apostle uses the perfect aspect of the past tense to emphasize that in God's great love all this has already taken place, already exists. And the person who believes in the reality of God's gift becomes a full participant in the salvation already accomplished by Christ.

The apostle notes that this is a free gift, not compelled by our works. For him this is important because since salvation is given to us according to the riches of God's mercy and not according to our merits, so that no one may boast, it follows that it can be received only by faith, not by works of the law. The apostle expresses this thought many times in different letters, because over us hangs, like the sword of Damocles, the temptation to think that by our labors we deserve God's mercy. But this mercy, this gift of Christ's Blood, is so great that nothing can earn it. As for good works, according to the apostle's word they are the goal and content of that new life in Christ to which we are called.