My Exegesis of Ephesians 2:1-7

Ephesians 2:1-7 reveals the basic unaltered state of man and God’s grace in reconciling man back to Himself. This text reveals the means by which God saves and the ultimate end of the rescued man. Henceforth equalizing all created men by revealing both the depraved state in which they dwell and the mercy of God that saves the sinner.


INTRODUCTION
In the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul compares and contrasts numerous things ranging from a person’s life before and after the grace of God grips their hearts to the unity that should exist in the church between the Jew and the Gentile. He takes the readers on a journey from a life of sin to a life glorifying to God. When on this journey the readers gets to see the behind-the-scenes action in regard to salvation; Paul affirms their place among the family of God in the beginning of the book and then enlightens the reader by disclosing to them their spiritual state prior to when the grace of God overcame them and they were delivered form the depravity.
In the text Eph. 2:1-7, we see the grace of God colliding with man’s sinful state. In this text we gain insights into the heart of man and the heart of God. Paul exposes the striking difference between them and presents us with the great equalizer — our need for grace. By exposing man for what he is and God for what He has done, Paul sets up his case for unity in the church that begins in v. 11 of this chapter. Not only does Paul give the reason we need a savior and the means by which that savior rescued us, he also gives us the two-fold motive for the salvation we receive; God’s love and His glory. These two humbling principles give Paul a springboard for what is discussed later on in the chapter: unity, and what is discussed later in the book — victorious Christian living.


HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Paul is the author of the Epistle to the Ephesians. Paul is a radical convert to the Christian faith, he has made a complete 180-degree turn. He was once the most zealous persecutor of the church; now it can be said that he is the most zealous of anyone to see the gospel taken to the world. Paul, being a member of the Sanhedrin , thought it was essential to keep every detail of the law. His zeal for persecution came directly from a misunderstanding of what God wants from his servants. It is easy to see why Paul was so intent on getting rid of Christians, he wanted to please God and secure his spot among those whom the Lord favored. Paul was a slave to the law.
Paul wrote this letter probably around 58 AD when he was in Rome during the last two years of his captivity . The nature of Paul’s ministry was to bring the gospel to the world and specifically the gentiles. As noted above, Paul, while he was Saul, found himself under the harsh thumb of the law. Once converted, his ministry was founded on the grace of God that has freed him from that harsh task master and permanently secured his place in eternity with God. This can be seen throughout much of Paul’s works and specifically in Ephesians where it seems to be the main theme.
Paul started the church in Ephesus and cared deeply for the congregation there. It comes out in his writings as he attempts to assure them of the love and grace of God and to remind them of their place in the heart of Paul and in the heart of God. This is his purpose for writing. Ephesians is the good news book. Many of its topics are discussed in further detail in the New Testament but Paul is writing to give an overview of all God has done. Paul, writing during the calm of His prison stay, is able to look at the church aside from turmoil and strife and reflect on God’s greater purpose : to bring together a people for Himself and restore the harmony through Christ. This is the hope that he is imparting on the Ephesians, that God is working to an ultimate end and by His grace they are a part of it. They don’t have to worry about being left out because as he points out in chapter 2:1-7, God has by grace raised them up to be seated with Him, and their former attitudes and actions can no longer haunt them as God has restored them and reconciled them to Himself.
The spiritual state of Ephesus at the time when Paul made his journeys there was that of idol worship. The deity Artemis was the object of worship and dominated the culture . As Paul came and started the church at Ephesus his teachings spread and eventually dominated the spiritual landscape so much that in later years, one of four church councils was held there. The major shift from idolatry to Christianity was when the temple of Diana burned down for the second time and because of the spread Christianity, it was never rebuilt. This shows why this letter can be described as an overview or summary of the work of God; to encourage those Christians living among the idolatry that they do not serve a false God, but rather a very real one that has redeemed them and has included them in His eternal plan of reconciling His people back to Himself.

LITERARY CONTEXT

The literary context in which this passage, 2:1-7, falls into is this: a recounting of where the audience in Ephesus has been and where they are going. The book of Ephesians is a summary or overview of the work of God, in this chapter Paul is reminding them, the saints in Ephesus, that they were once lost and now they are found. He is encouraging them in what the Lord is doing in their lives. The book is a litany of the work of God, and central to His work is redeeming people that cannot, by themselves, be redeemed. In this section that is what Paul is telling the Ephesians. You have to know where you came from to know where you are going. He is putting into perspective how much God has done for them by recounting what they were like before they knew God or God knew them.

MAN: V.1-3

STATE OF BEING

Paul starts the second chapter of Ephesians by continuing the discourse that he began in chapter one. He is still talking to the same people that he began addressing in the first chapter. “And you,” — the way he begins this chapter — is the same person he is referring to in 1:13, 15-18 and anticipates v. l1 (“you who are Gentiles by birth”) . Following his introductory prayer he concentrates on revealing to his readers their natural state. Paul describes their pre-Christian past as being dead. He is giving the universal unaltered state of a person prior to being saved by God. The death that Paul is referring to is not a physical one but rather a real and present death. The most vital part of a man, his spirit, is dead to the most important factor in life, God.
Paul qualifies this proclamation of death by giving visible evidence of man’s spiritually lifeless state by stating that they, the same people that he affirms by telling them they have been blessed with every spiritual blessing , use to walk according to trespasses and sins. Trespasses and sins are not two different disabilities; Paul is simply underscoring the multiplicity of ways in which man’s spiritual death is evident.
He then again universalizes this truth to all men, Jew and Gentile, by stating in v.3 that their nature is like the rest of mankind. The general principle that Paul wants to get across about the natural state of a man, apart from the grace of God, is dead. O’Brien clearly illustrates Paul’s description of the natural state of mankind:
Paul says that they were dead in… transgressions and sins. He uses the terms for death literally to denote physical death in Romans 14:9 and being united with Christ in His death in Colossians 2:20, while here he employs the adjective ‘dead’ figuratively to describe the state of being lost or under the domination of death (were renders the present participle ‘being’). It is sometimes called spiritual death and denotes a state of alienation or separation from God.

Paul carries this truth with him through the rest of our text and into v. 11 when he

makes his plea for unity in the body of Christ.


ATTITUDE TOWARD GOD

Not only does Paul establish that man’s natural state is alienated from God, he also describes the attitude that the spiritually dead man displays towards God. The thesis statement summing up man’s attitude or disposition relating to God is this: “…sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived”. Man’s attitude is one of disobedience towards God and obedience to himself and his desires. Man is ultimately self-serving.
So far Paul has been depicting the natural state of Gentile Christians , however he does admit that the state of Jewish Christians is the same as that of the Gentiles. He is making the case that all men, including the apostle himself, are equally separated from God and have equally self-serving attitudes toward God. This is made clear by the statement Paul makes in v.3, “…sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived. ”
He gives two things that are commonplace in the life of a disobedient, self-serving man. Man lives in the passions of his flesh and carries out the desires of the body, in turn obeying only his carnal needs that are dictated by his alienation from God. “Sons of disobedience” is a Hebrew turn of phrase disclosing the fact that rebellion against God and refusal to believe in Him is inherent in man .


FATE

Paul has fully outlined and explained who man is apart from God and how man lives apart from God but at the end of v. 3 Paul states what will happen to man apart from God. He uses the phrase “…by nature children of wrath”, this again is a reference to everyman’s lost condition. The word wrath is not referring to an arbitrary reaction or an impersonal process, it is referring to God’s hatred of evil and His refusal to compromise with it . This word tells us more about who God is then who man is. It is very closely tied to the grace of God that is mentioned in v 4. In the same way that grace is part of God’s character so is wrath.
Paul is starting to make a new comparison; he is moving from comparing the life of man before and after salvation to comparing who God is to who man is. Man is dead apart from God but made alive by the grace of God.
Paul uses the phrase, “children of wrath”, to lead into his lesson on grace. God hates sin and will not compromise with evil therefore putting us at odds with our creator. Paul is telling the readers that as unregenerate people they are completely deserving of and liable to the wrath of God or punishment from God. God is intolerant of the reprobate’s behavior and would be completely justified in any punishment or judgment that he executed on the unsaved man, therefore making that man an object of wrath.

GOD V.4-6

COMPARED TO MAN

Paul continues his move of contrasting God with man in v. 4; in the English Standard Version of the Bible the conjunction “but” is used to separate versus 1-3 with 4-7. God’s gracious initiative and sovereign action is standing in wonderful contrast with the hopeless condition of fallen humanity. Man is ruled by self and is enslaved by the desires of his flesh; his attitude is hostile and disobedient to God. Paul, in verse four, starts to reveal God’s attitude toward man. Paul tells his readers that God’s actions are prompted by love and mercy as opposed to man being compelled by the flesh and its lustful desires. After Paul makes it clear in v 4 that only by God’s divine intervention can our sinful state be reversed, he sums up in v.5 what God has done by reversing the sinful state — “even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ”. The basic contrast that Paul is making is this: what man is by nature and what man is by grace. O’Brien, again puts it very nicely:
Men and women outside of Christ were the objects of divine wrath, but God had mercy on them. We were dead, but he made us alive with Christ. We were in bondage to evil powers, but God has seated us with Christ in the heavenly realms. A completely new situation has arisen because he has taken every necessary step to reverse our condition in sin.

God in contrast with man is the moved by love, man is moved by self. Man is dead and God gives life. Man is a slave and God has him free.

ACTIONS TOWARDS MAN

The first thing that Paul points out about God is that he has offered grace to the sinful man. Paul defines grace in v 5 — “even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved .” This is the basic definition of grace: that even though man was dead and an undeserving object of wrath, God decided by His love and mercy to save him. Paul again compares man to God by stating that God gives life as opposed to death, the state of man.
This statement of grace is followed by three verbs prefixed with syn- that describes what God has done for man in Christ. The first of these is synezzopoiesen, this means that we have been made alive with Christ. Paul is telling the readers that because of the grace of God they literally have a new spiritual life. This new life is no longer alienated from God or in opposition to God but rather found in the favor God. Christ revivification was caused by God’s power regeneration is by His grace. Salvation is viewed retrospectively, the Ephesians are now in a position of having been saved.

The second verb and third verbs are used in v.6 and they are syngeiren and synekathisen. These verbs mean to be raised with up with Christ and to be enthroned with Christ. These verbs both have an eschatological meaning but also have a counter part in the life of the Ephesian believers. These three verbs generally refer the historical events in the life of Christ: resurrection, ascension, and session . What Paul is trying to communicate is that God did all that for the Christian and now that they have received salvation they are in union with Christ, as opposed to their unregenerate state when they were alienated an opposed to God.

RESULT V.7

Verse seven of this text reveals the result and purpose of God’s gracious
intervention into mans hopeless condition: “So that in coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.” God saves man for God’s glory. When speaking of the coming ages this is probably not time dived into the traditional two ages but rather God saying that through the rescue of sinners he will be glorified as far as thought can reach. This is the purpose, that God be glorified. All this was done by God in Christ with a single end in view. It was to demonstrate in successive ages “the surpassing riches of His grace.” He planned a continuing exhibition of His favor toward man to cover all the centuries between the ascension and the return of Christ, and after through all eternity .



CONCLUSION

The thread that stitches this text together is God’s grace being poured out on undeserving and rebellious people. The main idea that Paul wants the Ephesians to get is that God saved them not because of anything they did but because of His mercy. This thought serves as an equalizer between the Jew and the Greek. Both of them on their own are dead and only God can revive them. The realized need for grace by depraved men is humbling and unifying at the same time. God saves for His glory and by His grace. This puts all creation on the same playing field and causes all men to look o God for salvation and praise Him for it once it is received. This is the attitude Paul wants to see displayed in the Ephesians church. He wants them to be consumed with amazement at God’s grace and thirst for His mercy.

APPLICATION

This text is not only valuable to the original readers but also to Christians today. Paul does not limit the depraved state and the divine rescue to just the Christians in Ephesus, this is something that has affected the life of every Christian. All of us our saved by grace and all of us have had our hopeless state reversed by the grace of God.
This text serves as a great reminder of where we were before God saved us and what God has done for all us through Jesus. Our salvation was not dependent on our own works or ability to please God, because like Paul pointed out we were incapable of such a thing. Salvation is God’s mercy meeting man’s stony heart.
Our standing in the kingdom as believers is also revealed in this text. We have been enthroned with Christ and as Paul points out in the book Galatians we are heirs to the promises of Abraham, and have been adopted as sons of God. This is the constant of the Christian life; this is the key that unlocks that heart of the Gospel. We are not orphans, we are not alone, we are not spiritual street children, but rather we have been adopted by the very Creator of the universe and have received the full rights of sons.
We have gone from being alienated from our God to union with Christ and co-heirs with Him. All this has been done because of God’s great love, and by His mercy he has delivered us from death, from disobedience, and from rebellion and He displayed His kindness, His power and His mercy in us.


SELECTED BIBLOGRAPHY


Torrey, R. A., ed. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Electronic Database: Biblesoft, 1997

Barth Markus. Ephesians. 2 volumes. Anchor Bible Commentary. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967

Wood Skevington. “Ephesians”. In The Expositors Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1978

O’Brien, Peter T. The Letter to The Ephesians. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999.

Arnold Clint E. ed. “Ephesians” The Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2002

Stott John R. The Message of Ephesians. The Bible Speaks Today. Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity, 1979