Ephesians 2:1-10
What Constitutes a Man a Christian?
Preaching from Ephesians 2:1-10, Martin asks the foundational question: what actually makes a person a Christian? He argues that most misconceptions about Christianity stem from an inadequate grasp of what man is by nature — spiritually dead, enslaved to Satan, and under divine wrath — and that only when sin is understood correctly can salvation be understood. The sermon then unfolds three dominant strands in the passage: first, that Jesus Christ — the historic God-man who is also the anointed Prophet, Priest, and King — must be absolutely central in any genuine work of transformation, not the church, sacraments, or human decision; second, that the biblical concept of grace must be dominant, pointing entirely away from human merit and performance to the sovereign, undeserved favor of God; and third, that the transformation wrought by God is experimentally real and radically pervasive, amounting to a new creation rather than a surface moral adjustment. Martin closes with three probing self-examination questions, urging listeners to test both their own experience and any religious system they encounter by these three marks.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 8 sections · 50 min
- Introduction: A Question with Discrepant Answers 0:02
- The Before Picture: Man by Nature Dead, Bound, and Under Wrath 4:35
- Review: Who Is the Author? Why Did He Act? 6:24
- First Strand: Jesus Christ Is Central in the Transformation 10:01
- Application of First Strand: False Life-Changes and the Acid Test 20:37
- Second Strand: Grace Is Dominant in the Transformation 28:37
- Third Strand: The Transformation Is Experimentally Real, Radical, and Pervasive 37:16
- Conclusion: Three Probing Questions and a Look Forward 45:11
Key Quotes
“most of the misconceptions with relationship to that question, what is a Christian, are rooted in misconceptions of a previous question, namely, what is a sinner?”
“Here is the acid test. What place does Jesus Christ have in it all?”
“That unique personage who is God and man. Jesus of Nazareth who lived in history, died in history, was buried in history, rose in history, ascended to the right hand of the Father in history, was seated at the Father's right hand and rules in history now.”
“it is kindness to the undeserving. It is blessing upon the non-qualified. And the whole thrust of the biblical notion of grace is simply this.”
“there is no religion under heaven that says the acceptance of the sinner with the deity rests solely upon the grace of the deity.”
“He's saying we must never think of the transformation of grace as a surface transformation. We must never think of it in terms of a mere juggling of the legal records of heaven.”
“That your only hope is Christ. Your only hope is grace. And when Christ operates in grace, you'll know it because you'll be a new man in Him.”
Applications
All listeners
- Before you can understand what it means to be a Christian, you must first reckon honestly with what it means to be a sinner — spiritually dead, enslaved, and under wrath. Do not skip the diagnosis in either your own life or in your evangelism.
- Apply the Christ-centrality test to every ministry and religious system you encounter: not merely whether the name of Jesus is used, but whether the full biblical Christ — God-man, anointed Prophet, Priest, and King — is set forth as the center of transformation.
- Recognize that genuine, radical life-transformation can occur entirely outside Christ — through love, humanitarian zeal, or cult conversion. Do not mistake moral improvement or religious experience for Christian salvation.
- For the unconverted: your only hope is Christ himself — not a decision, not a church, not a sacrament. Look to him who receives the vilest of sinners and is able to cleanse and liberate them.
- Do not think of your faith as something you bring to God that triggers salvation. Faith itself flows from God in the process of saving you — it is grace all the way through, not grace plus your contribution.
- When you listen to preaching or teaching, ask: is grace merely mentioned as a cover for a subtle system of human works, or is grace the dominant note? Apply this test to every ministry you sit under.
- Reject the thin popular notion that salvation merely removes the penalty of sin and tidies up a few outward habits. The new life in Christ produces new desires, new communion with God, and progressive mortification of the flesh — not additions to the old self, but expressions of the new.
- Refuse to evaluate ministries by the fame or name of the preacher; the only criterion is whether the full biblical Christ is being set forth. Faithful churches do not placard preacher names for evangelism — they set before people the glorious Christ.
- Self-examination: Is grace the dominant note of your Christianity? Do you sit consciously baffled that God has not given you justice but grace — and does that holy bafflement express itself in living, delighted worship?
- Self-examination: Is your experience sixteen ounces to the pound biblical? Has the transformation been radical, experimental, and pervasive — not just new activities tacked onto the old life, but a new wellspring of hope, desire, and longing from the inside out?
A full transcript is available on the tab. 122 paragraphs, roughly 50 minutes.
Introduction: A Question with Discrepant Answers
We turn again this morning to Paul's letter to the Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 2, as we continue our studies in the first half of this chapter, the first of the two great contrasts contained within the chapter.
As I have reminded you week by week, verses 1 to 10 are a contrast between what the Ephesians were before and after the coming of the grace of God, particularly viewing them as individuals, whereas the verses 11 through 22 are a contrast of their condition before and after the coming of the grace of God, not so much as individuals, but with reference to their relationship to the visible people of God. Follow, please, as I read Ephesians chapter 2, 1 to 10. And you did he make alive when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. Even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace had he been saved, and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness. Toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace have ye been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, that no man should glory.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God aforeprepared that we should walk in them.
If you were to ask the average man in the street the simple question, What is a Christian? Or rephrase it and ask him, What constitutes a man a Christian? Or change it to this, What must be true of a person in order rightly to call him a Christian? You would be amazed at the discrepancies in the answers given.
Perhaps no major matter of concern has made you a Christian. Perhaps no major matter of concern has made you a Christian. Perhaps no major matter of concern has made you a Christian. There is more misconception surrounding it than this issue, What constitutes a man a Christian?
And just as there are few issues concerning which there is greater confusion, there are few portions of the word of God which speak to that issue with greater clarity than does Ephesians 2, 1 to 10. What does it mean to be a Christian in the fullest, most biblical sense than does it mean to be a Christian in the fullest, most biblical sense than does it mean to be a Christian in the fullest, most biblical sense of that word? Ephesians 2, 1 to 10 is one of the most clear, comprehensive statements of the answer of Holy Scripture. The Apostle Paul is concerned that the believers be established in sound doctrine as he intimates in chapter 4.
In fact, he says the end for which apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers have been given to the church is that the people of God may no longer be tossed to and fro is that the people of God may no longer be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. And what doctrine is more fundamental to the stability of the people of God than the doctrine of salvation? What does it mean to be saved? For that's the biblical word that is used here.
Twice we have it, by grace ye have been saved. This is a portion which tells us what it means to be saved. And the Apostle lays out this great doctrine by means of this striking contrast. Verses 1 to 3 have been...
The Before Picture: Man by Nature Dead, Bound, and Under Wrath
A delineation of the condition of men by nature. And all of us, without exception, are dead because of trespasses and sins. We are in a state of spiritual bondage. The Apostle uses the words, doing the things willed by the flesh and by the mind.
We are in bondage to Satan. We walk according to the prince of the powers of the air. And so he describes us as spiritually dead. No spark of divine life in us.
Spiritually bound. And he closes with that somber note that we exist under a canopy of divine disfavor. We are by nature children of wrath. And until we come to some appreciation of what man is by nature, we will not appreciate what it means, for example, to be saved.
For him to become a child of God by grace. And most of the misconceptions with relationship to that question, what is a Christian, are rooted in misconceptions of a previous question, namely, what is a sinner? And until we understand the Bible's answer to the former question, what is a sinner, we will never understand its answer to the latter question, what is a Christian? And so the Apostle, who cannot establish the Ephesians in the Bible doctrine of salvation, unless he first of all establishes them in the Bible doctrine of sin.
And therefore he begins with this before picture. Ye were dead. Ye were in bondage. Ye were under wrath.
Review: Who Is the Author? Why Did He Act?
And then and only then does he open up in verses 4 to 10 this amazing description of what a man or woman is who is touched by the grace of God. Thus far in our study of the after picture, verses 4 to 10, we have seen but two things. Who is the author of this great transformation? And the Apostle at the outset points our attention to God and to God alone.
But God. And whatever transformation occurs, it must be viewed as a manifestation of the mighty direct, direct influence of the living God. The second question to which he addresses himself is this. Why did God effect this transformation?
In other words, what motives moved him to intervene on behalf of sinners? And as we saw in our study last week, the two words that confront us are mercy and love. But not naked mercy or naked love. It is rich mercy and it is great love.
And so two questions have been asked and answered as we think our way through the passage. Who is the author of this transformation? God. Why does he effect the transformation?
Because of his great mercy or his great love and his rich mercy. Now we come to a third question that is answered in the passage. And that question is this. What is the method God uses in bringing about this transformation?
God is the author, but God. His motive, mercy and love. Rich in mercy on account of his great love wherewith he loved us. But what is the method that he uses in making this transformation?
How does he work in transforming dead sinners into living saints? Having asked and answered the question, who makes, who makes the change? Why did he do it? We are now in the orbit of this concern.
How does God make this change? And before we descend to the particulars and that will bring us into the concern that Mr. Rogers will touch on tonight, the doctrine of union with Christ which is obviously set before us in verses 5 and following, made us alive together with Christ, raised us up with Christ, seated us with Christ, created us anew in Christ, and we'll enter into some of the most profound concepts to be found anywhere in the Word of God. But before we begin a detailed exposition of these things that the Apostle teaches us, what I want us to do is to stand, as it were, back at a distance and go through the passage and catch the major strands of emphasis in answer to the question, how does God transform dead sinners into living saints? In other words, we're going to look at the woods before we examine the individual trees so that we won't fail to see the woods once we get amidst the trees, for you've heard the proverbial statement, he couldn't see the woods for the trees. Well, we don't want that to happen to us. And there are three lines of thought that I suggest to you this morning because three of them are the same.
First Strand: Jesus Christ Is Central in the Transformation
They're the same. They're the same. They're the same. They're the same.
They're the same. They're the same. They're the same. They are forced upon us by the passage and the first is this.
In answer to the question, how does God transform dead sinners into living saints, the first thing that strikes us in this passage is this. Jesus Christ is central in that work of transformation. Jesus Christ is central in the work of transformation. In the first three verses, there is no mention of Christ.
It is a picture of what we are when we are without Christ and without God. Verse 4 introduces us to the divine activity, but God. Divine activity rooted in His mercy and His love, but then from verse 5 to the end of the paragraph, verse 10, there are no fewer than four explicit references to Jesus Christ. Look at them.
Verse 5. Even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Verse 6. Made us sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Verse 7. The riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Verse 10. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus.
There is one reference to Christ, three references to Christ Jesus. What is He telling us? He is telling us and the Ephesians, or the Ephesians and us, that whenever we think of the after picture, when we move from the before of verses 1 to 3 to the after of verses 4 to 10, when we consider the question how we are dead sinners, bound sinners, condemned sinners, made living saints, liberated saints, forgiving saints, we are not thinking biblically unless Jesus Christ is central in all of our conceptions concerning that work of transformation. It is not the church which is central in the transformation. Most frequently, the church has a part for the gospel is spread by means of the church in its evangelistic and missionary enterprises. But the church is not to be central in the transforming work.
Nor are the sacraments central. Some can never think of the transformation of grace apart from having baptism and the Lord's Supper central.
Others would have the sinner's activity. His activity in decision. His activity in commitment or some other term which describes human activity. Others would have the minister's activity central.
Now, dear people, none of these things is central. As the apostle contemplates the transformation that occurred in the Ephesians, as he conjures in his own mind the before and the after pictures, he thinks, he thinks of that transformation as focusing in the person and work of Jesus Christ, our Lord. But notice, it is not just Jesus nor just Christ, but the apostle is careful to focus our attention upon Jesus who is the Christ as the central figure in the work of transformation. That title is full of significance for the apostle Paul and it must be full of significance for us if our faith is biblical Christian faith. When Paul says Jesus, what does he mean? He means nothing less than that historic personage who confronts us in the pages of the New Testament. He means nothing less or no one other than the Jesus who was supernaturally conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary at which time the name Jesus was conferred upon him.
Matthew 1.21 The Virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He is thinking of no other person than the Jesus of Nazareth who in true humanity manifested himself as a man amongst men but who claimed to be equal with God. Who claimed that those who had seen him had seen the Father.
Who claimed that no one could know the Father save the Son. No one could know the Son save the Father. Who made explicit claims to his own deity. Who made explicit claims to the fact that all that he did and said was in fulfillment of the Father's will and purpose which had its roots in eternity.
When Paul says central to this transformation is the fact that is Jesus Christ he is identifying that figure as Jesus of Nazareth in the reality of his essential deity in the reality of his true humanity in all that the gospel records tell us about him in the miracles he performed in the death that he died in the resurrection that was his and in his ascension to the right hand of God the Father. Oh you say you are reading an awful lot into the passage but you are not. No I am not. For all you need do is turn to passages such as Colossians 1 1 Corinthians chapter 15 Philippians chapter 2 and in these passages the apostle Paul insists upon every aspect that I have enunciated for you this morning and whenever the apostle said Jesus that is what he was thinking nothing less than that. Central then in this transformation is the activity of Jesus of Nazareth the true the only the unique God-man the historic figure who is presented in the gospels. But he does not call him simply Jesus. He does not initiate some kind of a Jesus cult.
He says he is the Christ. He uses the term Christ once and Jesus Christ three times. Now again the term Christ for the apostle was not a barren verbal symbol simply another name such as we may have a first name a middle name and a last name and it is just a help to identify us there may be a lot of people with our last name quite a few with our first so if we stick in a middle name that narrows the mathematical chances that we will get mixed up with someone else. Well when Paul said Jesus Christ he was not adding Christ simply as sort of verbal filler.
No, no. To him the term Christ was pregnant with rich connotations. Christ as you've been often have been told from this pulpit is the Greek word for the Old Testament Hebrew word Messiah. The anointed one of God.
That one who fulfilled every Old Testament prophecy as to his identity. Unto us a son is given. Unto us a child is born and his name should be called a wonderful counselor. Mighty God.
Everlasting Father or Father of Eternity. The one prophesied in Micah 5 too whose goings forth had been from of old even from everlasting. The one who would gather into himself all that was typified in the priestly functions of the Old Testament. He would be God's anointed and final priest to offer an acceptable sacrifice on behalf of his people and to intercede on their behalf.
The one in whom all the types and shadows of the kingly rule of Israel would find its full expression. This king who would sit upon David's throne. This one anointed by the Father. This one who would fulfill all that was signified in the prophetic ministry.
The prophet that Moses spoke about whom the Lord would raise up like unto him the word Christ brings into it. And this is not stretching it beating it thin at the edges. You do not understand the word unless you learn to think self-consciously. Christ means nothing less than the anointed one.
The anointed prophet who is God's final word to man. Hebrews 1. The anointed priest who is God's final priest. The book of Hebrews.
The anointed king all throughout the teaching in the book of Acts. That God has exalted him and the sure mercies of David are fulfilled in him. The word Christ then brings together all of the richness of the messianic concepts of the Old Testament fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. And the apostle says you Ephesians when you think of the transformation from your state of death when you think of the transformation from your condition of bondage when you think of the transformation when you think of your transformation from a position of wrath you must think as the answer to the question comes before you how did God bring about the transformation? It centers in this personage Jesus who is the Christ. By application let me say to you my dear people don't be deceived. There are life changing experiences to be had outside the orbit of biblical Christianity.
Application of First Strand: False Life-Changes and the Acid Test
And they may or may not have the name of Jesus in them. There are young men whose lives have been utterly transformed simply because they fell in love.
Here's a young man shipless, irresponsible never holds a job for longer than three weeks makes enough money to just go off on his next pleasure trip totally irresponsible shipless. What happens? His affections are set upon a young woman whether it's just the motion of his hormones or something more than that will not go into what so-called falling in love is but nonetheless it happens to him whatever we want to call it. And he begins to show an interest and talk about marriage and she says not on your life I'm not going to be married to some lazy good-for-nothing guy that can't hold down a job you want me you get a job and hold it you know what happens?
He gets a job and he does hold it. His whole lifestyle is radicalized historically transformed from a purposeless, shipless irresponsible young kid almost overnight he becomes a responsible purposeful young man he's had a life-transforming experience but it had nothing to do with Jesus Christ.
Many a young man has been transformed because he fell in love. That's right. Other people have been transformed because they saw something that deeply moved them. Albert Schweitzer for instance from a man who could have made millions in the fields of music and philosophy or thousands anyway he turned his back upon that why?
Because he saw human need and responded to it and had nothing to do with Jesus Christ of Holy Scripture. He wrote a book in quest for the historical Jesus. He didn't know who he was. Nothing to do with what Paul is saying but it transformed his life.
Transformed. There are people that are transformed when they get hold of a religious idea. I've met people who've never been the same since they came in contact with Christian society. Mary Baker Eddy's thoughts and writings.
Transformed. I mean it's transformed them. They've had a thorough conversion.
It's had nothing to do with biblical Christianity. Now follow. Listen carefully.
There can even be something of the name of Jesus. Something of the name of Christ. Something of the Bible.
And apparently a transformation of life that may be as far removed from what Paul is talking about in Ephesians chapter 2 as night and day. Listen. Here's the acid test to which you put your own so-called experience of transformation. This is the acid test that you apply to all teaching and preaching that says it is setting forth the provisions of God for the transformation of dead sinners into living saints.
Here is the acid test. What place does Jesus Christ have in it all?
Not just the name Jesus. Not just some abstract concept but Jesus the Christ as we've defined Him this morning.
That unique personage who is God and man. Jesus of Nazareth who lived in history, died in history, was buried in history, rose in history, ascended to the right hand of the Father in history, was seated at the Father's right hand and rules in history now. That Jesus. That Jesus who is the Christ.
The anointed prophet, priest, and king whose word is law, whose word is final, whose sacrifice is complete, whose intercession is all-prevailing, whose kingship is all-embracing. That's the question you ask. What place is given to Jesus Christ?
For when the apostle says as he does in verse 5, even when we were dead, made us alive together with Christ by grace, ye have been saved. He is paralleling salvation by grace and salvation by Christ. Now dear people, apply that to some of the most popular religious leaders of our day and what do you come up with?
I had in my notes before I had in my hands the sheet of paper I now have to speak just a moment about Reverend Sun Myung Moon who is being pushed upon us from every corner, television, radio, paper, and his radio newspaper and his followers come to our door identifying themselves as part of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. Ain't that a mouthful? It has nothing to do with the Holy Ghost. It has nothing to do with Christianity.
What place is given to Jesus Christ? And from the excerpt of one of his speeches you read through and the name of God is mentioned time after time. The name of Jesus is not found. The name of Christ is not found once.
The name of Christ is not found once. And God is only mentioned as a means to the end to attract you to this man who says in essence I am the hope of America and the hope of the world. And God is only brought into the issue as a springboard to bring people to his own feet.
Herbert W. Armstrong, The World Tomorrow. Listen to that word-making machine for a half an hour and if you're listening for anything of the fragrance of the name of Christ, you'll listen in. What is central?
His authoritative interpretation of contemporary problems which is all bait to get you to buy the literature that will hook you into their particular deflection from historic Christianity. Dear people, apply it to much that is called biblical Christianity in evangelicalism today. Jesus Christ is peripheral. Only peripheral.
Oh, I say to you who sit here, who are this morning dead in your trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience under a canopy of divine wrath. What is our message? Our message is not one that calls upon you to reach in within yourself to get hold of something that Jesus Christ may come along and assist you as you employ it. No, no.
Our message is Jesus, the Christ, his your only hope. Look to him who in the plentitude of his power and in his measureless grace receives the vilest of sinners and is able to cleanse and liberate them and make them his own. And dear child of God, if you come from verses 1 to 3 and to verses 4 to 10, know and understand and remind yourself again and again that Jesus Christ is central in the transformation that has been wrought in your heart and life. And if he is central, then feed upon him, then love him, then serve him, then pray that you may walk and live to his praise. But now there's a second thing in the passage before us. Not only is Jesus Christ central in the transformation, but secondly, the biblical concept of grace is dominant in the transformation. Look at the references to grace.
Second Strand: Grace Is Dominant in the Transformation
Verse 5. Even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, and before he can even go on to complete his thought,
he says, I've got to get in a plug for free grace. And he puts in a little parenthesis, for by grace have you been saved. And then he goes on to say, and we've been raised up with him and seated with him. You see, it's a break in the flow of thought.
But no sooner does the apostle's mind focus, zero in, lock in upon the concept that dead sinners have been quickened by divine power in union with Christ, than he must sound the note of free grace. For by grace have he been saved. Then he goes on to say that God's purpose, as we shall see in a subsequent exposition, is, verse 7, that in the ages to come, God himself may display what? The exceeding riches of his grace.
When dead sinners get quickened, Paul says, it's grace that did it. When we ask, what was the ultimate intention, he says that grace may be displayed. And if we've been half asleep and have missed it, he comes back with a big red pencil in verse 8, and he underlines it again. Look.
For by grace have ye been saved. Saved. So you see, as the apostle contemplates the transformation and asks the question, how does God effect this change? Not only does he instruct us to the end that Jesus Christ is central, but that the biblical concept of grace is dominant in the transformation.
Now, what is at the heart of the biblical notion of grace? Well, it is kindness to the undeserving. It is blessing upon the non-qualified. And the whole thrust of the biblical notion of grace is simply this.
It points away from the recipient to the giver as to why the blessing should be conferred. That's why grace is always set in opposition to merit and to works. Romans 4 is, if it is of works, Paul says, it's no more of grace. Why?
Because if what God gives, is conditioned by what man does, then the reason for the gift is in the man. The focus is on the man. And whenever the focus is on the man, the recipient, it cannot be upon grace, the giver. So he says, if it's of works, then it's a matter of debt.
God just gives the man what he's worked for. And it's no more of grace. You cannot think grace parallel to, equal to, standing alongside of anything that the sinner can provide. That's why the Apostle Paul described him as dead.
If dead people get life, they didn't cooperate. If sick people get well, they may have cooperated in the process of healing. They may have soaked their foot. They may have taken their medicine.
But no amount of soaking the foot of a dead man or giving medicine will bring life. That's why he says, you must think of grace. You must put the attention upon the donor, not upon the recipient. Grace is always contrasted with works.
Grace is always contrasted with human works, human merit, human performance. Therefore, as the Apostle would instruct the Ephesians and us concerning this great work of transformation, he says, in essence, oh, listen, people. Don't think of grace as auxiliary. Don't think of grace as something that is peripheral.
As surely as you think of the transformation with Jesus, Jesus Christ, central, think of the concept of grace as predominant in the whole work of transformation. And my dear people, listen. If you think of faith in any other light, you don't understand faith in the whole economy of salvation. When Paul introduces human faith in verse 8, he doesn't introduce it to cancel the concept of grace.
Grace is blessing to the undeserving. Whatever then place faith has in this matter of being saved, I must not think of my faith as something I present to God that triggers the whole process. No, I must think of it as something that flows from God in the process of saving me. And there's all the difference in the world.
I must not think of faith as something I put into it to trigger it. It's something that flows out of it and is a part of salvation by grace and by grace alone. Now, by asking, by application, you see, we have another very incisive means of assessing the reality of any professed transformation. And that which is wholly unique in the pure Christian message is right here.
It is the only, quote, religion that operates on the basis of pure grace. All religions have their holy books, their holy men, their holy exercises, their holy rituals. And if I may say so without being irreverent, in that sense, Christianity parallels some of the world's religions.
Holy books, its holy men, its holy rituals. But there is no religion under heaven that says the acceptance of the sinner with the deity rests solely upon the grace of the deity. In all the religions of the world, it is the creature who by his performance and attainments in one way or another brings himself into the favor of the deity. Whereas the pervasive emphasis of the word of God is that it is the offended God himself who removes every obstacle in his own character and then in the sinner to bring the sinner into his favor purely by grace. Undeserved mercy. Mercy and kindness to the ill-deserving. And once again I say when you hear anyone preaching, what is supposed to be Christian truth, ask yourself the question, what place does grace have in it all?
Is grace merely mentioned as a cover-up for a subtle system of human works? Or is grace the dominant note? And I say to dead, bound, guilty sinners this morning, your hope is to be found in the fact that God is a gracious God. Gracious that he yet causes you to breathe his air while you defy his laws by your impenitence.
Grace that gives you life while you trample underfoot the blood of his own dear son and resist the overtures of mercy. Oh, my friend, if you are ever to be saved, it will be by grace and grace alone. The song that God will put into the heart of every person who comes from verses 1 to 3 into verses 4 to 10 is the song of grace. The song of grace.
The song of grace. John Newton, amazing. Grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. It was grace that taught my heart to fear. Grace, my fears relieved.
His grace has brought me safe thus far. Grace will lead me home. That's the thing God will put in your heart. A debtor to mercy alone, a stone of covenant mercy I sing.
That's the song God puts within the heart. Our being chosen in Christ is called an election of grace. Our calling is called a calling of grace. Our keeping is the keeping of grace.
And our glorification will be a manifestation of grace. My friend, what place does grace have as you profess to be transformed by the gospel and by God? Is grace dominant?
Is grace dominant?
Third Strand: The Transformation Is Experimentally Real, Radical, and Pervasive
Let that be the basis upon which you assess the peddler of religious thoughts who comes to your door as you ask him that question. If you want to untrack him from his pre, his packaged little spiel, you just interrupt him and say, Sir, ma'am, I'd like to ask you one simple question. In all that you want to tell me and teach me, what place does the grace of God have? The poor fellow gets so derailed he won't be able to say, he won't be able to find where the tracks are.
Grace? What's grace? The poor Jehovah's Witness whose conscience is bound to feel that if somehow he's going to escape Armageddon, he's got to put in his 20 hours a week peddling his trashy heresy. He knows nothing of grace.
Pity him and seek by God's grace to show him the glories of sovereign mercy. But then, there is a third strand of emphasis in the passage as we just look at the woods. This morning, trying to catch the overall thrust before we descend to the particulars, and it is this. Not only is this transformation, the method of it, to be found centered in Christ, to be found in the mentality of the predominance of grace, but thirdly, it's to be understood in the context of the experimental reality, and I'll explain what I mean by that, and radical nature of the transformation.
The experimental reality and the radicalness and the radical nature of the transformation is pervasive. In verses 1 to 3, when Paul described the Ephesians in a state of sin, he said that this condition was experimental. That is, it was real. It wasn't something that was theoretical in the record books of heaven.
He says you were dead, and by that he meant there was no living response to the living God. When he said that they walked according to the law, according to the course of this world, he's talking about their real life, lived in the real world of real activities on real Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday activities. When he says that you were fulfilling the lust of the flesh and of the mind, he's talking about real lust in their real minds and in their real flesh. In other words, the bondage to sin which all men have by nature is experimental, and it is pervasive.
It pervades the whole of their being. Now the apostle says when God is going to put us in the after picture, when he's going to take us from the before to the after, there will be an experimental reality and a radical nature in the transformation that pervades the whole man, the whole woman. Look at it. Were you dead?
Was that your real condition? Now he says in verse 5, he has made us alive. What can be more radical than the difference between life and death? You were dead with a true death.
You've been made alive with a true life. You were enslaved. Look at verse 2. Ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air.
He pictures them as those who were in a state of serfdom, a state of slavery and of bondage. Now he says, you've not only been made alive, but you've been raised up with him and made to sit with him. Well, where does he sit? In a place of enthronement and regal power.
He says, from slaves and serfs you've become kings. From death to life, from serfdom to a royal throne, he says, you were doomed. By nature, children of wrath, now he says, you're the objects of divine love. Verse 4, for his great love wherewith he loved us before you were monuments of Satan's power.
Your walk, your talk, your whole lifestyle was a manifestation of satanic bondage. Now he says in verse 10, we are his workmanship. We are monuments of the power of God when he works in grace by means of the salvation of his own dear son. Do you see what he's saying?
He's saying we must never think of the transformation of grace as a surface transformation. We must never think of it in terms of a mere juggling of the legal records of heaven.
He is telling us that the transformation is an experimental reality. It's something that occurs in us. And it is a radical transformation. Death to life, bondage to freedom, and all of the contrasts that I've enunciated in the passage.
And then he's telling us that the transformation is radical and pervasive, so much so, that he calls it a new creation. We are his workmanship created. God has made something new created in Christ Jesus. What can we conclude from that?
Well, simply this, that the work of God in saving men is no surface issue. It is not merely changing a man's ultimate destiny and here and now redirecting a few of the grosser forms of his sinful patterns. And sad to say, that's the average concept of the transformation of grace. When you trust in Jesus, God blots out your sins so you won't go to hell when you die.
And then he'll clean up some of the grosser forms of outward sin here and now and help you to do a few things that Christians are supposed to do. And even if you spend the rest of your days as a carnal Christian, you'll still make it in the end. That's no caricature, dear people. That's all.
That's all that's expected. That won't fit this passage.
When dead sinners are made alive, they begin to manifest the life with which they've been made alive. And if the characteristic of their death was no communion with God, no desire to be conformed to the image of God, fulfill the purpose for which they were created by God, what's the mark of the life that they have in Christ? They now live to God, in communion with God, with desire to fulfill the very purpose for which God put them. If the mark of their lives before was one of bondage to the devil and to the world and to lust, what will be the mark of their reigning with Christ?
It will be in some measure the putting of their lust beneath their feet and the manifestation of the liberty wherewith Christ has made them free. You see, the transformation is experimentally real, it's radical, and it is pervasive. It extends to the whole man. As we address ourselves this morning to this third question, having seen who makes the change of God, why, because of mercy and love, how?
The answer of the apostle is he makes that change in such a way that Jesus Christ is central to the transformation, in such a way that the biblical notion of grace is predominant in the transformation, and in such a way that the change effected is the transformation of the relationship of the human self and the relationship with God that makes us real, and this is fundamental through our action and the ticket to salvation. And that is this. That's the first step in our transformation and the transformation of us. Let me ask you this morning, have I been describing what's happened to you from a dead, bound, condemned sinner?
Conclusion: Three Probing Questions and a Look Forward
Has God, by the Spirit and the Word, confronted you with his own dear Son? Has Jesus, the Christ of Holy Scripture, by the ministry of the Spirit, been revealed to your heart and in embracing you and in embracing you in your heart, facing him as he is revealed, have you found him to be your emancipator, your liberator, the one who has brought you life from death, liberty out of your bondage? Oh, my dear friend, don't be content with a so-called Christian experience to which Jesus Christ is merely peripheral and the sacraments or the church or your own activity are central. So, if he is not central, you have reason to question if it's true Christian experience. Constantly evaluate all ministries by that touchstone, not just the mouthing of the name of Jesus now, but by the setting forth of the biblical concept of who he is and what he's done, the perfection of his work, the glory of his person.
When you put that to the test of the so-called prophets of our day, they come up one day. And that's why, that's why we refuse to conduct evangelistic campaigns with big-name preachers and have the faces of preachers placarded around the town. Our concern is not to confront men with the face and name of preachers, but to set before them our glorious rock.
That's how sinners will be transformed.
Let me ask you the second question. What place does grace have in all your notions of Christianity? Do you sit this morning self-consciously basking in the wondrousness and wonder if God did not give you justice, but he's conferred grace upon you? Is it that sense of holy bafflement?
Oh, God, that I should not be any longer under wrath, that I should no longer be in bondage, that I should be alive. Lord, think of it this morning when the pastor led us in prayer. My heart actually went out as he led us in prayer. And when we sang those psalms and hymns, Lord, there was life within responding to you.
Amazing grace that I, who once was so dead, that prayers were mere noise in my ears. Psalms and hymns were drudgery upon my lips. These things are real. They're my delight.
Is that you? And it's all because of grace.
What place does grace have in your so-called experience? And my third question is, is your experience sixteen ounces to the pound biblical? Has it been radical? Experimental?
Pervasive? Is there any reason to call you a new creature? Not just a few new activities tacked on to the old thing, but new from the inside out. A new wellspring of hope and desire and longing.
What the Bible calls a new heart, Ezekiel 36. A new creation, 2 Corinthians 5. Oh, dear people, as we work through this passage, never forget, Paul led the Ephesians to understand that the only reason they now fit this description is because of these three things that we've laid before you. God willing, in our next study, we shall see that the virtue and the saving merit of Christ is conveyed to us in a very special way by union with Him.
We'll see that grace operates within a very distinct orbit and will flesh out, as it were, the details of these three great concepts. But may the Lord write the larger principles upon our hearts that as we come to the detailed exposition we may see something of the richness of that which is ours in Christ Jesus. And, O sinner, be you boy, girl, man or woman, friend, visitor or someone who attends this place with regularity, this is our only message. And God giving us strength, we shall never change it.
That your only hope is Christ. Your only hope is grace. And when Christ operates in grace, you'll know it because you'll be a new man in Him. Let us pray.
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
The governing text for the entire sermon, providing both the before-and-after framework for understanding what constitutes a Christian and the three methodological strands Martin expounds: Christ-centrality, grace-dominance, and experimental-radical transformation.
Texts Expounded
Also Referenced
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