Through Faith

Ephesians 2:8-9
RSV/TEV COMPARISON

For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift, so that no one can boast about it.

The basic truth is repeated: For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith. The verbal phrase in Greek has the auxiliary verb "to be" plus the perfect passive participle of the verb "to save," a construction that emphasizes the completed aspect of the action: "you were saved and you continue saved." Grace is the divine source of salvation, and human faith is the means whereby salvation takes place.
It is not easy to distinguish between the cause of salvation, that is, by God's grace, and the means, namely, through faith. It is God's grace which produces the salvation, but it is the faith of people which makes this possible. Faith therefore may be described technically as "contributing circumstances," for without faith on man's part God will not impose his grace and salvation. The statement it is by God's grace that you have been saved may be expressed as "because God is so kind, you have been saved" or "because God is so kind, he has saved you." The final phrase through faith may be expressed as "this was possible because you trusted." In this way one can state the necessary circumstances which involve faith, but one can avoid making faith the ultimate means for salvation. If it is necessary to supply an object for the verb "trusted" or "had faith," here it probably is better to have God as the object: "you trusted him" or "you had faith in him."
The words that follow, "and this is not your doing, it is the gift of God" (RSV), emphasize the divine initiative and activity. Some take "and this" (in verse 8) to refer to the preceding "faith," but it seems more likely that the Greek neuter pronoun refers to the whole preceding event, that is, salvation by God's grace through faith, and not just to faith (which in Greek is a feminine noun). It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift may be expressed as "you didn't earn your salvation; God gave it to you" or "you did not save yourselves; God saved you" or "it was not because of what you did that God saved you, but what he did was a gift."
Verse 9 (see RSV) continues, "not from works," that is, not the result of human activity, "in order that no one boast (or, as a result no one can boast)." The event of salvation is all God's doing, resulting completely from his grace, his power, his love. All a person can do is trust, believe, accept, so all possibility of human pride and boasting is done away with.
"Not from works" is a restatement of the phrase in verse 8 "and this (is) not from you." TEV has restructured this passage in such a way that these two phrases have been combined: It is not the result of your own efforts. Similarly, translators will restructure the ideas of these two verses according to the requirements of good style in their language. They will only be assured of a smooth, natural translation when they have written out all the ideas in these two verses in a series of short sentences and then put them together in a way that is natural for their language. 

(from the UBS New Testament Handbook Series.  Copyright © 1961-1997, by United Bible Societies.)