Ephesians 2:5 - Exposition

Even when we were dead in our sins. Repeated from Ephesians 2:1 , in order to set in its true light the declaration that follows of what God did for us to make more emphatic the free and sovereign mercy of God. Though sin is the abominable thing which he hates, loathsome to him in the last degree, he did not turn from us when we were immersed in it; nor did he wait till we began to move towards him: he began to influence us even when we were dead. Made us alive together with Christ ( συνεζωοποίησε τῷ χριστῷ ). Made us alive with the life which is in Christ and which flows from Christ. A parallel is run between the way in which God's power operated on the body of Christ, and the way in which it operates on the souls of believers in him in respect of

The Father, having "given to the Son to have life in himself," and "the Son quickening whom he will" ( John 6:21 , John 6:26 ), by God's decree we were first quickened by him, made partakers of Christ's life ( John 11:25 ; comp. John 14:19 ; John 15:5 ; Colossians 3:4 ; Galatians 2:20 , etc.). All the life we had lost was restored—the life forfeited by transgression, the life of a calm and well-ordered heart, the sublime life of fellowship with God. By grace have ye been saved. This is a parenthetical clause, more fully dwelt on in Ephesians 2:8 , thrown in here abruptly by the apostle in the fullness of his heart, to throw light on this great wonder—that Christ should impart his own life to souls dead in sin. Grace in opposition to human merit is at the root of the whole arrangement; free, undeserved mercy. It is not anything that God is bound to by the necessity of his nature. It is the result of his will, not of his nature. Had it not been for his good pleasure, salvation had never been. "Saved" is the past participle ( σεσωσμένοι ), denoting, not the act of being saved, but the fact of having been saved. Salvation in a real sense is a present possession. When we are one with Christ we are justified freely by God's grace, our trespasses are all forgiven. The spirit of new moral life has been given to us; we are made alive to God. But while salvation is a present attainment in a real sense, its full realization is future, for that includes perfect holiness, and also the glorification of the body. In this sense salvation is to come ( Romans 8:24 ; Romans 13:11 ).