Ephesians 2 Verses 8 -10 What Is So Amazing About Grace January 19, 2025

Ephesians 2 Verses 8 -10 What Is So Amazing About Grace January 19, 2025 Lesson 3 The Immeasurable Love Of Christ Class Presentation Notes AAAAA

Background Scripture:

Matthew 5:14–16 (NASB95)

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;

15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Main Idea:

• Grace is God granting a pardon we do not deserve. Mercy is God withholding punishment we deserve.

Study Aim:

• To understand that faith is our response to God’s grace and our good deeds are evidence of our salvation.

Create Interest:

• Paul gives us more information about God’s salvation and explains what saves us and what does NOT save us. People today endeavor to go to God’s Heaven in their own way because they will not recognize God’s authority and His truth. They will in fact say that there are many gods and many different ways to Heaven, but such thinking is vanity.

• If you are depending on religion, good deeds, obeying the Golden Rule, money, baby baptism, catechism, your family heritage (Grandma went to church), self-affliction, church membership, yourself, some mysterious event such as “I saw Jesus at the foot of my bed,” to deliver your soul from Hell and take you to Heaven, it won’t happen.

• God’s provision of salvation is by His saving grace when you put your faith in His Son, Jesus Christ to forgive and cleanse you of your sins. Salvation is not earned. It is His gift to those who trust in Him. If person attained salvation through his deeds, he would boast about them in Heaven, which in turn would make Heaven a miserable place because of the constant bragging.

Lesson in Historical Context:

• In this passage Paul’s thought flows on regardless of the rules of grammar; he begins sentences and never finishes them; he begins with one construction and halfway through he glides into another. That is because this is far more a lyric of the love of God than a careful theological exposition. Paul is pouring out his heart, and the claims of grammar have to give way to the wonder of grace.

• When the apostle spoke about the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, he indicated that this was a demonstration of God’s “power” (1:19, 20). But he speaks of the believer’s resurrection and exaltation with Christ as a demonstration of the incomparable riches of [God’s] grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

• God already has demonstrated this grace in the present by blessing the believer so richly in Christ. To this, one naturally responds with comments such as “how wonderful,” “how marvelous. “This, however, is just a foretaste of the ongoing activity of God’s grace in the coming ages. The reference here is not to the final coming age: in the one [age] to come) but in the coming ages. The author’s use of the plural (en tois aiōsin) probably signifies that he envisions a series of “ages” (generations) in which the riches of his [Christ’s] grace are extended toward humankind through the church (3:10) until the inauguration of the final age.

• Paul explains the mode of salvation (2:8–9) and the result of salvation (2:10) in this paragraph. He begins by discussing how an individual is actually saved. He has already discussed the human condition (2:1–3) and Jesus as the solution (2:4–7), so these verses serve to explain how a person can receive the salvation that is made possible through Christ.

• Paul states plainly that this salvation is rooted in God’s grace.

o He explains that no human effort can earn life in him; rather, it is only through faith in Jesus that salvation is possible.

 As a result of this saving, believers are enabled to produce good work, which is God’s intent (2:10).

Bible Study:

Made Alive in Christ

Ephesians 2:1–7 (NASB95)

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

2 in which you 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.

3 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.

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),

6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

• In my mind, I would be remiss as a teacher not to look back at the first seven verses of this chapter which set the stage for our focus verses. Many of my readers have not accepted Christ or are new Christians and for those that are seasoned in the faith it is a good review….so that you can with confidence share your faith.

• Vs. 1: Unregenerate persons are dead in … transgressions (cf. v. 5) and sins (Col. 2:13). This death is spiritual, not physical, for unsaved people are very much alive physically. Death signifies absence of communication with the living. One who is dead spiritually has no communication with God; he is separated from God. The phrase “in your trespasses and sins” shows the sphere of the death, suggesting that sin has killed people (Rom. 5:12; 7:10; Col. 2:13) and they remain in that spiritually dead state. “Transgressions” (paraptōmasin, “false steps”; cf. Eph. 1:7; 2:5) and “sins” (hamartia is, “acts of missing the mark”), though slightly different in their root meanings, are basically synonymous. Both suggest deliberate acts against God and His righteousness and thus failure to live as one should. The plural of these two nouns signifies people’s repetitious involvement in sin and hence their state of un-regeneration.

• It has been, in particular, very popular to argue that the desires and aspirations that people find deep within themselves are obviously God-given and are for that reason to be followed. This is so particularly in discussions of sexual morality. (‘This is how God made me, so he must want me to live like this.’) But a moment’s thought simply on human grounds, never mind a biblical viewpoint, shows how flawed that thinking is. Many people have deep desires which, unless held severely in check, lead to disaster.

• From a Christian perspective, these obvious responses can be taken a stage further. When God acted in Jesus the Messiah, he not only revealed himself fully; he revealed fully what genuine human life was like—and it turns out to be deeply self-sacrificial. Simply following the desires of the physical body, and equally of the mind, will lead you to ruin.

• (Note how in verse 3 the ‘flesh’ and ‘mind’ are both seen as sources of danger: Paul doesn’t for a moment suppose that the mind is morally ‘higher’ than the body.)

o The problem is, though: even if you recognize this, what can you do about it?

 If you are already ‘dead’ as a result of all this—already heading the wrong way down the road, with no hope of turning off, let alone turning back, and apparently no brake on the car to enable you to stop—what hope can there be?

• Before you look at Paul’s answer, look at the full dimensions of the problem. In verse 2 he shows that there are forces which pull you, lure you, compel you to go in the wrong direction.

• First, there is the present age: the way the world is now is not the way God intends it to be in the age to come. What seems right, especially to those who are simply ‘going with the flow’ of the world around them, actually isn’t.

• Second, there is the ‘ruler of the power of the air’. This seems to be a way of referring to the satan, the devil, and a way of suggesting that his deadly ideas, his schemes for defacing God’s beautiful creation and particularly his image-bearing human creatures, are, as we say, ‘in the air’. The satan is a spirit, at work among people who see no need to behave any differently.

• Perhaps the most devastating thing Paul points out here is that ‘we’—in other words, the Jews—were no different in principle from Gentiles in this respect. When he says ‘you’ in verses 1 and 2, referring to the non-Jewish world, this doesn’t mean that he’s leaving a loophole for Jews to say‘Ah, but we’re different’. As in Romans 2:17–24, when this possibility comes up he firmly rejects it.

• So what’s the answer? The New Life in Christ. For Paul the plight of mankind is never hopeless. Against the dark background of spiritual death the apostle sketches a captivating characterization of the new life in Christ.

• It is a God-initiated life (Vs.4–5). In Christ, God historically broke into humankind’s tragic situation, and today He breaks into each repentant man’s sinful state to bring salvation. Such is the force of Paul’s forceful conjunction: But God always makes a difference. Even when we were dead in sins, His love was acting in our behalf (cf. Rom. 5:6, 8). Mercy is God’s disposition toward sinful men, but love is His motive in all that He does for them. Mercy is rich (exhaustless), but love is great (indescribable and magnanimous). It is “on account of” and not “through” this great love that God chose us and quickened us together, “made us alive together”.

• The word together does not appear in the text as a single word. Paul coined this compound verb, doubtless, to emphasize that salvation is the result of union with Christ (cf. Rom. 6:6, 8; Col. 2:12; 2 Tim. 2:11).

o The resurrection of Christ is not only the assurance of spiritual regeneration; it is also the means of regeneration.

o Dead men are raised from spiritual death in and with the risen Christ, all initiated by the love of God (cf. Rom. 6:11).

• How do these events affect other people? Because, as throughout chapter 1, Paul sees the people who belong to Jesus as being somehow ‘in’ him, so that what is true of him is true of them.

o He has been raised—and so have they!

o He has been installed in glory, in the heavenly realms—and so have they!

 This is the secret truth of the life of all those who belong to Jesus.

• The main thing Paul wants to stress about all this is the sheer, almost unbelievable, magnificent kindness of God. In four short verses he says this in several different ways.

o God is rich in mercy;

o he loved us with a great love;

o his sheer grace has saved us;

o his grace is rich beyond all telling;

o he has lavished kindness upon us.

 Whenever anyone says, or implies, that God is, after all, a bit stingy, or mean, or small-minded, look at these verses and think again.

• But the crucial factor here, as always, is Jesus himself. Take away his resurrection, and for all anybody knows the road to death is the only road there is.

o Put it back in the picture, though, and you realize two things. First, there is another way. Second, you are urgently summoned to turn round and follow it.

Let’s get a dictionary overview of grace before we continue.

• Grace as a way of salvation stands in radical opposition to any notion that one can be saved by the Law. Grace excludes any hope of achieving righteousness through works of the Law or self-redemption (Romans 6:14; Galatians 5:4). Likewise, human praise and wisdom are ineffective for securing salvation, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8, 9; cf. Titus 3:5). Grace and faith, therefore, complement one another (Romans 4:16; Ephesians 2:8). By faith we accept grace, and by faith the grace is in effect. Grace and faith, then, form an inseparable unity (1 Timothy 1:14 NASB95. “and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.”)

Ephesians 2:7–10 (NASB95)

7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

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

• Vs. 7-9: He Keeps Us! God’s purpose in our redemption is not simply to rescue us from hell, as great a work as that is. His ultimate purpose in our salvation is that for all eternity the church might glorify God’s grace (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14).

o So, if God has an eternal purpose for us to fulfill, He will keep us for all eternity.

o Since we have not been saved by our good works, we cannot be lost by our bad works.

 Grace means salvation completely apart from any merit or works on our part.

 Grace means that God does it all for Jesus’ sake! Our salvation is the gift of God. (The word that in Eph. 2:8, in the Greek, is neuter; while faith is feminine. Therefore that cannot refer to faith. It refers to the whole experience of salvation, including faith.) Salvation is a gift, not a reward.

• Salvation cannot be “of works” because the work of salvation has already been completed on the cross. This is the work that God does for us, and it is a finished work (John 17:1–4; 19:30). We can add nothing to it (Heb. 10:1–14); we dare take nothing from it. When Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn in two, from the top to the bottom, signifying that the way to God was now open. There is no more need for earthly sacrifices. One sacrifice—the Lamb of God—has finished the great work of salvation. God did it all, and He did it by His grace.

• Sin worked against us and God worked for us, but the great work of conversion is but the beginning.

Let’s dig a little deeper in Verses 8 and 9 before moving on to Verse 10

• By grace you have been saved” (vv. 8–9) The phrase “by grace you have been saved” is so important that Paul uses it twice—first in verse 5 and again in verse 8. The crucial thing, however, is that Paul, in verses 8 and 9, gives us one of the clearest biblical definitions of grace. He explains what grace is (and what it is not) in such a way that these two verses have become some of the most crucial in the Bible. So, what does Paul say about grace? How does he define it? First notice that he says that, if salvation is “by grace,” then it is …

• A gift of God…not something we could do/earn/dream up…and it is…

• “Not as a result of works”

o Salvation by grace, Paul says, is the very opposite of salvation by works. We are saved by God’s doing, not by our own religious and moral efforts. There is no middle ground in Ephesians 2:8–9. So diametrically opposed are these two systems, in fact, that error on this front reveals a whole host of other theological problems. If we misunderstand grace, we misunderstand ourselves, our God, and our Savior.

 For instance, the idea that we can save ourselves (or contribute to our salvation) by means of some religious or moral effort presumes that we are not quite as spiritually dead as Paul claims in verses 1–3. Or………………….

 We have some innate capability, this view says, to get ourselves back into God’s good graces, to earn God’s favor, and to merit eternal salvation. ……………………

 But the concept of salvation by grace takes seriously the fact that we are “dead in [our] trespasses and sins,” and therefore, if we are ever to be restored to God, it will have to be the doing, not of the dead sinners, but of the living God.

 Furthermore, salvation by works misrepresents the character of God. It portrays God as needing to be paid off in order to bestow his kindness.

 Additionally, salvation by works assumes that something needs to be added to the finished work of Christ. “Yes, Jesus died for our sins,” the line of thinking goes, “but we must do something about our sins too”—almost as if to say that the blood of Jesus is not quite enough to atone for sins!

• Salvation by grace, on the other hand, says that God is not like that at all! Grace proclaims that God saves, loves, and rescues sinners out of the overflow of his own goodness and benevolence!

• Salvation by grace maintains that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are enough; that we need not add anything to the finished work of Christ; that his sacrifice has appeased all God’s wrath against us; and that there is nothing left to be done to merit our salvation.

o Jesus paid it all! Therefore, God can show kindness to us, and can make us alive together with Christ, with absolutely no strings attached, and with no bill coming to us in the mail!

• I hope it is clear that the doctrine of salvation by grace is a crucial one! So much of our theology depends on getting this point correct. We are saved by grace, Paul says, “not as a result of works.” And that salvation comes to us, he says, …”Through faith”

• We will not experience the blessings of forgiveness, adoption, sanctification, and an eternal inheritance (ch. 1) apart from faith in the Lord Jesus. That is the clear teaching, not only of Ephesians 2:8, but of the whole of Scripture. We are saved “by grace … through faith” in Jesus Christ. So there is something we must do in this process of salvation. We must believe. We must exercise faith.

o In saying that, however, we must raise an important question. Paul has been arguing, through the first two chapters of his epistle (and especially here in 2:8–9) that our salvation is wholly God’s doing, not our own.

o Salvation is a free gift, given to us by the sheer goodness of God’s grace, and not merited by us in the least. In verse 8, however, Paul tells us that we must exercise faith in order to be saved. How can that be?

 How can God require our faith as the necessary conduit through which salvation blessings flow, but still say that our salvation is wholly his doing?

• To answer that question, we need to consider the nature of faith. The word “faith” means, simply, to trust or rely upon something or someone Just like if you place your faith in a chair, your faith neither adds to nor aids the chair’s strength. It merely relies upon it.

• Similarly, if you have faith in Christ to save your soul, you will not hesitate to place the entire weight of your salvation into his hands.

o You believe that he is able to do all that needs to be done for your salvation, and so you entrust the weight of your salvation to him.

o And when you do so, it is Christ (and not your faith in Christ) who does all the work. Your faith neither adds to nor aids Christ’s salvation in any way, but merely relies upon it.

• Faith, then, by definition, adds nothing to its object. Faith merely relies upon the strength of its object. Therefore, while God requires faith of all whom he saves, we who believe are far from adding anything to our salvation. We are simply leaning on God’s goodness in Christ. Therefore, our salvation is still all of God, and all of grace!

• Further, as Paul reminds us in verse 8, even our faith is “not of [ourselves].” Even the ability to lean on Jesus is given to us by God’s grace!

o Faith, as we said above, is part of the spiritual blessing we receive when we are “made … alive together with Christ.”

o It is, as Paul puts it, “the gift of God”!

o Therefore, it is surely clear that, even though our faith is required, salvation is still wholly God’s doing!

• Indeed we learn, in the final verse of this passage, that even our good works are God’s doing.

SALVATION IS UNTO GOOD WORKS

Ephesians 2:10 (NASB95)

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

• Although they have no part in gaining salvation, good works have a great deal to do with living out salvation. No good works can produce salvation, but many good works are produced by salvation.

• “By this is My Father glorified,” Jesus said, “that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples” (John 15:8).

o Good works do not bring discipleship, but they prove it is genuine.

o When God’s people do good deeds, they bear fruit for His kingdom and bring glory to His name.

• The Bible has much to say about works. It speaks of the works of the law, which are good but cannot save a person (Gal. 2:16). It speaks of dead works (Heb. 6:1) and of works, or deeds, of darkness and of the flesh, all of which are inherently evil (Rom. 13:12; Gal. 5:19–21; Eph. 5:11).

o All of those works are done in man’s own strength and have nothing to do with salvation.

• Before we can do any good work for the Lord, He has to do His good work in us. By God’s grace, made effective through our faith, we become His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. God has ordained that we then live lives of good works, works done in His power and for His glory.

• Let’s pause a moment and read John 15:1-8 to understand this point😊

o John 15:1–8 (NASB95)

1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.

2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

• Figuratively airō (takes away)communicates the sense of “lifting up” or “raising” one’s voice, “holding” someone or something in suspense, or “raising” one’s face up to a person in order to speak to them. In such cases the object raised is intended to gain attention. Imagine a vineyard keeper walking in the dusty rows between the vines and finds a vine growing that has fallen into the dirt…the leaves are dusty and dirty…He cleans it off and places it careful back on the vine…and perhaps prunes it……Now continue reading for more clarity😊 remembering that you are reading what readers understood in Jesus’s time.

3 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

6 “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

• The same power that created us in Christ Jesus empowers us to do the

good works for which He has redeemed us. These are the verifiers of true salvation.

• Righteous attitudes and righteous acts proceed from the transformed life now living in the heavenlies.

o To the Corinthians Paul said there was in them “an abundance for every good deed” (2 Cor. 9:8).

o To Timothy he instructed that the believer is “equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17).

o Christ died to bring to Himself a people “zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14).

o Even this is the work of God, as Paul says: While you “work out your salvation … it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12–13).

• Paul’s primary message here is still to believers, many of whom had experienced salvation years earlier. He is not showing them how to be saved, but how they were saved, in order to convince them that the power that saved them is the same power that keeps them.

• Paul could therefore say to the Philippians, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (1:6).

• Salvation does not come from knowing about the truth of Jesus Christ but from intimately knowing Christ Himself.

o This coming alive can be accomplished by the power of God because of His love and mercy.

*As you go your way after the following questions remember this Big Point…

• Salvation—Grace—Faith: you are saved by God and by God alone. This is the major stress of this passage.

o You are saved by God’s grace. Grace means the favor and kindness of God, but there is a uniqueness about God’s favor and kindness. His favor and kindness are given despite the fact that it is undeserved and unmerited. God has done a thing unheard of among men: God has given His grace to men …

 despite their cursing Him

 despite their rejecting Him

 despite their rebelling against Him

 despite their hostility toward Him

 despite their denial of Him

 despite their neglect of Him

 despite their half-hearted commitment to Him

 despite their worship of religion instead of Him

 despite their false worship

 despite their idolatrous worship

 despite their trespasses

 despite their sins

o Grace is giving, but it is giving to people who do not deserve the gift….and He has given them the Faith to accept His grace by free choice.

 What is the gift that God has given? Jesus Christ

Soak on these Questions:

When have you shown mercy to a person who deserved to be punished?

What is the means of salvation? (2:8)

Why can no one boast in his own salvation? (2:8–9)

How is the believer God’s work of art? (2:10)

What were you like before you became a Christian?

When did you receive the gift of new life?

How would you describe God’s grace to you?

How do you see God’s creative workmanship operating in your life?

With whom can you share the news of God’s mercy? How?

Empowered by the Holy Spirit, what good work for the kingdom of God can you do this week?