Ephesians 2:5

Paul begins with “you”, the believers at Ephesus, most of whom were Gentiles. Two verses later he says “we all” and brings in himself and his fellow Jews. He tells them that they “were dead in trespasses and sins”. The word for dead, nekrós, comes from a word for a corpse, and it can mean dead in body or dead in a figurative sense, as it does here. Paul’s readers had been breathing, working and walking the streets of Ephesus, and all the while they were lifeless toward God. A corpse is unable to answer when it is spoken to, and a person dead in sin is just as unable to answer God, to understand his truth or to begin a relationship with him.

This death is separation from God, who is the source of all life. Isaiah told Israel, “your iniquities have separated between you and your God” (Isaiah 59:2). Death came into the world through Adam’s sin and passed upon all men (Romans 5:12). Paul uses the same words for the same people in Colossians 2:13, where God quickened those who were dead in their sins together with Christ, and Jesus said that whoever hears his word and believes on the one who sent him “is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

The two words for what killed us describe sin from two sides. “Trespasses” is paráptōma, from a verb meaning to fall beside, so a side-slip, a false step off the right path. It covers an unintentional lapse as well as a wilful breaking of God’s revealed will. “Sins” is hamartía, from a verb meaning to miss the mark. Strong’s marks it as properly abstract, so the word takes in sin as the condition we lived under as well as the wrong things we did. Together they describe the whole of our state, the false steps we took and the sin that ruled us. They were the place where we lay dead, which is why Paul says dead “in” them.

“Wherein in time past ye walked” describes the readers’ whole former way of life. The verb for walking, peripatéō, means to walk about, and figuratively to live or behave, and Scripture often calls a person’s conduct his walk. “In time past” puts that life behind them.

They walked “according to the course of this world”. “Course” translates aiṓn, an age, and here it means the spirit and ways of the present age in a world turned away from God. Ephesus was known for its temple to Artemis, and its people lived amid idolatry, magic, immorality and self-indulgence, often driven by fear of spiritual powers. To walk that way was simply to do what everyone around them did. Paul then names the ruler who stands behind it all.

With “we all” Paul puts himself and his fellow Jews beside the Gentile believers. Every one of them, whatever their background, had lived this way, for “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). In Romans 3:10–18 Paul gathers the Old Testament’s witness to the same truth: “There is none righteous, no, not one.”

“Had our conversation” uses an old English sense of the word. In the KJV, conversation means conduct or manner of life, and the Greek verb behind it, anastréphō, means to conduct oneself. “We all had our conversation in times past” means “we all once lived” this way. Peter uses the same old sense when he says that believers were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ from their “vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers” (1 Peter 1:18–19).

That former life was lived “in the lusts of our flesh”. epithymía means desire or longing, especially for what is forbidden. The verb it comes from means to long for something, rightly or wrongly, so the word takes its evil sense here from what it longs for, which is whatever the flesh wants. sárx, flesh, can mean the body, and in Paul’s letters it often means human nature with its frailties and passions, the whole fallen person turned away from God. Paul adds “the desires of the flesh and of the mind”, and the word for mind, diánoia, covers thought and intention. Our appetites, our feelings and our reasoning all served sin. Romans 7 describes the struggle with sin, and Paul tells the Galatians that “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24).

“But God” turns the whole passage. The Greek dé is a simple connective that can mark addition, sequence or contrast, and here it marks the greatest contrast in the chapter. Verses 1 to 3 told what we were and what we did. Now God acts, and the rest of the passage is about what he has done.

“Rich in mercy” tells us who he is. ploúsios means rich or wealthy, and figuratively abounding in something, and the noun it comes from means wealth in the sense of fulness. Mercy, éleos, is compassion shown to someone in distress, pity that moves to help. God’s mercy is full and abundant toward people in the misery Paul has just described. The psalmist says, “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy” (Psalm 103:8).

“For his great love wherewith he loved us” gives the reason God acted. “For” is diá with the accusative, meaning “because of”. “Great” is polýs, much or great, and “love” is agápē, the love that has its source in the giver and seeks the good of the one loved. “Wherewith” is the relative pronoun hós, and “us”, hēmâs, is the plain plural “us”, here meaning Paul and his readers, the very people who had been dead in sins and children of wrath. God loved them while they were in that state. John writes, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:8–10). This is the love of John 3:16–17, which sent the Son so that the world through him might be saved, and the kindness and love of God our Saviour which appeared and saved us according to his mercy (Titus 3:4–5). It is also the love in which God chose us in Christ and predestinated us to be his children (Ephesians 1:4–5).

The wrath of verse 3 and the mercy of verse 4 belong to the same God. He is holy and just, and he is rich in compassion, and in Christ his mercy deals with our sin by justly punishing it in his Son.

“Even when we were dead in sins” means God acted while we still lay dead. The word nekrós comes back from verse 1, and “sins” here is tois paraptṓmasin, the word translated “trespasses” in verse 1. God did all of this before we could do anything for ourselves.

Then come three verbs, each with the Greek prefix syn-, “together with”.

• Made alive with him. “Hath quickened us together with Christ” is syzōopoiéō, to make alive together with. Our new life is joined to Christ’s own resurrection life, and we share in his victory over sin and death.
• Raised with him. “Hath raised us up together” is synegeírō, to rouse from death in company with someone, and figuratively to bring back to spiritual life in likeness to him.
• Seated with him. “Made us sit together” is synkathízō, to give a seat in company with. Christ ascended and is seated at the right hand of God (Hebrews 12:2, Hebrews 8:1), and God has given us a seat with him and a share in his rest, honour and authority.

Paul speaks of all three as done. God has already made us alive, raised us and seated us. He writes the same way in Colossians 2:12–13, where believers are buried with Christ in baptism and risen with him through faith, and in Romans 6, where “like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Those planted together with him in the likeness of his death share the likeness of his resurrection (Romans 6:4–5). Christ is “the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20), and God “hath highly exalted him” (Philippians 2:9–11). Because we are in him, his victory is ours and his place is ours.

“In heavenly places” translates epouránios, “above the sky”, heavenly. Paul uses the word five times in Ephesians for the realm of God’s activity, authority and blessing, where Christ now reigns. “In Christ Jesus” holds the whole verse together, since our being raised and seated rests entirely on our union with him. The repeated “together” also takes in every believer, Jew and Gentile alike, and the chapter goes on to tell how Christ “hath broken down the middle wall of partition” between them (Ephesians 2:14). People who had once been “without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12) now sit with Christ.

Verse 7 gives God’s purpose in all this. He saved us “that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” Our salvation is for our good, and above all it is for the display of his grace and glory.

“The ages to come” uses aiṓn again, the word for “course” in verse 2. Strong’s traces it to the same root as a word meaning “always”. It means an age, and by extension perpetuity or eternity, and Jewish writers often spoke of this age and the age to come. The ages are those “coming on”, from epérchomai, to come upon. So the display is endless, running through every age still to come and on into eternity.

“He might shew” is endeíknymi, to show by word or act, to put on open display. God means his grace to be seen by all creation. Through the church the manifold wisdom of God is made known “unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10), and these are things “the angels desire to look into” (1 Peter 1:12).

“Exceeding” is hyperbállō, from words meaning “over” and “to throw”, so to throw past the usual mark, to surpass. These are riches of grace past all measuring. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20), and Paul has already spoken of “the riches of his grace” in which we have redemption through Christ’s blood (Ephesians 1:7).

“In his kindness toward us” names the form this grace takes. Kindness, chrēstótēs, is goodness put into practice. Grace is God’s favour toward the undeserving, and kindness is that favour at work in his dealings with us, above all in saving us. Paul joins the two in Titus 3:4–7, where “the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared” and we are “justified by his grace”. All of it is “through Christ Jesus”, which in Greek is “in Christ Jesus”, the same words that close verse 6. We are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24–25), and the redeemed sing to the Lamb, “thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood” (Revelation 5:9–10).

Verse 8 takes up the cry of verse 5 and opens it out: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God”. Grace is the source of salvation, and faith is the means by which we receive it.

“Are ye saved” uses sṓzō, to save, deliver, protect, heal or make whole. As in verse 5, Paul uses the perfect, a past act of God whose result lasts, and the lexicons list this verse among the past uses of the word. It means deliverance from the penalty and power of sin, reconciliation with God and the gift of eternal life. Grace, cháris, is God’s undeserved favour, as in verse 5. Faith, pístis, means persuasion or conviction, and especially reliance on Christ for salvation. It is trust in Christ himself, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). We are “justified freely by his grace” (Romans 3:24), and that grace came to us through Christ, who humbled himself and became obedient “unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8).

Verse 9 shuts out every human deed as the source of salvation. “Not” is ou, the plain Greek word for “not”, and “of works” is ek, “out of” or “from”, with érgon, a work, deed or act. Salvation has its source in God, and Paul rules out every work of ours as its origin, whether law-keeping, ritual, moral effort or ancestry.

“Lest any man should boast” gives God’s reason. kaucháomai means to boast, glory, or take pride in something. If we could earn salvation we would have something to boast of, and God has designed it so that all the glory goes to him. “Where is boasting then? It is excluded” (Romans 3:27). A man is justified “by the faith of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16), and God saved us “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy” (Titus 3:5). Christ “is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Romans 10:4), and he “is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). God’s purpose is “That no flesh should glory in his presence” (1 Corinthians 1:29–31), and so “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31). Every spiritual blessing we have comes to us in Christ (Ephesians 1:3).

This also shapes how the church lives together. Jew and Gentile come to God on exactly the same footing, as receivers of grace, and the rest of Ephesians 2 shows the two made one in Christ (Ephesians 2:11–22).

Verse 10 gives the reason (“For”, gár) why salvation is God’s work from beginning to end: “we are his workmanship”. poiēma means that which is made, a work or product. Its only other use in the New Testament is in Romans 1:20, where the invisible things of God are clearly seen, “being understood by the things that are made”. The God who made the world has made us too, and made us new.

We are “created in Christ Jesus”. ktízō means to make, to found, to form something for the first time, and Paul uses the same verb a few verses later, where Christ came “to make in himself of twain one new man” (Ephesians 2:15). “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The words “in Christ Jesus” are en, “in”, with Christós and Iēsoûs, and they name the union in which this new creation happens.

We are created “unto good works”. “Unto” is epí, here giving the purpose, “good” is agathós and “works” is érgon, the same word that verse 9 rules out as the cause of salvation. In verse 10 good works are its purpose. Christ “gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14).

“Which God hath before ordained” uses hós, “which”, for the good works, and proetoimázō, to prepare beforehand, to fit up in advance. God prepared these works before we ever came to faith, as part of the eternal plan of Ephesians 1.

“That we should walk in them” uses hína, “that”, in its usual sense of purpose, and peripatéō, to walk or to live, the verb of verse 2. autós is “them”, the works themselves. We once walked according to the course of this world, and now we walk in the works God has prepared. Ephesians 4–6 spells out what that walk looks like, and God gives the strength for it: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13).

Christ stands at the center of every step in this passage. We were dead in sins, and God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). We were by nature children of wrath, and God set forth Christ “to be a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Romans 3:25) and sent his Son “To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4:4–5). We are made alive with him because he was raised, and we are seated with him because he sits at God’s right hand.

Christ goes before us in the good works too. He said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34). By him all things consist (Colossians 1:17), and God has purposed that his people be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). The good works we walk in carry on Christ’s own work through his body, the church.

Remembering what we were keeps us humble and thankful. We came to God with empty hands, and he gave us life, a seat with his Son and a purpose. It also changes how we look at those still dead in sin. We were among them, children of disobedience walking the course of this world, so we can speak to them with compassion and pray for them, knowing that God’s quickening power can reach anyone, however dead in sins.

Our assurance rests on God, who is rich in mercy and whose love is great. He made us alive while we were dead, so our standing with him depends on his grace and his unchanging character, and we can rest in that on our weakest days.

And we have a walk to walk. The desires of the flesh and of the mind still pull at us, and we resist them in the strength of the Spirit who lives in us. Each day holds good works that God prepared before we came to faith, and we walk in them out of thankfulness for a salvation already given. When we do, the credit goes where Paul says it belongs, because we are his workmanship.