Sermon Tone Analysis

*/Ephesians 2:8-10/*

* *

            Well, let’s review Ephesians 2:1-7 in brief before we move on to a central passage on the gospel of the grace of God in salvation in Eph.

2:8-10.

You can tell we’re moving a little faster through this section because as we get into the book we keep coming across ‘words’ we’ve already defined previously in chapter 1 so we are able to just re-cap and move on.

In 2:1-3 our Old Condition: Dead to God was described and delineated.

v. 1 summarized our spiritually dead condition and vv.

2-3 delineated this dead condition.

We were in a terrible position; absolutely dead in our transgressions and sins without hope and without God in the world.

However, Paul had to get us lost before he could get us to realize, at least in part, the grace of God demonstrated by reaching down into our lost condition and saving us.

Now, in vv.

4-7 Paul describes our New Position: Alive to God.

            v. 4 Paul introduced the main subject: */God/* and then he described the character of God.

God is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us.

God’s mercy therefore, finds its source in God’s love which is formally an attribute.

Mercy is an expression of God’s love.

Notice that God loves us, that’s people he’s directed his love toward in salvation.

No salvation is provided for animals and angels.

Salvation is for humans because only humans are made in God’s image and Jesus Christ came as a man, not as an animal or an angel.

Hopefully you see how anti-Christian the untestable hypothesis of evolution is from this verse!

If God loves man and man is only a few mutations different from the chimpanzee and the chimpanzee is only a few mutations different from the next creature and on and on then you can see that the image of God is just different in degree from the lowest creature.

Man is not truly unique in this view and if man is not really unique then why did God choose to direct His salvific love only toward man?

In this hypothesis man is reduced to a mere animal.

This means that the evolutionist is saying that the image of God is an animal.

Think about how blasphemous such a concept is.

To say that the image of God was originally inorganic material which evolved as a result of Chance mutations over millions of years is an absolute attack on God Himself; that we would reduce the image of God to non-thinking, non-speaking inorganic material.

In the evolutionary view of man there is no escaping the conclusion that if humans are only different from animals in degree they if humans can hunt other animals why can’t humans hunt other humans?

As you well know some modern people are now arguing that killing a chimpanzee is murder.

See, we’re so closely linked to the chimpanzee they say that to kill one is to commit murder.

They are trying to destroy the uniqueness and sanctity of man by dragging us down into the animal kingdom.

So, as you can see, as Bible believing Christians we’ve got to reject this kind of thinking from the get-go or else you end up in a whole mess of humanistic contradictions.

There is no room in Christianity for the hypothesis of evolution.

According to v. 4 God directed His love toward human beings; that one kind of creature made in His image in both body and spirit, marked by conceptual thought, propositional language and God consciousness.

This sets us totally apart from the angelic and animal kingdoms, making us responsible sinners under the wrath of God, yet He loved us.

v.

5 Paul repeats part of v. 1 and leaves off the word */sins /*because he’s just summarizing our old condition here and contrasting our deadness in sin to our aliveness to God.

He finally introduces the first of three main verbs here in v. 5. God, even while we were in our dead condition, made us alive.

Since the context is spiritual death this must refer to spiritual life.

God made us spiritually alive with Christ.

John says it this way, we passed from death to life (John 5:24).

This happens at the moment of saving faith which takes place while you are still dead in your sins.

God enables an individual to believe (John 6:37, 44, 65) yet while he is dead (Eph.

2:5; Rom.

4:17; 11:15).

He finishes v. 5 by adding the short phrase */by grace you are saved/*, a perfect periphrastic emphasizing the continuing results of salvation rather than the initial salvation event itself.

Paul wants to make sure his readers don’t get the idea that they are saved by any other means.

He’s going to clean up this idea some more tonight making it crystal clear that salvation is totally by the grace of God and not by any human effort.

v.

6 Paul brings in the 2nd and 3rd main verbs.

First, he raised us with Christ.

This is our spiritual resurrection which corresponds to Christ’s physical resurrection in Eph.

1:20.

Then He seated us with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.

This refers to the session of Christ.

This is our spiritual session with Christ where He sits in physical session over the entire universe.

We find the source of all our spiritual blessings in this location even though they are for the here and now on earth (Eph.

1:3).

So, we have a spiritual connection to the Lord of the universe.

We have His power available to us (Eph.

1:19).

v.

7 answers the question of why God made us alive, raised us up, and seated us with Christ.

The reason is to demonstrate God’s grace.

Its one thing to tell us about God’s grace, it’s a wholly other thing to demonstrate it.

God is making a show of His grace to the entire cosmos.

When is God demonstrating His grace.

Paul says */in the ages to come/*.

Notice its */ages /*(plural).

I showed you that this phrase refers to the time from Pentecost to the end of the Messianic Kingdom.

It’s not limited to the Church Age; it’s not limited to the Messianic Age; it’s not limited to the Tribulation, it’s all of these ages combined.

Additionally, I showed you that as long as God is making people alive, raising them up, and seating them with Christ in the heavenlies His grace is being demonstrated to the entire cosmos, angels good and evil are looking on and learning the manifold wisdom and grace of God.

Nevertheless, while we remain in the present body we have but a tiny glimpse of the grace of God.

Much more is awaiting our future when our redemption is complete and we receive our resurrection bodies and when we see during the Messianic Kingdom that many Gentiles will look on the King Himself arrayed in all His glorious splendor and in Mighty Power and yet they will still not place their trust in Him.

Then we will realize more fully the grace of God in salvation.

Then we will realize that it’s not up to the man who runs but God who purposes salvation for an individual.

So, God’s saving an individual is a demonstration of the surpassing riches of His grace.

The /huperballo/ riches of His grace.

His grace is immeasurable and it finds its source in His kindness which flows through Jesus Christ.

The word for “kindness” is /chrestotes/ and is a summary word for the whole plan of salvation.

It’s the concept of omni-benevolence.

God is all-goodness.

And that omni-benevolence flows to sinners through Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the key, there is no goodness of God to all men by any other path, it’s by Jesus Christ and Christ alone.

The goodness of God does not come by moral reformation, Buddha, the Koran, or any other means, it comes through the person of Jesus Christ.

Now, today we are going to look at “The Gift of God” in Eph.

2:8-10.

v. 8 is a controversial verse so we’ll spend some time there.

*            c.

Explanation of God’s Grace (2:8-10)*

* *

            In vv.

8-10 Paul explains that salvation is totally by God’s grace and has nothing to do with human effort and that we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared in advance so that our conduct would reflect divine righteousness in daily life.

* *

*/Greek Text 2:8a /**/Th~/| ga.r ca,riti, evste sesw|sme,noi dia.

pi,stewj\ kai.

tou~/to ouvk evx u`mw~/n( qeou~/ to.

dw~/ron\ /*

*Translation 2:8a For by grace you are saved through faith: and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: *

* *

*                        (1) Salvation by Grace (2:8a)*

 

            *Th~/| ga.r ca,riti, evste sesw|sme,noi dia.

pi,stewj\**/ “For by grace you are saved through faith:”/*.

First, Paul is going to explain (Gk.

= /gar/)/ /that God’s grace does not originate in humans (internal) or because of the efforts of humans (external).

Notice that Paul is repeating the end of v. 5 with a few differences, the most obvious and significant is the addition of the /dia pisteos/ (*/through faith/*).

He didn’t say that in v. 5, he just /by grace you are saved/.

Now he adds */through faith/*.*/

/*This addition /dia pisteos /means that faith is the subjective means by which a person is saved.

Paul uses /dia pisteos /9 times (Rom.

3:22; 2 Co. 5:7; Gal.