Charles Hodge on Ephesians 2:10

V. 10. That salvation is thus entirely the work of God, and that good works cannot be the ground of our acceptance with him, is proved in this verse—1st. By showing that we are God’s workmanship. He, and not ourselves, has made us what we are. And 2d. By the consideration that we are created unto good works. As the fact that men are elected unto holiness, proves that holiness is not the ground of their election; so their being created unto good works shows that good works are not the ground on which they are made the subjects of this new creation, which is itself incipient salvation.

Αὐτοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν ποίημα. The position of the pronoun at the beginning of the sentence renders it emphatic. His workmanship are we. He has made us Christians. Our faith is not of ourselves. It is of God that we are in Christ Jesus. The sense in which we are the workmanship of God is explained in the following clause, created in Christ Jesus; for if any man is in Christ he is a new creature. Union with him is a source of a new life, and a life unto holiness; and therefore it is said created unto good works. Holiness is the end of redemption, for Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. Titus 2, 14. Those therefore who live in sin are not the subjects of this redemption.

Οἱ̂ς προητοίμασε, is variously interpreted. The verb signifies properly to prepare beforehand. As this previous preparation may be in the mind, in the form of a purpose, the word is often used in the sense of preordaining, or appointing. Compare Gen. 24, 14. Matt. 25, 34. 1 Cor. 2, 9. Rom. 9, 23. This however is rather the idea expressed in the context than the proper signification of the word. The relative is by Bengel and others connected, agreeably to a common Hebrew idiom, with the following pronoun, οἷς οἐν αὐτοῖς, in which, and the verb taken absolutely. The sense then is,’ In which God has preordained that we should walk.’ By the great majority of commentators οἷς is taken for ἅ, by the common attraction, ‘which God had prepared beforehand, in order that we should walk in them.’ Before our new creation these works were in the purpose of God prepared to be our attendants, in the midst of which we should walk. A third interpretation supposes οἷς to be used as a proper dative, and supposes ἡμᾶς as the object of the verb. ‘To which God has predestined us, that we should walk in them.’ The second of these explanations is obviously the most natural.

Thus has the apostle in this paragraph clearly taught that the natural state of man is one of condemnation and spiritual death; that from that condition believers are delivered by the grace of God in Christ Jesus; and the design of this deliverance is the manifestation, through all coming ages, of the exceeding riches of his grace.