Raised to Life
8/22/25 Bible Thought (Ephesians 2)
To tell wholly of the work of God on our behalf is an insurmountable task.
After such an incredible beginning to Ephesians where Paul described God’s wonderful grace and worth, Paul has not even come close to running out of material.
The language of redemption is certainly not sufficient. So, in Ephesians 2, the apostle turns to resurrection.
Human beings outside of Christ are dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1). According to Paul, the natural man does not merely need improved. He does not need to go from decent to good. He needs to be raised to new life.
Outside of Christ we all once walked, “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is not at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2).
We lived by worldly standards of success serving the god of this world. This is the state of people who are without hope and into this situation steps the God of grace and mercy.
Paul concluded so powerfully,
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-7).
We were dead—but God.
God, out of His great love, raised us from spiritual death and brought us into His family.
He seated us with Christ in heavenly places, and He has only just begun. There is a hope for future grace to unfold in the coming ages when we will reign with Christ in the life to come!
What immeasurable riches of grace and kindness that we can only begin to fathom.
It is all of grace. Our salvation is by grace (Eph. 2:8) and not our own doing. If we saved ourselves, we might have a cause for boasting, but since we were saved by another our boast can only be in Him.
He is the hero of the story.
We merely get to be a part of the story that He is writing. We now walk in good works that He had already prepared for us (Eph 2:10) as a means of thanksgiving and worship.
We aren’t saved by good works, but for good works, as we are the workmanship of God. Our works testify to the One who has first worked in us. Our lives as those whom He has redeemed and brought from death unto life are His masterpiece and therefore He gets all the credit.
Surely those who were dead and were subsequently raised to life again cannot boast in anything of themselves. As Paul Washer has famously quipped, “We make no contribution to our salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”
Let us then extol the wondrous grace of God.
Our God has been so kind, and has lavished upon us blessings beyond compare, and He has even greater things in store in the heavens that we presently await. How awesome is He!