Ephesians Bible Study Spring 2009

Chapter 2

Entry- morgue

Pronunciation: 'mo(&)rg
Function: noun: a place where the bodies of persons found dead are kept until identified and claimed by relatives or are released for burial

 The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

We left off last week in the first chapter with the heavenly vision of the risen, Jesus, seated at the right hand of Majesty, head of His beloved bride, fully filling the body of Christ, the church. Seated over everything, He reigns there until the Father makes His enemies His footstool. Blessing and honor, and glory and power are His forever more. He's the risen King of Glory, as well as the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world. We can find none higher, better, or more powerful than Jesus. Insert Hallelujah Chorus here!

But today begins with us. Our humble and universal state of sinful depravity. Weren't we just basking in every word of God's love in choosing and saving and empowering us in Christ in His marvelous heaven? Yes, but we digress with Paul to earth again. To earthy us, senselessly sinful apart from Him, and very unable to do anything about it.

•  1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins

Well, that's a fine 'how do you do', Paul! Alas, it's true. We were dead (nekros'-a corpse) as door nails to this glorious God and His Son of Righteousness, knowing nothing of His terrific and sometimes terrifying plans and purposes for mankind.

Dead? What killed us?

• Romans 5:12-Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man(Adam), and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

 Sin killed us.We became dead men walking. Physically ambulant. Spiritually a corpse. Pushin' up daisies inside.

• 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—

Hopelessly chained to the rest of humanity, we followed the leader like zombies. We had a leader? Yes, an invisible one. The prince of the power of the air, the Devil, who is a very good bad leader, and none of us could resist him. We had lots of company.

• 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 

Each day seemed ours to botch up and patch up, in an empty cycle of absurd abuse and secret shame. Some of us were shy sinners, with a good Sunday smile and a bent halo of hollow morality, while others were completely unable to blush. But slaves we were, every last, shackled one of us. Lulled by this pernicious piper's refrain, we were headed for the fire made for him and his angels. Satan is an obstinate creature of God's eternal wrath, and consequently, all of us were naturally the children of wrath as well. We were one big, miserable family, pitifully passing on our family curse generation after doomed generation. Evolving upward? Hardly. How's everybody doing about now? What happened to the glory of last week? Would you like the remote so you can change the channel? Here, I brought mine. Hang in there, it gets fantastic! 

 Do these verses even whisper of anyone seeking God or knowing how to do so? Not at all. No one was looking for Him. Didn't know, didn't care. Still, one might be tempted to think, "Was I totally dead? Could I have been just mostly dead? Did God see me sparkle or something?' Pride would say yes. What really took place to save us? Paul says, 

• 4 But God, who being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in the trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved---

While we were just minding our own dead business, God was loving us, rich in mercy toward us, and drawing us toward Jesus according to His will. It wasn't anyone's crafty speech, or slick sermon, it was God.Was it us who moved against our sinful state? Paul says NO, God did and he knew it personally. Was Paul seeking God on his way to Damascus? Not in the slightest. On the contrary, he was persecuting Him.(Acts 9:4) Paul was not a God seeker. God is a soul-seeker. Opposite direction.

 To put this into modern terms, let's visit the house of the dead(see the definition of morgue) Chilly with a strong smell of yuck! Quiet.There's a big fridge, but it's not for snacks or soda, if you know what I mean. There are drawers with names and other important information on them.With this in mind, salvation is was more like God Almighty came to the city morgue (in my case, Palmdale CA) slid open the drawer with my name on it, unzipped my body bag, and said, "Jody Edler, live!" And cold, blue, stiffly dead Jody Edler did! Praise the Lord! ALIVE girl now sitting, standing and walking, right out of the morgue, holding the strong hand of my Everlasting Father, following His dear Son and may I add reverently, my new brother, and filled with my sacred confidant, The Holy Spirit.Warm and fuzzy,and frightening all at the same time! It's always frightening when the dead come to life! It shocked everyone around me, including me! Out of my treacherous body bag of darkness, and into His marvelous light. And, beloved of God, in Christ, has done so for you as well.

• (back to vs 5) and raised us up with Him and seated us

Where?

• 6with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

A permanent seat in heaven with the God in Christ.Why would He do such wonderful things for dead rebels like us?

• 7 so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

God's super grace and kindness were fully displayed in the brutal death of His Son. Never had the rays of this grace gleamed brighter, nor had the bud of His kindness ever bloomed more fragrant. In plain girl talk, you are forever Heaven's top model of God's gorgeous grace.

• 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast. "

Here's the first of what Pastor Andy wants us to understand. The consummate glory of God consists of Christ and Him crucified, and those benefiting from this miracle of mercy do so by His grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ Jesus alone. He came looking for us to be saved. This is Grace. It's His idea. A gift unearned, undeserved, and very unexpected! What kind of people get saved? Dead people! And dead people don't sparkle, they smell. Bragging, or rejoicing in ourselves, is excluded(vs9). Ours is a great salvation, for sure. But it is so great because of Him. Jesus told His disciples in

• John 15:16, You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

There's that word again. Chose. It's the same Greek word as Ephesians 1: 4. God does the choosing. And Jesus tells us who does the resurrecting, saying in John 6:44, that 

•  "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day."

These are wondrous things granted to those believing in Christ! Why can't we boast or brag?

• 10For we are his workmanship,

Workmanship, poima in the Greek(poy'ay mah) from which our English word, poem, is derived. Poetry is the opposite of gibberish.Our old, dead lives of sin were just gibberish. Rambling and pointless.Our new lives in Christ are God's love poems written according to His perfect, re-creative genius and passion, to be recited throughout the ages to the glory of His grace.You see, it's all about wonderful Him, the author and finisher of our faith. We receive it with thanks. Here follows the second aspect, the 'saved for' part, that Pastor would like us to understanding. That we are 

• created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

 Our biological birth was forever ruined with sin and bad works. What our lives amounted to was vanity and self-glorification. He has now made us new creatures in Christ for good works, which bring Him glory. He Himself prepares us for the accomplishment of His divine directives, which He planned long ago. Big God. Big love. Big plan. How big? It's global and eternal! 

 O.K. Time for a little geography-don't say ugh! Where can we find the headwaters of this Master plan? On another continent. We go to Israel, the apple of God's eye.Time does not allow me to be your History Channel today- let's all say amen!- but we can peek in the window of the Jewish nation with Paul.

Paul was a Jew of Jews and loved his heritage completely. He once said he would trade his place in grace for them, if possible. We get a sense of his national devotion from his letters, though they are cloaked with his mournful regret of their unbelief. He here urges the non-Jews, the Gentiles believers, to see God's great plan in it's entirety, which mercifully and intentionally will continue to include Israel. He asks them to

•  11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision(the Jews), which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ

Gentiles, as a whole, came after the Jewish nation in God's order of things, which steers us away from a snobby attitude of superiority toward them. Yes, the Jews delivered up the Son of God to be crucified, but we were pretty nasty sinners, too. Far off and Godless, Jesus brought us near by His blood. Gentiles now had open access to grace unlike their restrictive entry into the Jewish Temple, where there stood a cold wall of separation between themselves and the Jews. Any Gentile exceeding this wall, or any Jew posing as an escort in doing so, was courting death. This also represented the spiritual wall separating all of us from God, in keeping the whole law for righteousness. We could not exceed it. Glory to God, this wall collapsed at the feet of Christ. He fulfilled the law, thus slaying the giant of hatred existing between God and man and man and man, as well. To complete this model of grace, in 70 A.D., the Roman army roared, and flattened the physical Temple to a sea of marble, with not one imposing stone left upon another! Jesus said it would be so. He wanted it gone. Goodbye, wall. Goodbye, Temple. Hello, peace.

• 14For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

We, too, are called to let these forms of despising go.We are to be reconciled to God in Christ, as one new man, without prejudice. Any hostility that ever seemed justified was nullified in Christ. Now it's all about righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Remember His Peace.

• 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,  

...And the two shall be one, figuratively speaking. A horrid thought even as a Jewish believer. The 'dogs' of every other nation repulsed them.These evil sentiments went deep. This new unity also proved challenging for the morally free-agent Gentile. One God? No idols? Holiness? All foreign concepts for them. Everyone must be made new internally to live with God and each other eternally-"you must be born again". No longer Jew or Greek, men or women, slave or free, all are one new man, together partakers in the grace of God in Christ. We are

• 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple of the Lord. 22In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

One Holy temple of God forever, unlike the earthly one leveled by the Romans. We are living stones, lovingly chiseled and shaped with flawless precision at God's own hand. Upon Christ the chief cornerstone, the prophets and the apostles, each one of us is perfectly set in place by God, our Master Builder. Our corrupted bodies will put on incorruption, so that we can be His habitation without being incinerated! We will receive the rest of our inheritance in Christ, which well-exceeds our mind's capacity. This is just the down-payment phase of our redemption, remember? As King David concluded, these things are too wonderful for us! We are apt to sense pride rising up at the thought of such a marvelous inheritance. Paul urges us resist it by recalling our once-Christless estate, for the practical purposes of reverent humility, gratitude, and unified service to Him. Glorifying and enjoying Him with one another now and forever is another glimpse into His big heart and His big plan. But there's more, dear ones. There's much, much more. Let's pray.