Can anyone be more helpless than a dead man? He can’t run away from danger. He can’t call out for help. He can’t even want to be helped. And once people are dead, there’s nothing their friends or family can do for them, either. Once the life has been removed from a body, it’s all over.

That’s exactly the spiritual condition in which Paul says everyone starts out. According to Ephesians chapter 2, we are not basically good people who just need a little cleaning up around the edges. We are not able to save ourselves by following some legalistic regimen. We don’t just need to change our culture so that we won’t be tempted to sin anymore. Sin has separated us from God, the only source of life. We may be physically alive, but we were all spiritually stillborn.

Moreover, as Paul says in verse 3, those who are separated from God tend to like it that way. They live according to the flesh – doing what feels good and what makes sense to them, without any reference to God or to His will. So, even if they could change, they don’t want to – in spite of the fact that their continued rebellion against God puts them in terrible danger.

But as Jesus says, what is impossible with us is possible for God (Mark 10:27). And that’s the good news that Paul brings us in this passage – that salvation is all of God. When we couldn’t do anything for ourselves, God saved all who trust in Him simply by His grace (v. 8). And why has God forgiven and freed such helpless, hopeless, rebellious sinners? Verse 4 tells us: because He has taken mercy on us. It was because God loves us that Jesus died on the cross for our sins (Romans 5:8).

But He didn’t stay in that tomb. On the third day, Jesus was raised from the dead, and Paul says in verse 5 that all who trust in Him are given new life in the same way. And it is because we have this new life that we are now able to respond to God’s love and grace with faith. So, as verse 9 says, instead of boasting that we have chosen Christ, we instead should give God all the credit for saving us.

But there’s one more way we should all respond to God’s gracious gift: by doing all such good works as He has prepared for us to do (2:10). Because God has given us new life, we should give that life back to Him, devoting all we are and all we have to His glory and to the good of others. And given what He has done for us, doesn’t He deserve that?

Ephesians 2:1-10 (NASB)

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.