Who We Were Before Christ
2:1-3
After the prayer, Paul reminded the Ephesians of what they were before they came to Christ. This applies to us today also. The “you” of verse 1 may mean the Gentile believers in the church at Ephesus.
First, Paul says, before Christ, they were dead in their trespasses and sins in which they once walked. (2:1-2) “Once walked” means how they lived before they came to Christ. These were the things that characterized them.
They were spiritually dead. That means they were alienated from God and separated from the life he gives.
An illustration of this truth is the story of Adam and Eve. Originally, they were without sin and lived in perfect fellowship with God. But, when they rebelled against God, they lost that fellowship. All sin is rebellion against God.
Having rebelled against God, Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden and out of that perfect fellowship with God. (Genesis 3:23-24) God had told them that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would cause them to die. (Genesis 2:17) Adam and Eve were spiritually dead, separated from God by their sin.
This sinful life followed the “course of this world”. (2) The Greek word for “world” (Kosmos or Cosmos) can have several different meanings, but here means the way of humanity that lives in opposition to God. That is why Paul could write that we have not received the spirit of the world; we have received the Spirit that comes from God. (1 Corinthians 2:12)
That also means they were following the way of Satan, who is described as the prince of the power of the air that now works in the sons of disobedience (the world). “Air” here mens the spiritual realm. Over in chapter 6, verse 12, Paul wrote of rulers, authorities and cosmic powers who are the spiritual forces of evil in the “heavenly places”, which seems to mean the same place or realm referred to her in chapter 2, here 2. He has also referred to it as the dominion of darkness. (Colossians 1:13)
Having spoken to the Gentiles of their former life, Paul, in verse 3, includes the Jews in this same condition when he wrote “among whom we all once lived”. That life was dominated by the passions of the flesh, the desires of the body, and the desires of an unregenerate mind. Paul used the word “flesh” to mean our corrupted human nature. He has described the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21. It is a long list of sinful activity that can result from letting the flesh have its way.
Lastly, Paul says all of those who have not come to Christ are “children of wrath”. That is a way of saying they deserve God’s wrath. What could be more scary than experiencing God’s wrath? The book of Revelation certainly gives us vivid and scary pictures of God pouring out his wrath. There were 7 bowls of wrath in Revelation 16, as God gave mankind the opportunity to repent before the end. Then there was the final judgment of Revelation 20 where those whose name were not found in the Lamb’s book of life were thrown into the lake of fire.
Reading the depictions of God’s wrath shows us how much he hates sin. It also helps us see how great God’s grace is toward believers.
Who We Are In Christ
2:4-10
The words “but God” are two of the sweetest words in the New Testament. After showing us the depth of our sin and our spiritual death before we knew Christ, Paul shows us that God made us alive in Christ, together with him.
As God raised Christ from the dead physically, with that same power he raises us spiritually. (6) He seats us in the heavenly places in Christ. Jesus himself declared this to the church in Laodicea, saying “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne”. (Revelation 3:21) Since we are in Christ, we are seated with him as he sits on the throne at the right hand of God in the heavenly places. That is where, and why, we receive the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places as set out in chapter 1.
God did this out of his mercy because of his great love for us. He is rich in mercy. (4) Way back in the book of Exodus, God revealed himself to Moses and declared himself as “a God merciful and gracious”. (Exodus 34:6) Mercy means not getting what you deserve. What we deserved was wrath and death. What we received was life in Christ.
God also saved us from wrath and death as a matter of grace. Grace is getting what you do not deserve. We did not earn salvation, we received it because God gave us grace. Verses 8 and 9 are often memorized by believers. It says we are saved by grace. We receive that grace by faith in Christ. But even this saving faith is not generated by us. It is given to us by God. No works done by us merit salvation and so there is no room for boasting.
God had a purpose in all of this beyond our salvation. It was that we, as his workmanship, his new creation, would do good works. God prepared those good works beforehand with the intention that we would do them, or walk in them as Paul said. (10)
And God had an even further purpose in this. It is that he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus in the coming ages. (7) God will glorify himself through the display of his grace for eternity as all creation marvels that he granted salvation to us in grace and grace alone. In Philippians 2, Paul wrote that Jesus was exalted so that all would acknowledge his lordship to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11) The church will for all time be the masterpiece of God’s goodness.
Knowing the depths of God’s grace brings us to thankfulness and worship. Knowing God’s great love for us should sustain us when things in this life are difficult. Knowing we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places gives us a hope for the future and the strength to face physical death. Understanding God’s plan of salvation from before the foundation of the earth brings us to glorify him.
Spend some time this week meditating on these things.
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