WebPaul writes to the Ephesians that "in the past you were spiritually dead because of your disobedienc One of my son's housemates -- Ephesians 2:1-10 -- Fourth Sunday in Lent - B -- 2003 One of my son's housemates at college is an artist. He might have given Himself ever so truly in pity for us; but it would not have been perfection, had He not "given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." We are his workmanship say some of the translations of Ephesians 2:10. Here the prayer is not, as in the first chapter, that they might know the power that had wrought toward them; it is now that their hearts might be in the secret of His grace according to the power that works in them. We cannot earn God's love; but we can and must show how grateful we are for it, by seeking with our whole hearts to live the kind of life which will bring joy to God's heart. But profound truths are for those who have spiritual understandings; and such do not require many words to comprehend them. Nothing they do can bring them back to life, because no matter how much good they try to do, they are still sinners. Christ is Victor; his rule has begun. Paul was one of those; and there were others at Ephesus, as we well know in point of fact the first nucleus of the assembly there. I cannot help reminding you, that you must not overlook the fact that Paul will not go a hair's breadth away from Christ. Is there not good reason for saying that the church is but a consequence? Not that the body is there yet, but that the body of Christ is heavenly in its character, although in fact on the earth now. Thus Israel stands in the permanent remembrance of power that redeemed them from the land of Egypt, and in the anticipation of a still greater manifestation that will eclipse whatever had been seen of old. What a mystic union there is between the believer and his Lord! His glory is the first object of our being. The most vital form of Greek religion was the Mystery Religions, and from many of them the barbarian was excluded. Are we as good parents as we might be? The priest sprinkled the blood around the altar because it was atonement for the soul. There are no outsiders For it is he who is our peace; it is he who made both Jew and Gentile into one, and who broke down the middle wall of the barrier between, and destroyed the enmity by coming in the flesh, and wiped out the law of commandments with all its decrees. Therefore we need never fear, no matter what the blessing and the privilege may be. . To us it could be but eternal purpose, to Him eternal being; to us pure grace, but to Him His own indefeasible right. (ii) Paul says of Jesus that he wiped out the law of the commandments with all its decrees. In the Iliad (6: 146-149) Glaucus and Diomede meet in single combat. This style of speech is left to those who scout divine inspiration. And so these gifts are given, as it is said, "till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man., unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up unto him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.". He found her in an attic room. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, but he never forgot the unique place of the Jews in the design and the revelation of God. Here are some indexes that might be helpful. The moral order of this is exceedingly beautiful. What does that mean? It is a time of asking, a time of enquiring. If you have been quickened by the Spirit of God, your prayers are living prayers. I tell you, I would be so shocked if I had one of my sons come and say something like that to me. ], "Having described our spiritual possessions in Christ, Paul turns to a complementary truth: our spiritual position in Christ. NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. This discussion has two parts: vv. The unconverted man lives in God's world, sees God's works, hears God's Word, goes up to God's house on God's day, and yet he does not know that there is any God. The next thing is that we take "the whole armour of God, that we may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. P: I will fasten the belt of truth about my waist. And you hath he quickened - The words hath he quickened, or made to live, are supplied, but not improperly, by our translators. Greece was made up of famous cities--Athens, Thebes, Corinth and the rest and it very nearly encountered disaster because the cities refused to cooperate to meet the common threat. How blessed is the character and the spring of Christian service! He had looked at sin before, but had never seen it to be sin. He could condescend. for you, that you should still be dead! Paul goes on to tell of the priceless gifts which come with the new unity in Christ. . One might be altogether a stranger to him that adopts. His life will be ever afterwards a loosing and letting go; for he will need it till he cometh up to be with God for ever and ever. i Zohar in Gen, fol. If you don't, your wife does. Bible Gateway Plus makes it simple. Perhaps you can scarcely, in the moment I can afford you, appropriate the idea to yourselves. You say, "Well, I believe God. "That he might present it to himself [not merely to the Father, but present it to himself] a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." The Jews believed that only by keeping the Jewish law was a man good and able to attain to the friendship and fellowship of God. We did not have it, nor did we earn it. He makes no end of blunders; he makes many miscalculations because everything is new to him. 12. Oh! The Temple consisted of a series of courts, each one a little higher than the one that went before, with the Temple itself in the inmost of the courts. Before their regeneration, believers were spiritually dead, separated from God, and unable to have fellowship with Him (cf. When the believer is at his worst, he is better than the unbeliever at his best; his reasons for happiness are always transcendently above all the reasons for joy that worldlings can never know. It is impossible to exaggerate the snares and difficulties of Christendom. Not only was His resurrection this manifestation, but also whatever God put forth toward us was in virtue of that display of His energy was, so to speak, morally included in that power which raised up Christ from the dead. The moment the apostle comes to inward relationship, he leaves the universality of phrase and speaks only of the saints of God "in you all." All these are sins of the flesh. In the lives of so many there is a kind of tragic process. An easy path could not be divine, as men and things are on earth. And the Lord said, "Yes, I do mean you." The rules and the regulations put up the fence; but love moved it. It is not merely that he accepts names given him by God, but God delights in putting him in this place of lordship, and to a certain extent also of fellowship lordship to that which is below him, and fellowship as regarded his wife. 1.And you who were dead. But the moment you come to the "one Lord," this city, yea every city in Christendom, is a witness to a wide-spread profession of His name. But there is love after a divine sort in the new nature, which is said to be light, because this is the necessity of the new nature. I. That is what God says about us, you may come closer than others, but we have all come short of the glory of God. "Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." This was peculiarly needed. One effect of this divine life is to put life into everything that we do. For the first time in his life Little Billee has taken part in a drunken debauch and has himself been drunk. ye are dead! who were dead in trespasses and sins; not only dead in Adam, in whom they sinned, being their federal head and representative; and in a legal sense, the sentence of condemnation and death having passed upon them; but in a moral sense, through original sin, and their own actual transgressions: which death lies in a separation from God, Father, Son, and Spirit, such are without God, and are alienated from the life of God, and they are without Christ, who is the author and giver of life, and they are sensual, not having the Spirit, who is the spirit of life; and in a deformation of the image of God, such are dead as to their understandings, wills, and affections, with respect to spiritual things, and as to their capacity to do any thing that is spiritually good; and in a loss of original righteousness; and in a privation of the sense of sin and misery; and in a servitude to sin, Satan, and the world: hence it appears, that man must be in himself unacceptable to God, infectious and hurtful to his fellow creatures, and incapable of helping himself: so it was usual with the Jews to call a wicked and ignorant man, a dead man; they say i, "there is no death like that of those that transgress the words of the law, who are called, , "dead men", and therefore the Scripture says, "turn and live". The door was shut in her face; but now the door was open. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself." When we realize what sin is, we come to see that it is not something which theologians have invented. We are very changeable; but when God is with us, when the days are spiritually bright and long, and we have come into the midsummer of our heavenly bliss, we would not change places with the angels, knowing that by-and-by we shall be nearer to the throne than they are; and, while they are God's honoured servants, yet they are not beloved sons as we are. Glorious God, we come in worship this morning well aware of falling short of our glory. Sin is the failure to hit the target of life. A thing which is kainos ( G2537) is new in the sense that it brings into the world a new quality of thing which did not exist before. So should our walk be. So we pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to bind us together in love and peace, building us up as awitnessing, welcoming and forgiving community of grace. The first is nature; the second is relationship. 41. Unregenerate souls are dead in trespasses and sins. as we shine the light of goodness in the dark. Though it is the mystery of Christ, it is not exclusively about Christ. (iii) It is a life characterized by disobedience. Today there are all sorts of zig-zag and criss-crossing separating fences running through the races and people of the world. You can refer to the answers below. Was there not positive love, far beyond forgiveness? at the price of the blood of Christ. The, good for an Israelite, for a Gentile, for a man, is wholly different from the good for a Christian, because their relationships are not the same as his. They believed that it went on for three thousand years; then came a conflagration in which the whole universe was consumed in flames; then the whole process began all over again, and the same events and the same people exactly repeated themselves. If you had been raised from the dead, and had come out of your tomb, you would not go about London streets with your shroud on. "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." (There is no need to credit the re:Worship blog itself.). Then the diversities are brought before us. But I now relate back to Jesus Christ, my Father after the Spirit. Everything else in Ephesians 2:1-7 is of subordinate importance. He has forgiven you in Christ; and you are called to do the same. That was the new life putting forth powers with which it was not itself acquainted; and I believe that there are some of God's children who have powers that they will never find unless they try to use them. What was to be done? who were dead -- Another demonstration of Gods power illustrated (Ephesians 1:19) is illustrated in the resurrection of the Ephesians from the dead! Eternity isn't long enough. I have heard that they have never had a headache in the last hundred years, and no rheumatic pains, nor have they been troubled with the gout, The reason is that they are cut in marble, and they are dead; but a living man feels the fog and the winds; he knows whether it is an east wind or a west wind that is blowing. He has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, "that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." ", 20, 21 Upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom, You see, it is always that, in him, in Christ: "in whom". "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints; and for me [as the apostle blessedly adds], that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel" (what a gracious way of encouraging and strengthening saints, giving them a feeling of the value of their prayers, both in the sight of God, and in fellowship with the most blessed apostle that God ever gave the church!) We are And as for Lazarus, he is shut up with a stone. The increase of immorality, the increase of pornography, the acceptance of abortion, and homosexuality, and these other trends that we see, Satan is behind them orchestrating as he is leading the world to hell. This he did so that in the age to come the surpassing riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus might be demonstrated. Sin is an organic epidemical malady, a slow devitalizing poison issuing in moral necrosis; not a stage of arrested or incomplete development, but a seed-plot of impending ruin." , : , 196006, -, , 22, 2, . 2As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,(A) 2in which you used to live(B) when you followed the ways of this world(C) and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air,(D) the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. N461919. We want your renewing of us, but often it hurts. Throughout all eternity, God's grace and love and mercy being revealed. He says that the middle wall of the barrier between has been torn down. I fear that some people go to a place of worship because they get a better sleep there than anywhere else. my sister, that thou who in thine outward carriage art so good, should yet have sins in the chamber of thine heart, and death in the secresy of thy being, which is as true a death as that of the grossest sinner, though not so thoroughly manifested. But now, consequent on His resurrection from the dead, and of the place given Him in heaven above all, there was made known to these very principalities and powers "the manifold wisdom of God," made known to them before it came to pass, the sure deliverance of the whole scene of creation, of man, of Israel, as well as of the earth. As soon as the maiden was alive, Christ said, "Give her meat;" as soon as the young man was alive "he delivered him to his mother;" as soon as Lazarus was alive, he said, "Loose him, and let him go." But the divine nature is given to us in its qualities of holiness and love. One man's weakness may be in his body and his risk may be sexual sin; another's may be in spiritual things and his risk in pride; another's may be in earthly things and his risk unworthy ambition; another's sin may be in his temper and his risk in envyings and strife. In Ephesians death is the very first place where we find even Christ. Clearly life was going to be completely different for any nation which had a consciousness of destiny like that. It needs the Trinity to make a Christian, and when you have got a Christian, it needs the Trinity to make a prayer. In the next verse we have that which has been justly designated the unity of profession, where all things may come in to mar. The imagery of death and life, as used here, is often used when illustrating fellowship issues with God. Not only is there this new man that God has created after the image of Christ in contrast with the first Adam, but this is the ground why all moral evil is to be judged, beginning with deceit and falsehood. If the latter enquired how God had interfered most conspicuously for them, no doubt they were reminded of the power that brought them out of the land of Egypt. But there was no real purpose to your life. ", Do you think this devotedness too much? Angels are not the object. Come, let me just press this matter home. This, then, was the way in which the new life, spiritual life, came into us. Such is the very power that has taken you and me up in divine grace, and wrought toward us. As Creator, God is distinct in his essence from the world he has created. Nostrums and palliatives aggravate rather than allay the disease. But then those in respect of whom God the Father had such thoughts were in point of fact sinners. Paul uses the word paroikos ( G3941) for sojourner. Paul's point of view is undeniably true; and for two reasons. If everybody is jumping in the fire, are you going to jump in the fire? He could not speak; he was bound about in a napkin. Who could, before He revealed His purpose, have so much as conceived such a dealing possible? "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." If it be illustrated in Christ, if it be bound up with Him, fear not to trust simply and to believe implicitly. That accounts for everything: "together with Christ." When I say Christ is our peace. All this wondrous scheme is to the glory of His grace. The things that Paul has to say about you, so that they tried to sort of cushion the whole blow by giving you a peak ahead at what he is going to say about you. The purpose: That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace, and his kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus ( Ephesians 2:7 ). The Gifts Of The Unity Of Christ ( Ephesians 2:13-18 Continued). [Using THE FAITH WE SING, p. 2080, "All I Need Is You", offer the following call to worship] L: Place your trust in the Lord. P: Cast away those things which detract from your faith in God. L: God will provide for all your needs. P: The love of Jesus Christ and his witness strengthens and sustains us. ALL: AMEN! We would readily agree that the robber, murderer, the razor-slasher, the drunkard, the gangster are sinners, but, since most of us are respectable citizens, in our heart of hearts we think that sin has not very much to do with us. There was counsel, but besides there was intrinsic glory altogether independent of any plans of conferred honour. They want to be saved by their own morality, and all sorts of things that they put instead of salvation by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It was all a known thing that they were blessed by yea, with Christ, forming a part of Christ, expressly fellow-heirs, and of the same body. And you have got the wrong address. And if you've ever been to Jerusalem, you know how common rocks are around that city. We wait for nothing greater nor its match; we await the results of this glorious power for the body and the creation; but we look for no new putting forth of power which can enter into competition with that which God has already shown in Christ. Who wants to see you enriched in all things in Christ.Now on the other hand, Jesus said concerning Satan, "That he is come to rob and to kill and to destroy." I believe it to be true; and believing it to be true, I feel its living force upon my nature every day. He may be a converted person; and God may be truly dealing with him in the way of gracious action. Those who had been far from God were brought near, and the door was shut to no one. Yes, yes! 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