The Masterpiece Produced.

Verses 1-10

After the great revelation of the first chapter and the prayer which followed, the production of the Masterpiece itself is now brought more fully into view. We have before us a revelation concerning our state by nature and how God takes us up and produces out of such material His Masterpiece. The first ten verses of this chapter give us this story. These verses belong to the richest of the whole Word of God.

1. What Man is by Nature. Verses 1-3.

“And you, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in times past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience; among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”

What Man, Jew or Gentile, is by nature, is first brought forward. The contrast between the Epistle to the Romans and that to the Ephesians is interesting. In Romans the Spirit of God demonstrates at length the guilt and unrighteousness of the whole world. Gentiles without the law and the Jews with the law are seen equally guilty and lost. All have sinned. Jews and Gentiles are all under sin. The divine verdict is “there is none righteous, no, not one.” (Rom. iii:9-10). God stops every mouth and shows that the whole world is guilty and lost (iii:19). Upon that dark background God writes the story of His love in His blessed Son, and reveals His righteousness, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all that believe. He reaches down into the terrible pit where man is as sinner and discovers the way out, leading forth in the Epistle to the Romans, till the summit is reached in the eighth chapter.

In Ephesians nothing is said of Man’s condition in the opening chapter. God speaks of Himself and His sovereign Grace first of all and leads us far higher than in the Epistle to the Romans. And after He has made known His plans and His work, after He has revealed the riches of His Grace and into what He brings those who believe on His Son, He tells us what material we are. Our desperate condition in which we are by nature is uncovered.

A. Dead in Trespasses and Sins.

The first description shows that man is by nature in the state of death. This is spiritual death. While in Romans the conduct of Man as a sinner is made prominent, here it is the condition in which man is. Man is dead spiritually, dead towards God, because man is conceived and born in sin. The entire Word of God bears witness to this condition. The spiritual death of man is the foundation fact of the Gospel. If man were not in that condition, he would not be in need of salvation. Our Lord emphasized this condition. He told the religious Pharisee Nicodemus, the moral and learned ruler of the Jews, one of the finest types of the natural man, that he had no life and “must be born again.” In His great discourse in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John, our Lord makes the declaration that man is spiritually dead. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my Word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death unto life” (John v:24). This shows clearly that as long as man does not believe on the Son of God, he is in the state of death, and only Grace by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can change that condition. Again He said, “Verily, verily I say unto you. The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live” (John v:25). The dead in this verse are not the physically dead, for He speaks of those in verses 28-29 of the same chapter. He describes the condition of man spiritually and shows that He alone can change this condition. And His power to raise the physically dead was abundantly demonstrated when He raised Lazarus from the dead, after he had lain four days in the grave. Lazarus dead, in the darkness, and corruption of the grave, may well be used as a picture of man as he is in his natural state. The scholar, the learned, the moral man, the philanthropist, all, no matter what they are or have made of themselves, if unregenerated, are dead towards God; they are in the darkness and corruption of spiritual death. This is a hard saying for the twentieth century. We hear much of the “better self” or “the good spark” which is in everybody. Appeals are made to live better and cleaner lives, but the truth God has revealed concerning man, that he is dead in trespasses and sins, is but little believed.

B. Enemies of God under the Prince of the Power of the Air.

The next verse tells us of the walk in which the natural man is found. It is according to the course of this world, according to the

Prince of the Power of the Air, the spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience. It fully reveals the awful place in which man is as dead in trespasses and sins. The walk is according to the nature; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life are the governing principles of this walk. All are enemies of God by wicked works. And behind all there stands the Prince of the Power of the Air, Satan. He works in the children of disobedience, which here means the Jews. Of this our Lord spake when He said, “Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” (John viii:44). And again it is written, “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning” (1 John iii:8). It is a solemn truth, which God has revealed concerning our condition as fallen beings, that we are in the grasp of the Prince of the Power of the Air; that man is under this mighty Being of Darkness. To what a place of degradation man has been brought by sin! This likewise is disbelieved by the great majority of professing Christians. A personal devil is ridiculed and his existence denied. But all these denials cannot change the true condition as made known by the Spirit of God. These denials emanate from this very Being, whose work is to blind the eyes of man so that he cannot see his real condition before God. As long as the natural man has not received that life, which God offers in His Son, he is dead in trespasses and in sins, and is forced to walk according to the course of this age, held in captivity by sin and Satan, whose slave he is.

C. Children of Wrath.

The “you” of the first verse is addressed to the Ephesians, who were of the Gentiles, and their unsaved condition is thus pictured. When in this verse it is stated “among whom also we had our conversation,” the Apostle shows that the Jews were in the same condition. And he adds, “and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” The Spirit of God shows that Gentiles and Jews by nature are the children of wrath. The wrath of a holy and righteous God rests upon man in this awful condition. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John iii:36). No Millennial Dawnist, Restitutionist, or as some call themselves, “Reconciliationist,” nor any of the other errorists of the present day, can disprove this simple and solemn statement. They attempt an explanation, but fail in it. The truth revealed that we are “children of wrath” by nature and remain children of wrath as long as we are outside of Christ, is increasingly denied. What a significant fact, that God has revealed to us our true condition in which we are by nature! And man denies this revelation and refuses to believe what God saith about him. This denial is found in all the cults of Anti-christianity, such as the new Theology, Christian Science, the new religion, Russellism or Millennial Dawnism, Bahaism, Theosophy and a number of others.

But where is there a true child of God, saved by Grace, enjoying.the knowledge of the Gospel with its blessed depths and marvellous heights, who denies the truth of the first three verses of the second chapter of Ephesians? We know it is our true photograph. We acknowledge it all to be true. Such material God has to produce out of it His great Masterpiece.

2. What God does, rich in Mercy. Verses 4-6.

After this dark picture of death, ruin and wrath, we read of what God has done and does for all those who are in that condition, who believe on His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We shall find how, in the riches of His Mercy, He reaches, in His Son, down to these conditions of death and despair and gives life in place of death, raises up with Christ out of the conditions of enmity and Satan’s power, and changes all who believe, from children of wrath, into children of Glory, It is a marvellous, a most blessed revelation given in a few sentences.

A. The foundation. The great love wherewith He loved us.

“But God who is rich in mercy, for the great great love, wherewith He loved us” (Verse 4). This is the precious bridge, which leads out of the dark and dreary, hopeless condition. How beautiful are the first two words of this verse! How sweet they are to faith. But God; There are many “But God” in the Bible, and it is well for the reader of the Word of God to notice them. When human power is ended, when man’s help fails, when all is dark, when hope is gone, then “But God”! May our faith constantly lay hold upon it, and whenever difficulties arise, trials and troubles surround us and insurmountable obstacles, mountains, confront us, may we cry triumphantly, “But God!”

And so here in our passage. Man is helpless; Man in himself is hopeless. What can one do who is dead? What can a person do who is the slave of a powerful being, whose chains cannot be snapt by a puny effort? What can one expect who has deserved only wrath? But God! God now comes to the front and makes known that towards such as we are, He is rich in mercy. Rich in Mercy! How often one hears this. Who does not talk of the mercy of God? Hindus, Mohammedans, Unitarians, Bahaists, all talk of God being merciful. But God who is righteous cannot be rich in mercy unless His righteousness is satisfied and His mercy rests completely upon that righteousness. And this is blessedly the case. He has loved us with a great love. For that great love with which He has loved us, He is now towards such as we are, “rich in Mercy” and can take us up and out of our condition. John iii:16 tells us of that great love. He gave His only begotten Son. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. He put the cup of wrath to His blessed lips and He drank the last drop of it, which was our due. The Lord Jesus Christ met all the claims of God’s righteousness, and now God is rich in Mercy, for the great love wherewith He loved us.

On account of this great Love wherewith God has loved us, which enables Him, who is righteous, to be rich in mercy, God can take up lost sinners and lift them so high. How God does it is now revealed in a few words.

B. Quickened us together with Christ.

“Even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ” (by Grace ye are saved). Verse 5.

The verse and that which follows in which we read of the believer’s resurrection with Christ and being seated in Christ in the heavenlies, takes us back to the time when our blessed Saviour Lord was quickened and raised from the dead and seated in Glory. It is plain what God did for Him, who died on the Cross, He has done for all, who believe on His Son. Many Christians are ignorant of this great truth, while others have difficulty in grasping it. Yet it is quite simple. Every Christian believes that when the Lord Jesus suffered on the Cross He bore their sins in His own body on the tree. With the Apostle Paul every believer is entitled to say in looking back to the Cross, “He loved Me, He gave Himself for me.” We know all our sins were paid for by His work; all the punishment we deserved fell upon Him, our gracious substitute. In Him we died. All this happened when we were not in existence at all. The sins He bore were not yet committed. God knew all about us and all about our sins and shame, the punishment we deserved, and His ever-blessed Son took all upon Himself. In the same sense God hath quickened us with Christ, raised us up and seated us in Him, when He did this for His Son our Lord Jesus Christ. This is simple, yet so wonderful and deep, that it is incomprehensible. It was all done for us, who believe, when it was done for Him. God in His marvellous counsels in redemption has associated us with Christ. He has made all, who believe on Him, sharers of His life and nature; He brings them into the same relationship as sons, and finally into the same Glory and Inheritance. Let us bear in mind that all this was done for us in Christ. He is the first One who was quickened, raised up and exalted in Glory, and associated with Him are all His members; we share it with Him.

But from this high point of God’s counsels we must descend and speak now of our individual quickening and how all this becomes our blessed and real portion by faith in Jesus Christ. Before we do this, we call attention to the word “together.” It is generally misapplied. Many read as if it meant we are “quickened together with Christ.” If this were the meaning, the word “together” would be superfluous; it would ^be sufficient to say “quickened with Christ. The word “together” has reference to Jews and Gentiles”; these two, as seen elsewhere in this chapter, are made one and both are quickened with Christ.

The word “quicken” is an old English word and means “imparting life.” We learned from the first verse of this chapter that man is dead in trespasses and sins. Our condition is that of spiritual death. But God in His great masterpiece of redemption has life for us, which He imparts as His gift. That life is spiritual and eternal; it is the Life of His Son, who died and was raised from the dead. “Verily, verily I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it dies it bringeth forth much fruit” (John xii:24). He went into death and the grave, but came forth out of the grave. It is this life of the Son of God the sinner receives, when He believes on Him. “Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live” (John v;24, 25). As soon, then, as a sinner believes on the Son of God, casts himself as a lost sinner upon Christ, he receives life, eternal life, as the gift of God.

How little this great, yet simple fundamental Gospel truth is known and enjoyed among the great mass of professing Christians. Some years ago a Y. M. C. A. Secretary showed us a large number of cards, which had been signed during an evangelistic campaign. The cards were in the form of a pledge. “From now on I promise to lead a better religious and Christian life.” We asked the Secretary how it is possible for a person to lead a better life, when that person has no life at all. Before there can be a better life, a life lived to please God, there must be the communication of spiritual life, of which man by nature is destitute. “They that are in the flesh cannot please God,” because they that are in the flesh are simply natural men, without the new nature. The Gospel does not come to man demanding to do better, to stop lying or stealing, to lead a better life. The Gospel does not say. Do and act right and you shall have life. The Gospel offers life to man dead in trespasses and sins. When that life, the gift of God, is received by faith in Jesus Christ, the doing follows. Only as we receive this life can we live and walk in righteousness.

There is a beautiful parable concerning Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, which fully illustrates this (Ez. xvi:1-14), “Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite” (Ez. xvi:3). What a parentage! It fully illustrates Psalm li:5, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” And when that child was born, it was cast out. “Thou wast cast out into the open field to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.” It pictures our condition by nature. Sin has put us into the “open field” (the world), and put us into the desperate condition in which this little one is seen. And what could this child do, laying in its own blood in the open field? Could it help itself, wash itself, save itself and lead a better life? Absolutely impossible! It needed salvation, and it found salvation, not by its efforts, but from the Lord who passed by. “And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live!” In mercy He beheld the miserable, lost little one and the first thing He did was to speak the word of Life and by it communicated life to the one doomed in death. All this shows forth the Gospel concerning life. It is the first thing our Lord does, when He finds us, giving us life. In the same parable we read what else He did for the child. He entered into covenant with the child, “and thou becamest mine.” “I washed thee with water”. . . “I anointed thee with oil.” He clothed the child, provided shoes, covered it with silk. “I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands and a chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thy head.” What did the child do? Nothing whatever. From the word “Live” to the beautiful crown, which was placed upon its head, it was all His work. This is what Grace does for all who believe the Gospel.

“By Grace are ye saved.” Blessed be God in all eternity for these precious words, which are given here for the first time in this Epistle! Salvation is by Grace, and is all from His side. God has accomplished the mighty work for us. We could have nothing to do with it, for it was all planned before the fotmdation of the world; it was done when we were not at all in existence. And as we trust in Christ we are saved by Grace. We do not hope to be saved at last. Nor do we work to be saved. The Grace of God has saved us, we have eternal life and can never perish.

C. Raised us up together.

“And hath raised us up together.” This leads us on in the mighty power of God in the production of His Masterpiece. Quickening and Resurrection are not one and the same thing. As already stated, quickening means the giving of life. Resurrection, however, is the placing of that given life into the proper sphere. By the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ we are justified. Nothing can now be laid to the charge of God’s elect, nor can there be any more condemnation (Romans viii:31-39). In Him, therefore, whom He raised from the dead, God has given to us a new and blessed position. We are taken from among the dead; we have received His life and now occupy in resurrection the blessed place before God, which He occupies as the First-begotten from the dead. We are Sons of God, the beloved of God, called Saints, and no longer as enemies of God in a guilty distance from Him. We are fully accepted in the Beloved. We are as near in Him to God as He is. That is what it means, “raised us up together.”

D. Seated in Christ Jesus.

“And made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” This leads us still higher. Grace must do all it can do, or it would not be Grace. God is going to get now the highest Glory for Himself by making known the riches of Mercy towards those who are in Christ. I f He had stopped short of the wonderful declaration before us, His Grace would not have been exhausted. It would be unfinished. But He has done it all. Besides giving us life and placing us in the blessed position as sons in resurrection, He has seated us in Christ Jesus in the heavenly places. Quite often the statement is quoted as “made us sit together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.” This is incorrect. We are not seated with Christ, but in Christ. When He comes again, we shall be with Him and share His glory. Here we have the very summit of Christian position. We are not alone representatively, but also virtually, sitting in Christ in the highest Glory. Not alone have we life in Him, but He is our life. Therefore our life is hid with Christ in God. In Him, who is our life, we are seated in the heavenly places. How far above man’s thought and expectation all this is! Who would ever have dared to reach as high as that! And how little we can enter into the fullness of all this. Yet it is given to us to enjoy now in faith by believing what God hath told us, without being able to comprehend its heights and depths. Oh! that indeed the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened, that we may know the hope of His calling.

It is worth the while to review in a brief word the blessed revelations given in the first six verses of this chapter.

We saw first what man is by nature. Dead in trespasses and sins; this stands in the foreground. Enemies of God under the Prince of the Power of the Air; this is the result of such a condition. Children of Wrath, because we are dead, His enemies and linked with Satan.

And now God has come in with His mighty Power in the production of His Masterpiece. He gives life so that the dead condition is ended. Instead of enemies, we are constituted, by the resurrection of His Son, beloved sons of Himself. And in Christ Jesus, He makes of us children of Glory, instead of children of Wrath. Marvellous Masterpiece of God! May we praise Him for it all.

But one must ask in view of such riches of Grace, as revealed in the preceding verses, What is the purpose of all this? The verse which follows gives the answer. We find ourselves face to face with the purpose of Glory in the destiny of His Masterpiece.

3. The Destiny of the Masterpiece.

“That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His Grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." Verse 7.

In the first place let us notice that the little word “us” now refers to all, the “together” in verses five and six, believing Jews and Gentiles. The Masterpiece of God is not so much the salvation of the individual as it is the church, the body of Christ into which believing Jews and Gentiles are put by the Holy Spirit. Only once was this great truth mentioned at the close of the first chapter, when we read that Christ is the head of the church, “which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” We have refrained from enlarging on this fact that the church, the body of Christ, is God’s Masterpiece, because in the second half of this chapter and in the one which follows the truth concerning the church is more fully revealed.

The verse before us revealing the destiny of God’s Masterpiece is one of the richest and deepest of the whole Word of God. It is strange that some of the leading and most analytical expositors of Ephesians have failed to grasp its meaning. They apply it in a way which is all out of keeping with the scope of the first part of this chapter. “The ages to come” are explained by them as the present Christian age; of the different periods of our dispensation, they speak of “ages.” Their interpretation is, that God shows now in this dispensation, in every period of it, the exceeding riches of His Grace in those who are in Christ. Anyone can see that this view is incorrect, for the Word of God never speaks of a dispensation being composed of ages.

“The ages to come” are future ages, which follow the present age. This verse forms a kind of a mountain-peak in this Epistle. We look into the past eternity without a beginning and hear what God willed before the foundation of the world; we look in the future and hear of “ages to come.”

The greater part of evangelical Christendom holds a very hazy and decidedly unscriptural view concerning the “ages” of time and eternity. The different ages of the past, the present age and the ages to come are something foreign to many Christians. The great dispensational truths of the Word of God have been grossly neglected. It has avenged itself in a fearful way. The enemy has taken advantage of this. Evil teachers like the notorious “Pastor Russell,” with his “Plan of the Ages,” etc., have brought out a little of the dispensational facts, but mixed with it the most deadly, soul destroying errors, which are a curse to the professing church and by which thousands have become ensnared. The prevailing idea, that the present age in which we live, is the last age, and that when it ends no other age will follow, has no foundation whatever in the Scriptures; it is totally unscriptural. The present age will end. How it ends and that another age will follow is fully revealed in the prophetic Word. The coming age is that of “the dispensation of the fulness of times” (Chapter i:10), the Kingdom age, when the Kingdom will be established on this earth and the Lord Jesus Christ will exercise His Kingly rule and authority, showing forth His Kingly Glory. When the Kingdom age ends and this earth is consumed by fire (2 Peter iii:10) there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Then the eternal state — the eternal age — is reached.

Of this we read here and a revelation is given concerning these ages to come. God is going to make known His Glory through and in His great Masterpiece. The word “show” means “to exhibit” — “to display.” His purpose concerning the future then is “that in the ages to come He might display the exceeding (surpassing) riches of His Grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.” The age in which we live loves to display. Every few years there is an “exposition” somewhere, when all the great achievements of the age are displayed. Man in his day prides himself with his power. But this boasting age will end in the predicted crash, when all high things will be laid low and this boasting, Christless civilization will be swept by the fires of divine displeasure and judgment. It is then, when the present age closes and man’s display comes to a sudden end, that God will begin His display. His exposition. *

He opens the Heavens and brings forth Him, who is now unseen, the Man in Glory at His right hand. His Glory will cover the Heavens, when He shines forth in His royal Majesty and comes in great power and glory. What a day it will be when He sends Him back, the First begotten from the dead! And He will not be alone. His Saints follow Him. Each reflects the Glory of Himself. The Son brings His many sons into glory. He is then glorified m His Saints and admired in all them that believed (2 Thess. i:10). What a wonderful display of power and glory that will be! God displays His Masterpiece; the Christ, the Head and the Body. He shows to all the beings of the Universe what He has accomplished, and thus displays the surpassing riches of His Grace. Throughout the Kingdom age this unspeakable display will continue. The Lord and His Church will be together in the Glory of the new Jerusalem and will reign overall.

But this is not all. In the eternal age, from eternity to eternity, God is continuing in this. He will bring forth something new in Glory, new riches of Himself for those who are one with His well beloved Son. From eternity to eternity He displays the surpassing riches of His Grace in kindness ‘towards us in Christ Jesus. How one is overwhelmed in the presence of such a statement! And how little after all we can understand all those coming riches in Glory. What a destiny! The heart may well cry — nothing but Glory! What is the little suffering, the little while down here, in comparison with such never ending Glory!

A word of caution here is also needed. Of late the teaching is being circulated that in eternal ages God -will work towards a restitution of all things. These unscriptural teachers call themselves “reconciliationists.” According to them the ages to come will bring God’s grace to all the lost and they will be saved. But where does it say this? Certainly not in the Word of God. Their theories are obtained by a process of reasoning. The passage here speaks only of those “in Christ Jesus.”

4. Saved by Grace through Faith. Verses 8-10

A. The Positive Statements Verse 8.

“For by Grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.”

And now once more the Spirit of God emphasizes this great fact “saved by Grace.” Salvation and all it includes is the gift of God, But what about faith? Is that also the gift of God? Assuredly. It is not of ourselves to be able to believe and accept God’s Word, nor is it an accomplishment which is to our credit; but it is God’s gift. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

In a day when the counterfeit Gospel, the Gospel of works and character building, is ^most universally preached, a Gospel, which IS not of God, but which has the curse of God resting upon it (Gal. 1:8), may we cling the closer to the solid rock, which will abide forever “saved by Grace.”

B. The Negative Side: Not of Works. Verse 9.

“Not of works lest any man should boast.”

The works of man have nothing to do with salvation, Alas! how many try to gain favor with God by doing. The religious Pharisee who stood in the temple and told God what he had not done and what he was doing as a religious man, has thousands of followers in Christendom to-day. Man has no works. We are by nature positively and negatively bad. We have never done a good thing. If righteousness and with it salvation were by the law, then Christ would be dead in vain. And how strange that some say that they believe salvation is not of works, but by Grace, and then assert, that if they are saved and wish to remain saved, they must work!

C. His Workmanship. Verse 10.

"For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.”

This is linked closely with the foregoing statement. We have no works; nothing we do or have done can save us. But God has worked. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. We are in Him, His new creation. By giving to us the new nature. His life. He has called us “unto good works.” Fruit to the praise of His Glory is the result of Grace. “This is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works” (Tit. iii:8). Fruit unto God is the blessed result of being in Christ and abiding in Him (Rom. vii:4 and John xv:5). Saved by Grace is witnessed to by a holy walk. The man who says, “Saved by Grace" and walks constantly in unrighteousness and brings no fruit, shows that his profession is spurious.