Grace to the Undeserving

GRACE TO THE UNDESERVING: Ephesians 2:1-10

What our immediate passage of focus does is to show. That there is no reason to doubt the church’s position in Christ. Because God placed them in that peculiar position (Eph 1:20-23). Whether they are Jew or Gentile. And he did it by his grace. Because salvation is by no person’s own doing. It is all by grace.

Paul says in verses 5-9.

[God] made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

Three times he mentions that it is “By grace”.

The church’s special position in Christ is by grace. And whoever is in the body of Christ, it’s also by grace. And this is the wonder of God’s grace in Christ. Grace brings everyone to an equal level. No one stands before God on a higher level than another. As someone once said that, “the ground before the cross is level”. Meaning, the person who assumes that God owed them their salvation is brought low. To an understanding that they are undeserving of God’s grace in Christ. And the person who thinks that they do not deserve grace as a free gift. And that they ought to add something or work for it. They are also humbled by realizing that there’s nothing they can add. God rejects human effort because it is filthy, cheap and insufficient. Because Grace is the harmony of heaven that is sand in different voices with Christ as the conductor.

So what Paul does is to show us clearly. That what God sees when he grants his grace to his church, is that he sees undeserving sinners, not deserving ones. Paul starts by explaining why the Ephesian church is undeserving. He says in verse 1, they were “dead in transgressions and sins”. “You were dead in your transgressions and sins”. And more than just being dead. The lived out their deadness. Verse 2 says, “in which you used to live (or walked)”.

So it’s not that the Ephesian church sinned, now and again, but that they lived out their dead natures. Their lifestyles were the overflow of their dead spiritual natures. And God’s grace came to change their deadness. This is why that world’s greatest need is not curing from biological deaths. Although this is important, but the world’s greatest need is the grace of God for spiritually dead people.

Notice that Paul says to the Ephesians. That there are no exceptions to deadness in sin and transgressions. Meaning, everyone needs grace. In v1 Paul says, “As for you”. But then in v3, he changes his language to, ”All of us lived among them one time”, then at the end of v3 he says, “Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath”. This means that, just as God’s grace all-inclusive, deadness to sin is all-encompassing. No one is semi-alive to God. You may have had a greater exposure to, or awareness of God, in one way or another. But the person who grew up in a Christian home with Christian parents. And the atheist who did not are equally dead in their sin.

And yet there are people with this worldview. That in them sin was mild when God saved them. This was exactly the Jewish Christians problem. For them their salvation somehow came easier than the Gentile Christians. Churches are full of people like these who feel they are morally closer to God. They believe that, because they come from good homes and have an excellent education. And that they even care about the poor and the environment. They think for some reason God sees them as alive to Him.

The Bible is clear about this. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Sin is no respecter of person. I have seen, poor people in prison for murder. And wealthy ones for the same reason. I have seen educated men share the same cell with illiterate ones. Here we see the apostle Paul even include himself, using words such as “us”, and “we, and” “our”. In verse 3 he says, All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. There has never been a person, dead or alive, not dead to sin. Only Jesus Christ is the one who has always been alive to God and his will. And if the apostle Paul, before coming to Christ, could recognized his dead heart to sin. Who are we to think we were at a higher position when God’s grace reaches us.

For example, Martin Luther’s conversion started with the theological realization. That, unlike Rome’s theology which defined sin as a weakness. Luther realized that, sinners are spiritually dead. And not just people who are morally weak. Which lead him to Romans 4, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone. For him the mass had no power over death. Indulgences are not enough for his salvation. And no one could pray him out of purgatory because he was dead to sin. What he needed was the grace of God alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone, as revealed in Scripture alone and to the glory of God alone.

Notice the ways of deadness. They were dead in external ways and in internal ways. External – v2 says, “The ways of the world”, then, “The ways of the ruler of the kingdom of the air”, and again, “The ways of the spirit at work…in the disobedient” . This means, they were once attracted to all things sinful outside of them. They were drawn to the world, the devil, and the spirit of the age that provided them with the environment and opportunity to sin. Internally – v3 says, “All of us…gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts” . Meaning, inside people is an aggressive desire and impulse to sin. They find it hard to reject the opportunities setup by the outside world for sin, they want it uncontrollably. In other words, the underserving favour or grace of God is given to someone that is dead from the inside-out. And is given to someone who is dead from the outside-in. Sin for them is an all-round existence.

Here we are dealing with the doctrine of original sin. People’s deadness to sin is what they inherited from Adam. They have been sinners since their births. This is a doctrine that is becoming more and more redefined. Today, people are no longer defined as dead to their sin and transgressions, inside and outside. And following in the ways of Adam. Today people are viewed as mentally ill. And instead of being offered the truth of God as the cure. They are offered medication. Not to make light of people who struggle with depression and anxiety. These are real struggles and Christian suffer of these things too. But when people are dead to sin, we should see it as that, that their ways are sinful because of their inherited deadness to sin from Adam. Not that they themselves sinned, on the day that Adam sinned. But the guilt of Adam’s sin has been imputed to them. And therefore, people now actually sin. And they sin habitually, without remorse.

J.I Packer describes how the Puritans defined the effects of original sin in people. Packer says that, “They saw sin as a perverted energy within people that enslaves them to God-defying, self-gratifying behaviour, and by distortion, deceit and direct opposition weakens and overthrows their purposes of righteousness”. In other words, by virtue of original sin, people are dead to their morally wrong behavior; whether complying to the devil or acting out their desires.

Notice that Paul ends v2, by calling their deadness to sin, plain disobedience. He says, “In those who are disobedient”. This is why, when people are disobedient to God, and continually. Even if they profess to know God. The question is not whether they are on a ‘journey’, but that they are disobedient because of their deadness to sin. People are either for God or against him, but never indifferent to him.

Church! Here I ask you, are you captivated by the grace of God? Not grace as in, that is who God is by His character, therefore you are captivated by it. But are you mesmerized by his character to dead sinners? That his grace brought you from death to life. Because it is not the biological death to a virus we ought to fear. But it’s the spiritual death that rejects the grace of God we must be worried about. Are you dead to your guilt before God or do you recognize that you are a sinner in need of God’s grace?

Study Questions:

• What images does the word “dead” (v1), bring up when you think of people being spiritually dead?
• How would you describe your own deadness to sin before you came to Christ?
• Who shared the gospel with you?
• What are notable sins of the world (v2)?
• How much of a role do you think the devil or the “Ruler of the kingdom of the air” plays, when it comes to sin (v2)?
• How would you explain Paul’s expression of “the spirit that is at work” (v2)?
• What do you think of demons; are there any, should Christian think it such ways or not, have you ever encountered one?
• Do you think “disobedience” is merely not doing what God ask one to do, or is it deeply rooted in what the devil is doing in someone (v2)?
• Did the apostle Paul have reason to count himself as part of those who once were dead to sin and transgression; why or why not (v3)?
• Why is it so comforting to know that God grants his grace in Christ Jesus to dead sinners?