Ephesians - From Redemption to Resurrection

When Jesus died we died, when he was buried we were buried, when he was raised we were raised, and when he was exalted we were exalted, and when he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, we sat down in him. 

Father in heaven, quicken us in your word. The word is living, but sometimes we are dead. The word is light, but sometimes our minds are darkness. Oh, I pray, dispel the darkness, overcome the death, and grant by your Holy Spirit that we shall receive the word of God with meekness and fear and obedience. I ask in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Ephesians 2 begins, "And you." Now you must remember that in the original manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, we didn’t have the kind of punctuation, didn’t have the verse divisions, chapter divisions that we have in our modern translations. And so if we end Ephesians 1:23 and come right into Ephesians 2:1, it sounds like this: "which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all, and you." I like that. Let’s just put a bridge between Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 2. You see, in Ephesians 1, he’s talking about redemption. "In him we have redemption through his blood." In Ephesians 1, he sings that hymn of praise to God for redemption. But now in Ephesians 2:1-10, the theme is resurrection, and then in Ephesians 2:11-22, it is reconciliation. And so as you think of the book of Ephesians, you say Ephesians 1, redemption; Ephesians 2:1-10, resurrection; and Ephesians 2:11-22, reconciliation. 

You see, in Ephesians 2, he’s telling us what God has done for us in saving us through Jesus Christ. "And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as others." Now there are some words in this paragraph we don’t like: sin, dead, disobedience, wrath. But there are some words to come that are going to meet all of those needs. "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Now we have a brand new vocabulary: love, mercy, kindness, grace, alive, saved, riches. That’s the vocabulary of God’s grace, isn’t it? 

Now there’s one word that is repeated four times in this paragraph, Ephesians 2:1-10, and it’s a word we have to deal with. It’s the word "works." In Ephesians 2:2, "the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience." Ephesians 2:9, "not of works." Ephesians 2:10, "we are his workmanship... created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." This paragraph is talking about four different kinds of works. He tells us about sin’s work against us in Ephesians 2:1-3. God’s work for us in Ephesians 2:4-9. Then God’s work in us and God’s work through us in Ephesians 2:10. Let me repeat that now. The key to this paragraph is the word works. He’s talking about four different works: sin’s work against us, Ephesians 2:1-3; God’s work for us, Ephesians 2:4-9; then God’s work in us, Ephesians 2:10, "we are his workmanship"; and God’s work through us, "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." 

Let’s begin with the bad news: sin’s work against us. And he tells us here that there are three terrible characteristics of the unsaved person. The unsaved person is dead, the unsaved person is disobedient, and the unsaved person is doomed. The unsaved person is dead. "And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins." Now in the Bible, death means separation. Look at Ephesians 4:18: "having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God," (that’s death, isn’t it?) "being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart." A description of the unsaved person. The unsaved person is not sick. Now sickness in the Bible is an illustration of sin, leprosy for example is used that way. But the unsaved person is not sick, he is dead, spiritually dead, alienated, separated from the life of God. He’s not just handicapped. People have the idea, well, I have a few handicaps you know, and spiritually I can take care of them and I can exercise and work hard. No, no, the unsaved person is not sick or handicapped, he is dead. Now death means separation from God. "As the body without the spirit is dead," says James. When the spirit leaves the body, there’s death. Now when the person does not have the life of God within his soul, that person is spiritually dead. 

What does it mean to be dead spiritually? It means you are not alive to spiritual things. When a person is dead physically, you can’t tempt him with food or money or entertainment. You can’t hurt him because he’s dead. Here’s a corpse lying in a casket and and you could present the most beautiful dinner to that corpse, but the corpse is dead to physical things. Here are unsaved people who are dead to spiritual things. They they don’t have any interest in the Bible, in worship, in church. If they go to church, they just endure it; they have no interest in spiritual things. I fear that many people attending our churches today are just corpses that get dressed up and picked up and propped up and taken to church on Sunday, and they endure it and then they go back home and can hardly wait for the football game to start. That’s where their real interest is. They are dead to spiritual things. Now the tragedy is, if you are dead spiritually and you die physically, you will be dead eternally. The Bible calls hell the second death, the lake of fire. 

Notice why we are dead in sins. Because we are alienated from the life of God, and sin did it. "Trespasses" means we have crossed over the line. God drew a line and said "don’t cross it." We said "who are you to tell us what to do?" and we crossed the line. That’s what the word trespass means. The word "sin" means missing the mark. Here are two opposite things. God said "here is the goal" and we missed it. God said "don't cross the line" we crossed it. There’s something about human nature that rebels against Almighty God. We are dead apart from faith in Jesus Christ. You’ll recall when the prodigal son came home, his father said, "this my son is alive who was dead." Now he was alive physically. He was alive, able to work, able to sin, ah, but he was dead spiritually. How was he dead spiritually? He was alienated from his father. He was not at home. He was not in fellowship with the father. When he came home and was forgiven, he was back in fellowship with his father and there was forgiveness and there was life. 

The unsaved person is not only dead, but the unsaved person is disobedient. There is a threefold slavery described in Ephesians 2:2-3. Slavery to the world, slavery to the flesh, slavery to the devil. The remarkable thing is this: unsaved people think they are free and Christians are in bondage. They say, "oh we feel so sorry for you Christians, you have to read the Bible and you have to go to church." It’s not a matter of "have to," we "want to." It’s a part of our life. Tell a rose not to grow and open up its beautiful petals to the sunshine. It has to do that, it’s made that way. And Christians are made that way, to walk in the light and to enjoy the things of God. It’s the unsaved person who is enslaved and disobedient. "In which you once walked according to the course of this world." He’s talking here about the world system, not the world of humanity, but the world system, society without God. Wherever you have society without God, you have a world system. And this world system is run by the prince of this world. "According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience." Here we have the devil. "Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind." So here we have the world, the flesh, and the devil, the three great enemies of the Christian. And here is bondage, the worst kind of bondage. 

The people of the world simply have to go along with the course of this world. Jesus called them "the children of this world" in Luke 16:8. He called the devil "the prince of this world" in John 12:31. He warns us about "the wisdom of this world," 1 Corinthians 1:20. He warns us about "the god of this world," 2 Corinthians 4:4. This world, this flesh, the devil. And the devil is enabling people to work. "The spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience." Same word that’s used up in Ephesians 1:20 where God worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. The Holy Spirit of God wants to work in us; the devil is at work in unsaved people. Disobedient, children of disobedience. You’ll notice in Ephesians 2:3 the unsaved are called "children of wrath." Ephesians 2:2 they’re called "sons of disobedience." You see, we are born by nature children of wrath. We do not sin because we always enjoy it; sometimes sinners do things that they wish they weren't doing. The drunkard doesn't want to get drunk but he’s got that awful tendency down inside, and the lustful person doesn't want to indulge in these things but it just takes over. He becomes enslaved to the sin that’s down inside. By nature we’re children of wrath. We are born by nature children of wrath. But by choice we become sons of disobedience. We come to a certain age in life where we understand the difference between right and wrong, between good and bad, and we choose the bad and we choose the wrong, and therefore by choice we are sons of disobedience. 

Unsaved people are dead, disobedient, enslaved by the world, the flesh, and the devil, and doomed, children of wrath. Now the wrath of God is very serious. We don’t joke about the wrath of God. God is love, but God’s love is a holy love and God hates sin and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. World jokes about sin, laughs about sin. The day will come when people will not joke and laugh about sin, but then it will be too late. Now what do these people need? Well, they’re in the graveyard. They’re dead. You go into a graveyard, what do people need in the graveyard? Do they need legislation? Get the government to pass a law, "you are alive." They’re still dead and decaying. Well, do they need reformation? How do you reform a corpse? Do they need education? Well, how do you educate a corpse? Do they need religion? How do you make a corpse religious? No, what they need is resurrection. And that’s what he says here, "and you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins." They need life, and that life is in Jesus Christ. 

Now the situation in Ephesians 2:1-3 is pretty bleak, except for the two words in Ephesians 2:4: "But God." But God. Now a whole new factor enters in. "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us." Let's stop right there: mercy and love. Now God in his mercy does not give us what we do deserve: wrath. God in his grace gives us what we don’t deserve. And all of this is born of his great love. Now God is great in love and God is rich in mercy. What did he do? "Even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)." Now here’s God’s work for us. Who did it? God. What did he do? He made us alive together with Christ. Notice that three times in Ephesians 2:5-6 you find the word "together." Salvation means we have been united to Jesus Christ. We are alive together, we were raised up together, we are now seated together in the heavenly places. Jesus Christ and I are united through the Holy Spirit of God. I am bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I am a member of his body. I am a part of the exalted Christ of glory. Now that’s salvation. The Lord didn’t just simply make us alive and leave us in the casket down in the grave. What kind of a life would that be? He didn’t make us alive and take us out of the grave and leave us in the cemetery. He made us alive together with Christ. 

When Jesus died we died, when he was buried we were buried, when he was raised we were raised, and when he was exalted we were exalted, and when he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, we sat down in him. That’s the marvelous thing about salvation. It’s the work that God does for us. He made us alive together with Christ, he raised us up, he enthroned us. That’s rather interesting that there are three records in the gospels of resurrection, apart from our Lord’s resurrection. In Luke 7, our Lord raised a young man from the dead, the widow of Nain’s son. In Luke 8, he raised Jairus' daughter from the dead, little twelve-year-old girl. In John 11, he raised Lazarus, probably an older man, from the dead. Now here is Jairus' daughter, she had just died. Here is the widow of Nain’s son, he’d been dead I suppose maybe twelve hours, maybe a day, they always buried the same day. Here’s Lazarus, he’d been in the tomb for four days. Which of these three was the most dead? I can almost hear you chuckling, you’re saying, well, if you’re dead you’re dead. That’s true. You see, the only difference between Lazarus and Jairus' daughter was the state of decay. She had just died and didn’t even look like she was dead. But Lazarus, his sister said, "well by now he smells." The only difference among sinners is the state of decay. There are religious sinners who are very, very moral, but they’re dead. There are sinners who perhaps live in the gutter, and their decay is terrible, they’re dead. But the self-righteous religious sinner is just as dead as the man out there in the street who lives in the gutter. My friend, God’s work for us means he raises us from the dead. Why did he do it? Because he loved us. How did he do it? Through the Lord Jesus Christ. And he is doing it to sinners today who will trust him, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. 

[Interview]

Up next, Warren joins Arnie Cole, CEO of Back to the Bible International. 

Warren, sooner or later, we’ll realize that the Christian life is a battleground, not a playground. Who or what are our enemies?

Well, he makes it clear, Paul does, in the book of Ephesians in Ephesians 2. He talks about the world, the flesh, and the devil. And the other authors in the Bible do the same thing. John talks about it. My first enemy is the devil. He hates me. He hates Jesus. He hates the church. He’s a liar, he’s a false accuser, he’s a counterfeiter, he’s a murderer, and he doesn't want me to be a happy Christian. The flesh. As we get older, we we feel some of the temptations of the flesh. And the world. Love not the world. Because if you love the world, you’re not the friend of God, you’re the enemy of God. So these are our main enemies. We’ve got to realize that our enemies are not flesh and blood. If your neighbor is a nuisance, that’s some demon using your neighbor. Lead him to Jesus. If you have problems with people and they make life miserable for you, pray about it. I can recall some people in some of the churches that I pastored that just created problems for me. And I prayed, I said, Lord I’m not going to argue with them. And God always took care of it. So the church needs to know that trouble is coming. Right here and now in America, there are people plotting against the church. It’s all over the world. It’s going to get worse. And I say to pastors, equip your people. Preach Ephesians 6 because this world is a battleground, not a playground. But I encourage everybody to trust Jesus and follow him.