Hello everyone! Today we will be continuing our study through the book of Ephesians. This portion of chapter 2 is such a beautiful passage! It is one of my (many) favourites in how it explains where we had been and where we are now and how absolutely undeserving we are of what Christ came to do for His people. Let’s dive right in and look at these words…

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”(Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV)

So there are a bunch of points to be made about this section of the passage, but I do want to mention something here. Similar to Paul’s other letters and writings, he will begin with a greeting and a blessing and then he will focus on where we were before we were found in Christ. He will focus on sin. And this is important to do in order to understand how awe-inspiring and utterly amazing it is that Christ did what He came to do, that the Father sent Christ to pay the price we could not pay. We focus on this to understand the magnitude of it all. The book of Romans is a wonderful portrait of this. Look at how it moves through its’ chapters so logically - from humankind being in total depravity, to laying out what Christ came to do, to talking about how we now have the Spirit within us and it is only under the headship of Christ that we are able (by His power) to do what is right, to the beautifully wonderful passage of Romans 8 that talks about His promises being so certain, to Romans 9 that speaks about why these promises are certain, and then, only then, does Paul begin to speak about sanctification. He does something similar here in Ephesians and it is a beautiful expression through words and chapters about this wondrous point - He did it all, and He does it all, for His people who were most certainly undeserving.

As we just talked about, Paul begins here on the topic of sin. Sin is not just some small thing. It is not just wrongdoings, like it is often described as nowadays. It is not just that we didn’t believe in Him and we just had to come to believe in Him. It is not little, it is not a light, brush-it-under-the-rug kind of topic. Because God most definitely didn’t brush it under the rug. It cost Christ’s blood. The root of all sin is that we didn’t want God to be God. Man wants to be god instead. We want to stand above God and we want to take the glory that He is deserving of and direct it towards ourselves. And, in light of that truth, we don’t want God to be Lord in our lives. We loved sin because it let us be god of our lives and to take the glory for ourselves. Because we loved the pursuit of our own pleasures - money, fame, status, power, man’s praise, sex. The book of Romans makes the statement that there aren’t really any atheists. Everyone knows that God exists - you can see it in creation, in biology, in the way that people have consciences, and how there is some standard of right and wrong (because if there is this standard then there must be an absolute Righteous One with His objective truth, and thus, the opposite of Him would be unrighteousness). The thing is, this is not wanted to be looked at. As it says, man wants what he wants, each one did what was right in their own eyes, the heart is deceitful above all else. Do you see? We desired sin. We wanted it. It made it be about us and our pleasure pursuit and our glory. And if we had to choose, we would choose the sin. Why? Because, as this passage says, we were dead. We were dead spiritually. We did not have the Spirit in us to enable us to desire God to be God and to see what He desires as our greatest joy. Sin is not mistakes that we make, like “Oops, well, He’s bound to forgive us. We all make silly mistakes.” Sin is that we were dead spiritually, under the headship of the devil, following along in the course of the world. Now, you might say, “well, that’s just talking about some people, but the majority of humankind is good. They just need to reach their potential. They just need to accept Jesus.” But here’s the thing - everyone, apart from Christ, even the one’s who do seemingly “good” things, are all in sin and are unable to do right things because all of the things that are done are done from a place of not wanting God to be God and wanting to be god themselves and wanting the glory for themselves and wanting to pursue their own pleasures for their own glory. None of us are good people on our own. This passage here says that “we all once lived” in this way and “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” We were identified as “sons of disobedience,” we were identified as sinners. Everyone is in sin and is pursuing the sin that brings their own glory and that tyrannically sets themselves above God and, because of that, we were all separated from God because He is all Righteous and we were deserving of condemnation. So, the thing that we have to consider when we look at this passage is this: none of us were deserving of being saved. What is fair is that we would have continued on in deserving condemnation. Anyone who says that people deserve to be saved, as if they merited it, are not following along with this passage. We were not good, sin was not little, and we were dead spiritually. Now, if you are dead, can you make yourself alive? If you are dead, can you find the heart resuscitation device and start your heart? Can you open your eyes up yourself if you are not living? Can a baby cause themselves to be conceived? That would be spiritual evolution, would it not? Think about this. We could not bring ourselves out of our deadness. We could not open our eyes to life.

And Paul goes on to outline how it was not our own doing by providing the most glorious conjunction there ever was - a beautiful little word to the ears of the believer = BUT.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”(Ephesians 2:4-10 ESV)

Okay, so let’s break this section of the passage down.

But God, because of His great love for His children, made us alive with Christ. So let’s first start with a discussion of who Paul is talking to. He says “because of the great love with which he loved us.” He is talking about believers. He is talking about the Bride of Christ - the church universal, the remnant. Those whom God knew “beforehand” because He prepared their salvation and their sanctification beforehand. Christ came for His Bride - His exclusive Bride. It is a precious love. A one-spouse love. Do you see the clear separation made in this passage between two groups? There are the “sons of disobedience,” of which we once were, but are not anymore for we are now in Christ. Jesus does not have an open, polyamorous marriage with everyone. If so, it would cheapen love and it would cheapen Christ’s work. He does not have a marriage relationship with people who are still included in the “sons of disobedience” headship that Paul writes about above. No, see it says that we were separated from God because of our sin but, once Christ came and died in our place, we are found in Him, our Propitiation, and because of this we are transferred from the domain of darkness, out from the headship of sin, and brought into the kingdom of light, having been made right with God only through Christ’s work. To use another analogy, God's love is only directed towards those who are seen through Christ, the Beloved, and are, thus, the Father’s children through His true Son. Thus, God does not love everyone as children - He loves His people who are His through Christ. And consider this love from the Father for His people - not only did He send His Son to die specifically for you at the cost of Christ’s blood, having prepared your sanctification beforehand, but, by His grace, He worked and moved the minutest details of history to bring you to the place where He would open your eyes in faith to marvel at His glory and to understand that the One who is sovereign and mighty, the Creator of the world and the One who spoke your new life into existence through the power of the Spirit, has made certain that the promises He has spoken over you will happen because He is God and there is no one that stands above Him. Whoa!

Not only does this beautiful section of the passage talk about the preciousness of God the Father’s love, but it also talks about how undeserving we were to be the receiver of such a graciously loving gift of salvation by faith. Paul writes about how the Father sent Christ to die in the place of His people, Paul speaks about how Christ came and sought His Bride, and that, though we were dead, though we were like Hosea’s wife in our worship of ourselves, Christ came to live the life we could not live and die in our place and, as He brought His blood before the presence of the Father, the Father looked upon this offering and said that it was sufficient, it was accepted as full atonement for His people. And when Christ was raised to life, a triumphant declaration of His sacrifice being the end of all sacrifices, His people are now able to, by the power of the Spirit giving them eyes opened in faith, be made alive spiritually. Once we desired unidentifiable fast food meat, now God opened our eyes to the most expensive Kobe beef. Once we were fascinated by anthills and God opened our eyes to see the Matterhorn. Would we not desire this instead? Many people will say, “Oh, but we have to choose or else Christ is forcing His people to love Him.” Do you see how this passage refutes this? Once we saw in black and white, now we see in glorious, radiant colour. Once we were blind, now we see the splendour of God’s glory. Once you have eyes opened to see that, by His power, would you not desire to behold that sight instead? That is what is meant by effectual calling. It means that the Spirit’s work of opening our eyes is effective in its’ work in a life. He opened our eyes and we desire Him. But we cannot see Him without the dead eyes being opened first. And these two sections of this passage show this dichotomy in full display. See? “And you were dead in your trespasses and sin”, but now what? “But God…made you alive together with Christ.” Who did? God. Do you see what this passage is trying to say? God loved His people, the Bride of Christ, and sent His Son to die on their behalf and pay the price for their sin with His blood and, on account of His work, we are made alive spiritually by the Spirit opening our eyes to faith. As Christ was raised to life, we are raised to newness of life and the Spirit can come and live in our lives because we are no longer separated from the Father.

See, sin is not little. And none of God’s people were deserving of this saving. None of them can say that they were good people or they somehow deserved it. But it says, as Paul writes, now we are found hid in Christ, our Great High Priest, whose work is done and He sits on His throne and, as it says in the book of Hebrews, our hope is anchored in the Holy of Holies. It is so secure. It is so certain. Christ died for His people, our Great High Priest takes His seat, no other sacrifice needed, and we can rest assured in His promises because they are rooted in Christ’s work. And we can know the “immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Immeasurable indeed! Grace of being saved, grace of being transferred from the domain of darkness into His marvellous light where we are identified as being Christians (of Christ) instead of under the headship of sin, grace of conviction, grace of sanctification, the grace of changed desires as we are now connected to the Vine, daily grace of being led by the Spirit to know Him more and guided further and further into truth. Grace is not just a one time thing. It happens everyday. And a believer will grasp this in wonder and will not take this grace for granted, it will not be cheapened. It will not be a “oh we’re all sinners” or “He just loves me as I am” or “we all make mistakes so I can keep not caring about sin.” No, sin, by His grace, will grieve a believer as they are convicted in the small things, past sins will be called as they are and there will be change, and believers will look to the joy that God desires for His children, not as rules, but as delight.

Now, let’s look at this next glorious phrase - Paul says it twice in this passage: “For by grace you have been saved.” He’s making a point by repeating it. It’s a big deal. It’s by grace, it’s by God’s doing. He chose you, though you were less than undeserving - you were rightly condemned. He chose you and He opened your eyes to faith and you were able to see the rich, glorious colours of His glory and you desired that and live in awe of that. Isn’t that stunning? And then Paul writes what? “And this is not your own doing.” It is not of us. It is not us opening our own dead eyes. It is not us being dead and somehow getting our hearts to beat. Dead people can’t do CPR on ourselves. It is not us being our own saviours. We needed a Saviour because we couldn’t make ourselves right with God. And the fact is - we didn’t want to be, because then we would have to be under His sovereign Lordship. But this Lordship is beautiful to the believer because we know that He desires our greatest joy - seeing more of Himself and, by seeing more of Himself, we know that He is God, and by that comprehension that He is God, we know that His promises for His people are certain because there is no man or evil that stands above Him. But wait, there’s more. Paul writes “it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Do you see that? It is a gift. A glorious gift that we do not deserve and that we did not buy ourselves. John writes this similarly, saying that God’s people “were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Here Paul declares this, as well, by saying that it not a result of anything that we have done. Why? Well, it ties in with the part at the beginning - so that no one can boast in themselves. So that no one can make it be about themselves and their own glory in saving themselves. If it is by their own doing, it is no longer a gift - it is something that is owed to us, for we are our own saviour, and, as Paul writes above in the section about sin, that is definitely not the case. And if you look at it the one way that people can boast in their choosing, then you have to look at it the other way too: If people can reject Christ, you make Christ’s sacrifice insufficient and His promises not certain. Both sides of that coin take the glory away from God, remove His Godness, set man above Him, and give a person no basis for hope. But the Bible, and this passage, say the opposite. Our salvation is God’s doing. He gets the glory. He gets the praise. He did everything for His people. Christ came and did all that was needed for His Bride. And His Bride live in awe and wonder at the sovereign and gracious work of their Saviour.

And then what does it say in the last sentence there? Something wonder-full - we are His workmanship. The Father sent the Son to come and make us His masterpiece, we are the product of His own beautiful work. He created us - brought us to new life, spoke out and brought us forth like Lazarus from the grave - through Christ’s work for those who are found in Christ. Now we are worshippers that point to His glory and to the work of the Godhead. And we were saved to be sanctified. We were saved to be conformed into the image of the Son, to grow in Christlikeness. And this is a grace unto itself - this transformation, this change in desires, all of this is certain. God prepared it in advance. Do you see that? It says “which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” All of that is finalized speech, past tense. It’s so certain that it’s spoken in a way as if it’s already happened. This transformation will take place in a person for whom Christ died, who have been given this salvation rooted in Him. The fruit will grow from this root in them who are under His headship.

He did it all. We were undeserving. In our spiritual deadness, we were convicted, tyrannical criminals. We were in love with sin. And the Father sent His Son to take our place at the cost of His blood by His loving grace. And by that grace we are saved, by that grace we are convicted, by that grace we are transformed, by that grace will be glorified. It is certain. Marvel at that, Christian. All glory be to God.