Establishing Your Bearing

The blessings of God and Paul’s prayer recorded for us in Ephesians 1 set the stage for living for God in the resurrection power of Christ. Paul next leads us into an understanding of why the power of Christ is so vital for us and what that power is intended to accomplish. This section of his letter to the Ephesians relates the amazing truth about God’s grace to us, ensuring that we understand how lavish and unmerited is the gift of salvation through His Son.

Setting Your Course

Dead in Trespasses and Sins

Ephesians 2:1-3

¹ And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, ² in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. ³ Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Paul abruptly pulls his readers back from the resurrection power of God to their hopeless condition before Him apart from Christ. We, too, were in this same condition before God graciously made us alive in Christ.

The pre-salvation condition is described as “dead.” We cannot ignore the descriptive phrases Paul uses throughout this section. We were “dead in…trespasses and sins.” We were “children of wrath,” God’s wrath – God’s holy wrath. Paul does not soften our desperate need for God’s grace and Christ’s atonement.

Recognizing what we were before Christ places God’s blessings and our prayers into heavenly perspective.

Alive in Christ

Ephesians 2:4-7

⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our transgressions, 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 ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

The transition is so simple, so understated, yet so wonderful. “But God…” immediately brings a change to our situation. It brings hope, peace, relief, even joy. Everything Paul says in these verses drips with love (v.4). Our previous condition is mentioned, but only to display the contrast with God’s unmerited grace to make us alive.

“God…made us alive together with Christ.” If that were all, it would be enough. “But God…” has so much more for us in Christ. We are raised with Him. We are seated with Him in the heavenlies. This is adoption realized, experienced. And God does all of this to display “the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

God makes us alive in Christ because of His mercy, love, grace, and kindness.

Saved by Grace

Ephesians 2:8-10

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹ not as 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 so that we would walk in them.

Paul mentioned grace in verse 5. It’s a simple statement flowing from His love and His making us alive in Christ – “by grace you have been saved.” Grace is God’s favor toward us when we did not deserve it. Going further, there was nothing we could do to merit God’s favor. Yet “by grace you [we] have been saved.”

Now here, in verse 8, Paul makes grace the headline. Grace is God’s answer to our sin. It is “by grace” that we are saved and made alive in Christ. This gift is not “of works,” but it makes God’s original purpose possible through the power of Christ: we are created in Him “for good works.” This great gift of salvation is God’s grace that we may be “in Christ.”

Our response to God’s grace is obediently living the life we have in Christ.