Scripture Daily

Context No. 823 of 4322 · Ephesians

Context · Reflection

Ephesians 2:1-10: in context

1You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins, 2in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience. 3We also all once lived among them in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus; 8for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9not of works, that no one would boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.

Paul begins with a diagnosis that leaves no room for self-help. You were dead, he tells the Ephesians, dead in your trespasses and sins, walking in step with the world and the spirit of disobedience, living by the cravings of the flesh, children of wrath like everyone else. Not sick, not struggling, not almost there. Dead. And a dead person cannot revive himself; that is what makes the next two words the hinge of the whole passage, and maybe of the whole letter. But God.

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. Everything turns on that intervention, arriving at the exact moment we could do nothing for ourselves. Paul will not let anyone mistake where it came from: by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. The life we now have was not achieved, earned, or self-generated. It was given to the dead. And yet the passage does not end there, as if we were saved to do nothing. We are his workmanship, Paul says, created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand. The works come after, as the fruit of the gift, never as its price. First we were dead. Then, but God. Only then, alive, and made for good.

Paul says we were dead, and that the whole of our new life hangs on two words: but God. Where am I still straining to make myself alive, to earn a standing I can only receive, missing the grace that acts precisely when I cannot?

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