"And you _did He quicken_, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein aforetime ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience; among whom we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest:--but God, being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together with the Christ (by grace have ye been saved), and raised us up together and made us to sit together in the heavenly _places_ in Christ Jesus."--EPH. ii. 1-6.
We pass by a sudden transition, just as in Colossians i. 21, 22, from the thought of that which God wrought in Christ Himself to that which He works through Christ in believing men. So God raised, exalted, and glorified His Son Jesus Christ (i. 19-23)--_and you_! The finely woven threads of the apostle's thought are frequently severed, and awkward chasms made in the highway of his argument by our chapter and verse divisions. The words inserted in our Version (_did He quicken_) are borrowed by anticipation from verse 5; but they are more than supplied already in the foregoing context. "The same almighty Hand that was laid upon the body of the dead Christ and lifted Him from Joseph's grave to the highest seat in heaven, is now laid upon your soul. It has raised _you_ from the grave and death of sin to share by faith His celestial life."
The apostle, in verse 3, pointedly includes amongst the "dead in trespasses and sins" himself and his Jewish fellow-believers as they "once lived," when they obeyed the motions and "volitions of the flesh," and so were "by birth" not children of favour, as Jews presumed, but "children of anger, even as the rest."[74]
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This passage gives us a sublime view of the event of our conversion. It associates that change in us with the stupendous miracle which took place in our Redeemer. The one act is a continuation of the other. There is an acting over again in us of Christ's crucifixion, resurrection and ascension, when we realize through faith that which was done for mankind in Him. At the same time, the redemption which is in Christ Jesus is no mere legacy, to be received or declined; it is not something done once for all, and left to be appropriated passively by our individual will. It is a "_power_ of God unto salvation," unceasingly operative and effective, that works "of faith and _unto faith_" that summons men to faith, challenging human confidence wherever its message travels and awakening the spiritual possibilities dormant in our nature.
It is a supernatural force, then, which is at work upon us in the word of Christ. It is a resurrection-power, that turns death into life. And it is a power instinct with love. The love which went out towards the slain and buried Jesus when the Father stooped to raise Him from the dead, bends over us as we lie in the grave of our sins, and exerts itself with a might no less transcendent, that it may raise us from the dust of death to sit with Him in the heavenly places (vv. 4-6).
Let us look at the two sides of the change effected in men by the gospel--at the death they leave, and the life into which they enter. Let us contemplate the task to which this unmatched power has set itself.
I. _You that were dead_, the apostle says.
Jesus Christ came into a dead world--He the one living man, alive in body, soul, and spirit--alive to God in the world. He was, like none besides, aware of God and of God's love, breathing in His Spirit, "living not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded from His mouth." "This," He said, "is life eternal." If His definition was correct, if it be life to know God, then the world into which Christ entered by His human birth, the world of heathendom and Judaism, was veritably dying or dead--"dead indeed unto God."