Sermon Tone Analysis

Title: Salvation is for God’s Glory

Text: Ephesians 2:1-10

Before we get started:

* Can there be any higher joy than *to be made right with the living God*?

To our offenses and condemnation that is the result of our many sins cancelled blotted out and cancelled?

* Can there be any greater privilege than *to be named as a child of God*, not for any good thing that we have done but purely out of God’s own good pleasure, by his divine choice and for his own praise and glory that we can be named as God’s people.

* Is there any greater privilege *than belonging to God and being able to call him as “Father”*?

It is a tremendous blessing especially because we are so unworthy - Us, you, me, both specifically and collectively are utterly unworthy to be called the children of God, yet in Christ this is exactly what we have been made.

* Ephesians 1: 5 – tells us that we were predestined to adoption in Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.

* We rejoice in God’s marvelous and amazing grace as he the infinitely holy one, would set his love upon us, who are so unlovely, so unworthy and yet so precious in his sight – so precious that we were purchased out of the slavery of sin that held us bound and captive and we were purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, God the Son that we might dwell with God eternally and be to the praise of his glory.

In light of the great privilege and blessing it is for us to be called the Children of God, let us look to his word.

If you have your Bibles turn with me to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

It was November in 1931 and Hollywood had just created one of the worlds most famous monsters from the adaptation if a 1918 book written by eighteen year old Mary Shelly.

That movie was called Frankenstein and if you were to ask for a synopsis of the movie you would get something that sounds like this:

Dr. Henry Frankenstein wants to build a man in his own image, using the body of a dead man.

He and his assistant Fritz dig up a freshly buried coffin and steal a body.

When they realize the head and the brains of the body are severely damaged, they decide to steal a brain from Dr. Frankenstein’s former teacher Dr. Waldman.

When Fritz accidently drops the glass jar with the label "good brain" on it on the floor, he decides to take the glass jar with the label "bad brain".

Using some kind of mysterious ray that Dr. Frankenstein discovered, the body is brought to life during a thunderstorm, and the monster of Frankenstein is born.

The movie centers on this monster and his struggle in this 'life after death'.”

– this is an actual summary from an on-line service for movies.

I can tell you that I have never read the book Frankenstein, which I understand is quite different from the movie, nor have I seen the 1931 movie on Frankenstein but I know about it.

I’ve heard the story and I understand the premise of the movie.

The idea of Frankenstein is not entirely unfamiliar to me but what I know most about this story is - I know that it is fiction.

It is untrue.

I know that the dead do not come to life and that the assemblage of parts from “posthumous donors”, is not something that is currently possible.

Even in our time of advanced medical discoveries when the transplantation of organs and tissues are successfully completed routinely, what is dead cannot be made alive.

At least I know it doesn’t happen in the natural world.

Man, though he has been trying and at times is certain that he is very close, is not able to take what is dead and give it life.

When man does what is said to be bringing life from death, it is usually the resuscitation of what was already alive or of what was once alive, which has ceased in its lively functions but there has never been to my knowledge the creation of life from completely dead matter.

Man is simply not able to take what was never alive and make it alive.

For man this is an impossibility, but as I say this, listen to the words of Jesus from Mark 10:27 – “/With man it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God./”

The interesting thing about this quote is that it is in the context of addressing the question of who can be saved.

Who can know salvation?

It is the response of Jesus to the apostles after the encounter with the rich young ruler.

While the verses context does not have direct applicability to our passage today, the truth it states is still valid.

What is impossible for man, is possible for God.

While God is able to take clay, form it into a man and breathe life into it, man is not able to do the same.

And, just as impossible as it is for men to make physical life, it is impossible for men to gain spiritual life apart from the miraculous working of God’s grace.

Yet this is precisely what God does when he saves a person.

He takes what was once spiritually dead, completely and thoroughly dead spiritually.

Unable to respond to stimuli of any sort and he gives it life.

And this is what our passage is about today, so turn with me to the book of Ephesians, the second chapter and read along with me the first ten verses.

READ TEXT – Ephesians 2:1-10

 

The entire point of this passage is to demonstrate the glory of God when he saves a person from their sins and gives them eternal life.

This passage clearly shows that: We were once dead in sin, but God made us alive in Christ for the purpose of demonstrating the richness of God’s grace.

And so our goal today is to show how God, by his marvelous grace, has taken those who were formerly dead in trespasses and sin, and made them alive in Christ by his great grace.

As chapter 2 begins it follows on the heels of Paul’s expression of amazement and wonder over what God has given to those who are in Christ Jesus.

He praises God for the greatness of his blessings given to believer’s in Christ (1:3-14) and prays that the Ephesians might know the depths of the riches in what God has given them in Christ (1:15-23).

Having praised God for the riches that are ours in Christ and praying that those riches will be realized by the Ephesians, Paul begins to discuss the miracle of God’s grace which takes place, whereby God takes men who are spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins and makes them spiritually alive granting them salvation in Jesus Christ.

Paul’s words are expressive of utter amazement and this same sense of wonder and amazement should be ours as we considered what God has done for each and every believer in Christ, taking us from a point of spiritual death and granting us eternal life.

We who should have been objects of God’s wrath and condemnation are miraculously and wondrously made into trophies of God’s grace.

To help us understand all that God has done Paul begins by discussing our former condition before we came to know Christ.

*A.    **Dead in trespasses and sins - 1-3*

a.       Spiritual Deadness is - A Universal Condition

Verse 1 could not be any clearer in its meaning.

It is a simple declaration: /And you being dead in your trespasses and sins/.

The “And” which begins the passage is a coordinating conjunction tying what follows to what has preceded it.

Here Paul addresses his audience and lists the spiritual condition of this audience when “God quickened them.”[1]

This was their condition when God found them - They were dead.

It seems strange that this would be unclear to some people, but there are actually many who seem to think that Paul doesn’t mean dead, but that he means they were somehow impaired or comatose.

But the language is clear here, the point that Paul wants to express here is, this is the spiritual condition of man without Christ– he is dead.

They were not only dead, they existed is an ongoing state of deadness or said another way, *they could be characterized by their dead condition*.

This is what Paul means when he says – “/and you being dead/”.

This was the condition of the Ephesians before they met Christ, it was the condition of Paul before he met Christ, and it was our condition before we who call ourselves Christians met Christ.

We like they, were characterized by being in an ongoing state of being dead in trespasses and sins.

The word used for death is (*/νεκροὺς/* is) a predicate adjective meaning that it is a descriptive word.

These of whom Paul is speaking were in the state of death, literally what Paul is saying is that before Christ, they were spiritual corpses.

They were not impaired, not weakened, not sick, not infirmed but dead.

They were dead

With all the implications that physical death implies - they were equally dead spiritually.

It is clear and unambiguous, and this is what Paul is saying.

There is a failure on the part of many to see man as spiritually dead and this failure to see what Paul so clearly states has caused many errors both in theological thought and practice.

Paul is not ambiguous, men are dead.

Though they may have healthy bodies, lively minds and even have attractive personalities —their souls are dead apart from Christ.

They were completely and utterly unable to respond to God.[2]

But how are they dead?

They are dead in trespasses and sins.

“(in) your trespasses and sins.”

Interestingly here, Paul uses two words that have similar basic meanings.

“Trespasses” is defined as a “side-slip, a lapse or deviation.

It may be an unintentional error or a willful transgression.

It can also mean to fall, to fault or to make an offense.

This usage is fairly consistent throughout the New Testament.

The second word Paul uses is the most common word used for sin.

The words are basically synonymous so we must ask ourselves; what could Paul’s purpose be in using two words with similar meanings?

It could be a matter of literary style, but I think more likely it is a matter of emphasis.

Some have suggested that Paul’s emphasis is to draw attention to the fact that all men are dead in sin, whether these sins be deliberate or unintentional and in an effort to draw a distinction between these two words, Paul uses the two different words.

Whatever Paul’s intent, what is given is what has caused the spiritually dead condition of all men.

The words serve as the reason for man’s deadness.

Trespasses and Sins are the cause and spiritually deadness is the effect, so Paul’s explanation for the deadness of men is – they are dead because of their transgressions and sins.

The Bible is consistent and quite clear that there are none who are exempt from this:

Romans 3:23 – reminds us “/that all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God./”

Romans 3:10 reminds us that “/there is none righteous, no not one/.”

– quoting from Psalm 14 and 53.

Sin is a universal condition that not only caused our death but affected the way we live our lives.

Paul continues in verse 2 talking about how we lived when we were in this state of spiritual deadness.

2 - /in which you formerly walked according to the age of this world, according to the rulers, the authorities of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience./

*/ /*“/in which you formerly walked/.” is a Hebraism often used for one’s ethical conduct or for describing one’s way of life.

This ethical conduct usage is common in the New Testament with Paul, and is also seen in the Epistles of John[3] where John uses the way a person walks, as a test of whether one is truly saved -1 John 1:6  asks how we can have fellowship with Christ while walking in darkness.