Life From the Dead

Life From the Dead

(No. 2267)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JULY 31, 1892.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH
13, 1890.

"And you has He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins."
Ephesians 2:1.

OUR translators, as you observe, have put in the words, "has He
quickened," because Paul had thrown the sense a little farther on and
it was possible for the reader not to catch it. They have but
anticipated the statement of the fourth and fifth verses–"God, who is
rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we
were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ."

Here is the point. God has quickened us who were dead in trespasses and
sins, spiritually dead. We were full of vigor towards everything which
was contrary to the Law of God or the holiness of God–we walked
according to the course of this world, but as for anything spiritual,
we were not only somewhat incapable and somewhat weakened, but we were
actually and absolutely dead. We had no sense with which to comprehend
spiritual things. We had neither the eyes that could see, nor the ears
that could hear, nor the power that could feel.

We were dead, all of us, and yet we were not all like one another.
Death may be universal over a certain number of bodies and yet those
bodies may look very differently. The dead that lie on the battlefield,
torn by dogs or birds, rotting, corrupting in the sun–what a horrible
sight! The corpse still looks like life, yet your beloved one in the
coffin is as dead as the mangled bodies on the battlefield. Corruption
has not yet done its work and tender care has guarded the body from
what will surely come to it, yet there is death–sure, complete
death–in the one case as well as in the other.

So we have many who are lovely, amiable, morally admirable, like he
whom the Savior looked upon and loved, yet they are dead for all that.
We have others who are drunks, profane, unchaste–they are dead, but
not more dead than the others–it is only that their death has left its
terrible traces more plainly visible. Sin brings forth death and death
brings forth corruption! Whether we were corrupt or not is not a
question that I need to raise here–let everyone judge concerning
himself. But dead we were, most certainly. Even though trained by godly
parents, though well instructed in the Gospel scheme, though saturated
with the piety that surrounded us, we were dead, as dead as the harlot
of the street, as dead as the thief in the jail.

Now, the text tells us that though we were dead, yet Christ has come
and, by His Spirit, He has raised us out of the grave. This text brings
us Easter tidings! It sings of resurrection! It sounds in our ears the
trumpet of a new life and introduces us into a world of joy and
gladness. We were dead–but we are quickened by the Spirit of God! I
cannot help stopping a minute to know whether it is so with you, my
dear Hearers, and praying that what I might have to say act as a kind
of sieve, separating between the really living and those who only think
that they are alive, so that, if you have not been quickened–if you
are only "a child of nature, finely dressed," but not spiritually
alive–you may be made aware of it. If you have been quickened, even
though your life is feeble, you may cry to the living God with the,
"Abba, Father," which never comes from any lips but those which have
been touched and quickened by the Holy Spirit!

I. First, let us talk a little about OUR QUICKENING. You who have been
quickened will understand what I say. To those who have not, I daresay
it will seem as an idle tale.

Well, dear Friends, if we have been quickened, we have been quickened
from above. "You has HE quickened." God, Himself, has had dealings with
us. He has raised us from the dead! He made us at the first and He has
new-made us! He gave us life when we were born, but He has given us,
now, a higher life which could not be found anywhere else. He must
always give it. No man ever made himself to live. No preacher, however
earnest, can make one hearer to live. No parent,

however prayerful, no teacher, however tearful, can make a child live
unto God. "You has HE quickened," is true of all who are quickened! It
is a Divine spark, a Light from the great central Sun of Light, the
great Father of Lights. Is it so with us? Have we had a Divine touch, a
superhuman energy, a something which all the learning and all the
wisdom and all the godliness of man could never work in us? Have we
been quickened from above? If so, I daresay that we remember something
of it! We cannot describe it–no man can describe his first birth–it
remains a mystery. Neither can he describe his new birth–that is still
a greater mystery, for it is a secret inward work of the Holy Spirit,
of which we feel the effect, but we cannot tell how it is worked.

I think that, usually, when the Divine Life comes, the first
consciousness that we get of a quickening is a sense of pain. I have
heard that when a man is nearly drowned, while he lies under the power
of death, he feels little or nothing– perhaps even has pleasurable
dreams–but when, in the process of restoring him, they have rubbed him
till the blood begins to flow and the life begins to revive a
little–he is conscious of pricking and great pain. One of the tokens
that life is coming back to him is that he wakes up out of a pleasant
sleep and feels pain! Whether it is so or not with every person
restored from drowning, I do not know, but I think that it is so with
every person restored from drowning in the river of sin! When the life
begins to come to him, he feels as he never felt before–sin that was
pleasant becomes a horror to him! That which was easy to him becomes a
bed of thorns. Thank God, dear Hearer, if you have living pangs! It is
an awful thing to have your conscience hardened, as in the very fires
of Hell, till it becomes like steel. To have consciousness is a great
mercy, even if it is only painful consciousness and if every movement
of life within seems to harrow up your soul. This Divine Life usually
begins with pain.

Then, everything surprises you. If a person had never lived before and
had come into life a full-grown man, everything would be as strange to
him as it is to a little child–and everything is strange to a new-born
man in the spiritual realm into which he is born. He is startled a
hundred times! Sin appears as sin–he cannot understand it. He had
looked at sin, before, but had never seen it to be sin. And Christ now
appears so glorious to him–he had heard of Christ, before, and had
some apprehensions of Him–but now he is surprised to find that the One
who he said had no form nor comeliness is, after all, altogether
lovely! To the new-born soul, everything is a surprise. He makes no end
of blunders. He makes many miscalculations because everything is new to
him. He that sits upon the Throne says, "Behold, I make all things
new"–and the renewed man says, "My Lord, it is even so." One said to
me, when joining the Church, "Either I am a new creature, or else the
world is altogether altered from what it was. There is a change
somewhere." And that change is from death to life, from darkness into
God's marvelous Light!

Now, as life comes thus with strange surprises, and mingled with pain,
so, dear Friends, it comes often with many questions. The child has a
thousand things to ask–it has to learn everything. We little think of
the experiments that children have to go through before they arrive,
even, at the use of their eyes. They do not know that things are at a
dis-tance–they have to learn that fact by looking many times. So long
as the object falls upon the retina, the child is not aware of whether
it is distant or a near object till some time later. What you think
that you and I knew from our birth, we did not know–we had to learn
it. And when a man is born into the Kingdom of God, he has to learn
everything and, consequently, if he is wise, he questions older and
wiser Believers about this and about that. I pray that you who are
instructed and have become fathers never laugh at babes in Grace if
they ask you the most absurd questions. Encourage them to do so! Let
them tell you their difficulties. You, by God's Grace, are a man–this
little one is but a new-born babe–hear what he has to say.

You mothers do this with your little children. You are interested, you
are pleased, you are amused with what they say. Thus ought instructed
saints to deal with those who have been newly quickened. They come to
us and ask, "What is this? What is that? What is the other?" It is a
time of asking, a time of enquiring! It is well, also, if it is a time
of sitting at Jesus' feet, for there is no other place so safe to a
new-born Believer as the feet of Jesus! If he gets to the feet of
anybody else, he is apt to get ill-instructed at a time when everything
warps his judgement–when he is exceedingly impressionable–and not
likely to forget the mistakes that he has made if he has borrowed them
from others. So you see what the Divine Life does when it comes into
the soul. It comes to us with pain. It gives us many surprises. And it
suggests a large number of questions.

We begin, then, to make a great many attempts at things which we never
attempted before. The new-born child of God is just like the new-born
child of man in some things and, after a time, that child begins to
walk. No, it does not–it

begins to crawl–it does not walk first. It creeps along, pleased to
make any kind of progress, and when it gets up on its little feet, it
moves from one chair to another, trembling at every step it takes and,
presently, down it goes! But it gets up, again, and so it learns to
walk.

Do you remember when the new life came into you? I do. I remember the
first week of that new life and how, on the second Sabbath, I went to
the place where I had heard the Gospel to my soul's salvation, thinking
that I would attend there. But, during that week, I had made a great
many experiments and tumbled down a great many times, and the preacher
took for his text, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from
the body of this death?" I thought, "Yes, I know all about that–that
is my case." When the preacher said that Paul was not a Christian when
he wrote those words, though I was only seven days old in Divine
things, I knew better than that, so I never went there again! I knew
that no man but a Christian could ever or would ever cry out against
sin with that bitter wail! And I knew that if the Grace of God was not
with him, he would have rested satisfied and content–but if he felt
that sin was a horrible thing and he was a wretched man because of it
and must be delivered from it–then he surely must be a child of God,
especially if he could add, "Thanks be to God, which gives us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Beloved, we make many mistakes and we shall continue to do so. At the
same time, we learn by our experiments. You remember when you began to
pray–would you like to have your first prayer printed? I believe that
God liked it better than many of the collects! You might not like it so
well–it would not look well in print. You remember when you first
began to confess Christ to a friend? Oh, you stuttered and stammered
over it! There were more tears than words. It was not a "dry"
discourse–you wet it well with tears of grief and anxiety. That was
the new life putting forth powers with which it was not, itself,
acquainted, and I believe that there are some of God's children who
have powers that they will never find unless they try to use them! I
should like some of you young men who do not pray at the Prayer Meeting
to make a start. And some of you older men, perhaps, have never
preached–but you might if you tried–I wish you would. "I would break
down," one says. I wish you would! A breakdown sermon–that breaks the
preacher down–might break the people down, too! There might be many
advantages about that kind of discourse.

This, then, was the way in which the new life, spiritual life, came
into us. We did not know what it was when it came. We had never felt
like that before. We could not think that we had really passed from
death to life and yet, in looking back, we are persuaded that the
throes within–the anguish of heart, the longing, the pleading, the
wrestling and the crying would never have been in a dead heart–but
were the sure marks that God had quickened us and we had passed into
newness of life!

II. Now, secondly, let us think of OUR PRESENT LIFE. "You has He
quickened." Well, then, we have a new life! What is the effect of this
life upon us? I speak to you who are quickened by Grace.

Well, first, we have become now conscious towards God. The unconverted
man lives in God's world, sees God's works, hears God's Word, goes up
to God's House on God's Day–and yet he does not know that there is a
God! Perhaps he believes that there is because he was brought up to
believe it. But he is not cognizant of God–God has not entered into
him–he has not come into contact with God.

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I think that you and I can say
that to us the surest fact in all the world is that there is a God! No
God? I live in Him! Tell a fish in the sea there is no water! No God?
Tell a man who is breathing that there is no air! No God? I dare not
come downstairs without speaking to Him! No God? I would not think of
closing my eyes in sleep unless I had some sense of His love shed
abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit. "Oh!" one says, "I have lived 50
years and I have never felt anything of God." Say that you have been
dead 50 years–that is nearer to the mark! But if you have been
quickened by the Holy Spirit 50 minutes, this would have been the first
fact in the front rank of all facts– God is, and He is my Father, and
I am His child! Now you become conscious of His frown, His smile, His
threat, or His promise! You feel Him–His Presence is photographed upon
your spirit–your very heart trembles with awe of Him and you say with
Jacob, "Surely God is in this place." That is one result of spiritual
life.

Now you have also become sympathetic with similar life in others. You
have a wide range, for the life of God–His life in His new-born
child–is the same life that is in every Christian! It is the same life
in the new-born Believer as in yonder bright spirits that stand before
the Throne of God. The life of Christ, the life of God, is infused into
us in that moment when we are quickened from our death in sin. What a
wonderful thing it is to have become sympathetic with God! What He
desires, we desire. His glory is the first objective of our being. He
loves His Son and we love His Son. We

desire to see His Kingdom come as He does and we pray for His will to
be done on earth, even as it is in Heaven. We wish that death did not
remain–the old nature hampering us–but in perfect proportion as the
new life is really in us, we now run parallel with God. The holiness
which He delights in we aspire after. Not with equal footsteps, but
with tottering gait we follow in that same path that God has marked out
for Himself. "My soul follows hard after you; Your right hand upholds
me."

The new life that made us sympathetic with God, holy angels, holy men
and with everything that is from above, has also made us capable of
great pleasure. Life is usually capable of pleasure, but the new life
is capable of the highest conceivable pleasure! I am certain that no
ungodly man has any conception of the joy which often fills the
Believer's spirit. If worldlings could only know the bliss of living
near to God and of basking in the light of His Countenance, they would
throw their wealth into the sea–and 10,000 times as much–if they
might but get a glimpse of this joy that can never be bought, but which
God gives to all who trust His dear Son! We are not always alike. Alas!
We are very changeable, but when God is with us–when the days are
spiritually bright and long and we have come into the midsummer of our
heavenly bliss–we would not change places with the angels, knowing
that, by-and-by, we shall be nearer to the Throne of God than they are
and, while they are God's honored servants, yet they are not beloved
sons as we are! Oh, the thrill of joy that has sometimes gone through
our spirits! We could almost have died with delight at times when we
have realized the glorious things that God has prepared for them that
love Him! This joy we never knew till we received the new life.

But I must add that we are also capable of acute pain to which we were
once strangers. God has made our conscience quick as the apple of the
eye. He has made our soul as sensitive as a raw wound so that the very
shadow of sin falling on the Believer's heart will cause him great pain
and, if he does go into the actual sin, then, like David, he talks
about his bones being broken and it is not too strong a figure of the
sorrow that comes upon the believing heart when sin has been committed
and God has been grieved. The heart, itself, then, is broken and bleeds
at thousands of wounds! Yet this is one of the results of our
possessing the new life and I will say this–the sharpest pang of
spiritual life is better than the highest joy of carnal life! When the
Believer is at his worst, he is better than the unbeliever at his best!
The Believer's reasons for happiness are always transcendently above
all the reasons for joy that worldlings can ever know.

Now, dear Friends, if we have received spiritual life, you see what a
range of being we have–how we can rise up to the seventh Heaven or
sink down into the abyss. This new life makes us capable of walking
with God–that is a grand thing! We speak of Enoch walking with God and
we look at the holiness of his life. But did anybody ever think of the
majesty of his life? How does God walk? It needs a Milton to conceive
of the walk of God! But he that has the Divine Life walks with God–and
sometimes he seems to step from Alp to Alp, from sea and ocean,
accomplishing what, unaided, he would never even attempt! He that has
the Divine Life is lifted up into the infinities–he gets to hear that
which cannot be heard and see that which cannot be seen–for, "Eye has
not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man,
the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. But God has
revealed them unto us by His Spirit," when He has given us the new
life!

One effect of this Divine life is to put life into everything that we
do. They tell me that "creeds are dead." Yes, yes! It is a pleasant
thing to hear an honest confession–they are dead to dead men! I hold
nothing as the Truth of God that I can put away on a shelf and leave
there. My creed is part of my being! I believe it to be true and,
believing it to be true, I feel its living force upon my nature every
day! When a man tells you that his creed is a dead thing, do not deny
it for a minute–there is no doubt of the fact. He knows about himself
better than you do. Oh, dear Friends, let us never have a dead creed!
That which you believe, you must believe up to the hilt! Believe it
livingly, believe it really–for that is not believed at all which is
only believed in the letter, but is not felt in the power of it!

If you have been quickened by the Spirit of God, your prayers are
living prayers. Oh, the many dead prayers that are heard at the
bedside–so many good words rushed through at a canter! He that is
alive unto God asks for what he needs and believes that he shall have
it–and he gets it. That is living prayer. Beware of dead prayers! They
are a mockery to the Most High. I do not think that a living man can
always pray by clockwork, at such a time and such a time–that would be
something like the minister's sermon which he "got up" beforehand–and
upon which he wrote in the margin "weep here," or, "here you must show
great emotion." Of course that was all rubbish–it cannot be done to
order! You cannot resolve to "groan at one o'clock and weep at three
o'clock." Life will not be bound like that!

I love to have an appointed season for prayer and woe unto the man who
does not have his time for prayer! But, at the same time, our living
prayer bursts out hours before the appointed time, or sometimes it will
not come at the time! You have to wait till another season and then
your soul is like a hind let loose. Why, sometimes we can pray and
prevail, and come off conquerors–and at another time, we can only bow
at the Throne and groan out, "Lord, help me; I cannot pray; the springs
seem to be all sealed." That is the result of life! Living things
change. There are some persons in St. Paul's Cathedral–I have not seen
them, lately, but I have seen them. When I lived in the country I came
up to look at the notabilities in St. Paul's Cathedral. I have heard
that they have never had a headache in the last hundred years! They
have had no rheumatic pains, nor have they been troubled with the gout,
The reason is that they are cut in marble and they are dead! But a
living man feels the fog and the winds. He knows whether it is an east
wind or a west wind that is blowing. Before he gets up in the morning,
he begins to feel, sometimes, lively, and sometimes ill. He does not
understand himself. Sometimes he feels merry and can sing hymns. At
another time he can do nothing else but sigh and cry, though he
scarcely knows why! Yes, life is a strange thing–and if you have the
Life of God in your soul, you will undergo many changes and not always
be what you want to be.

If we are alive unto God, every part of our worship should be living.
What a deal of dead worship there is! If we go on with our services in
regular routine, a large number of our friends find it difficult to
stay awake. I fear that some people go to a place of worship because
they get a better sleep there than anywhere else. That is not worship
which consists in doing as Hodge did, when he said, "I like Sunday, for
then I can go to Church, put my legs up and think of nothing at all."
That is all the worship a great many render to God–just getting to a
place of worship and there sitting still and thinking of nothing at
all. But if you are a living child of God, you cannot do that! If,
sometimes, through the infirmity of the flesh, you fall into that state
of slumber, you loathe yourselves for it! And you rouse yourself up and
say, "I must worship my God; I must sing, I must praise God. I must
draw near to Him in prayer."

III. I must come to my third point, for our time flies. Notice what OUR
PRESENT POSITION IS if God has quickened us.

Our present position is this, first, that we are raised from the dead.
"He has quickened us together with Christ, and has raised us up
together." We cannot live where we used to live. We cannot wear what we
used to wear. There is nobody here who would like to go and live in a
grave. If you have been raised from the dead, after you had been buried
in Norwood Cemetery, I would guarantee you that you would not go there
to sleep tonight! So the man who has once been raised by the quickening
power of the Holy Spirit quits the dead–his old company does not suit
him. If you had been raised from the dead and had come out of your
tomb, you would not go about London streets with your shroud on! You
are a living man! How is it that I find some who say they are people of
God but are rather fond of wearing their grave clothes? I mean that
they like the amusements of the world. They like to put on their
shroud, sometimes, just for a treat. Oh, do not do it! If God has made
you to live, come away from the dead! Come away from their habits,
manners and customs! Life sees no charm in death. The living child of
God likes to get as far as he can away from the death that once held
him bound. "Come out from among them, and be you separate, says the
Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will
be a Father unto you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the
Lord Almighty." That is the first part of our position–that we have
come to live a separate life, now, and have quit the path we trod
before.

Next to that, we are one with Christ. He has "quickened us together
with Christ, and has raised us up together." I told you just now that
the life which the Holy Spirit gives us when we are born again is the
Life of God. We are made partakers of the Divine Nature, but, of
course, in a modified sense, but still in a true sense. The life
everlasting, the life that can never die, is put into us, then, even as
Christ said, "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of
water springing up into everlasting life." The Believer's life is the
Life of Christ in the Believer! "Because I live, you shall live, also."
What a mystic union there is between the Believer and his Lord! Realize
that! Believe in it! Rejoice in it! Triumph in it! Christ and you are
now one and you are made to live together with Him! God grant you to
know the joy of this condition!

Once more, we are told, "He has raised us up together, and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." That is very wonderful!
We have not only left the dead and become joined to Christ, but we are
made to sit in Heaven with Christ. A man is where his head is, is he
not? And every Believer is where his Head is. And if we are members of
Christ's body, we are in Heaven! It is a very blessed experience to be
able to walk on earth and look up to Heaven. But it is a

higher experience to live in Heaven and look down on the earth–and
this is what the Believer may do! He may sit in the heavenlies–Christ
is there as his Representative. The Believer may take possession of
what his Representative is holding on his behalf. Oh, to live in
Heaven, to dwell there, to let the heart be caught up from this poor
life into the life that is above! This is where we should be–where we
may be if we are quickened by the Divine Life!

One thing more and I have done. We are in this position, that God is
now working in us, through this Divine Life, to make us the most
wonderful reflectors of His Grace that He has yet formed. He has raised
us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, "that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of
His Grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." The ages to
come will have for their wonder the quickened children of God! When God
made the world, it was a wonder, and the angels came from afar to see
His handiwork. But when Christ makes the new creation, they will say no
more that God made the Heaven and the earth, but they will say in
higher strains, "He made these new-born men and women! He made for
them, and in them, new heavens and a new earth."

Ah, Beloved, "It does not yet appear what we shall be." God has given
us a life that is more precious than the Kohi-noor, a life that will
outlast the sun and moon! When all things that are shall be like an old
ocean's foam which dissolves into the wave that bears it and is gone
forever, we shall live–and we shall live in Christ and with Christ,
glorified forever! When the moon has become black as a sackcloth of
hair, the life that is within us shall be as bright as when God first
gave it to us! You have the dew of your youth, O child of God, and you
shall have yet more of it! You shall be like your Lord when He shall
take you away from every trace of death and the corrupt atmosphere of
this poor world! And you shall dwell with the living God in the land of
the living forever and forever!

The practical outcome of all this is that some of you do not know
anything at all about it. If you do not, let the fact impress you. If
there is a Divine Life to which you are a stranger, how long will you
be a stranger to it? If there is a spiritual death and you are dead, be
startled, for within a little while God will say, "Bury My dead out of
My sight." And what will happen to you when the Word of God is,
"Depart, depart, depart, depart," and unto the graveyard of souls, to
the fire that never shall be quenched, you and the rest of the dead are
taken away? "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living" and,
unless we are made alive unto Him, He cannot be our God either here or
hereafter! The Lord impress this solemn Truth on all your hearts by His
own Spirit, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON EPHESIANS2.

Verse 1. And you He has quickened. Is it so? Could the Apostle say that
to you and to me?

1. Who were dead in trespasses and sins. Look back to what you used to
be, to the hole of the pit from where you were lifted–"You has He
quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins."

2. Wherein in time past you walked. With a terrible activity of
spiritual death.

2. According to the course of this world, according to the Prince of
the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of
disobedience. He makes them to be his forge. There he blows his coals,
there he fabricates his instruments. Do you not hear the noise of the
infernal bellows when "the children of disobedience" swear and use
unclean language? Ah, such were some of us, but we are cleansed! The
evil spirit has been driven out and he no more works in us.

3. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the
lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the
mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. You
that now commune with God at the Mercy Seat, you that are now His
favored children and have received power to become the sons of God–you
were once heirs of wrath–"By nature the children of wrath, even as
others." Holy Scripture is not complimentary to unrenewed human nature.
You may search it through and through to find a single flattering word
to unregenerate man, but you will search in vain! This style of speech
is left to those who ignore Divine Inspiration. They draw their
inspiration from another fountain–from a desire to walk according to
the course of this world–according to the Prince of the power of the
air. They can use flattering speeches in addressing the ungodly, but
the Holy Spirit never does.

4. 5. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He
loved us, even when we were dead in sins. God loved us even when we
were dead in sins. His love does not depend upon what we are–it flows
from His own heart. It is not love of something good in us–it is love
of us because of everything good in Him! Here you see the greatness of
His Grace, in that, "He loved us, even when we were dead in sins."

5. Has quickened us together with Christ. Ah, That accounts for
everything–"together with Christ." When we get "together with Christ,"
then are we made alive, then are we saved! Are you, my dear Hearers,
"quickened together with

Christ"?

5-7. (By Grace you are saved), and has raised us up together, and made
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to
come He might show the exceeding riches of His Grace in His kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. See how Paul's language grows and
swells and rises as he proceeds! Just now, we read of "God, who is rich
in mercy." Now the Apostle speaks of "the exceeding riches of His
Grace," exceeding expression, exceeding comprehension, exceeding, even,
sin, itself, though that is all but infinite. "The exceeding riches of
His Grace" are infinity, itself! But they all come to us "through
Christ Jesus." Paul will speak of nothing good except that which comes
"through Christ Jesus." This is the one conduit through which the
streams of Living Water flow to the dead in sin. God's Grace comes to
us "Through Christ Jesus," and through Him, alone.

8. For by Grace are you saved through faith. We have this expression,
"by Grace are you saved," twice over in this chapter. Paul knew that he
needed to repeat himself, or people would forget what he taught. At
bottom, all the wanderings from the faith at the present day amount to
this–salvation by works instead of salvation by Grace. The battle of
the Reformation has to be fought over again! Men are justified by Grace
through faith in Christ Jesus. All the enmity of natural men is against
that Truth of God. They want to be saved by their own morality and all
sorts of things that they put instead of salvation by Grace through
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

8, 9. And that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God: not of works,
lest any man should boast. "Oh!" said one to me just now, "the man who
is saved by his own righteousness cannot do much in the line of
praising." "No, my dear Brother," I replied, "except he praises
himself–and he can generally do that pretty well." Your self-made man
usually worships his creator very earnestly–and your self-saved man
glorifies him that saved him.

10. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. Nothing
without Christ Jesus, you see. The mark of the pierced hand is on
everything–"We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus."

10. Unto Good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk
in them. God has decreed that He will have a holy people. This is His
purpose, His ordinance to which He will always stand. He will make it
good. He will make sinful people holy and disobedient people obedient
to the faith.

11. Therefore remember, that you, being in time past Gentiles in the
flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called
Circumcision in the flesh made by hands. Remember what you were. You
were not the chosen Israelites, you have not the Covenant mark in your
flesh.

12. That at that time you were without Christ. Which is the worst state
of all, far worse than being without circumcision.

12. Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Outsiders, rank
outsiders, far away from any rights, or any participation in the rights
of God's children.

12. And strangers from the Covenants of promise. Utter strangers to the
Covenants made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

12. Having no hope, and without God in the world. It is an awful
description, but a truthful description of what we were.

13. But now. The Apostle has turned over a new leaf in the book of our
history–"but now." Oh, what a change from the past to the present!
"But now"–

13. In Christ Jesus. See how Paul keeps harping on that one string?
Note how he links us with Christ Jesus. There is nothing for us without
Christ and His Cross.

13. You who sometimes were far off are made near by the blood of
Christ. Paul can never have too much of Christ. It is Christ, Christ,
Christ, Christ–like the harp of Anacreon's–he wished to sing of
Cadmus, but his harp resounded love, alone. And so the harp of Paul
resounds with Christ, alone–Christ, alone! He always comes back to
that theme. It was said of one eminent commentator that he could not
find Christ in the Scripture where He was. But it was said of Cocceius
that he found Christ where He was not. I would rather find Christ where
He is not, than not to find Him where He is! There are plenty who err
in that second direction, nowadays.

14. For He is our peace. Paul cannot do without Christ, you see. He
will bring Him in everywhere.

14. Who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of
partition between us. There is no longer the division between Jews and
Gentiles.

15. Having abolished in His flesh. See, it is always Christ–His flesh,
His blood, His life! There must always be something about Him–"Having
abolished in His flesh."

15. The enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances;
for to make in Himself of two one new man, so making peace; and that
He. I cannot help reminding you that you must not overlook the fact
that Paul will not go a hair's breadth away from Christ.

16-18. Might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Cross, having
slain the enmity thereby: and came and preached peace to you which were
afar off, and to them that were near. For through Him we both have
access by one Spirit unto the Father. There is the whole Trinity in
that one verse! Christ, the Spirit, the Father. It needs the Trinity to
make a Christian! And when you have got a Christian, it needs the
Trinity to make a prayer! You cannot pray a single prayer aright
without Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

19. Now, therefore. Another of Paul's blessed, "nows." It was, "but
now," a little while ago. Now he has another "now." "Now therefore"–

19. You are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with
the saints, and of the household of God. You are not only in the
Kingdom, but you are in the royal household, which is still better! You
are princes of the blood imperial! You are peers of the court of
Heaven–"and the household of God."

20. And are built. You are not loose stones–you are built–

20. 21. Upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ
Himself being the Chief Cornerstone; in whom. You see, it is always
that, in Him, in Christ–"in whom"–

21. All the building fitly framed together grows unto an holy temple in
the Lord. There is no Church without Christ, no temple without Him as
its Cornerstone, its Priest, its Glory.

22. In whom you also are built together for an habitation of God
through the Spirit. And all this hangs upon that first sentence, "You
has He quickened." Is it so, Beloved? If you are spiritually dead,
nothing here belongs to you. But if He has quickened you, you may take
every single sentence of the chapter and say, "That is mine, and glory
be to the Grace of

God!"