Letters from Paul

A taste of the study room coming with Paul — pull open whatever you'd like to sit with.

The reading — Ephesians 2:1-10

¹You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins, ²in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience; ³among 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. ⁴But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, ⁵even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), ⁶and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus; ⁸for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹not of works, that no one would boast. ¹⁰For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.

World English Bible

The words behind the words

When I wrote that you were "dead" in trespasses (Ephesians 2:1), I did not mean sick, or weak, or wandering — I meant dead, as a corpse is dead, able to do nothing to raise itself. Weigh that, and then weigh the two small words that turn everything: "But God" (Ephesians 2:4). And the word "grace" — charis — carries gift, sheer favor given to those who earned the opposite. When I say you are "saved by grace," I mean rescued by a kindness you did nothing to deserve and cannot repay. The "workmanship" of verse ten (Ephesians 2:10) is poiēma — a thing made, a craftsmanship; you are what God has fashioned, not what you have fashioned.

Where else you say this

I take up this same thread wherever I speak of a righteousness not our own. "By grace you have been saved" is only what I labored over with the Romans: "justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:24). I said it of myself: "by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Corinthians 15:10). And I set works and grace against each other plainly, that no one boast: "if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works" (Romans 11:6).

The situation

I wrote this from chains, to believers in Ephesus and the churches near it — many of them Gentiles, once outside the covenants, "having no hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12). They needed to know that they stood on nothing they had brought — not law, not birth, not merit — but on mercy alone, seated already with Christ though they walked in a hostile city. I myself had once been the very picture of a man striving by works; God struck me down and raised me by grace, and I have never gotten over it.

The hard question

If we are saved by grace and not by works, then why the last verse — "created in Christ Jesus for good works" (Ephesians 2:10)? Does the back door let in what the front door shut out? No. Read the order and do not reverse it: works are never the root of salvation; they are its fruit. You do not work to become his workmanship — you are his workmanship, and the good works are the ones "which God prepared beforehand," laid out ahead of you like a path to walk in. Grace does not make you idle; it makes you alive, and the living move.

This is a small window into what a study room with Paul will hold — word by word, letter by letter, and the maps and journeys behind them. Get notified when it opens →

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