The glorious power of God’s saving grace in Christ is heralded by Paul in Eph. 2:4-5 – “But God…made us alive together with Christ…”! God has done this mighty work for those who were once “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1-3); those who were helplessly and hopelessly bound in the death-grip of depravity. Soberly, this is the condition of every human being outside of faith in Jesus Christ. A more desperate situation could not be imagined; a more magnificent and sufficient salvation could not be conceived! As John Calvin observes,
“He does not mean simply that they were in danger of death; but he declares that it was a real and present death under which they labored. As spiritual death is nothing else than the alienation of the soul from God, we are all born as dead men, and we live as dead men, until we are made partakers of the life of Christ.” (Calvin, on Eph. 2:1)
Beloved, God wants His people to always remember what it meant to be dead in sin (Eph. 2:1-3), and what it means to be alive in Christ (Eph. 2:4-10)! Most of our struggles in the Christian life occur because we so easily forget these things! Let’s persevere in praying for one another (Eph. 6:18-19), and faithfully “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) to one another. What a great privilege and responsibility we have to build each other up as fellow partakers of the life of Christ!
Because He lives, and is returning,
Greg