Ephesians 2:4-6

Day 13

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:4-6

Rich in Mercy
“But God” provides a powerful transition from the first three verses of chapter 2.  The first three verses declare our abysmal plight.  We are dead because of our sin and we are children of wrath.  God enters our situation in remarkable contrast.  We are children of wrath…but God is rich in mercy.  When we consider wealth by worldly standards, we usually consider things such as cash, investments, property, minerals, commodities, stocks, and bonds.  However, God’s wealth is radically different.  God’s wealth comes from the depth and extent of His attributes.  We are weak.  God is omnipotent.  We are limited in our knowledge.  God is omniscient.  We judge unfairly.  God is perfectly just.  We are sinful.  God is perfectly holy.  In the context of versus 3 and 4, though we are children of wrath, God is merciful.   We are deserving of wrath.  God is rich in mercy. 

Because of His great love
It is the love of God that moves us to repentance.  Though the holiness of God should invoke a sense of fear and impending judgment, it is not fear, but God’s love that bridges the gap between sinful humanity and a holy God.  From Spurgeon Morning and Evening devotional. “The thunders of the law and the terrors of judgment are all used to bring us to Christ; but the final victory is effected by lovingkindness.  The prodigal set out to his father’s house from a sense of need; but his father saw him a great way off, and ran to meet him; so that the last steps he took towards his father’s house were with the kiss still warm upon his cheek, and the welcome still musical in his ears … lovingkindness wins the day.  What Moses with the tables of stone could never do, Christ does with His nail pierced hand.”  It is the great love of God that brings sinners to repentance.  Fear of the law and fear of judgment certainly have a place in the workings of our theological mind.  We should have a healthy fear of a holy God.  “Our God is a consuming fire.”  (Hebrews 12:29)  The surprising contrast of our desperate condition is the response of God.  God does not respond to our sinful condition with wrath, but with His great love.  Understanding and receiving God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ, bridges the massive gap between dead sinners and a holy God.  God makes us alive because of His mercy and His love.

We Were Dead…But God Made Us Alive with Christ
God made us alive by raising us up with Christ.  Our identity is in Christ.  Christ came in the likeness of sinful people.  He humbled Himself, even allowing Himself to be crucified on the cross.  His substitutional death makes available the forgiveness of sins.  Jesus died the death we deserved.  We were justly dead in our sins.  Jesus died in our place, “the just for the unjust.”  (I Peter 3:18)  We identify with the death of Jesus because by our faith in Jesus, God graciously transfers our guilt and punishment to Jesus Christ on the cross.  “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  (II Corinthians 5:21)  Our identity is found in the death of Jesus on our behalf.  However, we further identify with Jesus in His resurrection from the dead.  In Romans 6, Paul described our baptism as a symbolic act of identifying with Jesus.  For the believer, we are baptized into the death of Jesus. “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” (Romans 6:3) We are baptized into Christ, meaning that when we believe in Jesus Christ, God imputes our sins to Jesus on the cross.  God sees us as dying with Christ on the cross and being buried with Him in the grave.  We identify with the death of Christ because His death paid for our sins.  “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures…” (I Corinthians 15:3) “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” (Romans 5:8-9)  God sees Jesus' death as payment for the death we deserve.  Jesus bore the wrath of God for the children of wrath. 

When we baptize someone, we don’t just dunk them in the water.  We bring them back up.  We raise them out of the water.  Baptism identifies the believer with the death and burial of Jesus.  Baptism also identifies the believer with the resurrection of Jesus.  Again, let’s consider Paul’s teachings on the meaning of Christian baptism.  “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.”  (Romans 6:4-5)  Baptism symbolizes the theological reality of Ephesians 2:5.  “God…made us alive together with Christ.”  When we put our trust in Jesus Christ, God sees us raising again from the dead in His Son.  This is our identity.  We are “in Christ.”  The death He died, He died in our place.  The life He lives through the power of His resurrection, is now our life. 

Paul takes our identity one step further.  The moment that we believe, not only does God see us in the death of Jesus and in the resurrection of Jesus, God sees us as seated with Christ in the heavenly realm.  God the Father has “seated us with Him in the heavenly places.”  Our eternal inheritance involves a sharing in the reign of Christ over heaven and earth.  “It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; If we endure, we will also reign with Him.” (II Timothy 2:11-12)  

Suggested prayer: God, my identity is in Your Son.  I have placed my full trust and confidence in His death, resurrection, and everlasting reign.  You alone can save.  You alone can give life.  You alone have the authority over all things.  Your character and Your works in creation and salvation provide our confidence that You will do all that You have promised.  My destiny is sure because of what You have done through Jesus Christ.

Ephesians