Studies in Ephesians

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 18, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 11.

Read the full edition

Studies in Ephesians

The Free Gift of God

Chapter 2, Verses 1-10

Questioning the Text

1. What did we learn in our last lesson that Christ had made us who believe?

“Made us alive together with Christ.” Eph. 2:5.

2. With whom has God raised us up?

“And raised us up with Him.” Verse 6, Note 1.

3. To what gracious position has He exalted us?

“And made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.” Verse 6, last part. Note 2.

4. What does He purpose to do for us?

“That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Verse 7. Note 3.

5. By what does He again say we have been saved?

“For by grace have ye been saved through faith.” Verse 8, first part. Note 4.

6. How does this salvation come to us?

“And that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” Verse 8, last part. Note 5.

7. Why may this salvation not be earned?

“Not of works, that no man should glory.” Verse 9. Note 6.

8. What is the believer in Him?

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.” Verse 10, first part. Note 7.

9. For what are we created?

“For good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.” Verse 10, last part. Note 8.

Notes

1. “Raised us up with Him.”—The thought carries us back to the baptism of the believer. So the same apostle, in writing to the Romans, says, “We were buried therefore with Him through baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.” Rom. 6:4, 5. And the same thought in another epistle: “If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.” But we are not only raised up with Him symbolically in the act of baptism, but to a new life. Keep in mind the thought of the first verse, “And you did He make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins;”—not alive to the world, to do the world’s work, not alive to the passions and lusts and temptations of the world; but, living the new life in Christ Jesus here, despite the world, living above the world, walking as Christ walked, witness to the power of God.

2. “Made us to sit with Him.”—Another blessed privilege that He has given to Christians; we are not simply to count ourselves as existing in this life alone. Our adorable Head is in heaven, seated at the right hand of God. All authority is given to Him—He is the “Head over all things to the church”—and while He is there He has promised His church militant in the earth, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” He lives in them. So, as one who had partaken of the new life states, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Gal. 2:20. But while our blessed Lord lives this life with His children, His children are to count themselves as living with Him in the heavens. We do not exalt ourselves to that place, but God in His great goodness and mercy counts us as dwelling with Him,—children of His own care, directly under His own guidance, sitting with Him, in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. These are the foretastes, the earnests, the pledge-moneys of the redemption of His people. They are the assurances of the promise which God will fulfil in the inheritance which He has for His children.

3. “Riches of His grace.”—We do not know the exceeding riches of God’s grace here. In the very nature of the case we can not know them. We may appreciate them to some extent. We may lay hold upon them, or apprehend them, but we never can comprehend them. The love and wisdom and power of eternity is in His grace, and it will take eternity to understand it. Great and rich was His grace that saved us as sinners. Of that we can comprehend something. It keeps us from sin, and of that, too, we may understand a little; and yet how very little we know of the mighty conflicts of spiritual forces which are waged in order to save those whom Satan claims as his lawful captives of sin. It will take more than this life to reveal it; consequently “the ages to come” await God’s children;—not this age, with its sin, alone; not the judgment age of the thousand years; but all the glorious ages which follow, ages in which sin shall have passed away forever. Then will be revealed anew, over and over, the great creative power of God in bringing new worlds into existence, in which His people, saved by grace from this sinful world, shall have part. In all these will God be showing to His children “the exceeding riches of His grace.” But as it is infinite in its depth of wisdom and knowledge, it will take eternity to learn it. As has been remarked by one devoted Bible writer, the great plan of salvation shall be the science and song of eternity.

4. “For by grace.”—It is always well to remember it. How natural it is for poor humans to boast that I have never done this, and I never would do that, and I have never stooped to this, or that. They forget the pit from which their own feet have been taken, the very mercy, perhaps, that surrounded their childhood days in kind father and mother who have kept them from sinning. It was John Bunyan who said, as he saw a criminal passing him on his way to execution, “But by the grace of God, there goes John Bunyan.” Many of us have not fallen to the low and degrading sins which even the world looks upon as debasing and disgraceful, but we have been kept from it simply through the kindness and favor of God in the restraining influences of the teachings of Christianity, and of firm and faithful friends in our youth. Just as truly as the veritable drunkard or libertine is saved by grace, so must every child of Adam be saved. Like Nicodemus, we may pride ourselves on our morality, but the eternal fact remains, “Except one be born anew, he can not see the kingdom of God.” It is not our ancestry or our birth or our works which commend us to God, but our great need, and our great need moved His heart of love and pity to reveal to us through grace, Jesus Christ. “For by grace are ye saved through faith.” Faith has simply yielded to the Master, and thereby opened a channel through which the exceeding grace could come into the heart.

5. “That not of yourselves.” This has been taken by some to refer to the faith, but it seems to us that it clearly refers to the grace, and more to the salvation which has come to us through grace. By grace ye have been saved, and that salvation not of yourselves. We could not purchase it, nor could our friends purchase it for us. It is a truth of the ages that none of us can by any means save his brother, or give to God a ransom for him. Psalm 49:7. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” All have fallen below the perfect standard, and shut themselves out from a home in His kingdom, and therefore the saving is not of ourselves. It is the gift of God. His free, unmerited favor has been bestowed upon us. He gave Himself for our sins. By His death are we reconciled, and by the power of His endless life we are saved.

6. “Not of works, that no man should glory,”—that no one should boast. We can not earn salvation. Work as we will, it is impossible for us to rise above the very nature of the motives which dwell in the selfish heart of the human. Men have been trying this through all the weary ages of sin in the past. The long pilgrimages that are made on hands and blistered knees through the hot, sandy plains of India have been to earn salvation. The lying upon sharp spikes day after day and week after week, the wearing of stones in the shoes, the cutting, the lacerating, the long fasts to almost starvation, the hair shirts, the pitiable ways in which men have endeavored to mutilate themselves,—all these are mighty witnesses that there is no salvation in the works of men. And then, too, it is a denial of the great free grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. If Saint A could say that he had earned salvation by his wonderful works of humiliation and self-denial and flagellations, he could boast in himself. And if Saint B could say that he, through his fastings and mortifications of the flesh, had earned salvation, he could boast in himself; but in those glorious ages to come there will no one stand up and say that I have earned salvation. All the pitiful works of men will be seen to be righteousnesses which are as filthy rags, and the only garment which will then be acceptable will be the garment of the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, woven in the loom of heaven and worked out amid all the temptations of earth through the perfect, abundant grace and power of God. And that righteousness of God wrought out in Him will cover all the sins of the past, and that life of God flowing out through Him will enable the sinner to live the righteous life, but the glory will be all given to the Master.

7. “For we are His workmanship.”—All these expressions are connected with the great gift of His grace,—“for by grace have ye been saved,” “for we are His workmanship.” They are the reasons for glorying in His grace, reasons for taking no glory to ourselves. For if we are changed beings, born from above, it is His own creative power that has wrought the work. And how clearly this scripture shows that redeeming power is creative power. Salvation by works is the power of evolution demonstrated through all the ages to be utterly futile in the salvation of men and in the formation of character. But salvation by re-creation has demonstrated even in the worst characters that the power of God is greater than all the inherited, transmitted, and fostered traits of character of the sinner. It re-creates the drunkard, and it gives him a new life. It takes away the appetite from the flesh, or gives him power to live above it. It makes the covetous man a liberal man, the profane man a reverent man, the niggardly, stingy man a generous man, the dishonest man honorable, the one who has hated his fellow men as one who loves them. It removes the old grudges from the heart. In other words, it re-creates all the motives and affections of the soul in Christ Jesus. How the verse carries us back, as do many other expressions in the New Testament, to the very beginning, to the bringing from chaos to cosmos of this old world, to the Sabbath which God gave to the children of men as a memorial of His creative power, and his use of that very Sabbath as a memorial of sanctifying and redeeming power! Just as He has told us in Eze. 20:20: “And hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am Jehovah your God,”—your Creator, your Maker, the one to whom you owe all. But more than that, in verse 12, “Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am Jehovah that sanctifieth them.” The Creator is the only one who can be the Redeemer. The hope of mankind is not in evolution or education; it is in re-creation, in regeneration. But the power that regenerates, the power that re-creates, places the soul on vantage ground in a pabulum of life where there will be growth,—divine evolution and education in Christ Jesus.

8. “For good works.”—God has not created us for a life of idleness. There must be no drones in the great hive of God’s workers. He has not only the good works for His children, but He has prepared these works before, that we should walk in them,—in that wonderful plan devised of Him before this earth came into existence, His plan must have been perfected. There must have been written the great Book of Life, and in that great Book of Life there must have been the names of the characters that should people the earth, characters that should be “to the praise of the glory of His grace” throughout all eternity: and those characters are to be developed through good works, and the good works that He Himself had marked out for the development of the character. Consequently, when He called mankind from the great depths of sin and iniquity, He did this that He might create us for the very purpose that we should manifest those good works to the children of men around us on every side. So said Jesus, “Ye are the light of the world. . . . Even so let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matt. 5:16. So we read again of Christ who “gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people for His own possession, zealous of good works.” Titus 2:14. But in those good works His children will not boast, because “It is God who worketh in you, both to will and to work, for His good pleasure.” Phil. 2:13. In fact, those who are living the nearest the Master, those who are devotedly and earnestly serving Him the best, see more and more of imperfection in the service which they render. They are more inclined to say, “I am an unprofitable servant,” rather than to say, “See the mighty works which I have wrought.” But the great God who understands the spirit and motive of His children puts down the heart that is in the works, and will say to them at last, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant!” They have appropriated His great grace, and He gives them credit as though they wrought it all.