but God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love wherewith he loved us,
Verse 4 comes after a dark picture: people dead in sins, with nothing good in them. Then the sentence turns, and everything rests on what God is in Himself.
Two words break the description of ruin. One writer holds them up as the moment hope enters a hopeless case:
We were dead. There was no movement, no pulse of life towards God, no response to His claims or His pleading. And we were not dead only, but dead in sins. Chains bound us, darkness surrounded us. We were not only unresponsive in death; there was the added enmity of sin. Our case was hopeless to all "BUT GOD." How those two words "But God" break into the gloom! And being "rich in mercy," the great love with which He loves us is not a baffled and hopeless love. He has triumphed over death.
One writer defines the word, then points to a familiar roadside scene:
The riches of His mercy come first, and that mercy is the outcome of His great love. Mercy is that compassion that comes down to meet one in his circumstances of need, sorrow or misery. The Samaritan in Luke 10:33 did this. He "came where he was" — a man robbers had attacked and left half dead — and he cared for his needs. What great love has made our Saviour stoop so low to meet us at the very bottom of our hopeless misery.
The verse says mercy, not grace, and one writer refuses to treat the two as the same:
He is "rich in mercy." There is a difference between mercy and grace. Grace is a free gift, but mercy is much more; it speaks of demerit and brings our souls right to the heart of God Himself who has mercy. "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." No claim. Many young Christians have never taken their stand on the ground of mercy. So when something they trusted in breaks down, they are completely lost.
Mercy has a source: the "great love" named in the verse. That love decides how far the blessing goes:
Love is the nature of God, the spring of all His actions, and the source of all our blessings. If God acts according to the love of His heart, only His love can measure the blessing that results. So the question is not what amount of blessing will meet our needs. The question is how high a blessing will satisfy the love of God… God acts, then, "because of His great love", not because of anything that we are.
The love reached us when we were dead in sins. One writer draws out what that says about God:
The source of all our blessing is the heart of God. So it is only in redemption that we can see Him fully revealed. God came on the scene because of what He was as God. And notice the contrast: "even when we were dead in sins." He would have us remember that there was nothing but evil in us, and nothing but good in Him.
One writer draws out why the dark description of man comes first:
We have seen man and his natural condition. Now we are called to consider the One who made him… The fact of man's moral ruin becomes the occasion for displaying the perfection of the Divine character. Helpless sin is the opportunity for rich and saving mercy… What is the great proof here that He is rich in mercy? He loved His people in their natural condition, when they were dead in trespasses and sins. And because He loved them, He did not leave them as they were. He made them alive and gave them everlasting life.
Mercy this free still needs a foundation, and one writer names it:
But God! God now comes in and makes known the riches of His mercy. Yet a righteous, holy God cannot be rich in mercy unless His righteousness is fully met and maintained. His mercy must have His righteousness as its foundation. And this is blessedly the case. He is rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us. He gave His only begotten Son. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. He made full atonement on the cross, and now God can be rich in mercy.
- Ruin — our case was hopeless: nothing but evil in us, nothing but good in Him.
- But God — two words break into the gloom. The dead could not move, so God moved first.
- Mercy — compassion that comes down to where the person is. It weighs demerit, not merit, so no one has a claim.
- Love — mercy's source. Love sets the measure, so the question is not what meets our need but what satisfies His heart.
- Righteousness — mercy this rich still rests on the cross, where God gave His Son and made full atonement.
(we too being dead in offences,) has quickened us with the Christ, (ye are saved by grace,)
Ephesians 2 does not picture us as sick people needing help. It pictures us as dead — so verse 5 says what only God could do: He made us alive together with Christ, and grace is the reason.
Ephesians does not stop to prove that we are guilty. It treats the case as already closed:
In Ephesians the proof of guilt is needless. Man is viewed as so completely dead that it is only the removal of the cloth from off the corpse. So the apostle says, "You He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins." It is not simply, How is a sinner to be forgiven, justified? but "You He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins."
(Older translations read "quickened" where newer ones read "made alive.")
Death is final because the dead cannot answer. That was our state toward God when His love reached us:
Human love can do great things to serve and save the one it loves, as long as life lasts. But when death has done its work, love has reached its end and can do no more. And what is the most tragic, the most oppressive, the most heartbreaking thing in death? It is the unresponsiveness of the dead. Love may plead and agonize for one word from the silent lips — even for one flicker from the still eyelids in answer to its longing. It is all in vain. The silence is absolute, the breach is complete, love is beaten and death is the victor. But it is not so with God's love. His love is GREAT LOVE — greater than death. Our case was hopeless to all "BUT GOD." How wonderfully those two words break into the darkness!
If we were dead, then nothing in the verse can have started with us. Every verb belongs to God:
We were dead, says the apostle — dead in our trespasses and sins. God comes, in His love, to deliver us by His power. There was no good working in us: we were dead in our trespasses and sins. The movement came from Him, praised be His name! He has made us alive; and not only that, He has made us alive together with Christ.
The same act puts Jew and non-Jew in one place:
Jews and Gentiles are found together in the same new position in Christ. Resurrection has put an end to all those distinctions; they have no place in a risen Christ. God has made the one and the other alive with Christ.
The verse does not stop at "made alive." It adds "together with Christ" — and that phrase decides where our life starts:
It is not simply that we are made alive. We are made alive "together with Christ." When it is only the giving of life, as in John 5, Christ is the One who gives it. But Ephesians shows Christ in death, where He had in grace put Himself for us. We were there through sin and disobedience. He came there in grace and obedience. And now, as made alive together with Him, we are, so to speak, raised by God out of His grave.
Our case demanded life. It never demanded this much:
Being "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1), nothing less than being made alive would meet our case. So being made alive was a necessity. Being made alive together with Christ was not. That is the fruit of God's own purpose in grace.
Paul cannot finish his sentence without saying where all this came from. He throws the words in as an aside, and the tense of the verb matters:
His heart seems to overflow as he speaks of God's "rich mercy," His "great love," "the exceeding riches of His grace," and "His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus." In verse 5 he cannot hold back from adding, as a parenthesis, "by grace you have been saved." He writes as if to stress that we owe everything to the precious Saviour by whom "grace came." What happy assurance fills our souls as we consider the greatness of the salvation grace has worked! The verb is in the perfect tense — our salvation is secure and it lasts.
So this letter does not push salvation into the future. It speaks of it as done:
"By grace you have been saved." Salvation, according to this letter, is a present reality. We are as truly saved now as we ever can be. Some of the other letters speak of salvation as future. It is no less certain there. In those letters it comes at the end of our journey, when we shall stand before Christ in glory.
- Dead — Ephesians does not argue guilt; it uncovers a corpse. No response, no movement, no ability to change anything.
- But God — those two words break into the darkness. His love is greater than death, and it moved first, while we could not answer.
- Made alive — nothing less than new life could meet our case, so God gave it.
- With Christ — being made alive was necessary; being made alive with Him, out of His grave, was not. That is God's own purpose in grace.
- By grace — the aside names the source. The perfect tense names the security: already saved, and saved still.
and has raised [us] up together, and has made [us] sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus,
God did not stop at making dead people alive. He lifted them to where Christ Himself is. That raises two questions. How can people still on earth already be seated in heaven? And why does Paul write "in Christ Jesus" and not "with Christ"?
Our place in heaven rests on what God's power already did in Christ. That same power reached us.
If our acceptance in the Beloved means we receive the same privileges and possessions that He receives, it comes about through our being made alive by the same power by which He was made alive. We are not only one with Him in our blessing and prospects, but also in our life. God used the same power in the same way to make us alive as He used to make Him alive.
The verse changes its wording halfway through, and the change is deliberate. We are made alive together with Christ, but raised and seated in Him.
Everything God has done, He has done in connection with Christ. If we have been made alive, it has been together with Christ. If raised up and seated in heavenly places, it has been in Christ. Two prepositions are used, with and in. We have already actually been made alive... though we wait for our mortal bodies to be made alive. As made alive we live in association with Christ, because we live by His life. We have not yet actually been raised up and seated in the heavens, but Christ has, and He is our exalted Head. We are in Him, and so raised up and seated in Him. Soon we shall actually be raised up and seated with Him.
If our seat is in Christ, then our standing is not somewhere lower down, waiting to be improved.
We are brought not simply through death into resurrection, but we are seated (not with, but) in Christ in heavenly places. What then is my standing? It is there in Christ where He is. Nothing short of it. It is not simply that I am raised together with Christ down here where I am. No, I am carried further; I am seated in Christ, where He is in the glory. That is my place.
The repeated word "together" is not simply about believers and Christ. It is about two groups of people who had been kept apart.
The "together" here refers to Gentiles and Jews... Here again, the word "raised" means more than resurrection when used of our Lord. He has been raised to the highest point in glory, following His resurrection from the dead.
Commentators differ on how present this seat is. Hole says we are not yet actually raised and seated. Davison holds that the place is already ours, though not physically:
We are not yet there physically, but in the apprehension of our souls by the Spirit. "Sitting" carries the thought that we are now in possession of the place and privilege, and have the present enjoyment of it in our souls.
God had a further reason for lifting sinners that high. It reaches into the ages to come.
Poor sinners from among the Gentiles, and from among the disobedient and contradicting Jews, are brought into the position where Christ is by the power that raised Him from the dead and set Him at God's right hand, to show forth in the ages to come the immense riches of the grace that accomplished it. A Mary Magdalene, a crucified thief, companions in glory with the Son of God, will bear witness to it.
Later in the same letter, the heavenly places are also the place of conflict.
The church is seated "in heavenly places in Christ" — blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. So too we are said to contend with spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. We are carried into conflict in the very place of strength; for the nearer we are to God, the more we need strength to walk there.
- Power — The strength that raised Christ and seated Him at God's right hand is the strength that reached us. Nothing less would do.
- Position — We were made alive with Christ, but raised and seated in Him; His seat is our standing, and nothing short of it.
- Partnership — "Together" means Jew and Gentile share one seat in Christ.
- Present — The seat is ours now, known by the soul through the Spirit. The body is still on earth and follows later.
- Purpose — God set former sinners beside His Son. The coming ages will see the immense riches of the grace that put them there.
that he might display in the coming ages the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
God's plan does not stop at rescuing us. Verse 7 gives His reason for the rescue, and it raises three questions: who is meant to see it, when does it happen, and what does His "kindness" mean?
Verse 7 states God's purpose right after describing what He has done. One writer rests the whole weight of assurance on that:
God makes us alive, raises us, and seats us. At once He states His own motive and purpose in blessing us... Here faith can breathe freely, rest quietly, and wait patiently, without the smallest doubt. Faith never asks for more than the word of God. Though, sadly, we fail and come short in many things, yet He is faithful. The life He gives is like Himself — eternal. His "kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" is also like Himself — eternal.
The passage names four qualities of God, and "kindness" is one of them. One writer keeps them apart:
Four qualities of God come before us — love, mercy, kindness and grace (verses 4 and 7). Love is the nature of God, the spring of all His actions, and the source of all our blessings. The question, then, is not what measure of blessing will meet our needs. It is how high a blessing must be to satisfy the love of God. Grace is love in action towards unworthy people, and it goes out to all. God shows mercy to the individual sinner. Kindness is His giving of blessings to the believer.
A display needs onlookers. One writer names them, and says where God has placed us in relation to them:
In the world to come God sets us over angels and rulers and powers. In doing so He is showing the exceeding riches of His grace in the place He has given us, in His kindness towards us... Angels are going to learn the immense riches of God's grace. How? By God making us sharers in the glory of Christ, in His kindness to us through Christ Jesus. They will see Mary Magdalene, the thief on the cross, the woman of the city who was a sinner — any one of us — in the same place of glory with Christ. Then they will admire the exceeding riches of His grace.
God has something specific to reveal, and only the highest place for us would show it:
God, as it were, says, "In the coming ages I am going to show what is the fruit of Christ's work, and what is the purpose of My heart." Clearly nothing but the highest condition and position a man can be found in is enough for such great ends. Angels and rulers will "see a poor sinner, and the whole church, in the same glory as the Son of God." Then "they will understand the exceeding riches of the grace that has set them there."
The verse says ages, not age. Writers take this as covering more than one era:
Two ages follow the present age. The millennial age, and after that has lasted for a thousand years, the eternal state begins. In the coming age and in all eternity, God is going to make known His glory through and in His masterwork. All His redeemed will be with Him in glory.
Commentators differ on where the series of ages begins, but they agree the plural matters. One writer draws out what that means for our own experience:
The eternal God has an eternal kindness for His children. Those who receive the exceeding riches of His grace will not take them in all at once. Knowledge and enjoyment will grow on, with life, in an endless progression. Pay careful attention to the phrase the Apostle uses here. "The coming ages" carries a different meaning from the same phrase in the singular.
Forgiveness is not the end of what grace intends to do:
Grace has not finished with us when our souls are redeemed and our sins forgiven, for "in the ages to come" He will show "the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."
If the church is the chosen exhibit of grace later, that shapes how it should behave in the meantime:
In those ages God's grace will shine out in all His dealings with Israel and the nations. It will shine out in His dealings with the believers who lived before Christ too. But to see the surpassing display of grace, men and angels will turn their eyes to the glorified church. Let us never forget that! So we are surely right to expect this: grace must mark the witness of people who have themselves received grace in such surpassing measure.
- Purpose — God made us alive, raised us, and seated us with a goal in view: a display of His grace, not just a rescue.
- Kindness — Love is His nature. Grace reaches the unworthy, mercy meets the individual sinner, and kindness hands the blessing to the believer.
- Display — Angels and powers will study grace by looking at the people it saved, seated in the same glory as Christ.
- Duration — The ages are plural: a coming age, then eternity. Knowledge and enjoyment keep growing instead of arriving all at once.
- Now — Since the church is the exhibit that grace has chosen, grace should mark the people who received it.