But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.

Ephesians 2 here and there.

It is by grace you have been saved. This is Paul writing!  He was raised as a law – abiding Jewish Pharisee, the strictest of Jewish sects at the time.  Paul was determined to please God by obeying the Law of Moses, a most complicated business, for it includes hundreds of do’s and don’ts from how to wash your hands to what you should wear.  Paul was known as one of the young Jews who was living according to the strictest Jewish group.  As a student in Jerusalem he was an example of a young Jew who wanted all Jews to live absolutely according to the Law of Moses as taught by the Pharisees.  Indeed, he did look like a model of Jewish behavior.

Then, as we recall, Jesus met him and in his mercy saved him.  This turned upside down Paul’s world. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. That included the religious Paul!   By the grace of God, he is saved, not by his strict obedience of the law.  Paul wrote, for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. 

This revelation of the mighty grace of God opened Paul to an entirely new understanding of salvation.  If it is true we are saved through faith then the door is open for all to enter – all!  That includes Jews, Gentiles, educated, peasants, rich, all!  As Jesus said, the field is the world!  It takes my breath away.