Following the crowd, following the course of the world. Paul closes this passage with a great exposition of that paradox which always lies at the heart of his view of the gospel. I know it on the best authority, and the truest, too. The word course has its root meaning in Greek weathervane. The holiness which he delights in we aspire after. children of God, citizens of the Kingdom. "You hath HE quickened," is true of all who are quickened. It was not the result of works, for it was God's design that no one should be able to boast. All lost sinners are dead, and the only difference between one sinner and another is the state of decay." "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself." Well, then, we have a new life. (118) To bring home more effectually to the Ephesians the general doctrine of Divine grace, he reminds them of their former condition. Submissions: I am so grateful to those of you who send me your own material to post! As Creator, God is distinct in his essence from the world he has created. He had spoken of the poor idolatrous Gentiles and their awful condition; but "we all," says he, putting himself along with them, Jews as we were, children of the covenant and what not, were none the less dead in offences and sins. There was a moral necessity for a nature suitable to God, if we were to be in His presence at all; but there was none for this special relationship. If youre my age or older you may remember Homer and Jethro. And mark; as in the case of the maiden the sin was in the chamber, secret; in the next case it was in the open streets, public; but in this case it is secret again. Left him with 10,000 men to face the 135,000 Midianites. C. H. Spurgeon at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens. Now I am too busy. As Christ fills the whole body of Christian believers with his fulness, (Ephesians 1:23,) so had he dealt with the converted Ephesians, who before were dead in trespasses, and dead in sins. The choice of the saints for heavenly blessedness was before the creation of the universe, before the foundation of the world. In other words, Christ was not raised up as an insulated individual, severed from all others by His glory and their sin and shame. Accordingly he brings in the most important of them, first, the wife and the husband; then, children and their parents; and, finally, servants and masters. He gave us life when we were born; but he has given us now a higher life, which could not be found anywhere else. Only into the first of them could a Gentile come. Thank God, dear hearer, if you have living pangs. And so I said, 'It must lie in leaving great monuments,' and so I applied myself to building, and I built all of these great monuments around Jerusalem, and when I looked at all of these great buildings and all I said, 'This too is empty; it doesn't satisfy.'" Besides, it is not merely that the body will immediately respond to the call of the Lord Jesus, but even now the very same power Acts wrought toward us in making us Christians which "wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and 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 age, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." This is true of Jews and Gentiles alike. Impossible that the Head should not be there as well as the body; and the apostle speaks as to Christ yet more than as to the assembly. People are invited Ye have all that heart could wish for, except the one thing needful; ye have all things save love to the Saviour. Such is the measure, if measure it can be called, of the grace wherein we stand. Once a thing becomes a habit it is not far from being a necessity. He then describes the blessings that believers receive as a result of being reconciled to God through Christ (vv. That is the way we are to God. Judging what I am, I confess that all my blessing is in the Saviour, who did not merely come to bless me as a living man in the world, but died and is risen again; and 1, confessing Him who is thus dead and risen, have part in His death. It is not again a simple question of a new nature, but of a new man: the first Adam, with all remedial or corrective dealings in him disappear, and one new man comes before our view. One said to me, when joining the church, "Either I am a new creature, or else the world is altogether altered from what it was. Take heed; thou wilt go further still; there is no stopping in sin. In the Ephesians 2:1 he speaks of their internal state, in this of their outward conversation: Wherein, in which trespasses and sins, in time past you walked, you lived and behaved yourselves in such a manner as the men of the world are used to do. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. At the same time, we learn by our experiments. Ephesians 2:2). 4But because of his great love for us,(H) God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions(I)it is by grace you have been saved. How blessed is the character and the spring of Christian service! It is not something extraneous that acts on God as a motive, but His own love flowing out from Himself according to His holy nature, and in perfect consistency with His character and ways. We need both motive and object, and hence could not be said to be love; because not we, but only God acts from Himself, as much as for Himself. Look at me, I believe." You that now commune with God at the mercy-seat, you that are now his favoured children, and have received power to become the sons of God, you were once heirs of wrath: "By nature the children of wrath, even as others." I thought, "Yes; I know all about that; that is my case." He talks of "the remote tribes of barbarians belonging to the bestial class." I do not think that a living man can always pray by clockwork, at such a time and such a time. The Jews believed that only by keeping the Jewish law was a man good and able to attain to the friendship and fellowship of God. Reality is hopeless. Paul uses two illuminating pictures. It was written by Thom Shuman. I am having fun. But was this all? And as the unity flowed from the power of the Spirit sent down from heaven; so now when we come to gifts, it is expressly connected with Christ in glory. He remembers his covenant forever, in your case, if you are saved, you will have to join with even the worst in saying, "I have been quickened by divine grace, or else I had never lived." And God was almost a boogieman to us. Now, what was the purpose of God? And God said Gideon, "The men that are with you are too many, because I know the heart of this people. It may not be in our conscious memory, but everything we ever did or saw or heard is buried in our subconscious memories. Then the diversities are brought before us. We are by nature the children of wrath, even as others. No, it does not; it begins to crawl; it does not walk at first. A state of sin is a state of conformity to this world, Ephesians 2:2; Ephesians 2:2. Paul well knew that barrier, for his arrest at Jerusalem, which led to his final imprisonment and death, was due to the fact that he had been wrongly accused of bringing Trophimus, an Ephesian Gentile, into the Temple beyond the barrier ( Acts 21:28-29). (ii) That is to say that works have nothing to do with earning salvation. ", Do you think this devotedness too much? ", But there are other elements. (ISAIAH 1:18, ALT.) Those in Christ are legally dead to sin, in the sense of being free of the penalty of it, through the death of Christ. The Son would be a creature not self-subsisting, not therefore truly God. Having no hope, and without God in the world: It is an awful description, but a truthful description, of what we were. Or, what was the manner of life that we lived? Hath quickened us together with Christ. All the good works in the world cannot put us right with God; but there is something radically wrong with the Christianity which does not issue in good works. 2:1-3 When you were dead in your sins and trespasses, those sins and trespasses in which you once walked, living life in the way this present age lives it, living life as the ruler of the power of the air dictates it, that spirit who now operates in the children of disobedience--and once all we too lived the same kind of life as these children of disobedience do, a life in which we were at the mercy of the desires of our lower nature, a life in which we followed the wishes of our lower nature and of our own designs, a life in which, as far as human nature goes, we deserved nothing but the wrath of God, as the others do. But it is very different in relation to the mother whose child he killed. Might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. He came to tell us that no matter what we are like the door is open to the presence of God. P: I will fasten the belt of truth about my waist. 46. The first thing is to "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." 3 all of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[ a] and following its desires The essence of the worldly man is, as someone has said, that "he knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." If you are spiritually dead, nothing here belongs to you; but if he hath quickened you, you may take every single sentence of the chapter, and say, "That is mine, and glory be the grace of God!". Not only were they called in time as we have been, but they were chosen in time, which we were not. The ages to come will have for their wonder the quickened children of God. Lord God, we confess that we have each of us grieved the Holy Spirit. The three main verbs are "made alive" (Ephesians 2:5), "raised up" (Ephesians 2:6), and "seated" (Ephesians 2:6). For the mass subsequently brought in were Gentiles, and the gospel of salvation they forthwith received, without going through the intermediate steps that the others knew. Finally, He enunciated the motive for our calling (i.e., the unmerited grace of God, Ephesians 2:1-10). That is one result of spiritual life. WebThe Art of Following - Matthew 4:12-23. This is an interested subject: I wish I could dilate upon it, but my voice fails me; and therefore, permit me to go to the third point very briefly. Call to Worship (Psalm 145:13b-14, 17-19) The Lord is trustworthy and true, Faithful in all of Gods ways. And every believer is where his Head is; and if we are members of Christ's body, we are in heaven. And so maybe you would have five men in the contest. It was just that kind of news that Jesus brought. Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! Both are now introduced by grace into an entirely new and heavenly place in Christ, which was not so much as heard of before. Whatever was the current fashion. Aren't they perfect? (iii) Greater than anything else, Jesus Christ revives and restores the lost will. I was a natural man, dominated by my fleshly needs. Of the whole Church the corner stone is Christ; and the corner stone is what holds everything together. Ah! To succumb to that is inevitably to come to disaster. Please note: If you use material from this blog, please be careful to credit the original author and source. For less than $5/mo. He tracked her down. He made us at the first; he has new-made us. For "if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." 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