Short Summaries of

Sermons on Ephesians

by Rev. Ralph Allan Smith

Love Working through Grace

(Eph. 2:4-10)

No other religion in the world contains a conception of God's love worthy to be compared with that which we find in Ephesians 2:4-10. No humanistic philosophy has an understanding of the world that can begin to approach the glory and wonder of the Biblical truth of salvation. After teaching that Jews and Gentiles are dead in trespasses and sin, Paul describes our salvation in three phrases of ascending glory: 1) God has made us alive with Christ; 2) God has raised us up with Christ; 3) God has made us sit together with Christ in heaven. These blessings of salvation have been granted to us because of God's love and in order that "in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:7). As Paul emphasizes, this salvation is a gift of grace; it is not earned by works. This does not mean, however, that good works are irrelevant. We are saved by grace so that we can live a life of good works.

In Covenant Union With Christ

The most important idea in verses 5 and 6 is "in Christ," words that point to our covenantal union with our Savior. Because He was our representative, acting on our behalf, what He did for us may be said to have happened also to us. Our legal status is "in Christ." Just as the death of our Representative was our death, His resurrection, ascension and enthronement too are ours.

We, who were dead in our sins, have been made alive in Christ. Because our representative conquered the grave, we have been made free from death too: "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (Joh. 11:25-26). Eternal life is the gift of grace that God gives now to those who believe: "He that believeth on the Son hath [present tense] everlasting life" (Joh. 3:36a). Though we were previously apparently alive, but covenantally dead, we are now truly alive in union with the God of life, even though apparently dying.

The life that is ours in Christ is resurrection life. It cannot be simply the life that was Adam's and Eve's in the beginning because we have been rebels against God. We must die first before we can be granted life, for the wages of sin is death and in Adam we inherited sin and death. Since in Adam we were born dead, we must be resurrected to have life.

When Paul tells us that we are alive, he is pointing to the great reversal. The dead are made alive. And in this expression "made alive in Christ" sums up the blessings of our salvation, for life can only be life with God. But when Paul goes on to refer to that life as being resurrection life, he is not only expounding the covenantal facts in logical propriety, he is reminding us that this life that we have been granted in Christ is the life of the new world. It can never die. If we are alive in Christ, no enemy can defeat us for the greatest enemies, sin and death, are already done away.

Life for Adam in the Garden included dominion. Man was made vice-regent of the world under God. Christ, as the second Adam, won again the dominion that was lost because of sin. Therefore, He was exalted to the throne of God to sit at the right hand of the Father. As Paul emphasized in chapter one, God "set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come" (Eph. 1:20-21). Christ has been given dominion and in Him we share that dominion.

This means that we are free from the devil. Paul had said that Gentiles are ruled by the "prince of the power of the air" (Eph. 2:2). Jesus also refers to Satan as the "prince of this world" (Joh. 12:31). To be raised up in the heavenly places in Christ means that dominion has been restored to us. Thus James says, "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (Jam. 4:7). Satan cannot control us or rule us anymore. We are seated with Christ above Satan and every other authority.

The Greatness of His Love

To understand what it means that we have been made alive in Christ and even exalted to the right hand of God with Him is to know something of the great love that God has bestowed upon us in His Son. But Paul's point here is slightly different. Paul is saying that God has made us alive with resurrection life and exalted us with Christ for a special purpose, and it is in that special purpose that we see the great love of God that abounds in riches of mercy (Eph. 2:4).

God graciously saved us in Christ so that His love might find expression in its everlasting goodness to us. This was God's purpose in saving us: "That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:7). For all of the ages of eternity God will amaze us with ever new and wonderful exhibitions of His love. The Biblical description of the heavenly city, founded on jewels and built with gold, gives us something of an idea that eternity is endless joy in holy, rich blessing. We cannot yet even imagine what this means, but the symbolic pictures provided in Scripture are intended to move us to awestruck wonder for God's great love: "The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing" (Zep. 3:17).

Saved By Grace Alone

It is in this context that Paul goes on to stress the fact that salvation is by grace alone. God's amazing love is granted to us wholly according to His good pleasure. He loves us because it is His nature to love. Salvation is His gift. It comes from His grace alone and not because of anything in us. Paul must repeat this truth because it is of the essence of man's sin that man boasts. Sinful man's assertion of autonomy, his declaration of independence from God is a proud, rebellious quest for apotheosis. When God saves us from sin, He must also save us from the proud heart that is the source of sin. All of our works are therefore excluded either as the ground or the means of our salvation.

Salvation finds its source in God's love, its ground in the saving work of Christ and its means in faith--the hand of the heart that receives the gift of God. In all of this man is passive, a recipient. Salvation is a gift. Good works must never become an instrument of self-exaltation before God--the sin of the Pharisees (cf. Luk. 18:11-12).

But good works are important. What would the riches and glory of heaven mean if God's people were not generous, kind, and good to each other with joy and gratitude overflowing in righteous deeds? We are God's masterpiece, remade in Christ so that we will be able to do good works. True good works, rather than a ground of boasting or self-exaltation, are a means of praise to the God of all grace who has blessed us with so great a salvation. They express gratitude.

To be lacking in good works is to lack the living power of God in our lives. The man who does not have good works has not be re-created in Christ. In this sense good works are essential to salvation. Whoever does not live a life of good works in Christ--good works defined as works of gratitude for grace in loving obedience to the Father in heaven--is no Christian. Good works are absolutely excluded as either the ground or means of salvation, but they are equally absolutely demanded as the true fruit of salvation.