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Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound

Monday, August 17 –

It’s Monday, and I hope you had a great weekend.  We are continuing our reading through the New Testament, and once again, we’ll finish reading another book by the end of the week. Today’s reading is from Ephesians 2:1 – 22.  This is one of those beautiful passages, and like a good meal, it’s worth slowing down to enjoy it.  Please come back to take a second look and get some more out of the chapter.

 

“Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”  The words to John Bunyan’s famous hymn come directly from Ephesians 2.  Paul had begun this letter with exuberant praise to God the Father, His Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as together they make our salvation both possible and completed.  Then he tells the Ephesian believers that he is praying for them to know, really know, God’s power and purposes in their lives.  Now, as he continues, Paul takes them back to the beginning – how they came to be Christians and then reminds them of what God has in mind in fulfilling His purposes in their lives.

How did we become Christians?  We, especially in the Western world, have an inflated sense of who we are as humans.  We think of ourselves as intelligent, better off than most of the world, and very happy to be here than almost any other country in the world.  If we were to face the truth honestly, we would have to humbly confess we’re no better than any other person in the world.  That’s where Paul begins – “... you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (2:1-3).
We should reread it.  Who are we?  “by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”  When John Newton wrote Amazing Grace, he went directly to this – “that saved a wretch like me.” 
“Wait a minute, Elliott, that is true of some people.  But, I haven’t ever done anything like that...I’ve lived a good life, treating people kindly and caring about others...dead in trespasses?  Following the prince of the power of the air?  Living in the passions of the flesh?  Children of wrath? No, that’s not me”.  I’ve heard it countless times.  I hear it at funerals where “so and so was a good person.”  When we lose sight of theology, we lose sight of God and His truth.

The truth is, every human being is “dead in trespasses and sins.”  He didn’t say we “became dead,” or that eventually “we will all die”; instead, he says we all are spiritually dead to God.  He argued the same thing in Romans, when he wrote: “it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one;  no one understands; no one seeks for God’...  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:10-11, 23).  Our natural state of being before Christ comes into our lives is defined by death.  I had a job when I was fourteen, working for the local funeral home director.  Orville hired me to help him pick up dead people. I had never seen a dead person outside of a casket, and in a casket, they looked still, quiet, peaceful.  That wasn’t the vision I kept as I saw dead people before they got to the casket.  What I saw as I accompanied Orville to pick up dead bodies was cold, ghastly, hideous. Those are words I could have used for some.  All were dead...there was no life inside.  That is the picture Paul is painting of life before Christ.

It would have remained that way throughout our lives if not for the next two words – “But God.”  God changed the sober picture of our death and depraved living –
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (2:4-7).
I never tire of reading those words.  They are like no other words to change the course of our lives.  When all is bleak, and death is upon us, God moves.  As Jesus stood before the tomb of Lazarus and spoke the words, “Lazarus, come forth,” so God stands before our spiritual death and says, “Your name, come forth.” 

“I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”  Why did God do this?  “His great love...grace is how we have been saved”. How much Grace did we need?  He has “immeasurable riches of grace” to give.  My mother’s favorite hymn might have been “Rock of Ages.”  Remember the words in the middle? 
“Nothing in my hand I bring
Simply to Thy cross I cling
Naked, come to Thee for dress
Helpless, look to Thee for grace.”
Grace...it’s a beautiful word and an essential one.  Grace alone – sola gratia – was Martin Luther’s Reformation conviction.  It was “sola,” grace alone, through Christ alone, that was missing in the Roman church’s teaching – “We receive absolution [forgiveness] and grace at no cost or labor on our part, but not without cost and labor on the part of Christ.”[1] Paul’s testimony bears witness to it, and so does my own.  Our good works do not save us.  I can testify to my experience and my first job; a dead person can do no good works.  So Paul explains – “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (2:8-9).  Grace is a gift.  It is a gift given by God without merit on our part.  It is a gift given when we don’t deserve it.  It is a gift given so that God, and God alone is to be glorified and praised.

We cannot help but ask, “Why”?  Why did God give this gift to some?   Paul answers, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (2:10).  God – by his grace, gives us faith to believe – and thus creates us to do the works of Christ Jesus and walk in them.  We are not saved “By” our good works, but we are saved “For” his good works.  What good works does he have in mind?  In the final half of this chapter, Paul explains that the “work” that God is doing through the Gospel is a work of reconciliation – bringing all of the humanity of believers together under the umbrella of the church.  Again, he goes back to the beginning to make the present reality most crucial to understand – “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands -  remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (2:11-12).  At one time, we Gentiles were separated from the covenant of God to Israel – alienated, strangers, having no hope, without God.  The Gentile world of Paul’s day had no idea of what God had done in Israel’s past to bring about the New Covenant.  If not for God opening the door to the Gentiles, we would have never been aware of Jesus Christ.  Again, what changed it all is the next words, but  –
“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (2:13-14). 
The last part of that sentence is a reference to the Temple worship.  When the Temple was set up, there was a barrier built to divide the area that Gentiles could come from the area of the Jews.  The “dividing wall of hostility” was a wall of separation where Gentiles could look at the Temple, but were prohibited from entering.  John Stott makes the observation - “In the last century, archaeologists discovered two stone inscriptions—warning signs in Greek that once stood prominently in the wall of separation. The text reads, ‘No foreigner may enter within the barrier and enclosure round the temple. Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing death’”[2]

Christ Jesus tore the wall down that separated Jews and Gentiles.  The church is God’s reconciliation project whereby Jews, Gentiles, Male, Females, Slave, or Free, are all one in Christ (Galatians 3:28).  It is the peace of God that brings about the church –
“...he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.  For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.  So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.  In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (2:17-22).
Paul describes the church as a building.  Previously, in chapter 1:22-23, he had said the church is Christ’s body.  The metaphors are adaptable.  Christ is the cornerstone of what God is building.  Christ is the head of the body, the church.  He is building his church, even as Jesus said he would – “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).  The purpose is clear.  The church is a “holy temple...a dwelling place for God by the Spirit”. 

The picture is amazing, even as grace is amazing.  How does God do it?  Like all building projects, he dismantles before he builds.  We are – as lost and dead – dismantled.  We would have stayed that way as a pile of ruined rubble if not for “But God.”  Grace, amazing grace, coupled with God’s great love, and his mercy, all come together in Christ.  It is all amazing...sometimes such that like looking at the Grand Canyon, it’s beyond the scope of our ability to take it all in.  But, this is only the beginning...the end in eternal life is even more amazing.


Peace

[2] John R Stott, The Message of Ephesians, page 92 

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