Joel M Bradshaw

1And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2in 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— 3among 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. 4But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast.10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.–Ephesians 2 (with emphasis)

Christians debate discussions regarding predestination and free will. Calvinism and Arminianism. I like to use the image of a hospital.

Look at what I underlined in the passage.

1. DEAD. Paul pictures us as spiritually dead and therefore with no hope of salvation on our own. We all were sinners stuck on our selfish paths. On our own we would never leave those paths and turn to Jesus. We were dead in our sins.
2. BUT GOD. These are possibly the two greatest side-by-side words in the Bible. Notice the text doesn’t tell us that you or me made ourselves alive again. We didn’t provide the hope.
3. MADE ALIVE. Yesterday’s blog detailed chapter 1 and salvation being God’s decision, God’s choice. His choice was to breathe life into your spiritual corpse. That is grace. The faith you show is the ability now given you to show by God making it possible.

Many view salvation like the ICU wing of the hospital. As if you were almost dead in your sins and hanging on for dear life. You require the doctors and nurses to care for you. They do their part and you do yours. And that is how you are saved.

I however view salvation from another wing of that hospital. One 15 floors down. The morgue. My friends, Ephesians 2 pictured me in the morgue and not in the ICU. I was dead in my sins. Dead people are in the morgue. I had no hope of salvation. But God. It’s ultimately God’s choice to give grace. It’s ultimately God who enabled me to choose the Jesus path over the Joel path. Yes, salvation requires a faith decision, but remember corpses don’t decide anything. God made it all possible. And who he chose to give that grace to is his business, not ours. And spiritually dead people will never choose Jesus on their own. Corpses in the morgue have no free will.

Ephesians chapters 1 and 2 grew me up in my understanding of theology. The sovereignty of God is on full display. I remain grateful and thankful. Humbled.–JMB