Sermon Notes: Ephesians 2:4-7 – Alive
These are the notes of the sermon preached by Andy Evans on the morning of the 10 January 2010. Click here to download or stream the sermon audio.
Ephesians 2:1-10
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— 3among 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. 4But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For 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. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
1. THE EXTENT OF OUR DEADNESS
As we considered last week, verses 1 through to 3 were all about highlighting the extent of our deadness. The Apostle Paul references this again in verse 5,
even when we were dead in our trespasses (Ephesians 2:5)
Despite the presumptions of unbelievers, Biblical Christianity is not mere wishful thinking or optimistic positivism; the gospel is grounded upon objective reality.
It is important that we remember this principle. There is a trend in evangelicalism which has seeped into the church from the self-help culture of the world. This philosophy encourages us to embrace the champion within us, to release our inner super-hero and to love ourselves just a little more.
This is all at odds with the way in which Scripture presents us and, in verses 1 through to 3, Paul presents us with the ultimate wake-up call which pushes back hard against all such therapeutic deism. Paul provides us with a sharp reality check,
And you were dead in the trespasses and sin in which you once walked (Ephesians 2:1-2)
following the course of this world (Ephesians 2:2)
following Satan [‘the prince of the power of the air’] and the spirit of disobedience [we were, in fact, sons of disobedience] (Ephesians 2:2)
living in the passions of our flesh (Ephesians 2:3)
carrying out the desires of the body and the mind (Ephesians 2:3)
and were under the right and just condemnation of God [we were ‘by nature children of wrath] (Ephesians 2:3)
Paul explains the extent of our deadness, enslaved to our sin, our passions and our flesh; enslaved to the Satanically inspired philosophies of this world, duped by Satan himself and because of all of this we lived under the holy and just death sentence issued by God against all disobedient, God-belittling sinners.
All of this limited our capacity to live and experience life in all its fullness; it is Jesus alone who bestows abundant life (John 10:10). All of this blinded us to the truth of God, the goodness of God and the things of God.
The death Paul describes is spiritual, experiential and, ultimately, judicial.
This is the great reality check. This is a call for believers to think clearly and unbelievers to see clearly.
Christians are the ultimate realists, we see the world as it is (subject to futility, Romans 8:20) and ourselves as we were, dead, blind and enslaved.
2. GOD
a. But God
This matters because Paul wants us to feel the astonishing force of verse 4,
But God, being rich in mercy… (Ephesians 2:4)
Think about the hopelessness of our former state when we were but sons of disobedience and children of wrath. Think about the extent of our blindness, perhaps we ridiculed the gospel and mocked Christians. Think about the depth of our former depravity, some of us were very bad whatever measure of morality we compared ourselves against. Think about the totality of our bondage; some of us felt this acutely in our addiction to drink or drugs.
But God…
This is the gospel-truth that Paul has spent much of chapter one unpacking for us. God acts. God intervenes. God saves. And all of this is necessary because we are utterly incapable of helping ourselves. At the risk of stating the obvious: dead people are dead and are of little use to anyone, much less themselves.
But God…
The gospel begins with a God who acts, a God who intervenes. Paul is about to unpack this further.
b. This Merciful God
Paul begins by focusing in on the character of God.
Considering the extent of our deadness and the depth of our depravity, we might well find ourselves asking why God would bother to intervene. Now, there are many answers to this question, and Paul has already unfolded a number throughout chapter one, but here Paul focuses on just one,
But God, being rich in mercy… (Ephesians 2:4)
This God, our God, the God who intervenes in history is rich in mercy.
It is worth dwelling on this phrase for a moment.
Repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, God reveals himself to men and women. We see a dramatic example of this in Exodus 34. Earlier, in chapter thirty-three, Moses asked God to show him his glory (Exodus 33:18). God agrees and takes Moses up the mountain and, shielding him with his hand in the cleft of a rock, passes before him declaring,
… “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6–7)
The Lord reveals himself to Moses and declares something of his nature: this God, our God, is merciful, gracious, patient, loving and faithful. The word, hesed, here translated, ‘steadfast love’, is particularly significant as it is translated in Greek as eleos, a word that Paul uses to describe the mercy of God. The mercy Paul has in mind is steadfast.
Moreover, eleos, the word Paul uses to describe the mercy of God is generally used to refer to generosity or mercy demonstrated towards an undeserving party. This is why the passage from Exodus is illuminating.
We may remember that Moses went up the mountain a first time to receive the law and, while he was up there, the people of Israel rebelled and persuaded Aaron to make them an idol in the form of a golden calf. The people then indulged in idolatry and debauchery (Exodus 32:1-6).
God rightly and justly responded to this disobedience with holy anger. Scripture tells us that the wrath of God burned against the people (Exodus 32:10) and yet, in mercy, he relented.
God’s self-disclosure as the epitome of ‘mercy’ and ‘steadfast love’ is grounded upon the demonstration of his mercy towards a rebellious, fickle and unfaithful people. The unworthiness of the object of his affections (Israel and now us) serves to cement the truth that this God, our God, is steadfastly loving while emphasising the extent and, in doing so, the sheer beauty and glory of this mercy
This truth maps into Paul’s understanding of the character of God in his letter to the Ephesians. They, and we, were formerly idolaters, God-belittlers and God-haters and yet God intervened and showed mercy, because he is merciful, loving and kind. Paul’s point is that this is the kind of God we serve.
Feel then the weight of this truth. Marvel at his glorious grace.
But God, being rich in mercy… even when we were dead in our trespasses (Ephesians 2:4a-5)
You see, our deadness has a moral component. It is something for which we are wholly responsible. We were dead because of our choices, our lifestyle and our wholesale rejection of God. And, yet, in his mercy, he stepped in and everything changed.
c. This Loving God
This God, our God, thus feels in accordance with his nature,
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us
This prepositional phrase expands upon the first. Our God is, as the Apostle John states so emphatically, characterised by his love,
…God is love. (1 John 4:8)
Let’s just pause for a moment to clarify this.
The truth of God’s loving nature and this passage from the Apostle John’s first Epistle, is perhaps the most abused and misquoted truth in Scripture. Often times the love of God is placed over and against the truth of God’s justice and is used to negate the idea that there will be any reckoning or judgement over sin. This is a gross distortion of the gospel and completely out of step with Paul’s thinking.[1] Last week Paul emphasised our state outside of Christ,
[we were] by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:3)
God feels just and righteous anger towards sinners and sin. For those who refuse to repent there is only the fearful expectation of judgement and wrath. We must never underplay this. God is holy and feels a focused, just and righteous anger towards sin and rebellious sinners. And yet this same God is characterised by his rich mercy and his great love. Yes, God is holy and pure. Yes, God is just. And, yes, God responds in righteous anger towards rebellion, idolatry and God-belittling men and women. And yet his default position is love.
This God ‘is rich in mercy’ and, as such, he feels and, as we will see, acts in accordance with his nature.
Consider the way in which Paul loads expansive clauses one on top of another,
But God,
being rich in mercy,
because of the great love
with which he loved us (Ephesians 2:4)
God is rich in mercy and possesses, or feels, great love. But this is not an abstract emotionalism, rather it is directed towards us. We are the object of his affections and his affection for us is great.
The Scriptures return to this monumental truth again and again and it is clear that the Apostle Paul never got over his wonder at the glory of God’s extravagant grace and he returns to this great theme again and again,
…God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:5–8)
As in Ephesians, the greatness of God’s mercy is demonstrated in the unworthiness of the objects of this same mercy. God steps in at the right time when we were enemies of God, hostile to the things of God and living in active rebellion.
God steps in at the right time, when we were sinners, that he might show his love for us.
This is precisely Paul’s point in Ephesians chapter two. Paul wants us to see the greatness of the mercy of God and the glory of his grace and understands that in order to do this we must understand the hopelessness of our former state that we might see the richness of his mercy and the greatness of his love. We were dead and utterly blameworthy for that death and yet God sent rescue, not because he must, but because this is the kind of God he is.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38–39)
Herein we find a further application. The point of this passage is that our assurance is grounded upon the truth that his mercy and love is vast and expansive. This is why we do ourselves great harm in diminishing the depth of our depravity. To pretend that we are not that bad really minimises the necessity for grace. But what do we do when we stumble more greatly than we imagined we could? What do we do when we finally glimpse how wicked our heart actually is?
In all likelihood this will lead us to despair. We have previously shunned the grace of God and, in all truth, depended upon our own righteousness. When the illusion of this is stripped away, well, what then?
Understanding our true state before a holy God opens our eyes to his extravagant mercy and love and in this there is great assurance. In Christ, in the cross, in our salvation, in him transforming us into increasing conformity with Christ we see the greatness of his love. In this there is great security. This great love will never let us go. This great love will never let us fall.
Paul wants us to see and this is why he reminds the saints in Ephesus,
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us (Ephesians 2:4)
d. This Resurrecting God
This God who is characterised by his rich mercy and great love acts in accordance with his very nature,
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 (Ephesians 2:4-5)
This is the full force behind ‘But God’ in verse 4. This mercifully loving God acts miraculously, gloriously and in great power. While we were dead he made us alive.
Understand this, unbeliever, your situation is grave, self-discipline, self-help and self-improvement will not remedy the problem: you are dead.
And know this, believer, your salvation was a glorious and miraculous thing in which God displayed his glory. You were dead and he has made you alive.
Scripture talks about salvation in dramatic terms because the truth of it is earth-shaking. We were lost, blind, imprisoned, condemned. To all extents and purposes we were dead. And yet God, because he is merciful and because he is loving, chose to act and rescue those who so scorned and belittled him. This rescue was utterly miraculous and we do well to exult in the truth of this.
Dead men and women made alive.
With Christ.
Christ is our reference point and this should cause us to reflect on Paul’s earlier celebration of God’s resurrection power gloriously displayed in Christ and now at work towards those of us who believe (Ephesians 1:19). Jesus Christ was physically raised from the dead and this same resurrection power has bestowed spiritual life upon men and women who were spiritually dead.
Paul, however, goes further here and returns to the central truth he expounded throughout chapter one. Christ is the sphere in which all of God’s mercy, grace and blessings are made available.
There are two implications here.
The first is obvious (I would hope) and fundamental. There is no resurrection, and there is no being made alive, outside of Christ. Because of the cross and the resurrection of the Son of God, eternal life is made available to all who call upon his name and trust and believe in him. Apart from Christ there is only wrath.
The second implication which, in truth, is Paul’s primary concern here, is that this rescue, this salvation and this life entails unity with Christ. We were raised with and in Christ.
Paul now proceeds to cement the implications of this truth.
3. ALIVE
In verses 1 to 3, Paul unfolds the extent of the deadness experienced by all unbelievers. Paul now explains the glorious implications of the new life we receive in Christ.
a. Raised up with Christ
Paul writes,
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 (Ephesians 2:5-6)
Paul begins by examining our former state: we were dead, lost, powerless and enslaved. Paul now examines what it means to be made alive in Christ Jesus. God made us alive with Christ and, in so doing, raised us up with him.
There is an intentional parallel here with Ephesians 1:20. Paul prays that we would know,
…what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:19–21)
Here Christ is the object of God’s great activity. Paul understands that in the resurrection and ascension we see the exaltation of the Son of God. Paul further understands that this exaltation, and his supremacy, is absolute. Christ has been raised ‘far above every rule, authority and power and dominion’ (v. 21).
Clearly Ephesians 2:5-6 cannot mean the same thing for believers.
For believers, there is a ‘raising up’ and this is intended to contrast with their former state. Formerly we were of the grave. Formerly we were in bondage to our flesh, the Christless culture around us and, ultimately, Satan himself. We were dead and utterly enslaved.
Now we are made alive, now we are raised up and now we are seated with Christ.
This is not a matter of authority, but rather an issue of position. Because of God’s mercy, our ignominy has been replaced by a privilege, honour and, ultimately, glory.
For the church in Ephesus, this change in position would have felt both immediate and profound. Many of these believers came out of a background of occult practices and idol worship. We know that this particular church faced fierce opposition and was under a great attack from false teachers and counterfeit gospels. Paul later reminds them that believers are engage in a savage spiritual battle,
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)
In truth, I suspect that we do not feel this as intently as saints who have gone before us. We live in an incredibly materialistic world and we tend to focus our attention on material obstacles. Paul wants us to see that beneath all of this, satanic forces are at work. The course of this world is influence by the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:3).
This is why there is great comfort and encouragement in the truth that we are raised and seated with Christ. Some of you still wrestle with specific and dark sins; perhaps you are still struggling to overcome anger-issues, lust and all consuming greed.
Some of you still live with the legacy of substance abuse and may still be wrestling with addictions of one kind or another.
Paul wants you to know that, on the one hand, your struggle is real. Your struggle is a struggle and you should expect to experience the sense of exertion which comes with this.
But Paul also wants you to know that your struggle has a spiritual root and, whereas formerly you were in bondage, you are now raised and seated with Christ in the ‘heavenly places’ (Ephesians 2:6). This is why the location is so important. In Ephesians 1:3, Paul writes,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3)
Paul wants believers to see that, at this very moment, Christ is seated in the most exalted position in the universe and that this position enables him to pour out extravagant blessings upon those who are his. Moreover, Paul wants us to understand that it is not simply that we are ‘down here’ and he is ‘up there’ dropping love bombs from some remote and detached place. Paul wants us to know that we are with him and we are in him and, as such, we have access to him and in him there is every spiritual blessing.
b. Truly Alive
There are three earth shattering implications in all of this.
a. Right Living
As we move through this letter we will find that there are weighty exhortations for those of us who believe,
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1–2)
Feel the weight of this. Paul says that believers should imitate God and should seek to pattern their lives in accordance with the character of God. Paul says that believers should walk like Christ and love like Christ and to do this is to walk the way of the cross.
How is this possible?
Paul understands that God’s resurrection power towards those of us who believe is incredibly purposeful. We are saved for his great purposes. We are saved that we might follow after him, that we might pursue righteous and that we might grow in increasing conformity with the Son of God who loves us and gave himself for us. All of this brings pleasure to God.
Formerly God responded in wrath. Now God looks upon those of us who are his, those of us who are beloved children, with rich mercy and great love. Paul calls us to walk in this and live in the light of this great truth.
b. Right thinking
We will consider this more carefully next week, but we have skipped over a central thought in this passage. It would be good for us to meditate upon and think deeply about this over the coming week,
by grace you have been saved (Ephesians 2:5)
One outcome of us understanding and seeing the depth of our depravity is that we might see and depend upon his lavish grace. Our ‘being made alive’ and our being ‘raised up’ are dependent upon grace. He chose, in the richness of his mercy to fix his great love upon unworthy and undeserving sinners. It is important we feel this so that we might live in the truth of this. By grace we have been saved.
c. The Right Response
Salvation begins with God and the end of salvation is the glory of God,
so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:7)
This is mysterious and profound. Paul understands, and wants us to see, that our individual salvation is bigger than anyone of us and bigger than Firwood Church. Paul wants us to see that the glory of God and the glory of Christ is the main focus of this action.
We were saved so that ‘the immeasurable riches of his grace’ might be displayed and made to look altogether glorious.
Our salvation is bigger than us.
We were saved so that we would be vessels of his mercy shining forth the glory of his grace now and in the coming ages.
Our salvation is bigger than us.
You and I will live out our lives and eventually die, but the glory of his grace will shine on. The saints who follow us will remember his grace at work in our lives. Our children will remember the way in which Mom and Dad shared the good news of the gospel and lived the thing out. They will remember the grace of God at work in us and towards us and, by God’s grace, at work toward them.
And on that day, when he returns, and, as the saints gather round his throne, we will remember and we will glory in the Lamb who was slain and his glorious grace. This song will never end and the glory of God’s immeasurable grace will continue to reverberate and resound throughout all eternity.
[1] Dr D.A. Carson addresses this error brilliantly in The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2000, 2001, [2003]), esp. pp. 9-27