He was a sinner. built on Jesus Christ himself, the cornerstone. So I was once dead because of the trespasses and sins, but through Jesus Christ God has provided the forgiveness of my trespasses and sins. Hands had to be washed in a certain way; dishes had to be cleaned in a certain way; there was page after page about what could and could not be done on the Sabbath day; this and that and the next sacrifice had to be offered in connection with this and that and the next occasion in life, The only people who fully kept the Jewish law were the Pharisees and there were only six thousand of them. You are a living man. God would have us set thoroughly clear and intelligently appreciating our individual place and relation to Himself. That man who came down but was found alone to the end of His earthly course would now be alone no more; He would have a new and suited body, believing Jews and Gentiles fellow-heirs and of the same body. Exodus 24:1-8 gives us a dramatic picture of how the Jewish people accepted the covenant and its conditions--"All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do" ( Exodus 24:3; Exodus 24:7). Both the xenos ( G3581) and the paroikos ( G3941) were always on the fringe. This is the one conduit-pipe through which the streams of living water flow to the dead in sin; God's grace comes to us "Through Christ Jesus", and through him alone. 'Spiritual Resurrection' and 'Life from the Dead'. Throughout the epistle all the secret is just this God would associate us with Christ (that is, of course, in everything that is consistent with the maintenance of the divine glory). Its tougher than titanium and softer than a feather, more electric than lightning, more vast than the universe. No parent, however prayerful, no teacher, however tearful, can make a child live unto God. I ended in horrible disgrace.". But in times past you were just meandering through life. And ah! then, I grieve to say it, ye are dead! what Paul does in this passage is to paint a vivid contrast between what man is by nature and what he can become by grace." Not that we love God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Encourage them to do so, let them tell you their difficulties. The sight of that Cross awakens in the hearts of men of all nations love for Christ, and only when they all love Christ will they love each other. When we were still dead in our trespasses and sins God loved us.God has loved you from eternity, there has never been a time when God didn't love you. And so he began to amass to himself wealth until he was the richest man in the world, and silver was as common as rocks in Israel. By grace are you saved.Now, not only has He made me alive. Utter strangers to the covenants made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Ye are not yet united to him by a living faith. What a difference that news would make! And what will happen to you when the word of God is, "Depart, depart, depart, depart," and unto the graveyard of souls, to the fire that never shall be quenched, you and the rest of the dead are taken away? It is thus seen to be founded on the great facts and standing privileges mentioned at the end of Ephesians 2:1-22; but it is the desire that the saints should know God's present power to an indefinite extent working in them in spiritual enjoyment, through the Holy Ghost's power, giving us to have Christ the definite and constant object of the heart. He could condescend. Is not this the meaning of the institution? [3] Alfred Barry, Ellicott's Commentary on the Holy Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), Vol. ! To the new-born soul everything is a surprise. And when a man is born into the kingdom of God, he has to learn everything; and consequently, if he is wise, he questions older and wiser believers about this and about that. according to the prince of the power of the air, that even now works in the children of disobedience ( Ephesians 2:2 ): Now, there may have been a time in the history of the world that a person would challenge the fact that Satan is behind the course or the flow of the world. There might be many advantages about that kind of discourse. You can't be meaning me." (119) Classical writers employ the same metaphor, to denote not spiritual death, with which they were unacquainted, but the absence of moral principle, or utter ignorance of right and wrong. God alone is worthy of worship. It is not a mere aggregate of Gentiles into the well-known line of old blessing, but one new man, not merely fresh in time, but of an absolutely new order, never seen or experienced before. That is living prayer. The Greek words used there is poeima, the very word from which the English Word poem is derived. Modern progress has made the world a neighbourhood: God has given us the task of making it a brotherhood. It simply affirms a fact - that in relation to real spiritual life they were, in consequence of sin, like a dead man in regard to the objects which are around him. Can I belong just for who I am? Living things change. In him we have been reconciled to God through the cross, made citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.. This divine life usually begins with pain. An outstanding illustration of spiritual death is found in the parable of the prodigal son: And the son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son." to you who were far off and to you who were near. He went up after all the working of evil had been really defeated and destroyed in the sight of God. In the admirable wisdom and grace of God it is the direct setting aside of that which is found in all earthly systems, where the individual is merely a portion of a vast body which arrogates to itself the highest claims. The Revised Common Lectionary reads through Ephesians in Year B, Pentecost season. "Youth's beauty fades, and manhood's glory fades. It is neither right nor possible to leave the teaching of Paul here--and yet that is where it is so often left. This repenting child then confesses his sin to his father and finds that "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9 NASB). 1. His glory is the first object of our being. The sword must be the real intrinsic power of the word wielded in the Spirit, which does not spare anything. . "Give her meat." It was not even lawful to render help to a Gentile woman in childbirth, for that would be to bring another Gentile into the world. We were full of vigour towards everything which was contrary to the law or the holiness of God, we walked according the course of this world; but as for anything spiritual, we were not only somewhat incapable, and somewhat weakened; but we were actually and absolutely dead. In body and mind they are under the control of Satan, and consequently are rebellious against God (2:1-3). Where these are made and kept right, we can then safely follow what God will show us in due time, but not otherwise. Alas! Somehow we have an impression that God is going to just get all of these dirty, nasty things that we have said we would never do and say, "All right, start here." The church follows; and as it belongs to Christ, so it is a part of Him. We have all sinned; we have all missed the mark. But if you had been quickened by the Holy Spirit fifty minutes, this would have been the first fact in the front rank of all fact, God is, and he is my Father, and I am his child. Aren't they perfect? Our world belongs to him! Thus, first blessed, strengthened, and enjoying the grace and truth of God in Christ, we can then go out with the sword of the Spirit to deal with what is contrary to His nature, which Satan would use to obstruct our realization of our heavenly privileges. He felt his need and that of the work. It is the same life in the new-born believer as in yonder bright spirits that stand before the throne of God. It was grace in its deepest character and in its highest form, and so the apostle Paul was the suited vessel that God employed to instruct others, not merely the one to whom the revelation was made, but by whom the revelation was to be communicated. Isaiah records, "your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear" (59:2 NASB). * CALL TO WORSHIP From Ephesians 2 Leader: We were once dead through our trespasses and sins when we followed the course of this world. in being constantly visited by penitents I have sometimes blushed for this city of London. Some have taken it to mean that without Christ men live in a state of sin which in the life to come produces the death of the soul. But in Ephesians God cannot but have us imitate His own ways as they have shone in Christ. The conflict is against Satan and his hosts. That is a perfectly possible translation; but the word Christos ( G5547) is not primarily a proper name although it has become one. Ah, whither shall we flee? The word course has its root meaning in Greek weathervane. The man who is under their domination has taken sides against God. It is not at all put as a question of command according to the law; but "God had before prepared," as a part of His wonderful scheme, "that we should walk in them." He commands his companions, who by bad example are bearing him on his bier to his grave, to stop, and then there is a partial reformation for awhile, and after that there comes the strong out-spoken voice "Young man, I say unto thee, arise!" To honour one's father and mother was both an obligation and had a special promise under law. Jesus has something to do about each of them. [4] W. G. Blaikie, The Pulpit Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. The English translators did not know what to make of the apostle, and so they changed it to "high places," which was an unwarrantable liberty, and gives the most perverse meaning. 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. That is what Paul is doing here. The chapter itself is a parenthesis. Just now, we read of "God, who is rich in mercy"; now the apostle speaks of "the exceeding riches of his grace", exceeding expression, exceeding comprehension, exceeding even sin itself, though that is all but infinite. And God is going to lay some heavy, heavy trip on us just because we submitted ourselves to His will. He merely now touches on the principle, as he had before let us see not merely God's counsels from before the foundation of the world, but the manner and means of their application through Christ our Lord to us in time. You can refer to the answers below. For less than $5/mo. You might as well just, you know, get into a fuzz of drugs or into the folly of liquor, because there is no sense in trying to be sober. God does for sinners what they cannot do themselves. All the building that is going on is being fitted together in him, and it will go on growing until it becomes a holy temple in the Lord, a temple into which you too are built as part, that you may become the dwelling place of God, through the work of the Spirit. Clearly life was going to be completely different for any nation which had a consciousness of destiny like that. We need both motive and object, and hence could not be said to be love; because not we, but only God acts from Himself, as much as for Himself. Accordingly he brings in the most important of them, first, the wife and the husband; then, children and their parents; and, finally, servants and masters. we all say together We are one in Christ. The Jews believed that God had approached their nation with a special offer. "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." 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. And I really appreciate all that you have given to me, Dad, and all that you have done for me. He gave us life when we were born; but he has given us now a higher life, which could not be found anywhere else. To the Stoics history was cyclic. (AI) His purpose was to create in himself one(AJ) new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross,(AK) by which he put to death their hostility. That is precisely why sin is so universal. The ancient world believed strenuously in demons. If we want to know what the holiness, and blamelessness, and love of God is, we must look at Him; but in the same way also, if we desire to know what are the relationships into which God puts those He loves, where shall we find the highest? ib;. The central idea of sin is failure, failure to hit the target, failure to hold to the road, failure to make life what it was capable of becoming; and that definition includes every one of us. The loss of fellowship with a holy God. said one to me just now, "the man who is saved by his own righteousness cannot do much in the line of praising." It was entirely unconnected with the world. We did not have it, nor did we earn it. He gave Himself for us. Someone may even make it almost to the pier, a hundred feet off of the pier and gulp, gulp, gulp, you know.Now, you have all come short, no one made it. The phrase "hath he quickened" is not in the Greek text but is grammatically supplied by the KJV translators, even though the idea is not expressly stated until verse 5. Death always implies a change from the state of being alive. NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. 3. He rules the universe from His heavenly throne There must always be something about him: "Having abolished in his flesh. "Wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. It is translated walk. 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. Wordsworth in the Intimations of Immortality wrote: Sin is a kind of suicide, for it kills the ideals which make life worth while. 13). Such is, in fact, the condition of a sinful world. And the reason is simple; so inadequate is the creature, so untrustworthy is the first Adam, that one might well be certain the true meaning of the Bible was lost to him who judged otherwise. What was to be done? Sin, then, is a failure to comply with the will of God through choice or disregard. He remembers his covenant forever, "To be dead in trespasses and sins does not mean unconsciousness or non-existence. One wrote home: "It is better for you to be in your own homes, whatever they may be like, than to be in a strange land." No preacher, however earnest, can make one hearer to live. The paroikos ( G3941) was one step further on. Our first birth, the natural life was of the flesh. Man merely needs teaching. In communion with the objects of it, we go out into the resulting scenes of glory on every side; knowing Christ's love though unknowable, and filled into God's fulness though infinite. For by grace are ye saved through faith; We have this expression, "by grace are ye saved," twice over in this chapter. Again, I have in my presence young men who have grown to riper years than that fair damsel who died in her childhood. Tired of being on the heights I deliberately went to the depths in search for new sensation. Next comes the case of the young man brought out of his grave; he is more than dead, he has begun to be corrupt, the signs of decay are upon his face, and they are carrying him to his tomb; yet though there are more manifestations of death about him, he is no more dead than the other. I figured it was all right because there were so many around town. God was talking about spiritual death. The design of the apostle in this and some following verses, is to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and to set forth the sad estate and condition of man by nature, and to magnify the riches of the grace of God, and represent the exceeding greatness of his power in conversion: the phrase. Thus is the Lord ever presented as the pattern. When young people are converted who have not yet acquired evil habits; when they are saved before they become obnoxious in the eyes of the world, the command is, " Give them meat ." That is what God says about us, you may come closer than others, but we have all come short of the glory of God. Man, Satan, yea, the judgment of God that had gone forth against Him because of our sins, had no force to detain Him in the grave. I believe that God liked it better than many of the collections. The rotten Lazarus may come out of his tomb, as well as the slumbering maiden from her bed. Thanks to those of you who took time to answer questions and offer comments about how your congregation navigated worship during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the worm is there, you cannot put your finger on it, and say, "Stop; eat no more." Now, notice verse Ephesians 2:5 , "with Christ," verse Ephesians 2:6 , "in Christ Jesus," verse Ephesians 2:7 , "through Christ Jesus." Neither can he describe his new birth; that is still a greater mystery, for it is a secret inward work of the Holy Ghost, of which we feel the effect, but we cannot tell how it is wrought. And strangers from the covenants of promise. And now, in Him who is dead and risen, the Christian has put completely off the old man, is being renewed in the spirit of his mind, and has put on the new man, which according to God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth. Then the scripture says none of you are perfect. 22. You see, after the total indulgence of the lust of his flesh, not withholding anything from himself, he came to the conclusion life is empty and frustrating; there is nothing worthwhile under the sun. "Trespasses" literally means to "fall beside," and "sins" literally means "a failing to hit the mark" (Thayer 485, 30). I have some in my congregation that I look upon with fear. That peace is won at the price of his blood, for the great awakener of love is the Cross. Trespasses, , may signify the slightest deviation from the line and rule of moral equity, as well as any flagrant offence; for these are equally transgressions, as long as the sacred line that separates between vice and virtue is passed over. Unquestionably the Spirit of God does evermore dwell in the Christian, though I am not aware that He is ever said to dwell in our hearts. Here is the Pauline paradox. There is no beauty there; we dare not look upon it. We don't want trouble, we dont do conflict here! Paul goes on to say that we are recreated by God for good works. "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. The sinner sees no beauty there; and no human power can arouse him to act for God, anymore than human power can rouse the sleeping dead, or open the sightless eyeballs on the light of day. This would be too strong, yea, false. "My soul followeth hard after thee; thy right hand upholdeth me.". It sees no beauty in the landscape; hears not the voice of a friend; looks not upon the glorious sun and stars; and is unaffected by the running stream and the rolling ocean. Chrysostom, famous preacher of the early Church, says that it is as if one should melt down a statue of silver and a statue of lead, and the two should come out gold. 2:11-12 So then remember, that once, as far as human descent goes, you were Gentiles; you were called the uncircumcision by those who laid claim to that circumcision which is a physical thing, and a thing produced by men's hands. Through Jesus there is a place for all men in the family of God. This is an of the former statements, that is, an exposition accompanied by an illustration. What a deal of dead worship there is! I do. So the flow of the world, you just flowed with it. The following summaries about call to worship ephesians 2 will help you make more personal choices about more accurate and faster information. Hence we are said to be "light in the Lord," and we need to shake off the things of death that encumber the light, and hinder it. Ah! 12. Do a certain thing. "Among whom also we all had our conversation in time past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as the rest. In Sophocles we find some of the loveliest and the saddest lines in all history. Even as he stands in this place, he feels that if his next-door neighbour knew his guilt he would give him a wide berth, and stand far away from him; for he has come to the last stage; he has no marks of life; he is utterly rotten. We wish that death did not remain, the old nature hampering us; but, in perfect proportion as the new life is really in us, we now run parallel with God. "For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation [administration or stewardship] of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery (as I wrote afore in few words; whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ); which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed." This is the point. They both mean the same thing; he missed the mark. Then, everything surprises you. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:21-23 NIV). What a wonderful thing it is to have become sympathetic with God! The Alexandrian and Claromontane copies, and one of Stephens's, and the Vulgate Latin version, read, "dead in your trespasses and sins"; and the Syriac version, "dead in your sins and in your trespasses"; and the Ethiopic version only, "dead in your sins". There is not even the gloss of life left. 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. Not with equal footsteps, but with tottering gait, we follow in that selfsame path that God has marked out for himself. At first a man engages in some forbidden pleasure because he wants to do so; in the end he engages in it because he cannot help doing so. What you think that you and I knew from our birth, we did not so know; we had to learn it. Call to Worship from Ephesians 2: We are saved by Gods grace. Hence "one baptism" follows, which the context shows to be the plain initiatory rite of Christian profession, and nothing else. Man." He abolished rules that restricted life and replaced them with the new commandment to love as he did. It will be as much as he can do to pull off his grave-clothes, to get rid of his old habits; perhaps to his death he will have to be rending off bit after bit of the cerements in which he has been wrapped. Even after all our efforts we still so often feel that we have not done enough. But not merely this. But if you are a living child of God, you cannot do that. Here are some indexes that might be helpful. He can never put things right with her by serving a term of imprisonment and paying a fine. When all things that are shall be like old ocean's foam, which dissolves into the wave that bears it, and is gone for ever; we shall live, and we shall live in Christ, and with Christ, glorified for ever. My father is a nobody and I am the least in my father's household. Even as are the generations of leaves such are those likewise of men; the leaves that be the wind scattereth upon the earth, and the forest buddeth and putteth forth more again, when the season of spring is at hand, so of the generations of men one putteth forth and another ceaseth." But we are not at liberty to set aside the declarations of our Lord and of the Apostle Paul, that, while we remain in Adam, we are entirely devoid of life; and that regeneration is a new life of the soul, by which it rises from the dead. All have sinned, or missed the mark, and come short of the glory of God. No God? Say that you had been dead fifty years; that is nearer to the mark. They, and only they, have "one Spirit" dwelling in them. All these are sins of the flesh. In Corinthians we have this, and properly in its place. Amen. Philo said: "There are spirits flying everywhere through the air." This was always their comfort in the midst of disasters and troubles. When the life begins to come to him, he feels as he never felt before; sin that was pleasant becomes a horror to him. I might be stumbling onto a phenomena of nature that I don't understand. We know ourselves loved, but we balk at the cost. Yes, yes! Now, the text tells us that, though we were dead, yet Christ has come, and by his Spirit he has raised us out of the grave. The law or "mark" in this context is the righteous will of God. Paul begins by reminding his readers that they lived in alienation from God (vv. No God? 2. l Caphtor, fol. At first a man regards some wrong thing with horror; the second stage comes when he is tempted into doing it, but even as he does it, he is still unhappy and ill at ease and very conscious that it is wrong; the third stage is when he has done the thing so often that he does it without a qualm. Now, some may have come closer than others.If we decided to go sailing out here in the channel and maybe sail to Catalina, but half way across the channel we sprang a leak in the boat and it starts to go down, and some of you who can't swim go down with the boat. When I tried to hide my guilt I was miserable. Jesus wants to do good things through us! The oneness in Christ is in Christ and not in any external change. If you haven't previously submitted something but would like to, you can find my email address by clicking on my name in the "About Me" section below. ! (i) He made both Jew and Gentile into one new man. In Him we enter into favour, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences," not exactly according to the praise of his glory, "but according to the riches of His grace." C. H. Spurgeon at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens. Well, at least you are interested in the subject. Amen. In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. The general doctrine of this morning is, that every man that is born into the world is dead spiritually, and that spiritual life must be given by the Holy Spirit, and can be obtained from no other source. (AM) 18For through him we both have access(AN) to the Father(AO) by one Spirit. Here he prays to the Father of our Lord Jesus, not simply to the God that had raised up the Christ from the dead, and was glorifying Him on high. I think that, usually, when the divine life comes, the first consciousness that we get of a quickening is a sense of pain. Now we are Christians; and this decides the character of the duties we have to pay, or of the good works which He has before prepared that we should walk in them; for "we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus" for this very purpose. Let this then rest in His hands. He is far less concerned with your tunefulness than your integrity. As the Father is everlasting, so is the Son. That is, there is a creative connection between God and man which is the source of man's moral relations with God, and the reason why man, and man alone of all creatures on the earth, shall live again and give an account of himself to God. Take a passage in 2 Corinthians (2 Corinthians 8:5), which has been before us only a short time ago: "And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God." By fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, men contract that filthiness of flesh and spirit from which the apostle exhorts Christians to cleanse themselves, 2 Corinthians 7:1. Finally, "receive the helmet of salvation, [there the head is lifted up, not in presumption, but with none the less joy and courage,] and the sword of the Spirit," which is expressly said to be the word of God. Those who walk in trespasses and sins, and according to the course of this world, walk according to the prince of the power of the air. Another of Paul's blessed "nows." (AX) 21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple(AY) in the Lord. At the final judgment, those who "practice lawlessness" will hear the Lord say, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness" (Matthew 7:21-23 NASB). "You hath HE quickened," is true of all who are quickened. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth [inwardly applied, and thus bracing us morally], and having on the breast-plate of righteousness."
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