Redeeming Scripture Archives - Page 4 of 58

Did you know God has prepared good works for you to do? In this study of Ephesians 2:10, we look at what these good works are, when God prepared them for you, and how this explanation of Ephesians 2:10 fits within the overall message of Ephesians 2. Prior to that, we will also answer a question from a reader about baptism in the Bible.

Question from a Reader

I am 72 years old have been a believer for 60 years. … I am not a theologian by any stretch but am filled with the Holy Spirit and KNOW how to hear and be led by Him.

I am taught by the Holy Spirit and truth is truth. I have over my 60 years in Jesus seen it all and been in a lot of it, many denominations from Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, AG, Charismatic, Pentecostal, Hyper-Calvinist you name it even Hebraic Roots. I have heard it all and more.

Baptism in water and in the Holy Spirit is totally misunderstood and applied. I know that Matthew 28:19 is NOT water baptism. I know Mark 16:16 is misused as “water baptism” saves. The only baptism with water in the Gospels is John’s baptism of repentance. How Theologians have come to believe it has been transferred to Jesus when the only “baptism” the Gospels speak of is Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. The immersion into the Name, the body of Christ, the Holy Spirit is what is spoken to the disciples and believers, NOT WATER BAPTISM!

Am I correct?

These are great questions about what the Scripture teaches regarding baptism. I wrote a series of posts a while back on baptism. Here is the introductory post: What is baptism?

Most of these posts found their way into my book, (#AmazonAdLink) Close Your Church for Good. This is a massive book, nearly 800 pages, but there is a section in the book on Christian “rites” such as the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. And not surprisingly, my Gospel Dictionary online course also contains a lesson on the word “Baptism.”

Anyway, the primary thing we have to recognize when studying the word “baptism” is that it is not a translation of the original Greek text, but is instead a “transliteration.” The Greek word is baptisma, and for some reason, when scholars translated the Greek into English, rather than translate the Greek word baptisma into English, they just changed the Greek letters into English letters and left it alone. So the Greek word baptisma becomes the English word baptism. You see? No translation.

So whenever you see the word baptism in the Bible, I recommend you translate it first. The word means “immersion” or “immerse.” And then look in the context to see what kind of immersion is in view.

And note that although the word “immersion” does bring to mind the idea of being immersed in water, it does not always mean that. For example, when people are thinking of moving to another country, they often want to learn the language of the people in that other country. One way to learn a foreign language is through something called “language immersion.” Does this mean that they get dunked under water until they miraculously learn the foreign language? No, it means they enter into the culture and among the people who speak that other language so that they are surrounded by it, and force themselves to learn it.

Biblical immersion works the same way. In the Bible, you can be immersed into a variety of things. Along with being immersed in water, the Bible also talks about being immersed in fire (Matthew 3:11 and Luke 3:16), immersed into the Holy Spirit (Romans 6), immersed into Moses (1 Corinthians 10:2), and immersed into Jesus. None of these cases have water in view.

Anyway, this gets back to the question from the reader. He mentions Matthew 28:19 and Mark 16:16, and correctly points out that neither one refers to water baptism. He mentions the baptism of John, which was a baptism for the Jews only, and was a baptism of repentance. It had nothing to do with receiving eternal life or becoming a Christian.

So the reader is right. There are many passages in the Bible which many Christians think refers to water baptism, when they do not. And this misunderstanding is all due to the unfortunate failure of the Bible translators to properly translate baptisma. How sad it is that the church has gone through so much turmoil, strife, and even violence, over a failure to properly translate a single Greek word.

Anyway, I appreciate the question. If you want to learn more about baptism in the Bible, just search my website for the word “baptism” or you can buy my book, (#AmazonAdLink) Close Your Church for Good or join my discipleship group and take my Gospel Dictionary online course. All of these explain baptism is much more detail.

Created for Good Works (Ephesians 2:10)

Ephesians 2:10 is a hinge verse. It’s a transition verse. It transitions from everything Paul has written so far in Ephesians 2:1-9, and introduces everything Paul is going to write in Ephesians 2:11-22.

So let’s look at the verse briefly, and then I will show you how Paul uses it to transition.

Ephesians 2:10. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

We are His Workmanship

First, Paul writes that we are His workmanship. There are numerous beautiful aspects about this word. First, in the New Testament, it is only used here and in Romans 1:20, where Paul uses it in reference to the things God made at creation. So when Paul uses this word, I believe he has in mind the original purpose and intent for which God made humanity. God created humans in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 for a specific task and purpose.

Back in my podcast studies of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, we discussed this purpose at great length. We were created, as Genesis says, to be the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), or the ambassadors of God, in this world. To be His physical presence here on earth. We are, I argued, the living, breathing, talking, walking, working statue of God in the Garden of God (Genesis 2:7). This is some of what Paul has in mind with the use of this word here. Go listen to some of those podcasts to learn more about this.

Second, the word Paul uses here is quite beautiful. In the Greek it is poiema. We are, in a sense, the poem of God. How do you like that?

Did you know God wrote poetry? He does. And guess what? You are His poetry.

You may think your life is full of pain and hardship, and it is. But there are also elements of joy and beauty and laughter. This is because you are a poem. A divine poem. All the greatest poems in the world have emotional highs and lows. Pain and beauty. Sorrow and laughter. And guess what? God is not done writing the poem of your life. So whatever you’re going through right now, look forward to tomorrow, in which God will write another stanza of your poem for you and all the world to read.

I find this idea beautiful and encouraging. With every second of every day, God is writing an epic poem with your life.

From N. T. Wright:

Now you may well feel that phrase ‘good works’ is a bit ho-hum, a bit ‘oh dear, here we go, we’ve got to behave ourselves’ and all that sort of thing. But it’s not like that at all. The word in the Greek for ‘what He has made us’ means we are God’s poem; we are God’s artwork. God has given us many, many gifts. The good works that we are to do are not simply referring to moral behavior.

God wants us to be fruitful. God wants us to be experimental. God wants us to be innovative.

God wants us to be His poem, in and for the world. Artists, musicians, poets, and dancers: this is your chance.

What makes this even more significant is that since we are God’s workmanship, since we are God’s hands, feet, and voice in this world, since we are an epic poem that He is writing, He’s not just going to abandon us. He’s not going to just leave us alone to go our own way. We are a significant investment for God, and He is going to take care of us so that He can get a good return on His investment. So that He can finish the poem in a crescendo of glory that takes our breath away.

Created for Good Works

This introduces the next idea Paul talks about in Ephesians 2:10. Paul writes that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works.

Lots of pastors and teacher misread this verse, and use it to teach that if we truly have eternal life, then we will live a life of good works. This is a terrible explanation of this text.

First of all, remember that Paul is not writing about how to have eternal life. That is not what this chapter is about. It is instead about how to live this life as God truly wants and desires, and how we can show the world a better way to live as well. Go check out the studies on Salvation in Ephesians 2:5-7 and the explanation of Ephesians 2:8-9.

Second, even if Paul was talking about how to receive eternal life in Ephesians 2:8-9, Ephesians 2:10 would still not be teaching that good works have anything to do with receiving, keeping, or proving that we have eternal life. Instead the verse would be about how to follow Jesus on the path of discipleship after we receive eternal life. Yes, God wants us to obey Him and follow Jesus in discipleship, but whether we do this or not has no bearing whatsoever on whether we receive eternal life, keep our eternal life, or provide evidence that we have eternal life. Discipleship is simply a matter of recognizing that God knows what is best for our life, and if we obey Him, we will live our best life now on this earth.

Nevertheless, this verse is not talking about this.

The good works that Paul has in view are the good works that God gave to humanity to perform all the way back in the Garden of Eden. Since Paul has just talked about how we are God’s workmanship, His poem, that He began at the creation of the world, this means that the good works are the tasks and responsibilities that God gave us all the way back at the foundation of the world.

Paul is saying that once we recognize and receive by faith the truth that has been revealed in Jesus (Ephesians 2:8-9), we can then start living the way God really wants us to live. We will be delivered (or saved) from the old way of living, the worldly way of living in death and deeds of darkness (as described in Ephesians 2:1-3), and can now start living in this world as the image of God, the ambassadors of God, the living, breathing statue of God in this world.

This point is further emphasized in the last part of Ephesians 2:10.

That we should walk in them

Paul writes that these good works were prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Again, Paul is showing that the good works God has prepared for us are those that have been prepared beforehand. These are the good works God has always wanted humanity to perform. In my Genesis 1 podcasts, I pointed out that in Genesis 1, God performs seven key activities, and after God creates humans, God gives to humans the responsibility of performing all seven of these activities. God passes His tasks on to us so that we can share with Him in the work of taking care of this world. See the seven key activities here.

Finally, note that the Greek word Paul uses for the phrase “walk in them” is peripateo. It means “to walk about.” God wants us to walk around, explore, and investigate this world and all the possibilities and opportunities He has made for us. Now what is significant about this phrase is that the word “walk” becomes the key term in Ephesians 4-6. As Watchman Nee has pointed out, the book of Ephesians is dominated by three key verbs: (#AmazonAdLink) Sit, Walk, Stand. Ephesians 1-3 is about how we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. Ephesians 4-5 (and half of 6) is about how we are to walk as followers of God. And then the section in Ephesians 6 on spiritual warfare is about how we are to stand our grand against the attacks of the devil.

But here, Paul provides a foreshadowing, or preview, or the “walk” section of Ephesians. He is saying that we are to walk in a certain way as followers of Jesus.

And this brings us to how Ephesians 2:10 is a transition verse, or a hinge verse, in Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2:10 as a Transition

As I have frequently pointed out in our study of Ephesians 2, the chapter is divided into three parts. The problem (Ephesians 2:1-3), the Solution (Ephesians 2:4-10), and the application (Ephesians 2:11-22).

In Ephesians 2:1-3, Paul explained how this world lives in a never-ending cycle of death and violence. These are the bad works of darkness, brought into this world through the deceptions of satan.

In Ephesians 2:4-10, Paul explained what God has done for us in Jesus Christ to rescue and deliver us from this cycle of death and violence.

Then, in Ephesians 2:11-22, Paul shows what this new way of life looks like. He shows us how we can be free from the evil deeds of darkness and death, and instead live in the good works of light and life.

And that is why Ephesians 2:10 is the transition. Paul is closing out the section on showing us what God has done for us, which does include the good works prepared for us since creation, and is transitioning to the section on how we can perform these good works in this world as God’s image, as God’s ambassadors, as God’s poem in this world.

Pretty exciting, right? We are finally getting to the crux of the issue, how God wants us to live now in this world, in a way that is radically different from the way the rest of the world living and functions. That is where we will be picking up next time, when we look at Ephesians 2:11.

By Grace are you Saved Through Faith (Ephesians 2:8-9)

By Jeremy Myers

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I firmly believe that the Bible teaches that we receive eternal life by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. But is that what Paul is teaching in Ephesians 2:8-9 when he writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast”? Though many Christians think so, I do not. This study of Ephesians 2:8-9 will explain what I think Paul is really talking about in these verses.

Before we get to that, I want to address a question from a reader about whether it is sinful or not for Christians to engage in New Age practices.

Question from a Reader about New Age Practices

I feel like a lot of Christians are against things like manifesting, meditation, and positive affirmations. I do believe Jesus died for my sins and he is the way to heaven. But most of my day is centered around these New Age practices because they help me clear up the doubt and fear in my life and bring me to a better mental state and ultimately so much more happiness. Is there anything wrong with this and should I feel guilty for it? Is this talked about in any of your books? I would love to hear more about what you have to say. I appreciate your response it was a weight lifted off my shoulders.

Great question! To my knowledge, I have not written about this anywhere.

Let me give you a principle that I use in my life that helps me often make tricky decisions about morality. There are two ways to approach life regarding biblical morality. They are this: First, some people think we should only do what the Bible commands. Second, some think we can do anything the Bible doesn’t forbid.

The first group thinks that we should only do what the Bible tells us we can do. Everything else is potentially sinful. This is why some extreme groups, like the Amish, don’t have electricity and won’t drive cars or have phones. That’s super simplistic, and there are other reasons also, but one reason for this approach to life is that the Bible doesn’t mention such things, and so we should avoid them.

The second approach is that we should only avoid what the Bible strictly forbids. This is the approach that most Christians try to follow, but even here, there is a wide diversity of opinion on what the Bible forbids. For example, lots of Christians in previous generations taught that playing cards was sinful. But the Bible doesn’t forbid this practice anywhere. So why did they think cards were sinful? I honestly don’t know, but they probably had their reasons.

These issues sort of go hand-in-hand with whether the Bible is prescriptive or descriptive, but that’s a slightly different issue, and so I’ll leave that one alone for now.

Anyway, I do follow that second option. For the most part, God gives us freedom to live life how we want, as long as we don’t go against the clear teachings of Scripture on moral issues. This is not a fool proof plan, because of course, the Bible never strictly forbids slavery, but we all know slavery is evil. I use a bit of trajectory hermeneutics to help make these sorts of conclusions.

So how can we apply this to New Age practices?

Well, I need to be honest. I am mostly ignorant of New Age practices and beliefs. I did a little reading and watched a few videos, but based on my extremely limited knowledge, it seems to me that many of the New Age practices are quite similar to some of the practices mentioned in the Bible, but the New Age approach sort of removes God from the equation.

So for example, many New Age practitioners talk about Manifesting or the Law of Attraction, where, which some positive thinking about yourself and the universe, you can bring good things to yourself and turn hopes and dreams into reality. Well, this is somewhat similar to prayer. Rather than trying to manifest your hopes and dreams into reality, why not have a conversation with God about your hopes and dreams instead?

What about positive thinking? Well again, why not think positive thoughts about who you are in Jesus Christ? Why not recognize all the truths from Scripture about what God thinks about you?

Does this mean that manifesting or positive thinking are sinful? …. Probably not. I just don’t think it is anywhere near as effective as prayer or as claiming the truths of Scripture about yourself.

Now look, I would avoid some of the New Age beliefs that teach we are all mini gods. That’s not true. Or that all roads lead to heaven. I am not a universalist and so don’t agree with that either.

Anyway, I am not an expert on any of this. I would love it if you weighed in below by leaving a comment. Let me know what you think about mystical beliefs and practices and how they line up with Scripture or contradict it.

By Grace are You Saved Through Faith … Ephesians 2:8-9

This study was difficult for me to prepare, because I could spend hours talking about Ephesians 2:8-9 and all the various ways of understanding this verse, and also the importance of understanding the key terms in this verse, such as grace, saved, faith, and the “gift of God” at the end of the verse. I have lessons on all these words in my Gospel Dictionary Online Course for those who join my discipleship group.

But let me just try to summarize everything for you. Let us begin with the traditional understanding of Ephesians 2:8-9. The verses say this:

Ephesians 2:8-9. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Traditionally, Christians believe that Ephesians 2:8-9 is talking about how to receive eternal life. I even taught this in the past, and you read my old teachings on Ephesians 2:8-10 here. Christians think this because of the word “saved.” Most Christians think that the word “saved” refers to receiving eternal life and going to heaven when you die.

Therefore, most Christians think that this verse is teaching that God offers eternal life to use solely by His grace, and we receive this free gift through faith … that is, by believing Jesus for it.

There is also an issue there at the end of the verse about the “gift of God” and what it refers to. What is the gift of God that Paul is referring to? Is it the grace? The faith? the salvation? I have taught about this frequently in the past, so I’m not going to dive deep into the question now. (See these articles: Faith is NOT a gift from God, Is faith the gift from God, Faith is Not a Gift from God) The answer to the debate, however, is that the Greek words have the entire “by grace are you saved through faith” package in view. The gift that Paul has in mind is all that God has done for us human to offer us salvation by grace through faith. That’s all I’m going to say about that, and you can read those other articles for a longer explanation.

Now, it is 100% true that we receive eternal life by grace through faith. The Bible teaches this everywhere (cf. John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47).

However, although the Bible everywhere teaches that we receive eternal life by grace along through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, Ephesians 2:8-9 is not one of the verses that teaches this idea.

The reason is because the word “saved” in Scripture does not ever actually refer to receiving eternal life. As I briefly explained in the previous study of Ephesians 2:5-7, the word “salvation” means “deliverance” and the context of the passage determines what kind of deliverance is in view. When you perform this study on every passage in the Bible (as I have done), you discover that the Bible never uses the words “saved” or “salvation” in reference to receiving eternal life.

Not even here in Ephesians 2:8-9.

Again, as we saw last time, the salvation of Ephesians 2 has in view the way God has delivered us from our bondage and slavery to the sin of blame, accusation, scapegoating, and violence that dominates and rules the world. Since Cain murdered Abel, the world has run on violence. We know of no other way to live.

But God, through the person and work of Jesus Christ, came and rescued us, delivered us, SAVED us from this way of living and showed us a completely different way of living. This new way of life is what we were made for originally, and what God has always modeled for us, and what we are now to walk in, as we follow Jesus.

God revealed this to us out of His grace, and as we follow this new way by faith, we will be saved from the death that has enslaved humanity.

In other words, Ephesians 2:8-9 is not about how to go to heaven when you die, but rather about how God stepped in to the human problem to rescue us from our slavery to death.

So with that in mind, here is how to read Ephesians 2:8-9:

God gave us an amazing free gift [by grace] in showing us how to live a different way than through violence and bloodshed [are you saved], and while this new way of living is counterintuitive and seems to contradict everything we think we know about life, if we believe that what we see in Jesus is the true way to properly live life [through faith], then God will lead us into this new way of life. This entire thing did not come from ourselves. We humans did not think it up and come to this new understanding on our own [and that not of yourselves]. This entire revelation of the new way to live life is a gift from God [it is the gift of God]. No one can boast that they thought this up on their own [not of works so that no one can boast]. Nope, it’s solely and only from God.

Does that way of reading these verses make sense?

This way of reading the verse fits perfectly in the overall context of Ephesians 2, where Paul has laid out the problem of humanity in Ephesians 2:1-3, the solution to this problem that has come from God through Jesus in Ephesians 2:4-10, and the application of how to live this new way in Ephesians 2:11-22.

Again, Ephesians 2 is not about how to go to heaven when we die, but is about how to bring heaven down to earth by living at peace with one another here on this earth, just as Jesus did during His life and just as God wants us to do in ours. And our world desperately needs this way of living right now, doesn’t it?

We will pick back up next time with Ephesians 2:10 as we continue to talk about this new way of living as revealed in Jesus.

What is Salvation in Ephesians 2:5-7?

By Jeremy Myers

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As we continue our study of Ephesians, this study considers Ephesians 2:5-7 and the meaning of the word “salvation.” We see that a misunderstanding of the word “salvation” leads to a misunderstanding of the entire chapter of Ephesians 2. But when we properly understand what “salvation” means in context, we can then better understanding the whole of Ephesians 2.

Before we look at that text, however, we answer a question from a reader about something I taught from Matthew 13 and the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares.

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Question from a Reader

My question was in the study of the wheat and the tares you say that the wheat are the ideas of God and the tares are the ideas of the evil one if I understand correctly. In Matthew 13:38 it refers to them as people. I’m confused. Thanks for your response.

The reader is referring to a previous study on the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares in Matthew 13:24-30.

This is a question! And good job noting the translation in the NIV.

Part of the problem is the NIV translation is pretty bad on this verse. The Greek word used twice in Matthew 13:38 should not get translated as “people.” It should be “sons” or “children.”

I went on to argue that the word for “sons” in both “sons of the kingdom” and “sons of wickedness” is better understood as “offspring,” which in the context, would indicate the behavior or results that come from living according to the ideas and teachings of the Kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of darkness.

Here is what I said:

Typically, a “son” is understood to be a child of someone else. But the word “son” can also be used metaphorically. When the word “son” is used in connection to a concept or idea, instead of to a person or family, it refers to the characteristics or inner attributes of someone, rather than to the person themselves. So “sons of this world” are contrasted with “sons of light” in Luke 16:8 (cf. John 12:36; 1 Thess 5:5). A student or disciple of the Pharisees could be called a “son of the Pharisees” (Matt 12:27; Acts 23:6). Scripture can also speak of “sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36), “sons of this age” (Luke 16:8; 20:34), “sons of disobedience” (Eph 2:2; 5:6), “sons of the devil” (Acts 13:10) and numerous other similar terms. Such descriptions are not literal (a son of the devil is not literally the biological offspring of the devil), but are instead figurative and symbolic ways of referring to someone’s character and behavior.

If this applies to the word “sons” in this parable, then Jesus is referring to the figurative offspring that comes from the teachings of the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of darkness. Throughout time, the results that come from the teachings of Jesus have always proven to be better than that which comes from any other source. Jesus’ words and teachings can therefore be trusted.

What is Salvation in Ephesians 2:5-7?

In previous studies of Ephesians 2, I have stated that Ephesians 2 is one of the most misunderstood chapters in the Bible. Most people think that the overall message of Ephesians 2 is about how to receive eternal life and go to heaven when you die. And while the first 10 verses of Ephesians 2 can be read this way, the “Application” section of Ephesians 2, found in verses 11-24, show that Paul does not have eternal life and going to heaven in view at all. Paul is concerned with a completely different issue in Ephesians 2.

One of the primary reasons that people misunderstand Ephesians 2 is because they have a faulty definition of the word “salvation.” If Ephesians 2 is one of the most misunderstood chapters in the Bible, the word “salvation” is the most misunderstood word in the Bible.

When most Christians see the word “saved” or “salvation” in the Bible, they think it means “being saved from sin and death so you can receive eternal life and go to heaven when you die.”

You might be surprised to know that this is not how the salvation word family (saved, salvation, save, Savior) is used anywhere in Scripture. A careful study of the various contexts of the words “saved” or “salvation” in the Bible reveals that the word simply means “delivered” or “deliverance.” And you can be delivered from a wide variety of things in Scripture.

In Matthew 8:25, the disciples are in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, and they cry out to Jesus, “Lord, save us!” Are they asking Jesus to forgive their sins so they can receive eternal life and go to heaven when they die? No! There is a great storm on the sea, and they are about to drown and so they ask Jesus to save, or deliver, them from drowning.

This is an easy example, but the rest of the uses of “saved” and “salvation” in Scripture follows a similar pattern. People can be saved from sickness, from enemies, from war, from financial ruin, from premature physical death, from the devastating consequences of sin and temptation, and from a wide variety of other things.

So whenever you see the word “saved” or “salvation” in Scripture, you should substitute in the word “delivered” or “deliverance” and then look in the context to see what kind of deliverance is in view. This will help clear up a lot of confusing Bible passages for you. I will cover many of these passages in my Gospel Dictionary online course for the entry on “salvation” when it gets published.

This is what we will do today when we encounter the word “saved” in Ephesians 2:5-7. We will substitute in the word “delivered” and then consider the context to see what we are delivered from and what this deliverance looks like. When we do this, we will come to understand that Paul is not talking about how to receive eternal life and go to heaven when we die, but is instead talking about a pressing issue that involves the lives of all people on planet earth here and now.

So let’s jump in to Ephesians 2:5.

By Grace You Have Been Saved (Ephesians 2:5)

We are picking up from last time when we looked at Ephesians 2:4 and how God has stepped in to the problem of human violence to do something about it.

Paul continues this idea in the first part of Ephesians 2:5 when says. …because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses.

Again, Paul is showing that the activity of God which is described in Ephesians 2:4-10 is not because of how great we humans are, but is rather because of how much God loves us. God stepped in to act on our behalf while we were dead in our sins. While we were unlovely. While we were undesirable by any standard. Yet God’s love for us was so great, that He loved us anyway.

So what did God do? At the end of Ephesians 2:5, Paul says (by grace you have been saved).

Here is the word “saved” that has caused so many problems in this text. So here is what we do. We see the word “saved” and since we know that this word is widely misunderstood in the minds of most Christians, we substitute in the word “delivered.” The word “delivered” is a fine translation for the Greek word, and it helps us better understand the passage, because it doesn’t carry the same theological baggage as the word “saved.”

So Paul is saying “By grace you have been delivered.”

Now we can look into the context to see what we have been delivered from.

And thankfully, since we’ve been studying Ephesians verse-by-verse, we already know what we have been delivered from, because Paul described it in Ephesians 2:1-4. In those verses, Paul describes the great human problem, which is that we are blinded by Satan so that we engage in a never-ending cycle of human violence that leads to death.

Back in our study of Ephesians 2:1, we learned that salvation in Ephesians is not about receiving eternal life so we can go to heaven when you die, but is instead about being rescued and delivered from our addiction to accusation, scapegoating, and violence, so that we are brought into the way of life, love, and liberty that God always wanted and desired for humanity.

So what is “salvation” is Ephesians 2? It is deliverance from our addiction to violence against other human beings. It is deliverance from how we justify our violence against other human beings. It is being shown what the real problem is and being shown how to handle this violence in a different way, a way that follows the heart of God and the example of Jesus.

This deliverance from the cycle of human violence is what Paul goes on to describe in Ephesians 2:5-7. He uses three descriptive terms to show how we have been delivered, or saved, from our blindness and slavery to violence.

These three descriptive terms are that we have been regenerated with Christ, resurrected with Christ, and are now reigning with Christ.

Regenerated with Christ (Ephesians 2:5)

First in Ephesians 2:5. He made us alive together with Christ. We were dead, and he gave us life. God couldn’t just do this by a wave of his hand, no matter how much he loved us, because – as I said earlier – that would violate his justice and his righteousness. So God made us alive together with Christ.

Paul doesn’t go into great detail here on what he means by regeneration, but this is because Paul has already gone into detail in Ephesians 1:13-23. In our study of Ephesians 1:13, we learned that regeneration is being given new life in Jesus Christ. We are brought back to life with Him.

Jesus not only showed us a different way to live life, He also has given brand new life to us so that we can live in it. It is like we were living in a desert, and Jesus not only showed us what life is like in the rich, lush mountains filled with rivers and streams, but also took us to the mountains so that we can actually experience new life living there.

Jesus didn’t just say “Let me show you a new way to live,” He actually gave us new life so that we can live in it.

Resurrected with Christ (Ephesians 2:6a)

Next in Ephesians 2:6, Paul reveals how we were given new life in Christ. We were raised us up together with Christ. We were resurrected with Christ.

Resurrection is different from regeneration. Regeneration is new spiritual life in Christ. Resurrection is new physical life in Christ. We have been spiritually raised with Him, and we will be physically raised. Life in Christ is not just a spiritual reality, but will also be an eternal physical reality when we are raised with Christ and given new, glorious, sinless bodies.

Now, physical resurrection with Christ is still a future event for us, but in regard to how we live in this life, it is a current reality that we can live in light of.

It is sort of like living with an inheritance that you have not yet received. If you know with absolutely certainty that when you turn a certain age, you will receive a million dollars, that is going to affect how you live your life now and the sorts of choices you will make about your finances. You can even start making investments or purchases with the expectation that in the future, you will gain your million dollar inheritance.

Resurrection is sort of like that. When we receive our resurrected bodies, we will be perfect. We will be sinless. We can start living in light of that reality now. We no longer have be enslaved to this present body of sin. We no longer have to live under the crushing debt of sin. We can instead live in light of the way we will be.

The third and final description of our salvation is related to this, and is found in the last part of Ephesians 2:6.

Reigning with Christ (Ephesians 2:6b)

Paul writes that were were made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

This is a reference to reigning with Christ. And remember, being seated with Christ in heavenly places is a theme that Paul brings up several times in Ephesians. We discussed it previously back in our study of Ephesians 1:3 and our study of Ephesians 1:20-23 and we will see it again later in Ephesians.

One of the key truths to remember is that this statement about sitting with Christ Jesus in heavenly places is not a reference to some future event when we are in heaven with Jesus, but is instead a reference to life here and now on this earth. One of the things Jesus sought to do during His earthly ministry, which is also the task that Jesus assigned to the church, is that we are to bring heaven down to earth. We are to carry out God’s will on earth, just as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).

Heavenly places are the places on earth where the Kingdom of God is making inroads to life on this earth so that God’s rule and reign comes upon this earth, just as it is done in heaven.

So when Paul writes that we are seating with Jesus Christ now in heavenly places so that we can rule and reign with Him, he is talking about how we are to lead the world now into the way that Jesus wants the world to live.

And how is that? Not with violence and blame and hate and anger, where we accuse and demonize our enemies so that we can kill them in God’s name. No. Rather, we are to lead the world into the way of Jesus, into a life filled with grace, mercy, and forgiveness, where, like God, we love others even when they are dead in their trespasses and sins and seek to do us harm in return.

We reign with Christ by loving our enemies, just as He loved us while we were still His enemies.

When we live in light of our regeneration, resurrection, and reigning with Christ, it is then that we begin to experience the results of this sort of life, which is what Paul discusses in Ephesians 2:7.

Results: Riches in Christ (Ephesians 2:7)

In view of that, though, how should we act? How should we behave? We have been given new spiritual life and physical life in Christ, and have been seated with Him to rule and reign over this earth. We have infinite resources at our disposal. So how are we to live?

We should not be ashamed of whose children we are. We should be proud of our name and our family. We should not worry about worldly concerns because our Father the King is watching out for us. And if a new life, and being raised with Christ, and getting a royal position are not enough to get you excited to serve God, Ephesians 2:7 tells us the results of living in light of the deliverance Jesus has brought to us.

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:7… That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

With these words, Paul shows that the new life we have been given in Jesus Christ is not temporary or limited. It begins now, and continues through all the ages of our life, which includes all the ages of eternity. In all the ages to come, God will continue to pour out upon us the riches of His grace and kindness. He loves us and will always love us, and we are only beginning to see the height and depth of God’s love for us. We will spend all eternity exploring God’s love in greater detail.

So, what is the salvation, or the deliverance, that we have been given in Jesus Christ?

It is that we no longer have to live in the realm of death, where we condemn, accuse, and kill others. Instead, because of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, we are able to truly live. We have new spiritual life (regeneration), physical life (resurrection), and powerful life (reigning) with Jesus Christ. We have been delivered from our old way of life and brought into a brand new way of life.

A life based on love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. A life that looks just like Jesus.

Paul is not done talking about this life. He continues in Ephesians 2:8 to show us how we can start living in this new way of life. That is where we will pick up in our next study. In Ephesians 2:8-10 we will see how we can start showing the world a better way to live. How we can fulfill our calling to reveal the life of Jesus to this dying world.

The Biggest “But” in the Bible (Ephesians 2:4)

By Jeremy Myers

How to Join My Discipleship for FREE and also get paid $50!

If you’ve been thinking of joining my discipleship group for a while, I have a way for you to get one month free and also get paid $50 extra in the process. If you’re already part of my discipleship group, you can do this also.

I now accept cryptocurrency as payment for my discipleship group. I am particularly excited to announce that I now accept Dogecoin. It’s my favorite Cryptocurrency. You may remember I talked about Dogecoin back in February, when Dogecoin was worth $0.07. Today it is worth $0.19. Bitcoin, by the way, is at about $32,000.

I want to make sure I tell you that I am NOT giving you financial advice. I am sharing what I did to buy a little crypto and get free crypto in the process, and how you can do it too.

If you don’t know what a cryptocurrency is, it is a digital form of money. You have probably heard of Bitcoin. It is the most famous cryptocurrency, but there are others as well. My favorite is Dogecoin. But anyway, just as you can pay with regular money to buy products and services from stores and business, you can also use digital money like Bitcoin or Dogecoin to buy the same products and services. And my website at RedeemingGod.com is one of the online stores that now accepts cryptocurrency as a form of payment.

Anyway, here is how you can get a free month of my Discipleship Group PLUS about $50 worth of free cryptocurrency. I have a link here that walks you through the process step-by-step of getting your free cryptocurrency, and then use some of it to join my discipleship group, but the basic steps are as follows …

Set up a free Coinbase account using my referral link. Setting it up and getting verified took me about 30 minutes.
Buy at least $100 of cryptocurrency and get $10 in free Bitcoin.
Take all the Cryptocurrency “educational” courses from Coinbase. There’s quite a few of them. Each one takes about 5 minutes, but will pay you about $3-$10 in other forms of cryptocurrency. When I did this, it took me about 30 minutes, and I received about $50 in a variety of cryptocurrencies.
So, after about an hour of work, I put $100 of cryptocurrency, and ended up with about $160 in cryptocurrency. Not a bad return for one hour of work.
Personally, I took all the various cryptocurrencies in my Coinbase account, and convert them into one. Conversion is free on Coinbase. I chose Dogecoin because it’s my favorite, but you might choose Bitcoin since it’s the king of crypto right now, or one of the others, such as Ethereum or Litecoin.
Anyway, at this point, you could do what you want with the cryptocurrency. You could sell it all and deposit it back into your personal banking account. Or, you could use $9 of it to join my discipleship group. My page on cryptocurrency shows you how to use crypto to join my Discipleship group. The process is about as simple as using your credit card.

Now, I know you have probably heard that cryptocurrency is risky and volatile. It is. So I am not giving you financial advice. However, one of the reasons I am interested in cryptocurrency is because I see the economic inflationary pressures that are in the world today, and believe that cryptocurrency is one way to protect against inflation. While the government can print trillions of dollars any time they want, there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin. But of course, since Bitcoin is so scarce, that makes people unwilling to spend it. They would rather hold on to it. But Dogecoin was made to be spent. Many say that Bitcoin is like gold. You buy it and hold it. But Dogecoin is like dollars. You use Dogecoin for buying and selling.

Anyway, do your own due diligence and don’t invest too much into crypto, as it is volatile and risky. But if you wanted make a quick $60 in crypto and use some of it toward joining my discipleship group, that option is now available to you. You can, of course, use your crypto to get access to my Discipleship group for a full year, but it costs $89, so you wouldn’t be able to get the full year for free.

Anyway, let me know if you have questions about this. You can message me through my website or on Twitter.

Question About Calvinism

I found and read your explanation of John 6:41-47. I liked the way you explain it. Can I hear more about your ideas against the doctrines of TULIP?

Yes! I have a list of the articles I’ve written on Calvinism and the doctrines of TULIP.

I eventually want to finish that series of articles and turn them into a book, but I have about ten book projects that currently have higher priority… But eventually … Lord willing.

The Biggest But in the Bible (Ephesians 2:4)

Ephesians 2:4 contains the biggest “but” in the Bible. To see why this is, let’s quickly review what we have seen so far in Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2 is all about how God solved the greatest problem in human history. The problem, as we saw in Ephesians 2:1-3, is that humans engage in endless cycles of violence against one another, and we do all of it in God’s name. These actions are the satanic spirit, the accusatory spirit, the spirit of this age. All of society and culture is based on violence against one another, and we humans know of no other way to live.

Paul wants to tell us how to fix this problem. He explains the solution to this problem in Ephesians 2:4-10. And Paul begins talking about the solution to this problem of human violence with the two important words … “But God … ”

BUT God…

Sometimes the smallest words in Scripture are the most important. And this little word “But” is one of the biggest buts in Scripture. The word is a conjunction, and in this case, and adversative conjunction, showing a contrast between what Paul has just said, and what he is going to say next.

The contrast here is between how we behave as humans and how God does.

Remember, one aspect of the greatest problem we humans have is that when we engage in violence against others, we do it in God’s name. This means that when we march off to war, we do it with prayers and blessings from our pastors and priests. We engage in “Holy War” or “Just War” against our enemies. We think that when we seek to harm, stop, or even kill our enemies, we are doing God’s will.

Even when our enemy is just a neighbor or a coworker, we do this. Hopefully we don’t want to kill them or harm them, but when we have conflict with a neighbor, coworker, or even a family member, we tend to view the other person as morally inferior. They are the sinners. They are greedy and arrogant. We are the righteous ones. We are only standing up for truth and justice. Our stand for righteousness requires us to call them out, condemn their sin, and maybe even get them in trouble.

That is the way we all behave almost all of the time. Our actions are justified and righteous, and the actions of those who oppose us are evil and wicked.

And since our actions are righteous, this means that God is on our side. And since God is on our side, this means He is against our enemy, just as we are. We assume that God wants to see them punished just as much as we do. And sometimes, we might push things a little bit to see that our enemies do receive the punishment they deserve.

But God…

Do you see why these two words are so important?

But God.

This is the way we behave and we think God is on our side … but God.

You could stop right here and almost fill in the rest yourself. If we hate our enemies, condemn our enemies, and want to see our enemies destroyed, and we think God is on our side on this, … but God … what do you think comes after that?

But God is not on our side the way we think.

But God wants nothing to do with our violence and hatred against others.

But God loves our enemies and wants to see them rescued and loved just as much as we do.

But God views our enemies the same way He views us … as objects of His love and affection, worthy of nothing but grace, mercy, forgiveness, and acceptance.

And indeed, in Ephesians 2:4-10, Paul goes on to say very similar things as we have just guessed. Indeed, right here in Ephesians 2:4, Paul mentions that God is rich in mercy, and that He acted out of His great love for us.

We must be careful to recognize that these terms of mercy and love apply to everyone in the world. We must not think that God is only rich in mercy toward us, and that He only extends His great love toward us, while in the meantime, He hates our enemies. No, the love and mercy of God are universal in their extent. They apply to all of us. To the entire human race.

And the word for love that Paul uses here, by the way, is agape. So this is God’s unconditional love for all of us. We will learn next time that God loved us even while we were in our sin. God does not wait for us to become righteous and holy before He loves us. God loves us while we are still sinners (Ephesians 2:5, Romans 5:8). There are no conditions to God’s agape love. He simply loves because He IS love and because we are objects of His love. He loves all humans all the time, regardless of what they have done, who they are, or even if they love God in return.

Here is what this means:

We hate our enemies and want to see them ruined, but God loves our enemies and wants to see them succeed.

We want to see our enemies “face justice,” but God extends mercy to them.

This is the beginning of the radical message Paul outline in Ephesians 2:4-10. He explained the problem humanity faces in Ephesians 2:1-3, and now he begins to unfold the solution to this problem. And the first initial and shocking truth is that when it comes to how we view our enemies, God is NOT on our side. Well, He is on our side, but He’s on their side too, and He doesn’t have the same view of our enemies as we do. His view of our enemies is radically different.

Do you see why this is the biggest “But” in the Bible?

Paul has described the greatest problem we humans face, and now Paul says “But God … ” is not part of this problem the way we humans think He is. Quite to the contrary, God wants to bring an end to all the violence and hatred.

When Paul says But God, he is saying that God stepped in to initiate a process of brining an end to the problem that human face. That’s why these two words are so important. They are central to the good news message about why God sent Jesus to this earth. God sent Jesus to show the world the way forward out of the human problem of violent sin.

Martin Lloyd-Jones once preached an entire sermon on these two words (See (#AmazonAdLink) God’s Way of Reconciliation, 59). Near the beginning of the sermon, he said this:

With these two words we come to the introduction to the Christian message, the peculiar, specific message which the Christian faith has to offer to us. These two words, in and of themselves, in a sense contain the whole gospel. The gospel tells us what God has done, God’s intervention; it is something that comes entirely from outside us and displays to us that wondrous and amazing and astonishing work of God which the apostle goes on to describe and to define in the following verses.

Yes, these two words are a hand grenade thrown into everything we think we know about God and His role in our life when it comes to dealing with our enemies. God has a completely different plan for how to deal with our enemies than we do. And this plan was revealed in Jesus Christ, which Paul goes on to describe in the following verses. And that is where we will pick up in our next study.

Sin Leads to Wrath (Ephesians 2:3)

By Jeremy Myers

Question about Critical Race Theory

I listened to your recent discussions of Critical Race Theory, and while I agree that there might be some concerns with CRT, since the goal is to get rid of racism so that all people can live in love and unity with each other, shouldn’t we accept and embrace CRT, or at least allow it to have a voice in our schools and churches? CRT is part of an overall conversation about race relations, and is therefore a good thing. Right?

Everybody wants love and unity among all people. I completely agree that love and racial reconciliation are taught in the Bible and are godly goals.

The problem, however, is that while CRT claims to work toward unity, forgiveness, and reconciliation, it actually does the exact opposite. The reason it fails is twofold.

First, in the attempt to achieve racial reconciliation, CRT demonizes one particular race, namely, white people. Love, unity, and reconciliation can never occur when one group seeks to accuse and condemn another group. Such behavior does nothing but amplify the division and strife. Reconciliation can only occur when all parties agree that we are all equal in God’s image, and are all willing to view and treat each other in light of this equality.

But secondly, CRT does not lead to love and racial reconciliation because it seeks to achieve unity and love between the races through law, and specifically, through hedging around the law. Hedging around the law always leads to the opposite of what God wants. Let me explain what this is before I explain how CRT does this.

Law-hedging, or hedging around the law occurs when people take the commands and laws of God, and in an attempt to help people obey those divine instructions, create a secondary set of laws to keep people from breaking the primary law.

I talk about this in my sermon on Luke 6:1-5 and the Sabbath law keeping. “Don’t do work on the Sabbath” becomes don’t walk a certain distance on the Sabbath, don’t spit, don’t light a fire, and don’t rub heads of grain between your hands.

We have similar law-hedging rules today.

Don’t lust becomes don’t let women be beautiful (which is doubly sad, because the women get punished for the sins of men). If we really wanted to put up a hedge around the prohibition to lust, we should gouge out men’s eyes … as Jesus suggested (Matt 5:29).

Don’t get drunk becomes “Don’t drink.” Oh, let’s hedge that one too: “Don’t even have alcohol in your house.” But we can hedge that one too: “Don’t even have alcohol in your town. Let’s have dry town.” During the Prohibition Era, our country tried to really hedge around this one by banning all alcohol in the country. You know how well that turned out.

So that is hedging the law. And hedging around the law always results in catastrophe. It always leads to the exact opposite of what God wanted. Rather than result in love, law-hedging leads to hate.

Why? Because as soon as you build a hedge around the law in an attempt to keep the law, you are now using a standard which is not biblical to judge and condemn other people. And this standard based on human traditions leads to criticism and judgmentalism of people who may be engaging in behaviors that God is okay with, but you are not, because you use the standard of law-hedging while God uses the standard of love.

This is how hedging around the law leads to hate.

And this is exactly what happens with Critical Race Theory. CRT creates a system of laws and rules intended to “force” people to “do the work of antiracism.” I found a great article from Krista Bontrager called “The New Legalism” which explains how this works with CRT. After talking about how the Pharisees hedged around the law in the days of Jesus so that they could actually do the opposite of what the law required, Krista says that CRT advocates are doing the exact same thing today. CRT hedges around the biblical instructions against racism, not to end racism, but to do the exact opposite!

Here is a bit of what Krista writes in the article:

I have become persuaded that Social Justice and Critical Race Theory ARE the holiness codes of our cultural moment. “Doing the work” of antiracism has come to comprise the accepted values, language, and moral code—not just in our culture, but in many of our churches too.

“Social Justice Warriors” act as the new Pharisees. They are standing by watching, willing and ready to point out others’ moral shortcomings according to their human traditions—their hedge laws. The clear message: obey their “laws” or risk being cancelled. Within the church (or Christian higher ed), the sincerity of your faith may even be questioned!

This popular graphic is used all over the internet to explain the new definition of “White Supremacy.” The actions and attitudes listed here indicate what makes a person “unclean.” Ideas such as “White privilege” or “color blindness” are the new “holiness code” or “hedge laws” that are put forward to help prevent us from participating in covert racism.

But the question is: does this complex list demonstrate how I MUST live out God’s law of loving my neighbor? I would say no. Showing partiality, using slurs, or hating my neighbor in my heart because of her ethnicity would violate God’s standards of justice (Gal. 5:20). This graphic implies little more than a bunch of “hedge laws” that are intended to tell me how I must obey God’s commands. There is nothing about White privilege or White fragility in the Bible. There are no commands in Scripture about decentering Whiteness or performing the works of antiracism.

BUT many Christian leaders are talking as if there are!

I am opposed to racism. Racism is evil and must be purged from the world. Racism does the exact opposite of what God wants or desires, and in fact, has no place in the Kingdom of God, but rather belongs to the kingdom of darkness and the rule of satan. We must all work to bring love, healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation to all the people of the world.

But CRT does not accomplish this. Like the hedging-laws of the Pharisees, the laws and regulations of CRT accomplishes the opposite of what it claims. It does not bring love or reconciliation, but instead only amplifies hatred, discord, and jealousy among people, and thus, creates more racist feelings and tensions. Do not be led astray by Critical Race Theory. It does not help in creating unity. Instead, follow Jesus into love, grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. These are traits of the Kingdom of God and these are the only way to restore unity and reconciliation to this world.

This all fits with what we learn in our study of Ephesians 2:3.

How Sinful Desires Lead to Wrath (Ephesians 2:3)

Ephesians 2 is all about the primary problem that humans face in this world, which is the problem of hatred, division, strife, and racism. Humans have always suffered from religious hatred, economic hatred, racial hatred, and cultural hatred. We use this hatred to accuse, condemn, and kill one another, and we do it all in God’s name.

In Ephesians 2, Paul describes this problem, shows what Jesus did to fix it, and then invites us to apply the example of Jesus to our world so that we can live in love and unity with each other. Ephesians 2:1-3 contains Paul’s description of the problem we humans face. We have already considered Ephesians 2:1 where were learned what the great problem of humanity is and how it leads to death, and then also Ephesians 2:2, where we learned that the accuser, satan, is behind this great human problem.

Ephesians 2:3 now shows how we humans have fallen prey to the lies of the accuser, and also shows how our actions lead to the destruction of humanity.

Ephesians 2:3. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

Here in Ephesians 2:3, Paul begins by saying All of us also lived among them at one time. There are no exceptions here. All means all. You, me, Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, everyone. Paul even includes himself in this. He says all of us. All of us at one time lived as the rest of the world lives, caught up in sin that leads to death (Ephesians 2:1) and under the control of the accuser, satan, which rules the kingdom of the air (Ephesians 2:2).

Paul says next in Ephesians 2:3, that all of us were gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.

There are several things to note about these statements.

Sinful nature = Flesh

First, I am not fond of the term “sinful nature,” and it is not the best translation of the terms here that Paul wrote in the Greek. The Greek word is sarx, which is best translated as “flesh.” I argue in my Gospel Dictionary course that we do not have a “sinful nature” and should stop using that phrase. The biblical term is “flesh,” and it refers to the human tendency to use religious laws as a way to justify our violence against other human beings. It is “religious zeal carried out through religious violence.”

When Paul writes about “the flesh,” he is thinking the tendency of religious zealots to think that their faithful obedience to God’s commands (and more specifically, the manmade rules humans have constructed around God’s commands) puts them in better standing with God than others (cf. 2 Cor 10:3; Gal 2:20). This fits exactly with what we discussed above with Critical Race Theory.

Cravings = Lusts

Second, the term “cravings” could be translated as lusts. The word “lust” is a weighty theological word which reminds us of the three forms that sin takes … the lust of the eyes, the lust the flesh, and the pride of life. These are the three sins that Jesus was tempted with in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13), and are also the three sins that Eve was tempted with in the Garden (Genesis 3:6).

These cravings, or lusts, are closely related to desire, which Paul also mentions in this text.

Desire

Third, the word “desire” is a key term in Scripture, as it summarizes the basic source of all sin. As far back as Genesis 3 and Genesis 4, we see that desire led Eve to eat from the forbidden tree, and desire led Adam to imitate her actions, and desire led Cain to murder Abel (Gen 4:6-7).

I previously recorded a video about the importance of desire in understanding … pretty much everything … including sin, Scripture, and human society and culture. Watch it to learn more:

So when these three terms are properly understand, Paul is saying that all people on earth used to live according to religious zeal that led us to engage in violence against our enemies. We did this because desire caused us to want what others have and destroy those who were different from us. This is the way all of humanity lives, because we didn’t know any other way to live. Sacred violence runs the world, and we all use this sacred violence to get what we want and justify the violence we use in the process.

The end result of this sort of living is wrath. But what is wrath?

What is Wrath?

Paul says … like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

When most people read about “wrath” in the Bible, they think of the “wrath of God.” They think of God’s anger directed toward sinful human beings.

But this is not what the Bible teaches about wrath. In fact, in Scripture, wrath does not come from God at all. Most of the time, when the Bible talks about wrath, it simply uses the word “wrath” as we see here in Ephesians 2:3, without any reference to God at all. There are a couple of texts in the New Testament that do indeed use the term “wrath of God,” but I am convinced that those references are not referring to the way God really is, but instead refer to the way some religious people think about God.

I know that’s a challenging idea, but let me put it this way. There are many Christians today who teach that God hates certain types of people. You will hear some preachers say “God hates Muslims,” or “God hates homosexuals.” When you hear a pastor say such hateful things, are you to assume that since a pastor says it, this is the way God really is? No! Instead, you are to realize that some people have really bad ideas about God, and our job as followers of Jesus is to recognize pastors who preach hate are not accurately representing God the way He really is. We are to refute such false teachers as not properly showing what God is like as revealed to us in Jesus.

So in the few places where the New Testament speaks about “the wrath of God,” those texts are not correct representations of what Paul thought. Instead, in those texts where Paul writes about the wrath of God, he is quoting some bad Christian teachers from his day who wrongly believed that God was wrathful. Paul quotes these bad teachers, not because he agrees with them, but because he wants to refute them. And that is what Paul goes on to do.

It’s called Epistolary Diatribe, and Paul engages in it quite frequently. Paul quotes someone he disagrees with so that he can go on to show how they are wrong. That is what is going on when Paul writes about “the wrath of God.” Paul does not believe that God is wrathful. Paul knows that God is not. Yes, wrath exists, but it does not come from God. I will eventually have an entry in my Gospel Dictionary online course on the word “wrath” which will explain more.

So what is wrath if it is not God’s anger directed toward humans?

Wrath is the devastating and destructive consequences of sin that fall upon humanity because we sin. Wrath does not come from God; wrath comes from sin. Sin bears its own punishment with it, and Paul calls it “wrath.” When we sin, there are natural consequences that result, and these consequences destroy, hurt, harm, kill, ruin, and damage humans, animals, climate, relationships, government, culture, society, economics, and every other aspect of this world.

Wrath is a fire that destroys everything it touches, and the fire of wrath is sparked by human desire that leads to human violence.

The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand led to Word War I, which caused the mistreatment of the German people, which led to the rise of Adolph Hitler and World War II. One act of human violence led to the death and misery of millions. This is wrath. It is a contagion that starts with a spark and spreads to destroy countless lives.

Do you see why this is the greatest problem that humans face? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could end all the violence? Wouldn’t it be great if we could fulfill the desire of every beauty pageant model and achieve world peace? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could bring an end to wrath?

Ah, well, that is exactly what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. And that is exactly what Paul goes on to begin describing in Ephesians 2:4.

Summary of Ephesians 2:1-3

We humans do not function properly in our roles as God’s image on earth. Instead, we were subject to the ways of this world and to the lies of satan. This led us to sin according to our desire, resulting in our own mutually-assured destruction.

More succinctly still: Because we did not follow God in the ways of love, unity, and peace, but instead followed satan in the ways of desire, sin, and death, humanity is doomed.

Ephesians 2:1-3 has explained the greatest problem that humanity faces, which is the universal human problem of desire that leads to accusation and blame, which results in a contagion of death and violence. Most humans have absolutely no idea how to break free from all this violence. Our only solution is to have more guns and bombs than the next guy.

But Paul has a better solution. And it is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. And as Jesus showed us how to solve the problem of human violence, we as the church can show the world how to solve the problem also, which in turn, can start to bring an end to violence.

This is what Paul goes on to describe in Ephesians 2:4, where we pick up next time.

Created for Good Works (Ephesians 2:10)

Question from a Reader

Created for Good Works (Ephesians 2:10)

We are His Workmanship

Created for Good Works

That we should walk in them

Ephesians 2:10 as a Transition

By Grace are you Saved Through Faith (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Question from a Reader about New Age Practices

By Grace are You Saved Through Faith … Ephesians 2:8-9

What is Salvation in Ephesians 2:5-7?

Question from a Reader

What is Salvation in Ephesians 2:5-7?

By Grace You Have Been Saved (Ephesians 2:5)

Regenerated with Christ (Ephesians 2:5)

Resurrected with Christ (Ephesians 2:6a)

Reigning with Christ (Ephesians 2:6b)

Results: Riches in Christ (Ephesians 2:7)

So, what is the salvation, or the deliverance, that we have been given in Jesus Christ?

The Biggest “But” in the Bible (Ephesians 2:4)

How to Join My Discipleship for FREE and also get paid $50!

Question About Calvinism

The Biggest But in the Bible (Ephesians 2:4)

BUT God…

Sin Leads to Wrath (Ephesians 2:3)

Question about Critical Race Theory

How Sinful Desires Lead to Wrath (Ephesians 2:3)

Sinful nature = Flesh

Cravings = Lusts

Desire

What is Wrath?

Summary of Ephesians 2:1-3

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