But God

You have a magnifying glass and hold it up before the sun until you focus the rays on a piece of dry wood and set it on fire. Now, while you see the wood burning to ashes, tell me, what is it that burns? Does the heat of the sun burn the wood or does the wood burn? The heat that you feel while the wood is burning, is it due to the sun or to the wood? Of course, it’s both, at first the fire is purely and simply the flame of the sun, but afterwards the wood itself begins to burn; the sun burns the wood and then the wood itself burns.

In like manner, the love of God comes into our heart, and then our heart loves too, and in both cases “love is from God” (1 John 4:7). No man is a Christian unless he himself loves God with his own heart, but yet our love to God is nothing more or less than the reflection of God’s love to us.

Ephesians 2:1-10 explains how humanity, though spiritually dead and deserving of God’s anger, is gifted salvation because of God’s marvelous grace and love for us. Believer’s are God’s masterpiece in whom and through whom He performs his good works.

As a result, I feel this passage provides the best summary concerning salvation in all of Paul’s writings.

Ephesians 2:1–10 (ESV)

By Grace Through Faith

1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 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— 3 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. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

What we were (vv.1-3)

Paul begins our passage by making it clear that unbelievers do not accidentally sin, but defy God by deliberate disobedience in verses 1 - 3.

Deliberately Indifferent to God

We first find out that we were “dead”.

But Paul is not speaking in physical terms, rather he is implicating a spiritual death. The Greek word here means “to be completely indifferent toward the things of God”.

Furthermore, “trespasses and sins” denote conscious and deliberate rebellion.

Acting in Disobedience to God

Next, he expounds on this by stating that we “walk” in this rebellion.

For example, think about what walking is. Walking is not some internal process that’s going on. Walking implies action. Walking implies movement. Every step you take is a tangible, physical action. Each step is a movement in some direction. Paul wants to explain that our trespasses and sins weren’t just internalized, they were externalized through our actions. Our intentional and deliberate actions of disobedience.

Paul then melds our actions and our spiritual death together when he explains what we were doing.

He speaks of “this world” not just in a physical sense but also in a spiritual sense, in other words ethically and morally.

We know this because he equates “following the course of this world” with “following the prince of the power of the air”.

In ancient times, this word “air” referred to the dwelling place of evil spirits.

Paul’s point is to bring to our awareness that the reason we took these actions is because we were subscribing ourselves to the value-system Satan has created in this world.

That doesn’t mean that non-Christians realize that their values are created by Satan.

In fact, most everyone would outright deny ever having anything to do with him.

But Satan controls us by placing things in front of us that we find attractive, and we oblige him by pursuing them like they were our own ideas.

Subjecting Ourselves to God’s wrath

As a matter of fact, Satan’s greatest accomplishment is convincing us that we are in control;

and it’s an easy thing for him to do because humans LOVE to be in control!

But the truth is that if we are not surrendered to God, then we are surrendered to evil.

This does not mean that Satan always turns us into drunks or murderers or other types of despicable people, more often he is much more subtle that than.

His most common tactic is to play on our own selfishness and conceit to give us a false sense of self righteousness.

We believe that:

we can decide between good and evil,

our definition of justice is the only correct one,

don’t judge me but I can judge you,

if you don’t like what I have to say then you are just a hateful bigot.

Sound familiar to anyone?

However the truth is that someone else is always in control,

either God is in control of us through the Holy Spirit

or Satan is in control of us through wordly temptations and deceit.

What God did (vv.4-9)

Nevertheless, Paul contrasts the desperate state of sinfulness that humanity suffers in verses 4-9 by saying that God is rich in mercy and love towards us.

I don’t think Paul intended this, but I believe the next two words we read are the most powerful words in the entire Bible.

“BUT GOD”,

just think of how many evil thoughts, desperate situations, and broken lives can be answered by these words.

“I just want to get revenge”, BUT GOD makes me better than that.

“Times are really low in my life, I feel like everything is crashing down on me”; BUT GOD has a plan for good to come out of this.

“I have destroyed my own life, I am a terrible person and deserve every bad thing that happens to me”; BUT GOD can change me!

There is no excuse, protest, or condemnation that the world can throw at you that can’t be refuted by “BUT GOD”.....the scriptures explain this fact in

1 John 4:4 ESV

4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Seriously, try interjecting “BUT GOD” into everything you think and do from now on and see how your life changes.

Showed us mercy because of His love for us

Moreover, we saw in verses 1-3 that we deserve wrath and judgement. “But God”.....He loves us so very much and He grants us mercy!

Raised us to spiritual life in union with Christ

In addition, we receive this mercy through Christ, by being unified and raised with Him.

Because of this, we have the opportunity to receive something we don’t deserve, that is what grace is.

Due to the fact that Paul has been talking in the past tense up until now, many translations render the phrase “you have been saved” in past tense so that it makes grammatical sense in English,

but the Greek word sense here implies a continuous act.

Christ’s sacrifice allows us to come into God’s presence when we accept Him as Lord and He continues to secure our place with God for all eternity.

Paul reinforces this thought by stating the reason we are offered salvation is “so that in the coming ages” (eternity), God can “show the immeasurable riches of His grace towards us in Christ Jesus”.

Understand that “show” indicates there is a display going on.

We are to be the exhibition to all of creation of the wisdom and love and grace of God.

What a privilege!........Many will experience God’s wrath, but we get to be examples of His grace and mercy!

Offered us the gift of salvation

Not to mention that all of this is a free gift that God gives us simply for accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior.

Not only did we not earn it, but we cannot earn it, ever.

The self-centered, self-righteous world takes this statement as a negative, complaining against God that they are in a situation they cannot get themselves out of.

However, Christians realize that, really, it is a glorious and unimaginable statement of God’s love for us.

True, we cannot get ourselves out of our sinful nature.

But we don’t have to, Christ has done the task for us!

For one thing, have you ever paused to think about just how jealous the ancient Israelites must be of us? Go and read Leviticus, it’s an entire book filled with the laws, rituals, and sacrifices they had to do continuously as God’s people, and even then only one of them, the High Priest, was able to enter God’s presence once a year. Their lives were dominated by constantly sinning, and making atonement to God for it, in a never-ending circular pattern. Furthermore, none of it even guaranteed they would go to heaven. Did you realize that? The Old Testament Law has no guarantee of salvation, only guarantees of judgement. The Pharisees despised Jesus for the same reason the world does today. Because He offers us what they never can.

What we are now (v.10)

In light of this, Paul tells us how salvation changes life for a Christian in verse 10.

God’s new creation

Uniquely, “workmanship” is a very personal word.

There is a sense of love involved.

Carpenters create many things out of wood,

but only a select few of those things would they claim as workmanship.

Paul is reinforcing the very personal love of God we enjoy as His children.

Designed to do His good works

The very next word is “created” and it is the same Greek word Paul uses in Colossians 1:16 when referring to God’s creation of the world.

Colossians 1:16 ESV

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

In fact, Paul only uses this particular form of “created” four times in all of his letters,

twice when discussing what occurs at salvation,

and twice when quoting the Old Testament in reference to the creation of the world.

Paul is stressing the sense of something being brought into existence that didn’t exist before, not just something that was changed or re-made.

He is saying that our salvation in Christ is accompanied by a complete re-creation of ourselves, we are brand-new.

He then explains that the purpose of this re-creation is “for good works, which God prepared beforehand”.

But this is not suggesting that good works were the sole purpose of God offering us a new life

but rather that good works are involved in our new life as an inseparable condition of our hearts.

We see this illustrated in

Luke 19:8 ESV

8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”

Zaccheus was not attempting to earn salvation, this event occurred after Jesus stayed in his house and brought salvation.

This was the natural result of Zaccheus’ re-creation. He couldn’t help but desire to display God’s love and goodness to the world.

Deliberate and intentional in glorifying God to the world

Next, we come across that word “walk” again. Do you remember what it signifies?

It means action, specifically deliberate and intentional action.

Though I must say I don’t like the word “should” in this phrase.

To clarify, it is the proper translation,

however what it meant then and what it means now are different.

Modern society has watered down the meaning of “should” to be more of a suggestion or optional thing.

But what this word means in the original language is that this will happen, guaranteed.

Not just as an afterthought.

Titus 2:14 tells us that pursuing God’s good works will be the greatest desire of our hearts: (The “who” in verse 14 is Christ.)

Titus 2:14 ESV

14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Conclusion

In conclusion, someone who lives in the flesh is one who is living apart from God and deliberately opposed to Him.

We knew we were sinning,

we knew we were in rebellion against God,

but we still chose to be indifferent towards Him because we would rather serve ourselves.

This is the result of sinners selfishness which leads us to rationalize and excuse our sinful activity.

Humans are incredibly good at convincing themselves of lies and excuses.

This is why sinners, by our very nature, deserve God’s wrath.

Therefore, the only right attitude for sinners before God is true repentance and humble dependence.

A Christians only pride can be in the cross through which they find salvation and in our Savior who suffered there.

The truth of our salvation will be exemplified by the good works God does in and through us as we live by faith.

His new creation will be spoken of as being “in true righteousness and holiness”, as we see in

Ephesians 4:24 ESV

24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Through Christ, God freely offers us the opportunity to live in His presence and communion with Him, for eternity!

For this reason, don’t seek the accolades of this world, don’t heed your selfish desires. Strive to put the love of God and His goodness on display to the world. Don’t take for granted any opportunity He gives you to speak His glory or do His good work.

We don’t deserve these privileges.......BUT GOD.

PRAYER

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