Grace Alone

INTRODUCTION

We are looking at another sola this morning, sola gratia

If you remember we said that sola means “alone”

Gratia means “Grace” so both together means “Grace Alone”

We have recently looked at two other solas: Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide

Sola Scriptura is Scripture Alone

Sola Fide is Faith Alone

The 5 solas were formulated in the 16th century by the Reformers in “response to the abuses and errors of the Roman Catholic Church [and they] articulate the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith” (Table Talk, Ligonier Ministries, November 2012)

They are the gospel

We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone

For the Reformers, the doctrine of sola gratia was critical to a right and fully biblical understanding of salvation in Christ. Every corruption of the doctrine of sola gratia subtly smuggles human effort through the back door.

(https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/sola-gratia-mean)

Each sola was a response to what the Roman Catholic Church taught about salvation

The Roman Catholic Church said it is Grace plus merit, faith plus works, Christ plus other mediators, Scripture plus tradition, and God’s glory plus Mary and Saints.

They believed this then and they still believe it today

So the Reformers protested and inserted the Latin sola meaning “alone”

So this morning we’re looking at that wonderful teaching called “grace”

To help us understand what the Bible teaches about grace, I want to invite you to look with me at Ephesians chapter two

Today we’re going to look at verses 1-10 as we understand what we were before Christ, what God did, and what we are now

Listen as I read Ephesians 2:1-10.

What we just heard was the gospel

We saw man’s sinful condition and God’s response to it

Instead of responding in wrath, He responds with grace, mercy and love

These three things we do not deserve but in our helpless condition we need!

God saves by His grace alone not by works

This is His incredible act of love where He opens the hearts of those He has chosen and reveals to them their sinfulness. Then, He supernaturally turns their hearts toward him and actually gives them the faith they need to respond to His offer of salvation. Salvation is by grace, through faith. From beginning to end, it’s a work of God (The Five Solas. Foundational Truth that Defines Our Faith)

As we look at Ephesians 2:1-10, we first see...

I. What We Were (vv.1-3)

The first thing Paul says about their past life is they were...

Dead in Sin (v.1)

That began with Adam and Eve in the Garden (Gen.3)

They were commanded in Genesis 2:16–17 to not eat “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”

If they did they would “surely die.””

But in Genesis 3, it records that they disobeyed God’s command and therefore immediately “died” in “trespasses and sins”

The Bible says that one act brought about sin and death

Romans 5:12, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—”

This act of disobedience brought about the death of the entire human race that would come from Adam

Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The Greek word that Paul uses in Ephesians 2:1 for “dead” is nekros and it refers to “an inability to respond”

That’s what death is

It is a “lifeless, useless [spiritual] corpse” (UBS, LN)

Some words that we get from this Greek word (nekros) is “Necrosis—the death of cells through injury of disease. Necropsy—the examination of a body after death; autopsy. Necropolis—a cemetery. Necrophilia—Obsessive fascination with death and corpses. Necromancy—the practice of communicating with the spirits of the dead in order to predict the future.”

Van Dorn, Douglas. The Five Solas of the Reformation: with Appendices (p. 36). Waters of Creation Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Are you getting the meaning of the word now?

This death was a “separation” from the life of God as seen by them being driven from the Garden of Eden

Paul says in Ephesians 2:1, the sphere of death is “in trespasses and sins”

This is “suggesting that sin has killed people and they remain in that spiritual dead state” (John Walvoord)

Paul further defines what he means by being “dead in…trespasses and sins” in Ephesians 4:18, when he describes their former life as “being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart”

Being spiritually dead is being “excluded from the life of God”

It’s being “hostile toward God”

It’s “not subjecting yourself to the law of God and not even able to do so”

Romans 8:6–8 “6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

The issue is the heart

Jeremiah said it is “more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick” (Jer.17:9)

Jesus said “the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, [and] slanders” (Mat.15:18-19)

Before God destroyed man and all living creatures on the earth with a worldwide flood, Moses said in Genesis 6:5, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Their actions expressed itself by what was in their heart

And what was in the heart was “evil”

Phil Johnson says, “We are born objects suited only for the wrath of God. There’s nothing we can do for ourselves to remedy the situation because we are spiritually dead, spiritually lifeless; we’re spiritually inert, and worse, we’re like spiritual cadavers: decaying, disgusting, obnoxious to everything good and holy. That’s the imagery Paul means to convey here” (Message - “My Resurrection from the Dead”).

Not only were they dead in trespasses and sins but they were also...

Living According to the World and Satan (v.2)

They “formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience”

Their “walk” (peripateo) or “conduct” or “behavior” was according to the “world system” (Louw-Nida), that “evil system of which Satan is its head”

2 Corinthians 4:4 says it is “the god of this world [who] has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

Paul describes that “evil system” in Ephesians 4 as being a “darkened…understanding, [exclusion] from the life of God…ignorance…the hardness of their heart” (v.18) “callousness…sensuality…impurity…greediness” (v.19)

This is the world and it’s the same evil system that 1 John 2:15 says not to love

“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

William MacDonald says, “The world has a mold into which it pours its devotees. It is a mold of depravity. That is what the Ephesians had been like. Not only so, their behavior was diabolical. They followed the example of the devil” (Believer’s Bible Commentary).

Satan has a grip on the unregenerate heart that’s why they are not…

“free and independent; they are totally dominated by the hosts of hell” (John MacArthur)

He is the “prince of the power of the air,…the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience”

Not only were they “dead in trespasses and sins”, but they were…

Living According to the Flesh (v.3)

Paul says, “Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest”

They were not alone

The entire unsaved human race lived and continues to live this way

Paul says “we too all for merely lived in the lusts of our flesh”

“Lusts” is a strong word for “desire”

It can refer to either a good or bad desire

Here it refers to the strong passionate desires of the flesh

Charles Hodge says, “By the flesh, however, is not to be understood merely our sensuous nature, but our whole nature considered as corrupt” (Charles Hodge, Commentary on Ephesians).

Paul uses the word “flesh” (sarx) 2 times in this verse referring to the totally depraved nature

He says they were “indulging” or “carrying out” (Vincent) those corrupt desires he calls “lusts”

Kenneth Wuest says, “It speaks of the habitual performing of acts that satisfy the desires of the evil nature and of the evil thoughts, thus a fulfilling of those desires. We went the limit in sin. The evil nature had full sway” (Word Studies in the Greek NT).

To top that off, he says, we “were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest”

To say that we were by “nature” (phusis) means by “natural condition” (UBS)

This is what is “inherent, not acquired” (JFB)

Genesis 8:21 says, “The intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth”

Job 15:15 says man “drinks iniquity like water”

We are “estranged from the womb” (Ps.58:3), “rebels” (Isa.48:8), “children of wrath” (Eph.2:3)

Unbelievers have a close relationship, not with God, but with His wrath! Disobedience and unbelief lead to the wrath of God (Rom. 1:18-2:29; John 3:36)” (Walvoord).

So the “inherent” condition was we were “children of wrath, just as the others.” We were no different than the rest. We were “dead” in our sins and the objects of God’s wrath.

This is what is amazing about grace

Even though we were this by nature, verse 4 begins with “But God”

Those words...form one of the most significant, eloquent, and inspiring transitions in all literature. They indicate that a stupendous change has taken place. It is a change from the doom and despair of the valley of death to the unspeakable delights of the kingdom of the Son of God’s love” (Believer’s Bible Commentary).

“These two words, in and of themselves, in a sense contain the whole of the gospel. The gospel tells of what God has done, God’s intervention; it is something that comes entirely from outside us and displays to us that wondrous and amazing and astonishing work of God” (D. Martyn-Lloyd Jones, God’s Way of Reconciliation: Ephesians 2, p.59).

John Calvin describes that work as “God [delivering] the Ephesians from the destruction to which they were formerly liable” (Calvin’s Commentaries: Ephesians).

And now we see...

II. What God Did (vv.4-10)

“4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),”

He Made Us Alive (vv.4-5)

(suzoopoieo) that means He “caused us to live” (Wuest)

That is regeneration

Titus 3:5, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit”

“Regeneration is the sovereign work of God the Holy Spirit” (Sproul, 101). And “the first step of regeneration by which a person is quickened to spiritual life, is the work of God and of God alone. The initiative is with God, not with us” (Sproul, 104).

God did this according to His mercy

“He shows mercy to us by not treating us the way we deserve to be treated” (MacDonald)

Psalm 86:5, “For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in lovingkindness (“mercy” - NKJV) to all who call upon You.”

This “Mercy” (eleos) is “undeserved kindness” given by God to sinners

The LXX translates it as “loyal love”

Paul says...

God did this also according to “His great love with which He loved us”

“Salvation is from sin and by love” (MacArthur)

Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

Not only did God make us alive but...

He Raised Us Up (vv.6-7)

This speaks of our union with Christ

His resurrection is the basis for our resurrection

We partook of His resurrection life and now we have been “positionally resurrected” (Walvoord)

Matthew Henry says, “When He raised Christ from the dead, He did in effect raise up all believers together with Him, He being their common head”

The tense of “raised” and “made” indicates that these are immediate and direct results of salvation” (MacArthur)

He also...

He Seated Us Together with Christ in the Heavens (vv.6-7)

Paul says He “made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

“We are no longer of this present world or in its sphere of sinfulness and rebellion. We have been rescued from spiritual death and given spiritual life in order to be in Christ Jesus and to be with Him in the heavenly places” (MacArthur, 60).

III. What We Are Now (vv.8-10)

Saved By Grace Through Faith (vv.8-9)

This is a gift

That’s what grace and mercy are....gifts from God

It is God, by His mercy and love, raising sinners from spiritual death and giving them spiritual life. It is making them alive and raising them up to sit with Christ in the heavens.

All of this is done by “grace”

That’s God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense

God provided His grace

Jesus provided the sacrifice of Himself that was necessary for our salvation

Romans 5:17, “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”

We are therefore...

His Workmanship (v.10)

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Our works needed a regeneration

They needed a transformation

We need the Lord to “open [our] heart to respond” just like Lydia did in Philippi(Acts 16:14)

And that’s what the Lord has done to all those He has saved

In the words of verse 10 and 4:24, we have been “created by God in true righteousness and holiness”

Colossians 3:10, “and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—”

CONCLUSION

Our salvation is a gift from God

Steve Lawson said, “Salvation is all grace. Electing grace, predestination grace, regenerating grace, redeeming grace, reconciling grace, justifying grace, forgiving grace, sanctifying Grace, preserving grace.

Have you received His grace?

Martin Luther said, “Our salvation must exist, not in our righteousness, but…in Christ’s righteousness. …Let his righteousness and grace, not yours, be your refuge.”

He further said, “But no man can be thoroughly humbled until he knows that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, devices, endeavors, will, and works, and depends entirely on the choice, will, and work of another, namely, of God alone . . . then he has come close to grace, and can be saved.”

Sola gratia means that your salvation is purely on the basis of God’s sheer gracious love

If you have never repented and believed in Christ alone for your salvation, I plead with you to come to Him now!

Romans 10:9–10 “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

Confess Him as Lord!

Believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead

Luke said in Acts 2:40, “And with many other words he [Peter] solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!”

I exhort you in the same way

“Be saved from this perverse generation!”

Let’s pray