God's Rescue Mission

God’s rescue mission is the evidence of his saving grace. Eph 2.1-10

God is fierce in his determination to eliminate evil, but he is also rich in mercy. God is gracious. Grace is his blessing lavished on those who not only don’t deserve it -but who actually deserve wrath.

All humankind is powerless to save itself. None of us can reignite our spiritual spark as we are thoroughly soaked in sin and death. Grace only can rescue us. By grace you have been saved (v.6).

God has pity on us. He brings us to life. Who is ‘us’? It clearly isn’t everyone without distinction. Paul is writing to the members of Christ’s body, the Church. He is writing to people who have already experienced this mercy that brings a person from death to life. No one should assume that this is just a blanket blessing for everyone, or even for those who have been brought up in a Christian setting. The ‘us’ Paul is referring to are people who were spiritually dead, but are now spiritually alive and are living completely different lives to their old ones. You WERE dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you USED TO LIVE when you followed the ways of the world (2.1). There is nothing general or ill-defined here. Those with Christ’s new life in them behave differently. None who still follow the ways of the world should deceive themselves into thinking that they are included (yet, anyway) among the ‘us’ who have been brought from spiritual deadness to life.

That new life is firmly tied to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What Jesus did makes new life possible. His resurrection is the means God used to liberate us from his wrath change our nature to one he could bless. At the cross Jesus Christ deliberately took on death and in it received the wrath of God against the sins of those who share his death by trusting him. God confirmed that Christ’ death satisfied his wrath by raising him from the dead. And he not only raised Christ up into heavenly places again, but raises us (whose faith is in him) up too.

4 God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, 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.

To be in ‘seated in heavenly places’ with Christ, means that we have are no longer under his wrath – he accepts us in his presence. It also means that we are now connected spiritually with God through Christ. We live in two worlds: the material world and ‘heavenly places’ (the spiritual world). Paul expanded on this to the Colossians:

Colossians 3:1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

He goes on to speak about the remarkable and total changes in our behaviour that will result as we strip off our old ways and put on the new life that we receive daily from Christ.