“For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this, not of yourselves; it is God’s gift, not on the principle of works, that no one might boast. For we are His workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has before prepared that we should walk in them.” (verses 8-10, JND).
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth.” Here, fittingly following verses 1 to 7, we have,
“For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this, not of yourselves; it is God’s gift, not on the principle of works, that no one might boast.”
We are reminded of the midnight cry of the conscience-stricken jailor at Philippi (Acts 16:24-4024Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. 25And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. 26And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed. 27And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. 28But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. 29Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, 30And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? 31And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. 32And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. 33And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. 34And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house. 35And when it was day, the magistrates sent the serjeants, saying, Let those men go. 36And the keeper of the prison told this saying to Paul, The magistrates have sent to let you go: now therefore depart, and go in peace. 37But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out. 38And the serjeants told these words unto the magistrates: and they feared, when they heard that they were Romans. 39And they came and besought them, and brought them out, and desired them to depart out of the city. 40And they went out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia: and when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them, and departed. (Acts 16:24‑40)), who “having asked for lights, rushed into the inner prison and, trembling, fell down before Paul and Silas; and leading them out, said, Sirs, what must I do that I may be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house. And they spoke to him the Word of the Lord, with all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed them from their stripes (the many stripes with which they had been scourged before they were cast into prison); and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. And having brought them into his house he laid the table for them, and rejoiced with all his house, having believed in God.” This incident shows the result of receiving salvation, even in one newly born again.
We are seeing how fully God has supplied our needs, in His grace, and that all of the rich bounty we possess is the result of the outpouring of His own hand. But the next verse, the 10th, adds,
“For we are His workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has before prepared that we should walk in them.”
Here again is a subject for meditation. We, believers, are the workmanship of God in Christ; our doing is in no way the ground or the means of our salvation; it could not be. As another has expressed it:
“The same God who had a purpose of saving us and blessing us with Christ before the world was made, had a certain line of walk, a special course of action, in which He expected the recipients of such favor to walk. It is not the thought of the good we ought to do as men, as a means of showing that we are willing to obey God under the law. It is not loving God and one’s neighbor as oneself simply, but another type and display of love altogether. It flows from our new relationships, and if it be exercised in loving God and loving those around us, it is according to the rich love which God Himself has shown us in Christ. It is not merely duty, let it be the very highest form of obligation. If a man were to walk merely in this, though ever so well, he would fall short of what a Christian ought to be, and they are not the ‘good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.’
“The law was brought in by Israel’s presumption and self-conceit; it was not something that God had before ordained for His people to walk in. Therefore it is said, in Romans (chapters 5, 6, 7) that law came in by the way. It was a thing that entered incidentally, as a sort of parenthesis brought in for a special, but very momentous purpose. And it has done its work, and the believer, even if he had been under it, is brought clear out of it and made alive to God. He has a new husband, and is dead to the old one. But here the truth is put in a very beautiful form, in harmony with the character of the whole epistle. As the calling and the purpose and all that God thought about us, were before the world was, so even the character of the believer’s walk was ordained before ever we came into the world, and is in its own nature entirely above it. It is a question of our manifesting God aright, as He is now displaying Himself.
“Be ye followers of God as dear children?
“What a wonderful place is this that we are put into! We have been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God before prepared that we should walk in them. We have a new character of life altogether, that the law never contemplated, and we have a correspondingly new character of good works” (Lectures on the Epistle to the Ephesians by Wm. Kelly, about 1860).
“Wherefore remember that ye, once nations in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that called circumcision in the flesh done with the hands; that ye were at that time without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the convenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world; but now in Christ Jesus ye who once were afar off, are become nigh by the blood of the Christ” (verses 11-13, JND).
The eleventh verse marks the beginning of what we may call the third section of the epistle; chapter 1 having been occupied with the unfolding of the purposes of God in grace commencing before the foundation of the world, and the earlier portion of chapter 2 showing the means whereby God has taken up persons that were dead in trespasses and sins and by nature children of wrath, quickening them with Christ, raising them and making them sit together in Him in the heavenlies. We begin now in the eleventh verse with the present working of God’s plans in the world.
“Wherefore remember,” says the apostle in the concise language of verses 11-13, what you were once—nations in the flesh, “called uncircumcision by that called circumcision in the flesh done with the hand, that ye were at that time without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”
It was not long after the flood in Noah’s day, that the whole world having turned to the worship of idols, the true God called on one man, Abraham, to take a place of separation from all the others, and made him promises of great blessing on the earth, to him, and particularly to his seed. But much of the expected blessing failed the descendants of Abraham because of their very evil course, and God gave the place of government in the world to the Gentiles. Then came the cross of Christ, sealing the fate of the Jewish nation, and though there was patience on God’s part with them, He began at once to carry out His eternal counsels concerning the church. But in addition to the glorious portion in heaven which the church has in Christ, it has also an existence on earth, and enters into the dealings of God here below. And now we who once were afar off are become nigh by the blood of Christ; precious place indeed!