Reflections on Ephesians 2

Ephesians 02 (Contemporary English Version)


1. In the past you were dead because you sinned and fought against God.
2. You followed the ways of this world and obeyed the devil. He rules the world, and his spirit has power over everyone who doesn't obey God.
3. Once we were also ruled by the selfish desires of our bodies and minds. We had made God angry, and we were going to be punished like everyone else.
4. But God was merciful! We were dead because of our sins, but God loved us so much that he made us alive with Christ, and God's wonderful kindness is what saves you.
5. (SEE 2:4)
6. God raised us from death to life with Christ Jesus, and he has given us a place beside Christ in heaven.
7. God did this so that in the future world he could show how truly good and kind he is to us because of what Christ Jesus has done.
8. You were saved by faith in God, who treats us much better than we deserve. This is God's gift to you, and not anything you have done on your own.
9. It isn't something you have earned, so there is nothing you can brag about.
10. God planned for us to do good things and to live as he has always wanted us to live. That's why he sent Christ to make us what we are.
11. Don't forget that you are Gentiles. In fact, you used to be called "uncircumcised" by those who take pride in being circumcised.
12. At that time you did not know about Christ. You were foreigners to the people of Israel, and you had no part in the promises that God had made to them. You were living in this world without hope and without God,
13. and you were far from God. But Christ offered his life's blood as a sacrifice and brought you near God.
14. Christ has made peace between Jews and Gentiles, and he has united us by breaking down the wall of hatred that separated us. Christ gave his own body
15. to destroy the Law of Moses with all its rules and commands. He even brought Jews and Gentiles together as though we were only one person, when he united us in peace.
16. On the cross Christ did away with our hatred for each other. He also made peace between us and God by uniting Jews and Gentiles in one body.
17. Christ came and preached peace to you Gentiles, who were far from God, and peace to us Jews, who were near God.
18. And because of Christ, all of us can come to the Father by the same Spirit.
19. You Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens with everyone else who belongs to the family of God.
20. You are like a building with the apostles and prophets as the foundation and with Christ as the most important stone.
21. Christ is the one who holds the building together and makes it grow into a holy temple for the Lord.
22. And you are part of that building Christ has built as a place for God's own Spirit to live.
    
    

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    The theme of chapter 2 is the reconciliation of mankind to God and Gentile to Jew through Christ Jesus. Paul is addressing Gentile believers who are called "the uncircumcised" by the Jews. Though there was a great separation between Jews and Gentiles, which Paul refers to as a "dividing wall of hostility," (2:14) both Jew and Gentile had one thing in common: they were "dead in your trespasses and sins." (2:1) In this state they "walked according to this worldly age, according to the ruler of the atmospheric domain, the spirit now working in the disobedient." (2:2) But in Christ Jesus, both peoples - Jew and Gentile - were freed from this lifestyle in which they were contolled by "the ruler of the atmospheric domain," or Satan, and made one people - God's people. So, while they were once dead in trespasses and sins, they had been "made ...  alive with the Messiah." (2:5)
    
    This salvation from being dead in sin to being alive with the Messiah is possible by God's grace: "For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift-- not from works, so that no one can boast." (2:8-9) In this new state of being alive with the Messiah we are a new creation - God's creation - "created in Christ Jesus." Furthermore, the purpose of being created in Christ is "for good works." (2:10) Thus, we are not saved through our own good works, but our salvation, which is made possible through Christ's work on the cross, produces good works. And these good works were prepared by God "ahead of time so that we should walk in them." It should be noted that God has prepared these good works for us to walk in, not work in. He does the work. It is not that we do work for God but that He performs His work in and through us.
    
    So, in Christ Jesus, both Jew and Gentile are made "one new man from the two." (2:15) The result is peace between the two, reconciliation with God, and the two are made into one body, the church. This body, the church, is "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone." So now, the two people belong to the same body, and both have a common heritage.