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COMPLETE COMMENTARY ON EPHESIANS CHAPTER 2
Posted : 8 Feb, 2011 01:32 PM
Prayerfully, this will help those who do not know, and need to know, and this will stregthen those who know, yet may not be strong in their knowing with confidence to explain the scriptures.
David Guzik's Commentaries on Ephesians Chapter 2...
"A The need for reconciliation."
1. (verse 1) Christians are alive from the dead.
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
a. The words He made alive are in italics, which indicates that they are added to the text but implied from the context. Paul writes to believers who have been made alive by God's work.
i. Paul ended the last chapter by considering that the ultimate example of God's power was the resurrection of Jesus. Now Paul considers what the implications of Jesus' resurrection power are for our life.
b. Who were dead in trespasses and sins: Though Christians are now alive, they must never forget where they came from. They were dead in trespasses and sins. Not merely sick or injured, but spiritually dead.
i. The death described is not figurative. By nature, apart from the spiritual resurrection of God, man is truly spiritually dead. "The most vital part of man's personality - the spirit - is dead to the most important factor in life - God." (Wood)
ii. Gaebelein speaks of cards signed during an evangelistic campaign, which read "From now on I promise to lead a better religious and Christian life." He then asks: "How is it possible for a person to live a better life, when that person has no life at all?" The Christian life is not a vow to do better. It is a transformation from death to life.
c. This touches on one of the most controversial areas in theology - in what manner, and to what extent, is a person dead before conversion? Must a person be converted before they can believe, or is a prior work short of conversion necessary?
i. Beyond the dispute is the fact of our spiritual death - both an inherited condition, received from Adam, as well as a condition chosen by our own embrace of trespasses and sins.
ii. The idea behind trespasses is that we have crossed a line, challenging God's boundaries. The idea behind sins is that we have missed a mark, the perfect standards of God.
Trespasses speaks of man as a rebel, sins speaks of man as a failure. "Before God we are both rebels and failures." (Stott)
2. (verses 2-3) The life of death.
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 the others.
a. In which you once walked: At one time, we lived in trespasses and sins, according to the course of this world, which is orchestrated by Satan. Satan (the prince of the power of the air) is still very much active among those in rebellion against God - the sons of disobedience.
b. The self that once walked is the old man, now crucified with Jesus at the time of conversion. The old man is influenced by Adam's inheritance, but also by the world and by Satan.
c. Who now works in the sons of disobedience: In sin we respond to Satan's "guidance." The same ancient Greek verb is used in Ephesians 2:2 for the work of Satan in unbelievers as is used in Ephesians 3:20 for the power of God that works in believers.
d. The prince of the power of the air: This unique title for Satan speaks of his authority (prince) and his realm (the air, a way of referring to Satan's "environment").
i. "The domain of the air, in fact, is another way of indicating the heavenly realm, which, according to Ephesians 6:12, is the abode of those principalities and powers, world-rulers of this darkness and spiritual forces of wickedness against which the people of Christ wage war." (Bruce)
e. We all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh: We once we among the sons of disobedience, proven by our conduct. We embraced the lusts of the flesh, which are primarily perversions of the legitimate desires of human nature.
f. Because of our surrender to the old man, the world, and the devil, we were by nature children of wrath. We rightfully deserved God's wrath, and deserved it because of who we are by our heritage.
i. The Bible knows nothing of the idea that all men are "children of God," except in the sense that He is our common creator (Acts 17:28). Here Paul says that there is a "family" of wrath that has its children, and Jesus called the Pharisees "a family of snakes" (Matthew 3:7, 12:34, and 23:33) and said that their father was the Devil (John 8:44).
ii. We must take seriously the idea that the children of wrath rightly deserve God's wrath. They are not "victims" of anything except God's justice.
B. The process of personal reconciliation to God.
1. (verse 4) God's motive in reconciliation.
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
a. But God . . . because of His great love: With but and because, Paul explains God's reason behind reconciling man to Himself, and the reasons are found totally in God. The reasons are His rich mercy and His great love, which He has focused on us.
b. With which He loved us: We might imagine a God of rich mercy and great love who did not focus that mercy and love upon us. But behind the good news of God's salvation offered in Jesus is the fact that this mercy and love is extended to us.
c. Some have warped the idea of God's great mercy and love into something that justifies our pride. Some imagine that we must be so lovable that God has decided to give us this great love! Instead, the truth is that God's love is so great that it extends even to the unlovely - to the children of wrath.
i. Every reason for God's mercy and love is found in Him. We give Him no reason to love us, yet in the greatness of His love, He loves us with that great love anyway.
ii. Therefore, we must stop trying to make ourselves lovable to God, and simply receive His great love while recognizing that we are unworthy of it - this is the grace secret of the Christian life.
2. (verse 5a) When the work of reconciliation begins.
Even when we were dead in trespasses,
a. When we were dead: This is when God started loving us. He did not wait until we were lovable. He loved us even when we were dead in trespasses, providing nothing lovable to Him.
b. This is the requirement for being saved - you have to be dead, dead to every attempt to justify yourself before God. He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me . . . has passed from death into life (John 5:24).
3. (verses 5b-7) The past, present and future of God's work of individual reconciliation.
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.
a. In the past, we have been made alive together with Christ. He shared in our death that we could share in His resurrection life. The old man is crucified and we are new creations in Jesus with the old things passing away and all things becoming new.
i. By grace you have been saved: Paul is compelled to add here that this is the work of God's grace, in no way involving man's merit. Our salvation - our rescue - from spiritual death is God's work done for the undeserving.
b. In the present, we sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We have a new place for living, a new arena of existence - we are not those who dwell on the earth (as Revelation often calls them), but our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20).
i. We don't sit in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus (yet); we sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Since our life and identity is in Christ, as He sits in heavenly places, so do we.
c. In the future, God will continue to show the exceeding riches of His grace to us. God will never stop dealing with us on the basis of grace, and will forever continue to unfold its riches to us through eternity.
d. All this is a heritage that the believer should cling to - this is God's work on our behalf, and we should lay claim to it in Jesus.
4. (verses 8-10) A summing up of God's work of individual reconciliation.
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.
a. For by grace you have been saved: Paul cannot speak of this glorious work God does without reminding us that it is a gift of grace, given to the undeserving. We are not even saved by our faith (though faith itself is not a work), but by grace through faith.
i. "The precise form of words here stresses two things. As consistently emphasized by Paul, it is entirely of His grace, His free, undeserved favour to mankind. Then also this salvation is presented as an accomplished fact." (Foulkes)
b. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: The whole work of salvation is God's gift. Paul's grammar here indicates that the words apply not only to faith, but to the whole gift of salvation mentioned in Ephesians 2:4-8.
i. Even our faith is a gift of God. We cannot believe in Jesus unless God does a prior work in us, for we are blinded by our own deadness and by the god of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4).
ii. This exposes the essential place of prayer in evangelism. Since God initiates salvation, we should begin our evangelism with asking God to do the initiating, and granting the ability to believe to those we want to see saved.
c. Not of works, lest anyone should boast: God did it not of works simply so that no one could boast. If salvation was the accomplishment of man in any way, we could boast about it. But under God's plan of salvation, God alone receives the glory.
d. For we are His workmanship: God saves us not merely to save us from the wrath we rightly deserve, but also to make something beautiful of us. We are His workmanship (the ancient Greek word poiema), His beautiful poem. The Jerusalem Bible translates workmanship as "work of art."
i. God's love is a transforming love; it meets us right where we are at, but when we receive it, it always takes us where we should be going - the love that saves my soul must also change my life.
e. Created in Christ Jesus for good works: That beautiful thing God is making of us is active in good works. These are just as much a part of God's predestined plan as anything else is. These good works are valid evidence that someone is walking as one of God's chosen.
i. "Works play no part at all in securing salvation. But afterwards Christians will prove their faith by their works. Here Paul shows himself at one with James." (Wood)
C. The reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles in Jesus.
1. (verses 11-12) The need for the reconciliation of Gentile and Jew.
Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh; who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands; that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
a. You, once Gentiles in the flesh: God's work of reconciliation is not only between God and the individual, though it must begin there. It is also between groups of people that have been estranged, such as Jews and Gentiles.
b. Gentiles - those of the Uncircimcision, were in a desperate place, being aliens, strangers, having no hope and being without God, not only being spiritually dead, but also not even having the access to God that the Jews enjoyed.
i. Before coming the Jesus, Gentiles were "Christless, stateless, friendless, hopeless and Godless." (Stott quoting Hendriksen)
ii. Having no hope: "The absence of hope in the face of death is amply attested in the literature and epigraphy of the Gaeco-Roman world of that day." (Bruce)
iii. Without God in the world: Some people believe in God, but they believe He lives in heaven and has nothing to do with this world. In that way, a person can still believe in God and be without God in the world.
2. (verse 13) Gentiles brought near to God.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
a. Those Gentiles who are now in Christ Jesus are no longer far off. They are made near to the things of God, and this is accomplished by the blood of Christ, by His sacrificial death.
i. Now in Christ Jesus: Gentiles who are not in Christ Jesus are just as far off as they ever were. This reconciliation only happens in Jesus.
b. By the blood of Christ: Many people suggest different ways to come near to God. Some think you can come by keeping the law, or by belonging to a group (such as Israel, or even the church). But the only way to be brought near to God is by the blood of Christ. What Jesus did on the cross, suffering as a guilty sinner in the place of guilty sinners, brings us near to God.
3. (verses 14-16) Jew and Gentile brought together in the Church.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.
a. For He Himself is our peace: Jesus Himself is our peace; He hasn't simply made peace between God and man and Jew and Gentile; He is our peace.
b. Who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation: The work of Jesus on the cross is the common ground of salvation for both Jew and Gentile. Therefore there is no longer any dividing wall between Jew and Gentile. Jesus broke that wall down.
i. In the temple, in between the court of the Gentiles and the court of the women, there was a physical barrier, an actual wall of separation between Jew and Gentile.
ii. Paul was, at the time of this writing, under house arrest in Rome, awaiting trial because he was falsely accused by the Jews of taking a Gentile into the temple past the literal wall of separation dividing Jew and Gentile. Paul makes it clear that in Jesus, the wall is gone.
c. The work of Jesus not only removes the barriers between God and man, it also removes the barriers between groups of people; we can find common ground in the Lordship of Jesus.
i. If the Lordship of Jesus Christ is not greater than any difference you have with others - be it political, racial, economic, language, geography or whatever, then you have not fully understood what it means to be under the Lordship of Jesus.
i. Laws can and should penalize things such as racial discrimination, but they cannot change the heart of the racist - only Jesus can. Only Jesus breaks down the wall.
d. Having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances: The source of contention between Jew and Gentile was the fact that the Gentiles did not keep the law. But since Jesus fulfilled the law on our behalf, and since He bore the penalty for our failure to keep the law, we are reconciled through His work on the cross - putting to death the source of contention.
i. "It is suggested that what Paul really expresses then is the fact that the legal system, which was meant primarily to protect the Jewish people against the corruption of heathen idolatry, became the bitter root of Jewish exclusiveness in relation to the Gentiles." (Salmond)
ii. The law as a source of righteousness is no longer an issue. That source of enmity between Jew and Gentile is dead.
e. That He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross: Gentiles and Jews are brought together into one body, the Church, where our unity in Jesus is far greater than our previous differences.
i. So as to create in Himself one new man from the two: Early Christians called themselves a "third race" or a "new race." Early Christians recognized that they were not Jews, not Gentiles, but one new man embracing all who are in Jesus.
ii. "As Chrysostom explained, it is not that Christ has brought one up to the level of the other, but that he has produced a greater: 'as if one should melt down one statue of silver and another of lead, and the two together should come out gold.'" (Wood)
f. Don't miss the emphasis Paul places on the work of Jesus on the cross in accomplishing this: made near by the blood . . . having abolished in His flesh the enmity . . . in one body through the cross. This unity did just happen, it was the hard-fought accomplishment of Jesus.
i. This means that Jesus' prayer in John 17 (that they all may be one) wasn't "just" a prayer. It was a prayer Jesus prayed knowing that His work of the cross would accomplish and a prayer He was willing to pray knowing His agony would be used to answer.
ii. This bringing together of Jew and Gentile in Jesus is a partial fulfillment of God's eternal purpose as stated in Ephesians 1:10: that . . . He might gather together in one all things in Christ.
4. (verses 17-18) How Jews and Gentiles are brought together.
And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
a. He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near: As they respond to the same gospel, the same peace that is preached to those afar off (Gentiles) and those near (Jews).
b. Through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father: They enjoy the same access to God, access that comes by one Spirit to the Father. Not only are Jews and Gentiles saved by the same gospel, but they also have the same essential walk with God and access to Him. One group does not have a greater access than the other does.
i. "Access is probably the best translation of prosagoge, though it could be 'introduction.' In oriental courts there was a prosagoges who brought a person into the presence of the king." (Foulkes)
c. When conflict arises among Christian groups of different backgrounds, you can be sure that they are forget that they were saved by the same gospel and that they have the same access to God. One or both groups usually feel they have superior access to God.
5. (verses 19-22) A picture of God's work of reconciliation, both individual and among groups.
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
a. You are no longer strangers and foreigners: You refers to Christians of Gentile background. They should not regard themselves as "second-class citizens" in God's kingdom in any regard. They are not only full citizens, but also full and equal members of God's household.
b. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets: Because we are one body and have the same access to God, it also follows that we are all built upon a common foundation. That foundation is the original apostles and prophets, and their enduring revelation, recorded in the New Testament. May no one every lay any other foundation.
i. Though Chrysostom, Jerome, Calvin and others saw the prophets mentioned as Old Testament prophets, it is much better to see them as New Testament prophets, perhaps New Testament authors who were not strictly members of the core apostolic group.
ii. In this sense of laying a foundation of supremely authoritative revelation for all God's people, there are no more apostles or prophets today. The foundation is already set. In a lesser sense there may be apostles and prophets today, but not in the sense Paul means here.
c. Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone: This corner stone "literally means at the tip of the angle. It refers to the capstone or binding stone that holds the whole structure together . . . often the royal name was inscribed on it. In the East it was considered to be even more important than the foundation." (Wood)
i. Salmond on corner stone: "It denotes the stone placed at the extreme corner, so as to bind the other stones in the building together - the most important stone in the structure, the one on which its stability depended."
d. In whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord: As we keep to our common foundation, the whole building of God's people grows together in a beautiful way, as a holy temple where God dwells in beauty and glory.
i. There are two words in the ancient Greek language for temple, one describing the whole temple grounds, and one for the holy building itself. Paul uses the word for the holy building itself, because no one is on the outskirts of this building work.
ii. When Solomon's temple was built, the stones were prepared at a place far from the temple building sight. They said that you couldn't hear the sound of a hammer or axe or other iron tools at the sight (1 Kings 6:7). In the same way, God prepares us first, then fits us into His building.
David Guzik's Commentaries on the Bible http://www.studylight.org/com/guz/view.cgi?book=eph&chapter=002>. 1997-2003.
www.studylight.org/com
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