Jack Cottrell on Faith as a Gift of God

        Some mistakenly conclude that Eph 2:8 says faith is a gift: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” This is disproved, though, by the rules of Greek grammar. The Greek word for “faith” (pistis) is feminine in gender; the pronoun referring to the gift (“that,” touto) is neuter. If it were referring back to faith, it too would be feminine in form. (There is no word in the Greek corresponding to the pronoun “it.”) This verse actually shows that faith is not a gift since grace and faith are carefully distinguished. We are saved by grace, as God’s part; but through faith, as our part, as distinct from the grace given. Faith is not a gift of grace and the result of regeneration; it is a response to grace and a prerequisite to regeneration.

 

Jack Cottrell, The Faith Once for All: Bible Doctrine for Today (Joplin, MO: College Press, 2002), p. 200, emphases in original[1]

Copyright © The College Press Publishing Company, 2002. All rights reserved.

In order to purchase Cottrell’s The Faith Once for All (2002),* see the links to the following websites:

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Note

        1. Jack Cottrell briefly interacts with other scriptural texts sometimes purported to teach that repentance (Gk: μετάνοια, metanoia) and faith (Gk: πίστις, pistis) are ‘gifts of God’ in idem, The Faith Once for All, pp. 199–200. The aforementioned section also may be found in idem, Set Free! What the Bible Says about Grace (Joplin, MO: College Press, 2009), pp. 227–9. (To visit Jack Cottrell’s official website, see the following link: <https://www.jackcottrell.com>.)  —J. D. Gallé

Addendum (20 Sept. 2022).  Jack Warren Cottrell (1938–2022) died on Friday, 16 September 2022, aged eighty-four.

• Fitch Denney Funeral Home
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