A Verse by Verse Breakdown of Ephesians 2:1-10

I was asked the other day if I would email a verse by verse explanation of Ephesians 2. The primary concern was verse 8, but I gave the context working up to and through the context of 8. The question was for a clarification of a brief explanation in our Sunday Night Class "What is the Gospel?" -Session #1, which is available through Word and Truth Media and from our church sermonaudio page linked below.

Here is my response. 

I think it would be easiest to do this by having the Scripture and then commenting below, so that you see exactly where my comments are coming from as I do my best simply to state what the text is stating...

2 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

This speaks of the former state of these believers, the Ephesian Church, and speaks in contrast to those who are currently unbelievers. Their state (unbelievers) because of the sin of Adam bringing about their "deadness." They walk according to Satanic ways (prince of the power of the air), because they are "sons of disobedience." Scripture's use of the Phrase "son of" was understood and is understood as the embodiment of the character and attributes of that which you are the "son of." E.g. James and John are "sons of thunder," embodying thunder like characteristics. Judas the "son of perdition," - embodiment of sin. Barnabus, the "son of encouragement" to describe his personality and of course Jesus is Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David, Embodying the character and attributes of Deity, perfect humanity (he is the second adam), and David, the Messianic, Davidic, King. 

The text goes on to say what our practices were, and even our nature was, when we were without salvation. "lust of flesh...desires of flesh and mind...by nature children of wrath." --traits carried by all born in sin.

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

In contrast to who we were is placed God and his attributes and his actions towards us. While we were dead (this is speaking of our spiritual deadness and inability to move towards God because of our nature)...While we were dead, GOD "made us alive together with Christ." Spiritually we were dead. spiritually dead men don't do anything in the realm of spiritual life, because they are dead. Think of a corpse in a casket at a funeral. The corpse can do nothing in the realm of the spiritual living. Dead men don't make choices and they certainly don't make good ones (as confirmed with all the other passages about inability we covered Sunday). Instead, God “made us alive together with Christ.” It was a work of God alone, the dead play no part in giving life to itself. 
Verse 5 interjects with  a phrase which will be used again below with expansion. "by grace you have been saved" -- grace, as you know, is a free gift, an undeserved gift, an unearned gift, an unmerited favor - gift.

6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Keeping comments minimal hear, because they aren't the focus of what I taught, nor what you are interested in. Paul speaks now of our current spiritual reality. We are raised, seated with Him, he will show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness towards us. Speaking of the testament to how good He was to us who were "children of wrath." And the ultimate show of that will be in the completion of our salvation in glorification at the rapture. We will have been brought from embodying (son of) the character and attributes of wrath, to being the embodiment of the character and attributes of righteousness (children of righteousness).

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Here again is our Phrase. "For by grace you have been saved" --again an unmerited, undeserved, free gift, but this time an additional phrase is added "through faith." Here is where the natural response would be, "oh, I had to do something. I had to have faith." Even though that seems contradictory to the "unmerited, undeserved, free gift," idea of grace. And so Paul clarified after the semi-colon. In fact he clarified three times and then gave the logical result of the proper understanding. Here it is...1. "and that not of yourself, 2. it is the gift of God, 3. not as a result of works, and the result "so that no one may boast.

1. and that not of yourself -- "that" is in the neuter gender in greek. typically a demonstrative, "that," will be in agreement in gender with the referent if anything but the closest possible referent is meant. Here the neuter of "that," doesn't match anything in the context and so it is a referent to either the whole act of salvation including grace and faith that brings about salvation that isn't of yourself (which would be true), or "faith," the closest referent, which is the most exegetically sound option since these phrases are used to clarify the addition “through faith” to a phrase already used in the verses above. And so "faith" "is not of yourselves". This again is clarified in the second phrase.

2. "it is the gift of God" --the problem as you will recall is that when Pual added "through faith," the immediate reaction is "oh, I do have a part to play before I can receive grace, namely, I have to have faith." Here he clarifies, that "faith" was a gift. Something God gave. I might add, an unearned, unmerited, undeserved, free gift of God. We were dead spiritually and children of wrath, following our nature as sons of disobedience, how could we have earned the gift, plus Paul in Romans says, grace that is earned is no longer grace, it is wages. A gift that is earned is no longer a gift, it is a paycheck. But he goes on with one more clarification.

3. not as a result of works" -- literally "ouk ex ergon" - "not from works" - again just to recall the argument. "through faith" made the reader say, "oh I have a part i need to play first, in order to receive salvation. I must have faith to receive grace." then the clarifications: no the faith is not of yourself. the faith is a gift from God. and here, the faith is not from works. In other words, it isn't something that we do in order to merit, or deserve, or earn the application of grace. That would effectively nullify grace (unearned, unmerited, undeserved). Grace earned is wages (Rom 4:4). And also it would be an impossibility to have that faith in the state of our deadness, and wrathfulness, etc. or as Romans 8 said, while of the mind of the flesh and unable to do the things of the spirit of God, unable to please God, at enmity with God, as you will recall from our study Sunday. And so the faith is “not from works,” not something we do of our own accord to play a part before being able to receive 1. grace, 2. salvation.

Then finally the result of this line of thinking.

"so that no one may boast" -- if the faith was of yourself, not a gift of God, and was a work that we did in order to receive salvation (I won't say grace at this point, because it no longer would be unmerited favor), then we would be able to boast. e.g. I'm saved, because I had faith. that guy isn't saved, because he wasn't sensitive enough, smart enough, spiritually minded enough, etc. But if even the faith necessary to call on the name of the Lord is something that is given to us, then we are left with no room to boast. e.g. Why are you saved and not that guy? I have no idea. God chose to give me grace and faith to respond when I didn't deserve it, to the praise of His glory ALONE!

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Then to cap it all off, Paul writes an explanatory sentence, starting with the explanatory “gar” in Greek. When we see that “gar,” we expect the summary. And that is what we get. “We are His workmanship.” All that we are and all that we have become as “Saved ones” is something He has done, not by our works, the faith was not of ourselves, it was His gift, leaving us no room to boast except in the Lord as 1 Cor 1. says “let he who boasts boast in the Lord.” He, in his workmanship, made us who we are, created in Christ Jesus for good works. He made us who we are, gave us faith by his grace, brought us into salvation so that we can be created anew. We were dead, children of wrath, following after our lusts, sons of disobedience, etc, but he made us new to do good works, which he prepared before hand so that we would walk in them, not in the sins of our former lives.


And of course I won’t go into how this pairs right with the other passages we covered. No one can come unless drawn, granted by the father in John 6. The mind of the flesh can’t do that which pleases God, can’t obey the law of God, is unable, in Rom. 8. The natural man does not comprehend the things of the spirit, only the one who is given the spirit can understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2.), etc. But all that is available to review on the handout, or if you would like to hear it again it is on our sermonaudiopage. www.sermonaudio.com/Centralbible  


If All Die Because All Sinned, What About Enoch?

I'm trying something new. The last time I used this blog was in 2010. I have found that though I would like to write more, time doesn't allow, however, with my emails this morning came an idea. I will attempt to use this blog as a forum to post questions and answers that I receive, at least as I have time to do so...

This will serve at least two goals. One I will be able to supply the answer to the questions received via email to a multitude of people (at least potentially) without adding much additional work, and two, I will have used this blog rather than it staying idle. And so here we go.

 This morning I received the following question:  

Hey Nick! 
So I have been thinking about the sermon Sunday night and I started thinking about something and wanted to see if maybe you could clear things up for me? 

So, the bible says that the wages of sin is death and that because of the fall of man and the curse with Adam and Eve disobeying, every man is born a sinner and therefore must die because that is our payment for being a sinner. So I was curious about Enoch. In Genesis 5 it goes in to saying how Enoch was no more because God took him away. So I was curious about if that means that Enoch did not sin, because he didn't die, and he didn't have to pay the price for sin. It says in Hebrews 11 that Enoch is "known as the person who pleased God, and that it is impossible to please God without faith and if anyone wants to come to Him he must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who seek Him" So obviously Enoch was rewarded for his immense amount of trust and faith in God in such a difficult time to be following God, but how did he get to skip out on the payment for being born a sinner? I know that Jesus was the only person born with out sin, so it really just kind of confuses me. So I was wondering if you could possibly clear this up in any way! 

 Thanks!!

And here is my reply.

 Hey ______, I love getting questions like these because it shows that you are really thinking through the issues directly and its correspondence to the rest of Scripture (thinking canonically). Of course I can't give you a definite answer to the question, but only a proposed probability/hypothesis. The story of Enoch is allusive but also Elijah (chariot of fire--no death)... And yet as you say the wages of sin is death... and furthermore, Hebrews sin it is appointed for a man to die once and then comes the judgment. 

 Here's my proposed solution. There are two witnesses in Revelation 11. There have been several allegorical interpretations of the two witnesses, but I take them to be two people. From the people camp most throw out Elijah, Enoch and Moses as possibilities (moses because of a miracle resembling one of the plagues in Egypt). 

 Since you see where I am headed, I say the two are Enoch and Elijah! Both men would be powerful witnesses to the Israelites and the world during the tribulation, they would be able to do signs similar to those that are recorded for Elijah, then they will be killed (thus having fulfilled their requirement) and after resurrected and raptured as a special act of grace for two who didn't belong to that time to begin with, but who were sent to fulfill a mission for the Lord. 

Of course this is just a theory, but it sure does wrap a nice bow around it. By the way, there are some prominent early church fathers who agreed with this, Tertulian, Irenaeus, and Hyppolytus of Rome to name a few. 

 So any way... hope that helps.. I've included Revelation 11:1-14 below, just to perhaps save you a bit of time in looking it up. Hope you enjoyed the study. Glad you are feeling better.


 11 Then there was given me a measuring rod like a staff;and someone said, “Get up and measure the temple of God and the altar, and those who worship in it. 2 Leave out the court which is outside the temple and do not measure it, for it has been given to the nations; and they will tread under foot the holy city for forty-two months. 3 And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.” 4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. 5 And if anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies; so if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. 6 These have the power to shut up the sky, so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire. 7 When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them. 8 And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. 9 Those from the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days, and will not permit their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. 10 And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and celebrate; and they will send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. 11 But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet; and great fear fell upon those who were watching them. 12 And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” Then they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies watched them. 13 And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

 Nicholas Paul LeBlanc Pastor, Central Bible Church