“ For
by grace (Gr., charis) you
have been saved, through the faith5
—and this not of
yourselves, it is the gift (Gr.,
doron) of God— not by works, so that
no one may boast.”
(Ephesians 2:8, 9, Wilbur Pickering’s
New Testament)-.
This
aricle
includes excerpts
from Grace,
a Free Ride to Heaven? GRACE
IS A GIFT Chapter
9
We
have established that “grace” alone
does not meet the test of proximity for
it to
be the antecedent for the “gift” in Ephesians 2:8. Also,
it does not meet the test of being in
the correct “gender.” “A
Greek
pronoun like
in English must agree
with its antecedent in number and gender”.i
Although
“the
faith” meets the test of proximity,
it
does not meet the criterion
of gender either.
4: THE
“OFFERING” GIFT FROM GOD
Ephesians
2:8-10
The Source of our Possessions
Jacob
grew wealthy with sheep by doing what God directed him to do. In
Genesis 31:9, Jacob confessed to his wives that
contrary to his father-in-law’s intent to defraud him,
“Thus
God hath taken away the cattle of your father, and given them to me.”
Reciprocity
of gifts.
Every
good and perfect gift comes from God (James 1:17). Even the
fruit of labor is a gift of God (Ecclesiastes 3:13; 5:19). So how
can a man offer acceptably to God a lamb from his flock which God has
given him? Yet, God from the beginning has authorized
and approved of man
returning a
portion of His gifts
including livestock in
worship to Him. “And
Abel gave an offering of the young lambs of his flock and of their
fat. And the Lord was pleased with Abel's offering”
(Genesis 4:4, BBE).
Under the Law of Moses, “Who
needeth not daily, as those high priests (of
the Law of Moses), to offer up
sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's”
(Hebrews 7:27a)
God
gave to Abraham a ram which God in turn accepted for worship by
Abraham. God’s giving and receiving is emphasized in the story
of the sacrifice of Isaac.
Isaac
asked, “Where
is the sheep – the
one for
a whole offering?” (Genesis
22:7bABPen).
“And
Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt
offering” (Genesis
22:8a, KJV).
“Behold
behind him
a ram caught in a thicket by his horns; and
Abraham
went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering”
(Genesis
22:13b).
Words
In Greek For Gifts
It
is interesting to
me how
that the versions of the Bible economize in translating different
words in
the original Greek with a
same English word. For example, the translators of
the KJV use
the single word “gift” to
represent
several
different
words
in
the
Greekii.
For
example, in
Romans
6:23, “For
the wages of sin is
death; but the gift
of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”,
the
word for “gift” is not the same as in
Ephesians
2:8. The word is
charisma;
that
is, “grace.” It
could be translated as “the
grace of God is eternal life.”
On
the other hand, the word
“gift”
in
Ephesians
2:8 is
Greek’s
“doronG1435”
which
is
consistently translated as “gift” with
one
important
exception
in
Luke 21:4. There it is translated as
“offerings”:
“For
all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offeringsG1435
of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she
had”
(Luke
21, verse
4).
Verse 1 says
they
were “casting
their giftsG1435.”
Why
was it not translated “gifts” in Luke 21:4? Or,
perhaps, if it can mean “offerings”, a more important
question is, “Why were not all passages translated as
‘offerings.’” That would make Ephesians 2:8 say
“By grace are you saved through the Faith; ..it is the
offering from God.”
So,
which is it? Is it a sacred “offering” or just a
“gift”?
IN
THE OT
I
checked the LXX Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (OT)
that
was used
worldwide in the first centuryiii,
especially
by the Gentile Christians,
and the
word doronG1435
is
used in
around
159
verses.
Studying
all
passages,
I
concluded
that the
word “gift” (doronG1435)
can
be categorized into
two
actions
for
favor:
1
...an
offering
to
deity
whether it be in
money
or in
animals in
order to seek His favor [Abel
offered “doron”
gift
(Genesis
4:4),
etc.].
2
...an
offering
to honor
a
greater one
in order to obtain
favor from
a king
(Psalm 72:10) or a prospective
bride’s
parents
(Genesis
24:53). It
is also
translated
as a
“bribe”,
which
was a
sin (Amos
5:6).
At
the first of the Bible in
Genesis Abel
offers an animal sacrifice
to God. It’s a giftG1435
(Genesis
4:4, ABP+
& LXX).
Toward the close of the Bible, it again says
that
Abel
offered
giftsG1435
to
God
(Hebrews 11:4; same word).
The
priests of the OT offered giftsG1435
to God according to the Law (Hebrews 8:4, same
word).
IN
THE NT
Vine's
Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words,
the
word
doronG1435
in
the NT refers
to
gifts
in
the same way as
in the OT:
(1)
as
presented
as an expression of honor towards
[an
example,
is
worship
to the baby Jesus (Matt.
2:11)-GW],
(2) as
support for the
temple
and the poor, (3) as
offered
to
God,
(4) of salvation by grace (Eph.
2:8),
and (5) the celebration in Revelation 11:10.
Notice
that
the only verse in
Vine’s list that
was not an
offering
for
deity’s
grace
was
the Revelation verse which
without doubt like
the remainder of the book is
figurative. In
other words, the
doron
gift
is consistently
rendered in the NT as
an
offering to deity.
I
conclude from
this study that
this word “gift” (doron)
is
used primarily for soliciting favor or approval
from a lesser to a greater.
It is
specifically
the
“altar”
gift of “sacrifice” or
offering.
In
fact, Strong’s
Dictionary of Greek
defines
it so: “a
present; specifically a sacrifice.”
-- Gaylon West
i
Cain did not offer an acceptable sacrifice. “If
thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not
well, sin lieth at the door”
(Genesis
4:7a).
ii
G. West. In
Search For The Gift Of The Holy Spirit, p. 71.
iii
After the first century,
possibly the church had so multiplied that their use of the LXX (Old
Greek: Septuagint) version caused a backlash in the Jewish
communities who refused to convert. The synagogues reverted back to
the Hebrew version of the OT.
“Eventually,
early Christians adopted the OG (Old
Greek) as
their preferred version of the Hebrew Bible. Most Jews in
Greek-speaking lands returned to using the Hebrew version that would
later become the MT (Masoretic
Text).”
http://bibleodyssey.org/en/tools/bible-basics/what-are-the-earliest-versions-and-translations-of-the-bible.aspx.
| 
