Romans 11:6 says in effect, Not of works, but of grace.Consider Romans 4:16: “Therefore [justification] is of faith, that it might be by grace.” So decisive is this verse that we may well observe it in another translation: “[That is why it] depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace” (RSV). The contention that faith as a condition nullifies grace, often urged by Calvinists, collapses at this point. Paul affirms precisely the opposite: faith, as a condition, establishes grace and its sine qua non[1] as a modus operandi.[2] “By grace … through faith.”
Romans 4:1-5 says, Not of works, but of faith.
The Bible nowhere says, Not of faith, but of grace.
Romans 4:16 says, By faith, so that by grace.
Ephesians 2:8 says, By grace, through faith.
It may be argued that God, acting in grace, need not have posited any condition whatever for election. At least this may be argued dialectically (though not ethically, in view of (1) the witness of the Scriptures to the moral nature of God, His economy, and His kingdom[,] and (2) the fact that faith has been posited as a condition). But the issue is not what God could do, but rather what God has done and does do, as disclosed in the Scriptures. We have earlier observed that the Bible contains many categorical affirmations positing faith as a positive factor in man of which God takes account in salvation. The many emphatic affirmations are confirmed by Romans 4:16 and also by Romans 11:7,14,17-24, which passage establishes that the election of individual men is not unconditional and is predicated on faith, as we have observed.
Robert Shank, Elect in the Son: A Study of the Doctrine of Election (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1970), pp. 125–6, emphases and square brackets in original
Copyright © Robert Lee Shank, 1970, 1989. All rights reserved.
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Notes
1. A sine qua non (Latin) is an essential condition or requirement.
2. A modus operandi (Latin) is a particular way or method of doing something. —J. D. Gallรฉ
Addendum. Robert Lee Shank (1918–2006) died on Monday, 16 October 2006, aged eighty-eight.
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