Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due.
“Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?”
But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Why not? Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,