The Apostle Paul wrote the letter of Ephesians to Gentile Christians in the church at Ephesus to remind them of the new life they have in Christ and the hope they have in Him. Paul planted this church during his third missionary journey and spent three years there,[1] so it’s safe to say he cared deeply for them. He wrote the letter from Rome, hundreds of miles away, while in prison for spreading the Gospel.[2]
Paul wrote this letter to strengthen the faith of the Ephesians and to remind them that their salvation is dependent on faith, not works. “The Christian community was strong but faced many external challenges because of the prominence of pagan practices.”[3] Paul reminded them that the Gentile (non-Jewish) believers were included with the Jews in salvation; the whole community of faith included both Jews and Gentiles.
Grace Transforms
Read Ephesians 2:1-10.
Paul begins with reminding the Ephesians that prior to Christ, they were dead in sin and that they had new life in Christ. Let’s take a closer look and read verses 1-2 and 4-5. Paul knew this well because he had experienced it himself. Prior to his conversion, Paul was a Jewish Pharisee whose name was Saul. He led the persecution against Christians and even gave approval to the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr.
God transformed Saul from his life of sin into the Apostle Paul, who went on to become one of the most prominent Christian leaders of all time. Paul’s conversion illustrates that “Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are free from sin and are united with him. We can rest securely, knowing that, through Jesus, God has adopted us into his family.”[4] If Christ can transform Paul’s life, imagine what he can do with yours.
Even though we were once dead in our sins, we are now made alive through Christ by grace through faith. It’s important to define the word “grace”: “God’s ability working in man, making him able to do what he cannot do in his own ability.”[5] Grace is a pivotal concept in Christianity and a key function of Paul’s letters: nearly two-thirds of all uses of the Greek word for grace are found in Paul’s letters.[6]
Grace Distinguishes
C.S. Lewis attended a British conference on comparative religions with experts from around the world. They were debating what belief was unique to Christianity. Lewis entered the room, asked what they were debating, and they told him they were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among the world’s religions. He responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”[7] Grace is the theological concept that distinguishes Christianity from all other world religions.
God is the one who does the work by his grace according to our faith. Let’s look at Romans 3:22-25. Here Paul explains that all have sinned, but all are also justified by grace through faith.
Later in Romans 4:13-16, Paul reminds us of the grace God showed to Abraham back in Genesis.
Let’s break this down. God promised Abraham he would be the father of many nations and his descendants would be so numerous they couldn’t be counted. God made this promise to Abraham before he gave Moses the law. Abraham was a righteous man, had great faith, and was shown grace even before there was a law to follow. Later, God gave the Israelites the law so they would know what sin was and so they would know how to obey God. “Salvation must depend on grace and not on works, for if salvation comes by grace then it depends on God and is therefore certain.”[8]
Stand in Grace
Paul also explains in Romans 5:1-2. Through Christ, not only do we have access to grace by faith, but we stand in grace! What does it mean to stand in grace? It means that we have sure footing and an anchor from God to withstand opposition.
To illustrate this, I want to share a story about Corrie Ten Boom. Arrested by the Nazis along with the rest of her family for hiding Jews in their home during the Holocaust, she was imprisoned and eventually sent to a concentration camp along with her beloved sister, Betsie, who died there just days before Corrie’s release on December 31, 1944. Corrie went on to travel as a missionary, preaching God’s forgiveness and the need for reconciliation. Her moral principles were tested when, by chance, she came face to face with one of her former prison guards in 1947. This is an excerpt from her autobiography:[9]
It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavy-set man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives…And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin…
Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at the Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent… “You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,” he was saying. “I was a guard in there.” No, he did not remember me. “But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well” …his hand came out… “will you forgive me?”
And I stood there – I whose sins had every day to be forgiven – and could not. Betsie had died in that place – could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking? It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do. For I had to do it – I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus says, “neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses…”
And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion – I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. “Jesus, help me!” I prayed silently. “I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”
And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. “I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!” For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then. Corrie and the prisoner both stood in grace that day.
Saved by Grace
We are saved by grace through faith, not works. We cannot earn our salvation, but God grants it to us when we have faith in Christ. Let’s take another look at Ephesians 2:4-5. In these two verses Paul explains that it is only because of God that we are brought from death in sin to life in Christ. He says that it is because of God, who is rich in mercy and has great love for us, that he makes us alive in Christ.
This is the Gospel! We are dead in our sin, but we have hope in Christ and we are saved by His grace through faith. I like how Paul says it in Romans 5:6. “At just the right time…” God is always on time. He never shows up too early or too late. His timing is perfect. Paul also says in Ephesians 1:7-8. We are redeemed and forgiven according to God’s grace. Our redemption and forgiveness are not dependent on anything we can do for ourselves. We are completely dependent on God and his grace.
Now look at what Paul says in Ephesians 4:7 and in 2 Corinthians 12:9. Christ “apportioned” grace. “Apportion” means “to divide and share out according to a plan.” Grace is given to us according to plan! Not only is God’s grace given to us according to plan, but Paul also says God told him his grace was sufficient. If God’s grace is sufficient for Paul, the man who led the persecution of Christians, his grace is sufficient for us, too.
Good Works
Now let’s look at Ephesians 2:8-10. We are God’s workmanship. He created us to do good works and to walk in good works. Additionally, look at what Paul says in Colossians 1:10.
There’s a line in the Disney movie Meet the Robinsons that this verse always reminds me of. The teacher, Mr. Willerstein, says, “Let us conduct ourselves in a way that we’ll all be proud of tomorrow.” Too often, I think we forget or neglect, to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.” We get busy, distracted, etc. and don’t stop to think about how we ought to act in a given situation. We allow our sinful human nature to take over instead of taking a moment to stop and think about what we’re doing and how it will either please or displease God, and whether it will harm or benefit those around us.
Perhaps the most important of the good works in which we are to walk is grace. In the Christian band Relient K’s song “Be My Escape,” there’s a line that says, “The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.”[10] Grace essentially means that people don’t get what they deserve. What we deserve because of our sinful nature is an eternity in hell, but God has given us salvation by grace through faith. We are also to extend that grace to others even though we may not think they deserve it.
Showing grace is hard and it takes work on our part because it goes against our sinful nature. Do we always get it right? No, we don’t, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t working on it. This is also why we need God’s grace. Nowhere in Scripture does it say it’s supposed to be easy, but we know that it is worth it. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is the ultimate example of grace and I’m sure that wasn’t easy either, but to him it was worth it.
Extend Grace
What are we to do then? How do we show grace to those around us? We are presented with opportunities all the time. You may have already had an opportunity or two today. If you’re active on social media, I’m sure you have opportunities to show grace every time you log in. In this day and age, we are constantly faced with ideas and opinions that are counter to our Christian faith. We are never short on opportunities to show grace to others.
When faced with a difference of opinion or some sort of difficulty this week, I challenge all of us, myself included, to stop and consider how we might extend grace.
To learn more about grace, please read my post The Means of Grace.
[1] Ted Cabal, ed., The Apologetics Study Bible: Understand Why You Believe (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007), 1761.
[2] Doris Rikkers and Jeannette Taylor, The Wayfinding Bible (Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2013), 1299.
[3] Rikkers and Taylor, 1301.
[4] Rikkers and Taylor, 1299.
[5] Dr. James B. Richards, Grace: The Power to Change (New Kensington: Whitaker House, 1993), 22.
[6] Myers, 437.
[7] Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 45.
[8] James R. Edwards, New International Biblical Commentary: Romans (Peabody; Hendrickson Publishers, 1992), 124.
[9] “The Question of God: Other Voices – Corrie Ten Boom,” PBS, accessed June 23, 2023, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/boom.html#:~:text=%22I%20forgive%20you%2C%20brother!,intensely%20as%20I%20did%20then..
[10] Relient K, “Be My Escape,” written by Matthew Thiessen, November 2, 2004, song, 4:00, MMHMM.
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