How about a little help from a Protestant?
If your concern is to show that we are NOT saved by faith alone, then stick with the verse he has cited. It has the proof you seek within it. You don’t need to turn to James or any other passage of scripture.
If your desire is to replace faith with works, well, then that is another issue. Faith without works is dead. And works without faith is meaningless. So, I just wouldn’t bother barking up that tree at all and stick with the subject of faith alone. (Pun intended.)
Now what does Ephesians 2:8-9 actually say? Others here have already pointed it out. It does NOT say that we are saved by faith. On the contrary we are saved by grace – through faith, not by faith.
This is NOT just a matter of semantics. Prepositions are important. Very important!
τη χαριτι “by grace” is in the instrumental dative. The definite article
τη appears with grace because it refers to the grace already mentioned (see verse 4).
χαριτι “by grace” is in the instrumental dative, the English prepostion “by” is contained in the grammatical structure of the Greek word for grace. Being in the dative, it indicates that grace is the means of our salvation. In other words, one could have all the faith in the world, one could do all the works in the world, and one would still not be saved were it not for God’s grace. God grace, and
grace alone (neither faith nor works) is the actual means of our salvation.
δια πιστεως “through faith”. In this case the preposition
δια, translated in most versions as “through” indicates the channel through which grace comes.
Get the distinction – salvation is BY grace, THROUGH faith. If one is starving, one is saved by getting calories through consuming food. Eat all you want, but if there are no calories in that food, you will still starve.
And so it is that we received this grace that saves through the medium of faith. That is faith is the manner by which God works his saving grace in our lives. Thus human good works which preceed faith are meaningless. And if we really have faith, as it is itself a gift of God in our lives, then we will want to share with others the unmerited favor and love (i.e. grace) God has bestowed on us by sharing this favor and love with them. James says that the best way to do that is not with words, but with actually acts of love (i.e. good works). So, good works don’t save us either, they simply make it easier to spot whether those who have claimed to have beens saved really have or are just filled with hot air.
And what is this faith through which God’s is channeled to save us? Faith is not a belief system. Faith is in fact a synonymn for the word trust. That’s why MHasley, above, said
By faith “man freely commits his entire self to God.”
Faith is to live in a relationship with God in and through (there is that preposition again) Jesus Christ. That relationship is not something we can initiate, God invites us into it and we either accept his invitation or turn aside from it, but it is by God’s grace (his love) that we are invited. Unless God invites us to himself – which of course I believe he has invited all who will receive him – we cannot ever enter into the faith relationship.
So one more time-- The instrument of our salvation is God’s grace acting in our lives which is channeled to us through one’s faith (trust) relationship with God experienced in Jesus, yet even that faith that we have is God’s gracious gift to us.
If we have faith we will prove it by how we live(James 2:24).
