Made Alive Together With Christ (Ephesians 2:1–4)

The glorification of the saved together with and in the Accomplisher of salvation is revealed in their spiritual quickening, in their co-resurrection and co-enthronement at the right hand of God in the person of the Lord and Saviour (Eph. 2:1–10). This is at the same time the second manifestation of God’s sovereign might, testifying to the surpassingly abundant greatness of His power in the economy of our salvation. Having begun to speak of this power (Eph. 1:19), the Apostle showed how it was manifested in the person of the Saviour—in His resurrection, His sitting at the right hand of the Father, and His heading up the Church. Now he continues to indicate the same power at work in those being saved: in their spiritual quickening, and thereby in their co-resurrection and co-enthronement at God’s right hand with Christ. These latter things are accomplished by virtue of the former, which have their ultimate goal in them. The manifestation of the surpassingly abundant greatness of power in the person of Christ the Saviour would have been for nothing if the same power had not also passed over to those who believe in Him. Therefore it was necessary that there should follow the quickening, co-resurrection, and co-glorification of those who cleave to Christ through faith. Great is God’s power in the economy of our salvation, the Apostle seems to say, judging by the sovereign might revealed, first, in the Lord Jesus Christ, and second, in those who believe in Him (Eph. 2:1–10). The first is the foundation of the second; the second is the natural fruit and requirement of the first. Both together are a mirror of the ever-increasing majesty of God’s power.

The Apostle’s thoughts here can be expressed briefly as follows: God manifested great power in the Lord—and not only in Him, but in this: that He quickened you also (vv. 1–2) and us (v. 3)—both of us, though we were dead (vv. 4–6). But since it was necessary to explain why we were dead and to characterize the features of our deadness, the Apostle introduces subordinate clauses that round out and fill in the discourse, so that the manifestation of God’s power in our quickening in Christ may be seen more clearly. And so one may rightly see in these verses a depiction of the bitter state of sin and the radiant state of gracious quickening—in the manifestation of the riches of God’s grace and goodness toward us (vv. 7–10).

Eph. 2:1. And you, who were dead in transgressions and your sins.

The particle “and” connects this utterance with what precedes it: “which He wrought in Christ, having raised Him…” Now he continues: and He wrought this also in that He quickened you. “You” depends on “He quickened together” with Christ (Eph. 2:5). Between them stands an explanatory passage depicting the deadness of sin. Blessed Theophylact writes: “He said above that God raised the Lord Jesus Christ and seated Him above all things. Now he says that He also quickened and raised you who were dead—not with bodily death but with the death of the soul—so that by the same power He raised the Lord from bodily death and us from the death of the soul through sin; though to give life to the soul is a greater thing than to raise a dead body.”

By “you” he means the Gentiles, placing them first, since sin raged most freely among them and displayed all its destructive power. Then he joins himself—that is, the Jews—to the same category of those spiritually dead (v. 3). Finally he unites both together: “and having quickened us together who were dead” (v. 5).

“Dead in transgressions and sins…” Although one can point out a distinction between transgressions and sins, this does not yield especially valuable insights and is never free from a degree of arbitrariness. It suffices to know that both sin and transgression—every violation of God’s will, whether expressed in the conscience or depicted in the written Law—produces spiritual death. “The wages of sin is death,” says the same Apostle elsewhere (Rom. 6:23). By this death the Apostle calls dead, first of all, the Gentiles. They were alive in body, alive in soul—they thought, deliberated, and advanced in the arts and in civic and civil order. But they were dead in spirit, dead to God and to the life of pleasing Him. Sins had separated them from God, and they became dead.

Sin, once it becomes master over a man, kills his spirit. As bodily death is the cessation of bodily life, so with the entry of sin into a person the root of the inner life—the life of the spirit, which comes from God—is cut off. In a sinner given over to sin, the sensual inclinations and passions of the soul increasingly gain the upper hand over the higher spiritual demands and suppress them to the point where the light of spiritual life is finally extinguished entirely. At the same time, bodily life also withers through the disruption of the integrity of human life and the severing of its proper relation to the supreme source of being and life. Hence come diseases, sufferings, and early death. Thus sin kills not only spiritually but also bodily—and not one person alone, but often an entire line, once it dedicates itself wholeheartedly to serving sin. (Hence the extinction of lineages.)

All this is the more bitter in that there is no excuse, especially for us today. St. Chrysostom writes: “There is bodily death, and there is spiritual death. To suffer the first is not sinful and not terrible, for it is (now) natural; having appeared as a consequence of the Fall, bodily death subsequently became as it were necessary for our nature—though it too will soon be abolished. But the other death, the death of the soul—since it proceeds from our own will—makes us answerable and admits of no excuse.”

Eph. 2:2. In which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience.

Having pointed to the sinful deadness of the Ephesians in their former state, he now brings forward the producers of this sinfulness—so that, as St. Chrysostom notes, he might not grieve them too deeply by pointing to the dark condition in which they had previously kept themselves of their own will. “Do you notice the gentleness of the Apostle Paul, with what mildness he exhorts his hearers, without frightening them in the least? Having told his hearers that you have reached the utmost extreme of evil (for to be dead is precisely the utmost extreme of evil), lest by this he should grieve them too deeply—for people are generally troubled when their former transgressions are pointed out to them, whether those transgressions be ruinous or not especially dangerous—he now indicates to them a helper who assisted them in reaching such a degree of evil, and a powerful helper; and he does this with the purpose that they should not think that they alone are to blame for everything.”

Or he introduces these evil powers—the producers of sin—in order to show the greatness of the power and the wealth of the goodness of the God who saves them, saying as it were: See in whose hands you were! But God snatched you out of them and brought you into a better life. St. Damascene writes: “You, he says—you Gentiles, held in death on account of sin, in which you lived under the evil devil who ruled over you by means of evil thoughts—God has deemed worthy of mercy and grace, and has transformed your deadness in sin into life through communion with Christ.” To this may be added from Theodoret: “The Apostle spoke thus reminding the Ephesians of God’s benefaction—namely, that He deemed them worthy of salvation when, on account of sin, they were still dead and under the power of the devil.”

Sins were killing you and holding you in deadness because you walked in them. The love of sin was the ruling orientation of your free activity. Although you were under the action of powerful enemies—the world and the devil—you nonetheless walked in those sins yourselves; they acted upon you, tempted you, but by no means compelled you. You yourselves followed their deadly suggestions. Theodoret writes: “The devil, having lost his dignity, became a teacher of impiety and wickedness; yet he does not lord it over everyone, but only over those who do not receive the divine pronouncements.”

The first productive force of sin is the “age of this world.” “This age” and “this world” are equivalent in New Testament Scripture. Here they stand together, perhaps for a fuller expression of their harmfulness. “Age” properly means a period of time, a long succession of years, and hence in general the course of time and of what is in time. “World” is the totality of corrupting customs and of the persons who are subject to them. “The age of the world” is the course of pernicious worldly customs established over a long time and holding sway over all world-lovers—customs by which they all walk, though involuntarily, as a cart rolls along a worn rut from which there is no possibility or strength to turn aside. The distinguishing mark of this manner of walking is care for temporal things alone, without regard for another life; care for securing happiness on earth, without regard for the demands of the moral law and the promptings of the fear of God. Hence the world lies in evil. Or “world” and “age” are equivalent to sinfulness, subjection to sin, the tyranny of sin. Blessed Theophylact writes: “The Apostle calls the corrupt life, the life in sins, ‘the age of this world,’ because the present life abounds in sins.” The Apostle wishes to point out: this was the yoke under which, these were the fetters in which, you were held—“once,” that is, before you cleaved to Christ through faith. But now, abiding with Christ, you are no longer conformed to this age (Rom. 12:2)—you have the strength to withstand the pressure of its corrupting influence, for you have received new principles and new powers to walk by these principles, in defiance of your former customs. Do you see the sovereign power manifested in you also?!

The second productive force of sin is the devil, whom the Apostle names “the prince of the power of the air,” the prince of “the spirit” “that now works” “in the sons of disobedience.” Holy Paul did not stop at pointing to the age or the world, but passes further, to the very source of sin. The arena, the stage on which sin unfolds, is the world; the one who sets everything in it in motion is the devil. Whoever walks according to the age of the world walks according to the devil, whom the Lord called the prince of the world and of the age (Jn. 12:31, 14:30).

“The Apostle called him ‘the prince of the power of the air’: ‘prince of the power’—a powerful prince; ‘of the air’—dwelling in the air. Or by the word ‘power’ one may understand the rank of evil spirits, just as among the holy Angels there is a rank called ‘powers.’ Generalizing this name, one can understand by the word “powers” collectively all spirits—or the kingdom of evil spirits, whose prince is Satan, and who, all together with their prince, dwell in the air. Further in this epistle the Apostle calls them ‘spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places’ (Eph. 6:12). Cast down from heaven, having no firm footing on earth, they hover homeless and scattered in the air, from which they mount all manner of disorderly attacks upon men and draw those who yield into evil. This well expresses the unsteadiness and inconstancy of satanic power—and perhaps also its ephemeral nature, that is, that it is entirely illusory, founded not on anything substantial but on deception, delusion, and phantoms. St. Chrysostom says: ‘according to the prince of the power of the air.’ The Apostle says this to show that the devil dwells in the lower air, that the aerial spirits are incorporeal powers that help him in his activities.”

You walked, says the Apostle, according to the prince of the power of the air. Our folk saying captures this well: to dance to someone’s tune. He suggested—and you followed his suggestions. Since he can suggest only evil and sin, by walking according to him you became ever more and more entangled in sins and consequently sank ever further and further into the deadness of sin, which always follows in the wake of sin. By such willing submission to him, he became the prince of sinners. “He is a prince because people have subjected themselves to him of their own accord” (Theophylact). “Because human nature has given itself over to him almost entirely, and all serve him voluntarily and willingly. No one heeds Christ, though He promises an abundance of good things; but him—though he promises nothing of the kind, and on the contrary conducts them to hell—all obey. He holds sway in this age; he has more servants than God, and men obey him more willingly than God; only a few are the exception; and all of this comes from our negligence and carelessness” (St. Chrysostom).

“The spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience.” One would expect: “according to the spirit,” as above: “according to the prince.” You walked in sins according to the prince of the power of the air—that is, according to the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience. Some commentators understand it this way, and this understanding pleases them so much that they would be ready to correct the very text of the Apostle. Such an attempt may be called not altogether judicious and altogether unnecessary. The word “spirit” depends on the word “prince,” as does the word “power.” He is the prince of the power of the air, and likewise the prince of the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience. This indicates the source of the spirit of opposition to truth, which the Apostle encountered everywhere in his preaching ministry, not excepting even the Ephesians themselves. Satan with his spirits has implanted it in the souls of the Gentiles and constantly sustains it by his influence. By this spirit one may understand in general the evil principle going forth from Satan and working in unbelievers—the spirit of falsehood and self-deception, which with a certain deceptive confidence stands against all the persuasions of truth. Or, just as by the word “power” one can understand collectively all the evil forces, so by the word “spirit,” standing in a similar grammatical relationship, one can understand collectively all evil spirits, who under the guidance of their prince, by their deadly breath, act upon men, and habituating them to passions and vices, make them stubbornly resistant to the truths aimed at freeing them from those passions, and thereby from the power of the spirits themselves, the fomenters of those passions.

Sons of disobedience—stubborn opponents of Gospel truth. The word “son,” in connection with a virtue or a vice, denotes a person given over to that virtue or vice, to signify that he is filled to the full with one or the other, as of a son one says: the very image of his father. Satan is an adversary of God, of all truth and all good. And those who oppose the truth of the Gospel are his sons—stubborn opponents like Satan himself. The Greek word — απειθειας,—means sons of unconvincedness, those whom nothing will convince. Say what you will to them, they stubbornly resist every argument and every piece of evidence. But unconvincedness in one thing presupposes a counter-conviction in another. Therefore, although the word “spirit working in the sons of disobedience” points to influences from without, there is nonetheless nothing compulsory here. Rather, Satan proposes, inclines, persuades. They agree and stand by their agreement… and the spirit of opposition is born. St. Chrysostom says: “Do you see that not by force, not in any tyrannical way, but through persuasion he draws them to himself? Pointing to disobedience (απειθεια), the Apostle seems to say (by way of contrast) that the devil leads all astray by flattery and persuasion.”

“Now”—means either this age, until the future restoration of all things, or now, when the preaching began and the Gospel started to spread through the earth. This spirit was acting before as well, but since he was not disturbed, he did not reveal his presence. When the heralds of Christian truth began to press him, he made himself heard, and strives to maintain his power by stirring up opposition to the truth and non-submission to the faith. The Apostles saw this action of the opposing force everywhere.

St. Paul brings this forward as a sign of the deadness of the soul, or of the deadly power of sin, and of its producers working among the Gentiles. By all of this the Apostle makes clear how great is the power that overcame these forces of sin, broke the bonds of sin, snatched them from the deadness of sin, and granted them true life. Truly, in this also the action of the sovereign might of God is manifested—of God who saves all who desire to be saved.

Eph. 2:3. Among whom we all also once lived in the desires of our flesh, carrying out the will of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.

“Among whom we all also…” “We” “all”—the Jews; no exceptions whatsoever; spiritual deadness from sins was universal.

“‘Among whom’ — εν οις,—to what should this be referred? The nearest preceding noun is ‘sons of disobedience.’ If referred to them, it will mean: among them, in the midst of them, that is, the sons of disobedience; in support of which the Greek “lived” — ανεστραφημεν,—properly means “moved about.” But of the Jews in general one cannot say that they moved about among the sons of disobedience. Their distinguishing characteristic was to live apart from all; and so they kept themselves, not only at home in their own land, but also when they lived in the diaspora. Therefore it seems better to refer εν οις to παραπτωμασι — to “transgressions.” He attributes spiritual deadness to two causes—transgressions and sins. Applying this principle further to the Gentiles and the Jews, to the former he says: εν αις — that is, αμαρτιαις — ‘among which’—that is, “in sins”; and applying it to the Jews, he says: εν οις — that is, παραπτωμασι — ‘among whom,’ that is, “in transgressions.” So blessed Jerome understands this connection. ‘Among whom’ should be referred to ‘transgressions.’ Above he sets out two subjects—transgressions and sins. Turning then to sins, he said: ‘among which you once walked,’ but said nothing there to explain and apply the transgressions; now he says: ‘among whom we all also lived’—that is, in transgressions—lest it appear that out of pride he excludes himself (that is, the Jews) from the number of sinners.”

It is noteworthy that, when speaking of the sinful deadness of the Gentiles, the Apostle explains that they were held in sins, or drawn to them, by the allurements of the world and the machinations of the prince of this age. But when placing the Jews under the same deadness, he says that these sank in transgressions because they lived in the desires of the flesh—they were not dragged to those sins by some outside force but fell into them by their own corrupted will, carrying out the will of the flesh and of the mind. The thought conveyed is that neither the world nor the devil had such power over the people of God as they displayed over the Gentiles. Indeed, all the ordering of personal, family, church, and civic life among the Jews was established according to a heavenly design. All of it was sanctified by God’s will and led to the improvement of morals and drawing near to God. The corrupting customs of the world could penetrate into their midst only surreptitiously, by unlawful means; whereas among the Gentiles these customs constituted the very substance of their life—born from passions, they nourished passions and inflamed them. Likewise the prince of the world lost his power over the Jews once they received the seal of God’s election, by virtue of which they constituted God’s own portion. The prince of the world with the customs of the world could enter into the circle of the Jews only at their own invitation, when they, casting off the yoke of God’s good will, voluntarily gave themselves over to his alien yoke. This is what the Apostle points to when he says that we all also were in sins, living in the desires of the flesh. The world and the prince of this age had no power over us, but we ourselves sank in sins by living in desires; we were our own enemies—our desires served for us in the place of the corrupting force of the world and its prince. — But if this could be said of the Jews, how much more must it be said of Christians?! — There would be no place among us for the world and the devil, if it were not for our susceptibility to desires.

By “the desires of the flesh” or “the desiring flesh” one understands here in general all sin-loving strivings of the heart, whose distinguishing mark is self-gratification—a disposition of the soul by which it does everything only to please itself, in defiance of the demands of conscience and the promptings of the fear of God, loudly and definitively declared.

Self-gratification has two modes of expression—the will of the flesh and of the mind, sinful of course; in other words: carnal passions and soul-passions and inclinations. “Carrying out the will of the flesh and of the mind”—that is, whatever the flesh desired and whatever the soul conceived to please itself, that alone, or all of that, we did; we followed, that is, the demands and impulses of bodily and soul-passions and inclinations—self-serving ones. St. Chrysostom says: “We all lived without giving thought to anything spiritual—‘all,’ because one cannot say that anyone formed an exception in this case. But lest anyone begin to suspect that this is said with the intention of slandering the flesh, or think that its guilt in this is altogether too great, notice how the Apostle forestalls all such suspicions and thoughts: ‘carrying out,’ he says, ‘the will of the flesh and of the mind’—that is, (of one’s own free will), being carried away by desires and pleasures.”

Theodoret sees in the word “of the mind” how sin first germinates in sinful thoughts, and then, through the joining of the will with them, is produced also in deed through the body. “The Apostle,” he writes, “showed that not the flesh alone, but the soul itself is deserving of accusation; for it is the soul that first receives within itself the inclination toward what is worse, and then, with the help of the flesh, puts into action what was conceived by the mind.”

But, someone might think—why does he not call himself “dead,” as he called the Gentiles? — This is already self-evident. Once in sins, one is also dead, for where there is sin, there is spiritual death. But besides this, further on he directly numbers the Jews among the spiritually dead when he says: “and having quickened us together who were dead in transgressions”—where under “us” he includes both Jews and Gentiles.

“And were by nature children of wrath.” Since, carrying out the will of the flesh and of the mind, we sank in sins, we were therefore also under God’s wrath for this state. “We angered God, we provoked His wrath—we became nothing but objects of God’s wrath, and nothing else,” says Chrysostom. Theodoret writes the same: “The Apostle said ‘by nature children of wrath,’ that is, worthy of wrath and the utmost punishment. So too he named the Antichrist ‘the son of perdition’ (2 Thess. 2:3), that is, worthy of perdition.” According to Oecumenius and Theophylact—they became children of wrath as those doing deeds worthy of wrath. Basil the Great, in the 268th short rule, says: “One becomes a child of wrath insofar as he has made himself worthy of wrath. For just as the Apostle named those who are worthy of the Lord and do the works of light and day ‘sons of light and sons of day’ (1 Thess. 5:5), so one must understand the words: ‘we were children of wrath.’”

“The word ‘by nature’ stands in place of ‘truly, genuinely’ — αληθως και γνησιως” (Oecumenius, Theophylact).

“Like the rest.” “This means no one was free (from wrath), but we all, by our deeds, were worthy of God’s wrath” (St. Chrysostom).

Sin has leveled all, as St. Paul describes at greater length in the Epistle to the Romans, gathering various Old Testament testimonies to this effect (Rom. 3:10–18). What a gloomy picture of the state of sin! The sinner is spiritually dead, is under the tyranny of the devil, is dominated by the spirit of the world, is uncontrollably drawn by the movements of the flesh, enslaved to the passions of the soul, troubled by sinful thoughts—and for all of this he is a son of wrath, and consequently a debtor of eternal punishment. How can those who have been delivered from such a calamity not glorify the sovereign might of the Deliverer, who by His grace raises the sinner from the death of sin and brings him into the bright life of pleasing God and holiness!

Eph. 2:4, 5. But God, who is rich in mercy, by reason of His great love with which He loved us, even us who were dead in transgressions, quickened us together with Christ: by grace you are “saved.”

After the rich digression in verses 2 and 3, the Apostle returns to the interrupted discourse: “and you who were dead…” in order to say—but what about “you?” Before saying this, however, the great perniciousness of sin—voluntary and therefore inexcusable—made it necessary to point to the source of mercy toward such lost ones, which the Apostle does by beginning his speech: “But God, who is rich in mercy.” Then the turn of phrase in the inserted speech made it impossible to say “you”—and required “us,” since all have been recognized as sinners needing to be quickened—not the Greeks only—“you”—but also the Jews—“we.” This is why the holy Apostle joins both under “us”: “and us also”—both of them… “He quickened together.”

“But God, who is rich in mercy…” Such as we were—slaves of the world, of the devil, and of our own desires, dead to God and objects of His wrath—what could be expected but punishment, retribution, and judgment? Yet the outcome was different: not only were we not punished as we deserved; on the contrary, we were enriched with such graces as the most self-loving desire could never have imagined: “He quickened together, raised together, enthroned together.” — Whence such generosity? — From the boundless mercy of God, and not only from this, but especially from the fact that God loves us, His people, exceedingly. As a certain merciful man helps every person in need, but helps more willingly and more generously those whom he loves—so also God would have spared us simply because He is rich in mercy, as one who is compassionate; but His love for us increased this generosity to superabundance. St. Chrysostom writes: “He does not say simply ‘being merciful,’ but ‘rich in mercy.’ Similarly in another place it is said: ‘according to the multitude of Your mercies, look upon me’ (Ps. 68:17), and again: ‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy’ (Ps. 50:3). — Here the Apostle points to the source of God’s love for us. All our deeds were worthy not of love but of wrath and the most severe punishment; it means that if He loved us, it was solely by reason of His great mercy.”

“By reason of His great love with which He loved us.” God loves all His creatures, but shows a preferential love for man. In creation He honored him with His divine image and appointed him lord over all creatures; and when he fell, He did not abandon him, but set all in motion—both heaven and earth—to restore him, and restored him through the wondrous economy of salvation, by which man becomes greater than he was in creation. Truly all of this is the great love with which God has loved us. He loved us from eternity. Even when—speaking in human terms—the plan of creation was being laid, even then God loved man in a special way, for man was placed at its center, where it pleased God to gather all together, so as afterwards to act beneficently on all the rest through him. From this proceed the unceasing and inexhaustible nature of God’s benefactions and gifts to man. Ambrosiaster writes: “God’s love for us is shown in this: that since He created us, He does not want us to perish. For He loves the work of His hands. He created in order to love what He had created.”

One would have expected the Apostle here to mention the greatness of God’s power, since this is the subject of the entire section; yet instead he points to mercy. But that in our restoration God’s great power was manifested—this was implied by the course of the discourse. In these words, however, the Apostle goes further and indicates by what path this great power reached us, when our guilt was barring its access to us.

“And us who were dead in transgressions…” — this refers to spiritual death. Sin, having entered us, kills our spirit. The soul remains actively alive, but all in service to sin; in the thoughts of the mind, in the feelings of the heart, in the undertakings of the will—and the body moves nimbly when it hastens to satisfy its own desires. But activity toward God is forgotten, there is no sympathy or willingness for it—and in the body neither hand nor foot is willing to move according to it. — From such deadness God delivered us in Christ… “He quickened us together with Christ.”

In this quickening of us through the Lord Jesus Christ, two moments must be distinguished: the first, when humanity was quickened in the person of the God-man, and the second, when each believer becomes a participant in this quickening. In the person of the Saviour, humanity was shown newly quickened, in the full force of that word, in His resurrection and ascension. In Him was laid the foundation of the quickening of all who would thereafter cleave in faith and love to the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him all who were afterwards personally quickened—who are being quickened and will be quickened until the end of the age—were potentially quickened as well, so that these latter are nothing other than the realization of the first; that is the seed, and these are the tree that has grown or is growing from it, overshadowing the whole universe with its branches. This personal quickening of each person—through faith and the renunciation of all impious and vicious life—is accomplished in baptism. In this gracious mystery man dies to the sinful life and comes alive—receiving zeal and power—for the spiritual life, becomes a participant in Christ’s quickening, and continues thenceforth to walk in the renewed life (cf. Rom. 6).

What quickening does the Apostle have in mind here? — Since he says “He quickened together,” he doubtless means the quickening in the person of Christ the Lord; but since he says “He quickened us together who were dead,” pointing to himself and the Ephesians—actual persons who have already become partakers of Christ’s quickening—there is no doubt that he also means the actual quickening, whose foundation was laid in Christ’s quickening, confirming the former by the latter.

The Apostle does not write a theory but depicts the economy of salvation, accomplished in deed and showing its power in deed. Therefore in the word “He quickened together” one need not distinguish whether this is meant in the person of Christ the Lord alone or in those who believe in Him. Both—for both had already been accomplished and were in operation; and though they might be distinguished in thought, in practice they merged: the quickening of believers was Christ’s quickening in its application.

After “He quickened together,” the natural sequence would be “raised together and enthroned together,” as the further movement of the manifestation of God’s power in the economy of our salvation. But the Apostle interrupts his speech and arrests the attention of the Ephesians on the contemplation of God’s immeasurable grace toward them. He seems to say to them in an aside: Mark this—you have been saved by grace. The aim of the first part of the epistle is to lead the Ephesians, and with them all the Gentiles, into the knowledge of God’s great mercy toward them—shown in that they too were received into participation in the blessings gathered together in the person of the Saviour for us, on an equal footing with the Jews, who enter into this participation as into an inheritance by right of the ancient election of their people. Having finished his discourse on God’s power in the economy of salvation, the Apostle immediately reminds them of this (vv. 11 ff.).

“By grace you are saved.” Two verses later he repeats the same thing, and two verses after that he expresses it even more forcefully: “remember that you…” So greatly did he desire to fix this truth in their minds! — And one may suppose that, with this aim, he himself was moved by the contemplation of the greatness of God’s grace and spoke thus from an irrepressible feeling of astonishment: “by grace you are saved”—“by grace you are saved”—remember, then, what you were and what you have now become. — Let us note in passing that this word is addressed to us (Russians) as well, for we too are from among the Gentiles. Blessed Theophylact writes: “These words the Apostle inserted in the middle of his speech from profound astonishment—struck by the ineffable nature of God’s gift.”

The meaning of the words is evident. You, says the Apostle, presented nothing that might have attracted God’s good pleasure toward you. He Himself, moved by His love, looked upon you with favor and brought you within the enclosure of salvation. But judging from the fact that you were dead in sin, you should have been cast further away from His face, as dead corpses are cast aside. “By grace, and not for your labors and your merits, are you saved” (Oecumenius). “As for works, you were deserving of every punishment. Grace has saved” (Theophylact). But in saying “you,” the Apostle does not exclude the Jews from the same law of salvation by grace. He is only striving to impress this truth most of all upon the Ephesians, while he regards all—both Jews and Gentiles—as saved by grace. Theodoret does not even distinguish persons, but understands this passage in general, saying: “It is not for our virtuous life that we were called to salvation, but by the love of the One who saved us.”