Redeeming Theology Archives

Question from a Reader

Hi, Jeremy! I would just like to ask because I still get anxiety over hell. What are we to do with testimonies about hell? Sometimes I think that it may be from God redirecting us. But I also believe that there might be no hell. The only thing stopping me from holding that view are the testimonies and books saying it’s divine revelation.

I have written a book about hell titled “What is Hell?” and in it, I challenge the three main views about hell and show what the Bible actually teaches regarding the doctrine of hell. It’s a shocking and surprising book, and I encourage you to read it.

Regarding the various testimonies and visions of hell that some people claim to have, I tend to be very skeptical about them, for three reasons.

First, we must always be skeptical of any vision, dream, or testimony that is not found specifically in Scripture. Scripture is the ultimate written revelation from God, and so all other forms of revelation must be filtered through the lens of Scripture. In my understanding of Scripture, there are no direct visions or revelations of hell as a place of suffering torture and everlasting burning, and so any dream or vision that a person today has which claims to have seen hell as such a place is suspect by default, for it contradicts the Bible.

Second, the human mind is quite susceptible to the power of suggestion. This is also true of dreams. I am sure you have noticed that quite often, your dreams somewhat follow the events or experiences or worries that have been most at the forefront of your mind during the previous few days. If you are worried about a test at school, or presentation at work, or some situation with your spouse, you are likely to have some dreams about these things.

I often find that when I am studying a particular text of Scripture and am struggling with it, I will have dreams about the text. If I am working on a problem with my car, I might have dreams about fixing my car. If I am preparing for a trip, I might have dreams about the upcoming trip.

The same thing happens with dreams about hell. I have found that when people have dreams about hell, it is usually because they have been thinking a lot about hell in the previous days and weeks. Maybe they have been reading and studying a lot about it. Maybe they have heard some pastors preach or teach about it. Maybe they have been extremely worried about it. Maybe a loved one passed away and they are afraid that their loved one is in hell. And so then they have dreams about hell. And since the concept of hell as a place of burning torture is so common, the dreams of hell as a place of torture are quite vivid. The more vivid your dreams are, the more you remember them. So people dream about hell, and the dreams are quite vivid, and so people will often tell others about these dreams. They might even write books about them.

But note that that the fact that they had these dreams does not prove that the dreams show what hell is really like. All it shows is that they were thinking or worried about hell, and so had a dream which helped their mind sort through and deal with some of the thoughts and worries that were on their mind. That is where most of these dreams seem to come from … not necessarily from God.

Third, and somewhat in support of the second point, any human can have these sorts of dreams and visions. I have frequently encountered non-Christian people who tell stories about visions or dreams of a place of suffering and torture in the afterlife. Muslims have these. Pagans (as in people who follow Norse mythology such as that of Odin and Thor) have these sorts of stories. The ancient Egyptians had these sorts of stories.

This doesn’t mean that all such dreams and visions are correct or incorrect. It just means that stories of a place of burning and suffering after this life are not unique to Christianity, and so we have to wonder about the spiritual source of all such dreams and visions. And who is more likely to want people to live in fear about the after life? God or Satan?

Second Timothy 1:7 says that God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. God is a God of peace; not of fear, punishment, and torture.

So in my view, any human testimony about a dream or vision of hell which leads people to live in fear of God or fear for the after life is not something that comes from God. Therefore, I do not give any credibility to these visions of hell that some people claim to have. God does not threaten us into a relationship with Him, but woos us with love and promises of peace and safety.

This concept of God as a God of peace helps transition into our study of Ephesians 3:1-7.

A Prisoner for Jesus (Ephesians 3:1-7)

So far in Ephesians, Paul has explained the riches and inheritance that is ours in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1) and how Jesus revealed the way to live in peace with those people we used to hate (Ephesians 2). Now, in Ephesians 3, Paul goes on to encourage the Ephesians Christians to follow the example of Jesus and live in peace with each other also, so the world can learn from us and begin to live in peace with each other as well.

I want to remind you that many people read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians quite differently than this. As a result, they often don’t really know what to do with Ephesians 3:1-13 since these verses don’t really seem to fit with what they think Paul is saying. So when you read most commentaries or listen to pastors teach Ephesians 3:1-13, they often refer to it as an “aside.” It is thought to be one of Paul’s famous “rabbit trails” where he goes off onto some tangent that doesn’t really have much to do with anything else he is saying, and then finally returns to his main point in Ephesians 2:14.

One of the primary reasons people think this is because of those repeated words in Ephesians 3:1 and 3:14, “For this reason.” It is thought that Paul begins a point in Ephesians 3:1 by saying “For this reason” but then gets sidetracked to talk about being in prison and how the church is a mystery, until he finally returns to this main point in Ephesians 3:14 by repeating the phrase “For this reason.”

When I first taught Ephesians about twenty years ago, this is how I taught it.

But I have since come to a completely different understanding of the message of Ephesians, and in my new understanding, Paul’s words in Ephesians 3:1-14 are not a tangent, not a rabbit trail, but are rather a perfectly logical follow-up point from what Paul has written so far in this letter.

Paul’s primary point in Ephesians can be summarized in one word: “Peace!” Through Jesus, there is peace with God, peace with one another, and together, all of us are working toward universal peace (which includes bringing the principalities and powers back into their proper place).

So Paul’s point in Ephesians 3 is that he wants the Ephesian Christians to live at peace with each other. This follows naturally from what Paul has just written in Ephesians 2 about how Jesus showed us the way to live in peace with each other.

The reason we are to leave in peace with one another is because the world doesn’t know how to attain peace, and if we live at peace with each other, the world will learn how to live in peace by watching us and learning from us.

And Paul knows that before he can ask the Ephesian Christians to live in peace with each other, he needs to show them how he himself is following the example of Jesus. This is what Paul explains in Ephesians 3:1-13, how he himself is following the example of Jesus is seeking peace with others.

I am not going to be able to cover this entire section in this one study, so we will split it up into two, looking at Ephesians 3:1-7 this time, and Ephesians 3:8-13 next time.

Ephesians 3:1. For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles …

Paul begins by pointing out that his attempt to follow Jesus into the way of peace ended up with him in prison. As Paul writes this letter to the Ephesians, he is sitting in a prison in Rome.

Of course, even though he is a prisoner in Rome, Paul does not consider himself a prisoner of Rome. Paul says that he is a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Paul knows that he is right where Jesus wants him to be.

Indeed, prison is the natural and normal consequence for someone who seeks peace in a world filled with violence.

When Jesus sought peace, He ended up on a cross. So also, Paul’s quest for peace led him to prison, where he himself might die.

Yet when peace is the goal, imprisonment and possible death is better than violence and bloodshed. And in a world that is ruled and dominated by violence, those who seek peace are viewed as the enemies, who must be silenced, imprisoned, or killed.

So Paul is is prison because he followed Jesus into the way of peace.

Finally, Paul writes that he is a prisoner for you Gentiles. This does not mean that Paul was a prisoner because of the Gentiles. He is not blaming the Gentiles, especially not the Gentile Christians in Ephesus. Instead, Paul is saying that he is a prisoner “as an example” for the Gentiles, or as a way to reach the Gentiles with the truth that they too are now accepted into the family of God.

Paul is saying, “I’m in prison for your sake, to help you, to show you how this whole ‘peace’ thing works.”

We know this is what Paul means because he goes on in Ephesians 3:2-13 to explain how peace works.

Ephesians 3:2. … if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you …

The word dispensation is a word we don’t use very much anymore. We saw it previously though in Ephesians 1:10. The Greek word is oikonomia. Oiko means house, and nomia means law, so oikonomia means “law of the house.” It is the rules by which a house or business is governed. Synonyms could be “management, stewardship, or an orderly arrangement.”

In Ephesians 3:2, Paul says that a dispensation was given to him, and so we could say, as some of your translations do, that he was given a stewardship—he was made a steward or a manager over a certain task or responsibility. Paul was given specific guidelines from God by which he should live and function.

What were these guidelines? Well, the verse says that he was a steward of the grace of God which was given to me for you. Paul was sent by God to declare peace to the Gentiles. To declare that there are not more outsiders and insiders, but that all are “insiders” with God.

As the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul was the person God chose to take the message of peace to the Gentiles.

Ephesians 3:3-4. … how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ),

This message of peace to the Gentiles was something unknown to Jewish people prior to the ministry of Jesus and apostleship of Paul. Most Jews thought that God could accept Gentiles into His family, but only if they first became Jewish and kept the Mosaic Law. But Paul was showing that Jesus opened the door for all people, Jew and Gentile alike, to join the family of God. Everybody was on equal footing before God.

Now Paul says he already wrote to them about this, which he did in two places already: Ephesians 1:9-10 and Ephesians 2:11-22. We discussed this mystery there as well, so we can now move on.

Ephesians 3:5. … which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets:

The reason Paul refers to this truth as a mystery is because few people saw or understood the truth of it until Jesus revealed it and Paul proclaimed it.

The idea that all people were on equal footing with God was a shocking idea for most people in Paul’s day (cf. Acts 10-15; Galatians). The idea that God wanted to love and accept all people is definitely taught all over the place in the Hebrew Scripture, but it was such a challenging idea, most Jewish people didn’t understand it or believe it. It was a hidden truth. It was a mystery to them.

In previous ages, humans have always operated under the “us vs. them” principle, which was a principle of rivalry, violence, and death (cf. Ephesians 2:1-3). But now we have a new revelation by the Spirit through the prophets and apostles, that all of us are one, and our struggle is not against each other (cf. Ephesians 6:12).

But Jesus revealed the truth of God’s love for all, and Paul has learned this truth as well, and so is now declaring it to the world. Jews and Gentiles can now live in peace with each other because both are equal footing before God. This is what Paul writes in Ephesians 3:6.

Ephesians 3:6. … that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel …

So instead of division, strife, and rivalry, we are all one family, fellow heirs of God, recipients of the promises (Ephesians 1:3-14; 2:11-22).

Previously, only the Jews were heirs. Only the Jews had promises and covenants from God. Only the Jews were allowed near to God. Only the Jews had forgiveness of sins from God.

But now they are being allowed in. Now they are being grafted into the body. Now they can partake—or share—in the promise of God! This is the mystery. It seems clear to us, but that is because it has been revealed to us.

Jews who lived prior to Paul did not see this clearly. “No one knew the full meaning of God’s promise to Abraham that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3) until Paul wrote, “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘All the nations shall be blessed in you’” (Gal 3:8).

In Ephesians 3:7, Paul states that he effectively carried out this task of revealing the mysterious message of peace to the Gentiles.

Ephesians 3:7. … of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power.

The word minister comes from the Greek word diakonos, which could also be translated as deacon. Many churches have deacons. This is where that title comes from. A deacon is someone who serves in the church. They are those men and women who have the God given ability to see what needs to be done and do it – no matter how menial. They are wonderful people to have in a church – deacons and deaconesses. That is Paul’s picture of himself in Ephesians 3:7. He calls himself a diakonos, a minister. He was a minister.

Paul is just saying that this ministry was a gift given to him by God. The term effective working is the Greek word energion from which we get our word energy, and the word power us the Greek word dunamis from which we get our word dynamite. God was working in Paul with energy like dynamite to carry out the task given to him.

And all of this divine energy and power to perform a ministry to the Gentiles led Paul directly into prison. A lot of times we think that when we have divine power and energy to perform our God-given ministry, we will be led into popularity and fame. But when Jesus followed God, He ended up on the cross. When Paul followed his calling, he ended up in prison.

Now, Paul is not done with this point about why he is in prison for following Jesus into the way of peace. He explains more in Ephesians 3:8-13, which we will cover next time. We will see that as a result of preaching peace to the Gentiles, this threatened the principalities and powers of this world, and so they put Paul in prison. However, by not fighting violence with violence, Paul was able to show the church, the world, and even the fallen powers of this world, that there was a better way to peace.

In Ephesians 2, Paul wrote to the Ephesian Christians (and therefore to us as well), that we, as the church, are to lead the world into the way of peace by being an example to them of how to live in peace with people who used to be our enemies. But Paul knows that this is easier said than done, and so in the first part of Ephesians 3, Paul is showing the church how he himself is an example to them about how to live in peace with others.

Paul is in prison as a result of his stand for peace, but Paul knows that this will only serve to prove the truth of what he is teaching. Paul leads by example, just as we, the church, are to be an example to the world. This is what we have begun to learn in this study of Ephesians 3:1-7, and we will pick back with Paul’s point next time in Ephesians 3:8-13.

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

By Jeremy Myers

2 Comments

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

1 Comment

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 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.

What a Non-Violent Atonement reveals about Scripture

A Prisoner for Peace (Ephesians 3:1-7)

Question from a Reader

A Prisoner for Jesus (Ephesians 3:1-7)

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…

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