Campus CrossWalk Magazine: 2007 Summer Issue -- Saved by Grace (Ephesians 2:1-10)

I. Who Are You and Where Are You, in Christ?

A. Who Are You?

In Ephesians chapter 1, Paul begins by sharing the incredibly wonderful news that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. He has chosen us to be holy. He has adopted us as His own children. He has forgiven our sins by richly lavishing His grace upon us. He has included us in His eternal plan. And God has given us His own Spirit, by whom God works His power in and through our lives as Christians.

B. Where Are You?

Paul prays that we will truly understand what incredible spiritual blessings God has given us. He prays for the eyes of our hearts to be enlightened, so that we will know the hope we have, the incredible inheritance that awaits us, and the incomparably great power God makes available to us.

The power which God makes available to us is the same power that God demonstrated in Christ. By His great power, God raised Christ from the dead, He seated Christ in the heavenly realms and gave Christ authority over all other rulers, authorities, powers and dominions—to be head over everything—to have all things under his feet.

That same incredible power—resurrection power, exaltation power, and purpose power—God demonstrates in us. And we need God's power, because, in Christ, we are also in the heavenly realms—spiritual dimensions beyond time and space. God the Father and Christ are there. Satan and the dark forces of wickedness are there. And so are you. In Christ, you are in the heavenly realms—as a part of the church, playing an important role in God’s plan and engaged in spiritual warfare . . . in dimensions beyond.

Do you feel special yet? Do you feel assured? Do you feel confident in Christ? You should.

C. How . . .?

Have you accomplished any of this for yourself? Are the spiritual blessings you have received the result of your own efforts, your own goodness, your own sinless perfection? Are you in the heavenly realms because you deserve to be there—because you have been able to achieve such exalted spiritual status by virtue of your own merit?

If, indeed, you have received every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ (as described in Ephesians 1, et. al.), chapter two explains how you got here.

II. The Way We Were, the Way We Are

Ephesians 2: 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.; 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.; 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. (NAS)

A. The Way We Were—What We Accomplish for Ourselves

So, what does this passage tell us about what we had managed to accomplish for ourselves?

Ephesians 2: ¹ And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

We Were Dead in our Sins (2:1-3)

John Newton had been a rowdy, immoral, depraved captain of a slave ship before he came to faith and devoted his life to Christian ministry. When he wrote, Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, Newton was acknowledging that he had been dead in his sins.

But here’s a fact that you may not like to face. You don’t have to live the same hideous lifestyle (or worse) for that to be true of you. If ever you have sinned, you are a sinner. And apart from Christ, any and every sinner is dead in his or her sins. Moreover, there is no way for a dead sinner to jump high enough to reach salvation. Dead people cannot jump, cannot achieve, cannot merit, cannot make it . . . You may as well try to jump as high as heaven, as to try to earn or merit your own salvation.

The way we were? Dead in our sins . . . That’s it. That’s all. Dead in our sins is the most we sinners can ever accomplish spiritually by our own efforts.

B. The Way We Are—What God has Accomplished for Us

1) Our Merciful, Loving God Made Us Alive in Christ (2:4-6).

We were dead. But in Christ, we are alive. How is that possible? Look closely at verse 5 in context. God resurrected us from the death of our sins. God made us alive in Christ.

Now why would God do that? Because God is rich in mercy. And because of His great love for us.

2) God Has Placed Us in the Heavenly Realms in Christ (2:6-7).

How did you get to the heavenly realms to possess every spiritual blessing? None of us has made it to the heavenly realms on our own, any more than we have physically jumped out of the fourth dimension.

God has placed us in the heavenly realms in Christ. God does it for us. God takes us where we could never go by our own efforts—into spiritual dimensions beyond. But why? To prove His own goodness and kindness. Our presence in the heavenly realms proves that God is gracious.

3) God Saves Us by His Grace through Faith (8-9).

Though I don’t like phrasing it this way, I suppose that, in a certain sense, it could be said that grace is God’s part, and faith is our part. But anything we say is our part of salvation smacks of a works righteousness system, even if the work in question is faith. Without God’s grace, our faith could not raise us from the death of our sins, make us spiritually alive or transfer us to heavenly realms. So we are not saved by our faith, any more than we are saved by our obedience or works or goodness.

Note carefully that we are not saved by faith. We are saved by grace. That means we are saved by God, not by self.

What is grace? By definition, grace is unmerited favor. It is the gift of God. Paul makes it clear that it is not of ourselves—not our own doing. It is not as a result of works. It is not something we can boast of, because we do not accomplish it.

A few years ago I came to understand that it is necessary to define grace antithetically (like Paul did). In a class on Romans, I posed the question, “What is grace?” One person in that class proposed that grace is obedience, which absolutely baffled me. From that experience I learned that if we do wish to accept the free gift of God’s unmerited favor, some of us will try to find a way to redefine the very concept of grace. So here goes—in no uncertain terms—what grace is not:

Grace is not obedience. Obedient faith is the appropriate response to grace.
Grace is not a “second chance.” It provides eternal hope.
Grace is not an opportunity to “start over and get it right this time.”
Grace is not the word of God revealing how we can measure up, meet God’s standards, and come into compliance.
Grace is not God “taking up the slack” (i.e. carrying us the rest of the way after we have made it as far as we can).
Grace is not the Gospel (a backwards argument). Rather, the good news we have received to share is the grace of God. In fact, Paul called it the gospel of the grace of God.

How could anyone read these verses in Ephesians 2 and think anything of the sort? Grace is no less than the unmerited favor of God. It is a gift from God, which no dead sinner can ever deserve.

: If you do not accept God’s grace as unmerited favor, you reject what God has done for you, as if you intend to do it for yourself.; If you do not accept God’s grace as unmerited favor, you trust in yourself, your own goodness, what you can accomplish—rather than trusting in God.; If you do not accept God’s grace as unmerited favor, you may as well forget about the cross. For if salvation is not by grace, then the cross of Christ is meaningless to you.; If you do not accept God’s grace as unmerited favor, just go ahead and admit that you are counting on saving yourself and start boasting of your own goodness.

You won’t be arguing with me. You’ll be arguing with God.

Ephesians 2: 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.

C. How Should We Live in Response to What God Does for Us? (2:10)

Since we are saved by grace, what is our motivation for living as Christians? Since we are saved by grace, why change our lives? Why obey, or serve, or give, or do anything else God wants us to do?

Ephesians 2: ¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

This is how we should live in response to what God does for us. This is our purpose and our motivation. We do not need guilt and fear and the controls of a contrived human philosophy or legal system to motivate us to live right before God.

We do the good things, because that’s what God created us to do. We live right, because that’s what God created us for. We are created for good works—which we do because we want to, because we choose to, because that’s what God created us to do—out of gratitude as recipients of His grace. And in the last half of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul has a great deal more to say about how we should walk in the works God has prepared for us.

Ephesians 4: ¹ Therefore . . . walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,

If you have been called to God’s grace, brought near by the blood of Christ, reconciled through the cross, then walk in a manner worthy of God’s grace.

Click here for the next essay in Brian's series.
"Walking in Grace" (Ephesians 4-6)
Brian Cobb is a servant of the gospel of the grace of God to the Manhattan, Kansas, Church of Christ and Cats for Christ at K-State. He functions as editor for the Kansas Directory of Churches of Christ, a publication he started in 1988. A CCW board member since 2003, Brian serves Campus CrossWalk in the role of web designer / publisher.