The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Ephesians 2:1 “And you were dead in your offenses and sins, 2 in which you previously 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 previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just 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 wrongdoings, 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 boundless riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not 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.”
Before he was Paul, his name was Saul. Before he was a Christian, he was a Jew. Not just a run of the mill Jew, but an up and coming leader/teacher of the Jews. The kind of Jew that was zealous for works righteousness. He couldn’t stand for any moral or theological departure from the orthodoxy of the day. If Saul had been in the Pilate’s courtyard on Good Friday, he would have likely been one of the Jews shouting “Crucify Him, Crucify Him.” Saul held the coats of the Jews who stoned the first Christian martyr, Stephen to death.
After Pentecost the church began to grow and spread rapidly. That made Saul very angry. So he obtained a commission from the Sanhedrin to track down Christians wherever they may be and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial and punishment.
Saul sounds like a bad guy to us, but that’s not how Saul saw it at the time. His sole purpose was to please God. He was zealous for the Old Testament laws, the oral traditions, and the customs of the Jews. He was supremely certain that salvation came by way of obedience to the laws. Paul wrote of himself, in Galatians 1:13-14, “For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.”
One day Saul set out to capture and return a group of Christians who had left Jerusalem and had taken up residence in Damascus. Acts 9:1-4. “Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them in shackles to Jerusalem. Now as he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’”
That was the Saul of the law. That was the Saul who inspired fear and who brought with him the full punishment of the Law. Never, ever underestimate the raw power and destructive nature of self generated righteousness. Such people understand or have true faith in Christ Jesus. This was the Saul who did not know the depth of his own sin, nor what it meant to have a loving, gracious, kind, and merciful God.
Jesus didn’t need Saul. He needed the man who wrote our assigned Epistle lesson this morning (Ephesians 2:1-10). He needed Paul, the Christian, the theologian of the Law and Gospel, of grace, love, mercy, and forgiveness. So there on the road to Damascus, Jesus went about making a Paul out of a Saul.
Ephesians 2:1-10 is a study in the Law and Gospel. It is one of the most beautiful, graceful, Gospel-rich passages in the New Testament. These ten verses ought to serve as a pattern for Gospel preaching. There is no confusion of law and Gospel. There is no mistaking the Gospel for the law. These ten verses are brilliant in both what is said and how it is said. It is brilliant in form and content.
In regard to form, it was written in the form of a chiasm. It is neatly a defined and well-balanced unit. There is a step-by-step movement from inside the depths of mankind’s plight to the step-by-step undoing of the damage of man’s sin by God from the outside in.
Verses 1-3 are all Law! You were dead in your offenses and sins! You walked in the course of this world! You lived according to the prince of the power of the air! You were disobedient, living in lusts , captive to a sinful mind, and were by nature children of wrath. It’s a devastating list. There is no hint of goodness and no praise for sinful humanity. No, not Jew or Gentile can escape.
Having devastating humanity with the law, Paul takes the Christian in a different direction. For each failure on mankind’s part there is a corresponding act of redemption on God’s part.
Verses 5-7, when we were dead in our wrongdoings, God made us alive with Christ. He raised us up with Him. He seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The God who is God, the God who confronted Saul on the road to Damascus, is a God of great love with which He loved us. He shows His boundless riches of grace in kindness toward us in His Son Jesus Christ.
The chief theological truth in Paul’s a chiasm is not found at the end, but in the middle of the construction. Paul puts the crescendo in the middle not the end.
Paul’s chiasm ends with a statement about the origin of good works. 10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Rather the high point and focus of this chiasm is the Gospel, verse 5, “[God] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved). This is the center.
The language of the Law dominates the first three verses. In those verses Paul reveals the workings of the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature. In the last seven verses, the Gospel reigns. In those verses Paul moves the person from the old sinful life, to the new life in Christ. Just as the Gospel moves and transforms us from creatures of sin and death, St. Paul moves and transforms us with the Gospel and in the chiasm gametically from death to life. The Gospel prevails, which by the way is what is suppose to happen in a good sermon. The law is to be preached. It is not to be confused with the Gospel and vice-a-verse, but the Gospel must prevail because only it saves.
“You were dead in your offenses and sins.” God’s Word doesn’t say we were partly dead or partly alive. We are by nature dead in sin. What does that mean? To be dead means to be unable to help oneself. To be dead spiritually means we are powerless and beyond hope. We can’t contribute anything to our own salvation. There is no hope, nothing to praise within the human heart or mind. There is nothing worthy of God’s favorable disposition. Natural man is corrupt and estranged from God. We are “children of wrath.”
Paul makes it clear that we “walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air.” The air is the lowest level of the heavens. It is where the spiritual forces, good and evil do battle over us. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:12).
In contrast to these evil forces seeking to keep you captive, The God of grace and love, rescues and creates in us a new life and gives us a new future. God made us alive together with Christ by grace. God raised us up with Him. He seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Saul the missionary of laws, didn’t become Paul by an act of his own will. Saul became Paul, who by the way is called the “Apostle of Grace” by an act of Christ Jesus. Saul thought he was righteous by way of the law. Paul came to understand that righteousness comes by way of faith, faith by God’s Word, God’s Word by way of God’s rich mercy, and God’s rich mercy by God’s love, and God’s love by way of God’s grace.
Paul was living in the reality of what he was given to write. Ephesians 2:1-10 was Paul’s autobiography. It’s our’s too. 8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
The condition of mankind is not in fact hopeless. God has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to save His lost and dead creatures. We who were dead have been raised to new life in and with Him. We were slaves to sin but have been set free from sin, the world, and the prince of the air. We are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. We are servants of the One who has given us life and set us free.
God is not done with us as individual Christians. There is work to be done in us and through us. 10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
We are God’s workmanship. We have been saved by grace through faith apart from works of the Law. We have a purpose now. We were created in Christ “for good works.” That is, our lives are to be lives of service to God and our neighbors. This life of faith, love, and service (good works) is referred in this chiasm as “walking in them,” that is we walk in true faith in Christ, while doing good works for others.
Verse 10 is referring to the effects of the Gospel in the life of a Christian. I call these woks the by-products of the Gospel. Good deeds arise from and follow faith. Sanctification comes from and follows justification. But even our good works are actually worked by God. Jesus said it this way in John 15, “I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
God’s purpose in working faith, love, and good works in us is to show in the ages to come the richness of His grace in Christ Jesus. By virtue of this new life, which is in its entirety ascribed to the creative power of God, we are prepared for good works, we are able and willing to do works that please our heavenly Father.
A Christian should not boast of the good works that he/she is privileged to do, knowing that it is the power of Christ. Paul would write elsewhere, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20)
When the ages of this world come to an end and eternity dawns, we, who were by nature children of wrath will be seated with Christ in heavenly places because, 4 God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, … made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the one true faith unto life everlasting. Amen.