Let's look at Ephesians chapter
2. The title of the message is Together with Christ. Together with Christ. If you've
studied anything about biblical history or the New Testament
history, you know that two of the main groups who opposed the
gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ and the preaching
of it, were the Gnostics and the Jews. The Gnostics, they
emphasized mysticism, experience-based religion. And it was a knowledge,
they boasted of a knowledge that went beyond and against the scriptures. Something I know to be true,
but it doesn't fit with the scriptures. That's the way they would, they
could be characterized. And then, of course, They, as
well as the Jews, emphasized human, works-based religion. Works, salvation by works, by
the works and the wills of men. And so anytime you read certain
passages of scripture, especially in the book of Ephesians, and
we could say that there's a parallel epistle to the book of Ephesians,
and that's the book of Colossians, There's quite a lot of similarities
there. You can understand that this
is one of the things that the Apostle Paul, as he's led by
the Holy Spirit to write these things, that he's combating. He's defending the gospel against
that. You know, a lot of people say,
well, the gospel needs no defense. Well, I understand what they
mean by that, but Paul defended it. He defended the message.
He stood firm for it. He exposed the preaching of these
false preachers, false teachers, false believers, these Gnostics
and these Jews, these legalistic ones who would promote the works
of man. And so in the book of Ephesians,
he sets forth the following points to emphasize salvation totally
100% by grace. Grace, grace, grace, all the
way. Not part grace and part works,
but all of grace. And you know in Ephesians chapter
one is one of the most beautiful chapters in the scripture that
runs the whole gamut of salvation from eternity past all the way
to the new birth. Speaking of God's electing grace. God chose a people before the
foundation of the world in Christ. And then he speaks of God's wisdom
and God's knowledge and God's revelation. What we know of God
is not mysticism. It comes by revelation. It comes
by what God tells us of himself. And so anything I say about God
or anything I say about myself or about salvation, how God and
sinners are reconciled, it must come from the scriptures. It
must come from the scriptures. And Randy was telling a story
about a fellow, or telling about an incident, a fellow who claims
to be a preacher, who made the statement in a gathering that
he was in that he agreed with Billy Graham that he thought
that people of all religions were going to be in heaven. And
one fellow made the mistake by turning to Randy and said, what
do you think? And Randy had the best comeback that you can ever
have when things like that start. And Randy said, I believe the
Bible. I believe what the Bible says. It doesn't matter what
Billy Graham says. It doesn't matter what Bill Parker
says. It doesn't matter what Randy Wages says, or Jim Case,
or any of them, or Mark Panetta. It only matters what God says. And he said, that pretty much
quieted the group. You know, I believe the Bible and the Bible
says, Christ said, I'm the way, the truth and the life. No man
cometh unto the father, but by me. Now that's what the Bible
says. So this knowledge, this revelation
must come from God. And then the apostle brought
forth the powerful sovereign grace of God in Christ. That's what Ephesians chapter
two is about. And he emphasizes four things
in which sinful human beings have no part as far as their
origination, how it starts, or how it's enacted. And he shows
that salvation is all of God. It's not of you, it's not of
me, it's all of God. Not even in the origin and working
of faith, You know, that's why most people today believe that
faith is the product of the free will of man. But it's not. The Bible says it's not. The Bible shows us that faith
is the gift of God. We quote this all the time from
Ephesians chapter 2. For by grace are you saved through
faith, that not of yourselves. Not everyone has faith. Have
you ever asked yourself the question, why do I have faith and somebody
else doesn't? A good question. Because, is
it because I'm a better person than the one who doesn't? Well,
no. It's because of the grace of God. Faith is the gift of
God that comes to a sinner by virtue of the merits of Christ.
It's part of that spiritual life that God grants to his people
from Christ. And then Paul speaks of living
in light of the new covenant. You might call that, some people
call it the resurrected life. the new birth. Now Ephesians
chapter 2 verses 1 through 10, and I don't know if I'll get
through all of this, but it forms one long sentence, and the main
verb is in verse 5. Look at verse 5. Even when we
were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. That's
the title, together with Christ. The main verb, there's one word,
hath quickened us together. And that's what this is all about.
And he gives us one sustained argument here, and he starts
out showing us the hopelessness, the helplessness, and the spiritual
lostness of all mankind without Christ. Look at verse one. He
says, you and you. You might see there, hath he
quickened is in italics. That means it was supplied there
by the translators. It wasn't in the original manuscript. The reason the King James translators
supplied that is because that's what the main verb of the sentence
is. Hath quickened us together and they wanted to emphasize
that. That you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and
sins. Now the you there in the book
of Ephesians and in the book of Colossians when you see that
plural pronoun, that's what that is, it's a plural, it refers
to the collective body of the Gentile believers. That's who
he's talking about. You hath he quickened, who were
dead in trespasses and sin. You see, until a sinner is brought
by God's power and grace in Christ, to believe in Christ, to rest
in Christ for all salvation, all forgiveness, all righteousness,
and all eternal life and glory, you cannot say that that person
has been quickened. The word quickened means made
alive. And so he says, you, you Gentile believers, he's quicken,
who were dead. The dead there speaks of spiritual
death. The Bible speaks of three stages
of death. There's spiritual death, there's
physical death, and there's eternal death. Now all men and women
by nature born of Adam are born spiritually dead. What does that
mean? It doesn't mean that you don't
have physical life. You have physical life. It doesn't
mean you don't have a mind. Or you don't have affections
or a will. You have all that, but it's spiritually dead. It
has no desire or natural knowledge of the things of God. You know
some things, but you don't know God. And you have no desire to
come to him his way. And then physical death, we all
know about that. We're all headed that way. And
then eternal death, that's called the second death. That's the
condemnation that is laid upon all who die without Christ. And
he says, you were dead in trespasses and sins, trespasses. That's
a term that means falling to one side. And what it means is
you're not on the straight path. You see, all the words for sins
in the New Testament are related to that Old Testament concept
of sin, which means to deviate from the standard of God's righteousness. There's a standard, and we fall
short of the standard. That's the word sin means to
fall short. In other words, trespassers,
we fall to the side. we get off the mark, and sins,
we miss the mark. And what that means is there's
none righteous, no not one. There's none that doeth good
according to God's standard. You see, the standard that God
has set forth can only be seen in the person and work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. So that when we talk about love,
that's such a popular thing in religion today, you know. And
that's okay if you know what it means in God's word. There's
no way that I can come before God and plead my love, my love
for you or my love for God, as my righteousness before God,
unless it equals the love of Christ for his people. And I can tell you right now
about me, it doesn't. It doesn't equal there. It misses
the mark. I've deviated from the line.
And so this is all humans fall short of that standard where
we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Missed the
mark. We don't have it. That's why
we need a righteousness we can't produce. That's why the righteousness
of man will not do us any good. First of all, man has no righteousness.
Man's righteousness is measured by himself and it always falls
short. So we need the righteous, what the gospel proclaims as
the righteousness of God. Well, where does that come from?
Well, let's go on. Verse two, he says, wherein in
time past you walked according to the course of this world.
That's their former walk. The walk means their whole entire
lifestyle. And according to the course of
this world, that's fallen man's attempts to be saved to be happy,
to be fulfilled, to be complete, and to meet all of his needs
apart from God. Man on his own. And he said it's
according to the prince of the power of the air. Now that's
Satan. That's the realm of the demonic.
The spiritual realm in which fallen man exists is under the
power of Satan. And that word air there, that
speaks of the spiritual realm. That's what it's talking about.
It's an atmosphere of sin and deception and unbelief set forth
by Satan, the accuser and deceiver of people. It says here that
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,
that's the unregenerate. A child of disobedience in the
Bible is an unregenerate unbeliever. You see, we're all sinners. Remember,
we always say there's only two types of people on this earth.
Sinners saved by the grace of God, sinners lost in their sins. Well, a child of disobedience
is a sinner lost in his sins, has no faith in Christ. And then verse three, among whom
we all, now Paul includes himself. He's talking about even the believing
Jews here. He's talking about what they
are by nature and what God saved them out of. We all had our conversation
in times past in the lust of our flesh. And remember there
that the flesh there represents man's fallen, sinful human nature. It expresses itself in many ways. It can express itself in abject
rebellion, with no regard for the laws of God or the laws of
man or society. We see that. Our jails are full.
Our prisons are full. But it can also express itself
in false religion. Paul said in Philippians chapter
3 that he had no confidence in the flesh. Now what flesh was
he talking about? Well, he was talking about all
of his religious activity trying to produce a righteousness of
his own before God. That was flesh because it was
self-righteousness. It was unbelief. It was religious
pride. And so he said, the lust of our
flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
that was his mindset. His mindset was legalism. You
see, when God saves a sinner, he changes that mind. Paul related
that in Romans 7 and verse 24 when he said, with the mind I
myself serve the law of God. What does he mean there? He said
it's my intention now to serve God and to obey God. But he said
with the flesh, the law of sin. He can't go the full swing of
holiness and righteousness because of the flesh. And so he says,
and we're by nature. By nature means how we were born.
the children of wrath, even as others. Now, what does he mean
by that? Well, the elect of God have never
been under his wrath, per se. I mean, you think about it. When
God, if you're one of God's people, when did God choose you? Before
the foundation of the world, and he chose you in Christ. You
understand that? Now we could say we were under
his wrath in our conscience, maybe, but as far as being legally
under the wrath of God, we never were. We're always in Christ.
And even when we fell in Adam, we didn't fall out of Christ.
You understand what I'm saying? And I know these are difficult
concepts, but what Paul was saying is here, is that by nature, we
who are saved by the grace of God, by nature, there's no difference
between us and those who are still lost in their sins. We're
all sinners. We all deserve and have earned
the wrath of God. And if God were to ever give
us what we deserve at any time and what we've earned, that's
what it would be. It would be wrath. But then he goes on, he
makes a sharp contrast, verse 4, and here's the second thing,
the unmerited grace of God in and by Christ. And he says, but
God, Now here's the key. Now notice here he didn't say,
but you, or but me. In other words, this wasn't conditioned
on you, and it wasn't marked out by you, and it wasn't worked
out by you. You see, the way most preachers
preach today, they'd have to say, but you, you did what you
were supposed to do. No. Even if it's only believe,
but you believed. Well, you did. But the only reason
you believed is right here in verse four, but God, who's rich
in mercy. That's God's loving kindness.
That's covenant mercy there. For his great love wherewith
he loved us. It's a great love because it's
sovereign love. It's a great love because it's
unconditional love. How do you know it's unconditional?
Look at verse five. Even when we were dead in sins,
Now to be dead in sins, remember that now, that's spiritual death.
And that's talking about a sinner who walks according to the course
of this world, under the influence of Satan, according to his fleshly
desires in rebellion against God. It's not just, when he says
even when you were dead in sins, it's not like a dead corpse.
I've heard people say it was like a dead corpse. Well, you
can use some illustrations for that, but you weren't like a
dead corpse. You may have been religious like
Saul of Tarsus. You were moving, you were breathing,
you were thinking, you were working, but it was all in opposition
as an enemy of God. And he says that he loved his
people even when they were enemies, rebellious against God. That's unconditional love. And
then it's love, it's great love because it's righteous love.
In other words, this love that God has is not just some kind
of an arbitrary emotion that is drawn out of him because the
sinner does his part. No, this is love towards ungodly
sinners that is perfectly in tune with God's justice and God's
righteousness. You see, the reason Jesus Christ
came into the world was because God loved His own, but God in
loving His own and redeeming His own and showing mercy upon
His own, He had to be righteous. He had to be just in all that
He did. Now, there's the missing note
in what is commonly called Christianity today. People are not hearing
that. They hear sermons like smile.
God loves you. Christ died for you. Won't you
give him your heart? That's not biblical. That's not
gospel. That's a lie. You can't do that. There's nothing like that in
the scripture. You see, that's a concoction of man in order
to win friends and influence people and to fill their pews
and to get their money. I mean, that's what it's all
about. I know, I've been there. The Bible confronts sinners with
a just God who must remain just in the salvation of sinners.
And yes, we can talk about His great love and His mercy. We
do every time we preach the gospel. If I got up here today and preached
a message entitled, The Strict Justice of God, which I can do
and have done and will do again, What you need to understand and
what I need to understand is that in preaching that, I'm still
preaching God's love, but where is it? It's in Christ. It's in
the blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
it's great love. It's also great love because
it's redeeming love and it's sustaining love. It never varies.
It never varies. You see, God's favor and God's
love is not earned by us. It's freely given. Now he says
in verse five, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ. And look there in the parenthesis,
I believe this is set there by the Holy Spirit because he wanted
to emphasize it. Together with Christ, by grace
are you saved. This is a joint participation
with Christ. What's he talking about? He's
talking about a believer's union with Christ. He's talking about
being one with Christ, in union with Christ. He's talking about
the relationship of the believer in Jesus Christ. That's the central
truth of the whole doctrine of salvation, our oneness with Christ. Now, how is a believer one with
Christ? Well, we can talk about several
ways. I won't go into detail on all of these because they're
messages in and of themselves. But we can talk about our eternal
union with Christ by electing grace. Paul spoke of that over
in Ephesians chapter 1. Look at verse 3. He says, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who have blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. That term in Christ That's what
he's talking about here in Ephesians 2, 5, together with Christ. And
it says in verse 4, according as he hath chosen us in Christ
before the foundation of the world. Paul in 2 Timothy chapter
1 speaks of a salvation that was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. So that's an eternal union. That's
electing grace. That's union by election. Secondly,
we can talk about our legal or judicial union with Christ. That's
justifying grace. That's when Christ, as our surety,
set up before the foundation of the world, before the world
began, as He, as the Father chose us in Him and gave us to Him,
gave His people to Christ, that's what, remember Christ said in
John 6, 37, all that the Father hath given me, He said that in
John 17, that I should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given me. We were given to Christ. In other
words, we became his possession. And what happens there, he, in
essence, is our substitute, our representative, and he's our
surety. In other words, he took responsibility
and accountability for the salvation of his people to bear their sins
in his own body on the tree, going to the cross. Our sins
were imputed, charged, accounted to him. And his righteousness
was charged, accounted, imputed to us. And that's our union with
Christ. We stand in Him. And that's why
Christ had to come in time and actually die for those sins.
You see, a lot of people, when you talk about eternal union
or legal union, they'll argue with you. They'll say something
like, well, you don't believe He really had to even come and
die. Oh, no. That eternal union and legal
union demanded that He come and that He die on that cross. And
he did it 2,000 years ago for all the Old Testament saints
and all the New Testament saints, all at one time, by one offering,
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, Hebrews
10 and verse 10 or verse 14. But all of these things were
put upon him. Isaiah said it this way in Isaiah
9, 6, the government was upon his shoulder. That is the government
of grace. The government of God's kingdom,
the salvation of God's people, was squarely upon the shoulders
of Christ. And that's how we are together
with him. And then we can speak of redemptive union. That's redeeming
grace. Christ coming actually in time
and paying the penalty of our sins. He did it as the representative,
as the substitute, and the surety of his people. So much so, and
Paul writes about this in Romans 6 and in other places, when Christ
died, I died. He's my substitute. He died for
me. When Christ was buried, I was buried. When Christ arose, I
arose. Christ seated at the right hand
of the Father, I'm seated with him. He's my substitute, he's
my surety. Now look back here, look at verse
six. This is what Paul's saying. Together with Christ, and hath
raised us up together. Now notice how he's putting this
now. Now, even in our small group
here, we've got different people. different ages, different parts
of the country. Some of you, you all came to
a saving knowledge of Christ in regeneration at different
times, not at the same time. So he's
not talking about regeneration, the new birth year, because we
weren't raised up that way together. You understand what I'm saying?
At the same time. But he's saying here, together
with Christ, that we were raised up together at the same time.
Now how is that possible? As Christ was the representative
and substitute and surety of every one of his people at the
same time. Having our sins imputed to him,
Having His righteousness imputed to us, He went to the cross and
He redeemed us from our sins. He died, we died. He was buried,
we were buried. He arose again, we arose. And
it says in verse six, and raised us up together and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now we're not even
personally there yet in glory, but we're together with Him.
in glory, all of us at the same time. Even those who haven't
yet been born again are there with him as he's their representative,
their substitute, and their charity. And then there is a regenerative
or regeneration union with him. Christ sending his spirit to
give us life and we're united to him by faith. And then there's
a preserving union. By preserving, persevering grace,
Christ keeps us and we grab hold of him and we don't let go, like
Jacob. We won't let him go. And that's
by the power of God. Now look at verse seven. He says
that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches
of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
That's what it's all about. It's to show forth and to set
forth the glory of God in Christ. Not my glory, not your glory,
but His glory. And we're seated with Him. That
means the work's finished. That means we're accepted. That
means we're reigning with Him. And it's in heavenly places.
It's a spiritual realm. It's not on this earth, but it's
in Christ. And in the ages to come, having
established the age of righteousness, On earth, all that's future will
show forth his glory. And that's when he comes to this
last part here, verses eight through 10. This is the necessary
fruit of God's grace. Faith and life because of Christ.
For by grace are you saved. Or literally, for by grace you
have been saved. Salvation in all its aspects.
And that not of yourselves, this, Not of yourselves, what does
that refer to? Well, it refers to faith. But
it also refers to the whole realm of salvation. It's not of you,
it's not of me. It's all of God. But even the
faith, listen, faith receives the gift of salvation and righteousness
in Christ. Faith submits to Christ as the
Lord our righteousness. But even that faith that unites
us to him in our personal experience, It's not of us. It's the gift
of God. It's not just a one-time event.
It's a life of trusting and repenting and obeying and persevering in
Christ. And it's not of ourselves. It's
all based on the finished work, the righteousness of God in Christ.
It's the gift of God. And he says in verse nine, not
of works, lest any man should boast. That word boast. is sometimes translated glory. First Corinthians chapter 1 and
verse 31, that no flesh should glory in his presence, same word. Galatians chapter 6 and verse
14, God forbid that I should glory, same word, save in the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians chapter 3 and verse
3, where he says, we are the circumcision which worship God
in spirit and rejoice in Christ. That word rejoice is the same
word as boast here or glory in those other two verses. This
boast, this glory, what does it mean? It means to have confidence
in. It means to trust in. One old preacher said it means
to brag on. Paul said, God forbid that I should brag on anything
save the cross of Christ. Salvation is not by merit so
that we can boast. It's not by our free will so
that we can boast. No, sir. It's all by the work
of Christ. It's all based on the righteousness
of Christ, imputed and received by faith. And that faith's not
even of ourselves. That's clear from scripture.
So that in ourselves, we have nothing to boast in. We have
nothing to glory in. But in Christ, we have everything
to boast about and glory in. And so he says in verse 10, we
are his workmanship. That word workmanship means the
work of God, like a craftsman. You've seen craftsmen who have
the talent to carve wood or stone or make paintings or things like
that, like a skilled workman. Well, who is the skilled workman?
It's Christ. It's not us. And he says, created
in Christ Jesus. That's what we're talking about.
The work of God in salvation had to come on the basis of the
blood of Christ, on the righteousness of Christ. Because God is a just
God. He must be both a just God and
a Savior. And it says, unto or for good
works. The good works come in as the
fruit, just like the apple on the tree. The roots, you see,
is what feeds it and brings forth the fruit of the apple. And that's
why Christ said, I'm the vine, you're the branches. You bring
forth fruit, fruit unto God. And it's so it's not by our good
works, but it's unto them. And he says, and those good works,
listen, even they, when they're presented before God have to
be washed in the blood to be accepted because they come through
this vile center. And he says, which God has before
ordained that we should walk in them. In other words, that's
predestination. And that's not just talking about
the fruit of salvation. That's talking about salvation
itself. God chose a people to glorify himself and to serve
him. That's what that's all about. That whole realm of salvation
together with Christ. And he's, he's the subject. He's
the object. He's the foundation. He's the
head. He's the heart of everything that we are and everything that
we're going to be.