EPHESIANS 2:4

The Bible says in Ephesians 2:4-5, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved.)” The first two words of Ephesians chapter two and verse four are famous words. Many sermons have been preached from these words, and rightfully so: “But God.” Verses one through three of Ephesians chapter two had just been given in order to explain the terrible spiritual condition of each lost soul: the condition that you and I also once had. We were in a terrible situation: ruined, enslaved, lost, and dead spiritually. “But God.” God did not leave us in that condition. He did something that only He could do.

There are three words in Ephesians 2:4-5 that tell us what God did that changed our spiritual condition. The three words are mercy, love, and life. The reason that we needed mercy is because we were guilty. Don’t ever take God’s mercy for granted, and don’t ever forget how merciful He has been toward you. Remember that you would still be in the situation described in verses 1 through three if it had not been for God’s mercy. God is not required to be merciful. He is a holy and righteous judge, and if He decides to bring judgment on those who deserve judgment, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, that is what makes His mercy even that much more remarkable. Of course, Ephesians 2:4 says that God is “rich” in mercy. If you are in need of mercy, you are going to the right one by going to God because He is rich in mercy. He has so much mercy available that even your guilty sins can be pardoned by Him. Never think that you have too many sins to keep you from being forgiven. No matter how great your sins are, if you repent, you will be forgiven because God is “rich in mercy.”

You can also count on God’s good favor to you because of how much He loves you. Love for you is what motivated Jesus to come and die on the cross for your sins. Of course, God will forgive you, if you repent, because He loves you. God has your best interest in mind. He wants to see good things happen to you, and if you are still in your sins, there is nothing better that can happen to you than to be forgiven of your sins. When you were in the darkness and the guilt of your sins, why did God come to you and touch you through Christ? What motivated Him: “his great love wherewith He loved us.”

The problem that we all had was that we were dead spiritually. We needed life or we would have stayed dead. To quicken means to make alive. God is the life-giver. He gives physical life and He gives spiritual life. If someone has life, it is because God gave the life. You can look at any baby and ask the question, “why is this life here?” “Where did it come from?” That child is here because the giver of life chose to create life. By the way, God always looks at what He creates and says, “It is good.” The book of Genesis tells you that. The physical life that you have or that anyone else has is good because God created it, and God does not make mistakes. The challenge now is to become everything that you were created to be.

That is one of the reasons that God gives spiritual life through Christ. You will never be what you were meant to be unless you come to know spiritual life through faith in Christ. In speaking of the new life that has been given to us, notice that in Ephesians 2:5 the word “together” is used. God “hath quickened us together with Christ.” It is kind of like the Apostle Paul is telling each of us by the Holy Spirit not to only think of the fact that “I was saved by the grace of Christ,” but that “we were saved by the grace of Christ.” Do not think of yourself as an individual in Christ, but think of yourself as part of the body of Christ. Keep this theme of unity in mind as you go through the rest of the book of Ephesians, because Paul will be bringing it up over and over again. The Holy Spirit wants us to be united in Christ. The Holy Spirit wants us to be united in Christ. That is what pleases the Father, and that is what pleases the Son. It is not what can you do or what can you be as an individual, but what can you be as part of the body of Christ.

In case we have not gotten the message of our unity with other believers, look at the next verse. It says in Ephesians 2:6, “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ.” This is another tremendous verse that has tremendous blessings in it. If you were dead and have been given life, that is called resurrection. That is why it is said here, “and has raised us up together.” Jesus was raised from the dead, and we who believe in Him share in the victory of that resurrection. This whole idea is intimately connected with the fact that once we believe in Jesus, we become forever connected personally with all that Jesus is. Jesus is sinless, and we are regarded as being sinless. Jesus is the Son of God, and we are considered to be sons of God with all the privileges of son-ship. Jesus has eternal life, and we are given eternal life. Jesus will return to the earth to conquer the enemies of God, and we will return with Him to share in the victory. What Ephesians 2:6 is saying is that Jesus is right now at the right hand of the Father in heaven, and we are identified as being already there with Him. The Father looks at Jesus there at His right hand, and the Father not only sees Jesus but the Father also sees everyone who believes in Jesus.

This is the third time that “the heavenly places” has been mentioned in the epistle to the believers in Ephesus. The first time was in Ephesians 1:3 when we were told that God “hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” If you are a believer, you have already been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Now it is a matter of taking hold of them by faith, and finding out what they are and enjoying them. Jesus purchased them, paid for them, earned them: that which you cannot do. But you can enjoy them. We were told in Ephesians 1:20 that Jesus Himself is in the heavenly places. That is where He went when He ascended into the heavens.

Do not miss the significance of what it says about believers in Ephesians 2:6 regarding our present spiritual position in the heavenly places. It says, “and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ.” To present the image of someone being seated is to emphasize the fact that no work is being done. That is because Jesus already did the work. When Jesus died on the cross He said, “It is finished.” Jesus said, “I must work the work of Him that sent me.” There is no work left to do, not in regards to becoming justified before God. There are no stairs to climb, there are no good deeds to do, there are no prayers to pray to get you closer to God from the standpoint of justification. You are automatically given the closest possible spot right next to God, if you are in Christ through faith. You have already been made to “sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Why did God do so much for us? Why did He shower us with so much mercy and love through Christ? Why did He make it so easy so that Christ did everything, and so that we simply enter into all that Christ is through faith in Him? Part of the answer to such questions is given in Ephesians 2:7. It says, “That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” Why does the Father do what He does? One reason is to bring honor and glory to the name of Christ. Christ deserves the honor and the glory. He left the ivory palaces and entered the world of woe out of His own free choice. He did not have to do so, but He and the Father are One, and so He always did the will of the Father. Some people give the honor and the glory to man: they praise man. But there are a few who say with the Apostle John in Revelation 4:11, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.”

The phrase “in the ages to come” speaks of eternity. Of every person that goes to heaven, and there will be millions, there will be many stories to tell: the stories of God’s grace to them. That is what we attempt to do when we give a word of testimony: we attempt to say what God has done for us through Christ. Of course, we are not very good at it. We do not give Him near as much of the glory as we ought to. We also forget so easily how great things He has already done for us. And there are things that He does for us each day that we are not aware of: the angels that He sends and the circumstances that He rearranges just so that His perfect will be accomplished in our lives.

All of these things that God is doing for us is because of the riches of His grace. The fact that God is “rich in mercy” was written in Ephesians 2:4, and now the fact of “the exceeding riches of his grace” is written in Ephesians 2:7. Mercy is when God does not give us the punishment that we deserve. That is how the cycle of reaping the terrible results of what sin has been sown gets broken: the mercy of God that is in Christ. Grace refers to what God does give to us. The problem that we have is that we have not earned and have not deserved from God the things that we need from Him. God is a just judge. The just judge judges rightly and only gives what is merited and earned. The truth of God’s righteous justice is what puts man in such jeopardy. You are in very big trouble if today all that you can hope from God is what He will give to you based upon what you deserve. What bridges the gap in this hopeless situation is the grace of God. Good benefits and gifts from God have been merited and have been earned, not by you or me, but by Christ. Therefore, those who are in Christ are given freely and abundantly all that they need.

Of course, if we are going to speak of the things that we need, the most important thing that anyone needs from God is to be allowed to go to heaven. That can only happen by grace. That can only happen because of God giving to you freely that which comes because of Christ. And so Ephesians 2:5 says, “by grace ye are saved.” And Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Similar to other verses in the Bible on the same subject, these verses in Ephesians 2:8-9 explain very clearly that salvation comes only by justification through faith in Christ. That truth is stated here in three different ways. The first phrase says, “For by grace are you saved through faith.” Notice that salvation is mentioned in the middle of the phrase, and the word “saved” is sandwiched in between “grace” and “faith.” Grace speaks of what God has done and does even now in the heart of the repentant sinner. Faith speaks of what the repentant sinner does when he turns to Christ and simply trusts in Christ: i.e. puts his faith in Christ. When the grace of God meets the faith of man, salvation is the result.

Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding of how a person gets saved, the next phrase says, “and that not of yourselves.” This phrase emphasizes the source of salvation. Many people who have the wrong idea of what it means to be saved go wrong on this very idea. They think that salvation is of themselves. That is their whole problem. They have got it backwards. Since salvation comes from Jesus, it cannot come from man. There is no work that you can do, and there is no life that you can live that can bring you salvation because salvation is “not of yourselves.”

The third phrase that is given in Ephesians 2:8 to emphasize the fact that salvation is by grace through faith alone in the Lord Jesus is, “it is the gift of God.” Simply think of the definition for a gift. A gift does not cost you anything. It does cost the person something who gives the gift, but the person who receives the gift and who benefits from the gift pays nothing. If they paid anything, then it would not be a gift. Jesus paid for the gift with His precious blood on the cross of Calvary. The gift becomes yours once you trust in Jesus and believe on Him.

Ephesians 2:9 gives two phrases that continue on the same theme. First it says, “Not of works.” This was already implied in Ephesians 2:8 when it said, “not of yourselves.” But just in case there is someone who still does not understand the verse says, “not of works.” It is not of works because it is of faith. Salvation cannot be both of works and of faith. Salvation either comes from one or from the other. That is the significance of the verse that says of Abraham, “The just shall live by faith.” We are justified before God because of our faith in Christ.

Ephesians 2:9 says, “not of works, lest any man should boast.” Because salvation is every bit the work of God through Christ and not at all the work of man, therefore there is absolutely no boasting that can be done by man. Man should not boast because man did not do it: Christ did it. Man should not boast because man does not deserve any praise: Christ deserves the praise. In keeping with the truth of this teaching, always make sure that it is your goal to give God the glory for all things: not yourself and not any other man. I once knew a dear Christian woman in her late eighties who had been a missionary to Africa in the 1920s and 1930s, and who through all the years had kept her zeal to serve Christ. She has gone on to be with her Savior. She once said to me that when she died she wanted them to sing at her funeral the Fanny Crosby song “To God Be the Glory.” You know how that song goes: “To God be the glory, great things He hath done.” Aunt Stella did not want anyone praising her for any good that was done in her life. She wanted the praise to go where it belonged: to Christ and to God.

It is very clear. Concerning salvation, God does all of the work through Christ. But what about after salvation? Ephesians 2:10 makes it clear that the emphasis is still upon God and His work in our lives. It says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.” Before you think about what your works should be, remember this: God is still working. He did not stop working in your life once He did the work of salvation in you. As a matter of fact, you are His work and He has work to do and He is doing it. No matter how much you have failed, no matter how much you have missed, God is still at work. You must start with that idea before you begin to think about your works, because your works must be based upon faith: faith in God and Christ who are working. God has a plan and He is working to fulfill that plan.

That is why the last part of Ephesians 2:10 says, “which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.” The word “ordained” here means “to prepare in advance.” God does not do anything haphazardly or in the spur of the moment. He has a plan, perfectly thought out and prepared in advance. The key for you will be to enter in to that plan by faith and stay in it. If you get side-tracked, then get back in it through repentance and faith in Christ. But the thing to emphasize is that it is His plan and it is His work. That is the basis for “good works” taking place in your life. This is a very comforting thought that can be a basis for faith on your part. God has a plan for your life and for the works that you are doing. God does not give up on His plans. He will continue to see them accomplished. Have faith in Christ, and give Him the glory for what He does.

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