The Messenger 2
Introduction
The contents of Ephesians chapter two, as we saw in the previous reflection, can be summarised under two main headings:
This is what you were; this is what you have become by grace.
Today we are going to focus on what we were outside of Christ – outside of our union with Jesus.
Some people spend all their life trying to escape from the person others see them as or from the person they see themselves as. They can even appear to be reasonably successful in their attempts to reinvent themselves. It is amazing what positive thinking and positive attitudes can achieve. Others, on the other hand, are not so successful. They live their whole life in the shadow of the negative opinions they have of themselves or the negative opinions others have of them.
But whatever front we may present to the world, failure or success, God looks on the heart of man and He sees what neither we see in ourselves nor others see in us. And not any of the masks we may wear, not all the positive thinking we may cultivate can change one single thing that God sees. And what does He see? Let’s remind ourselves of that summary in the previous reflection. He sees us as:
Dead in our transgressions; following the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air; gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. He sees us as someone who by nature is an object of wrath; separate from Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, a foreigner to the Covenant of Promise, being without hope and without God in this world.
It is certainly not a flattering image of the human race, is it? In fact Paul goes so far as to describe man outside of Christ as having been an enemy of God (Rom.5:10). He has certainly, to quote John Stott, plumbed the depths of pessimism about man.
What prompted God to act?’
If that is what we were; if that is how God saw us – and such an image of man must have been utterly repugnant to a holy, righteous God – what was it that moved God to give us a second chance?
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions….” (2:4-5).
There it is then – God’s love and mercy. Despite what was in us, it was what was in Him that moved God to reach out and rescue us. Love and mercy!
How do we define the love that characterises the nature of God? “God’s love can only be known from the actions that it prompts. It is seen in the gift of His Son. But obviously this is not the love of complacency, or affection, that is , it was not drawn by any excellency in the objects of His love. It was an exercise of the Divine will in deliberate choice, made without assignable cause save that which lies in the nature of God Himself” (W.E.Vine). How well Vine expresses God’s love when he writes “it was made without assignable cause save that which lies in the nature of God Himself.”
‘Mercy’ in the New Testament is from the Greek word eleos. W.E. Vine in his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines eleos as “the outward manifestation of pity; it assumes need on the part of him who receives it, and resources adequate to meet the need on the part of him who shows it.”
The love and mercy of God – how gloriously they stand out against the backdrop of the Bible’s pessimism about man. And what a challenge to the Church. “Jesus leaving Heaven to come to Earth to seek and save broken people in a fallen world is the basis by which we MUST be willing to leave the four corners of our church buildings to engage the world and seek justice for the oppressed” (Philadelphia Project). Irrespective of what is in others, it is what is in us who claim Christ lives in us that ought to prompt our actions of love and mercy.
No hymn that I can think of encapsulates the depths of God’s love and mercy better than the one written and composed by Frederick Lehman. It is entitled The Love of God. It has three verses. I want to share with you the first and the last verses:
The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell; it goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest hell; The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled, and pardoned from his sin.
CHORUS:
O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall for evermore endure, the saints’ and angels’ song.
Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made. Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.
That last verse, incidentally, was written nearly one thousand years ago by a Jewish songwriter and was put on the score page by Frederick Lehman, a Gentile songwriter.
Paul has reminded his readers that what they were is, as the tense clearly indicates, something that is now in the past. In Christ God has been merciful. In Christ the past is forgiven and forgotten.
“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Mic. 7:18-19).
Ephesians chapter two has indeed plumbed the depths of pessimism about man. But the letter never leaves us there. Against the backdrop of what we were, it takes us to the heights of optimism about God that fills us with a sense of awe and gratitude at the sheer magnitude of God’s love and mercy in Christ.
Have you ever heard someone say “I can forgive what was done against me but I can never forget?” Maybe you have said it yourself. But God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not only forgives those who turn to Him in repentance and faith, but He remembers their sin no more (cf. Heb 8:12). Or as Micah reminds us – “He hurls them into the depths of the sea.”
If you have a question or a comment about this series please feel free to write to me, Brian, at
Click on next page to continue