In Eternal Life - Ephesians 2:1-10

In this passage, Paul talks about spiritual or eternal life, but he begins by describing spiritual death. He doesn't call it "spiritual" death or "spiritual" life, but we know that is what he is talking about. Unfortunately, our understanding of the physical world may impact our views of the spiritual. The physical world seems so much more real to us, and in the physical realm, death is something that happens in the future.

This can creep over into our thinking about spiritual death. Too many people feel that spiritual death is a future thing. It is what happens if you die physically without ever putting faith in Christ's work on the cross.

While physical death may put some finality on spiritual death, Paul makes it abundantly clear that spiritual death is where we come from. It is our past.

Every human is born in spiritual death. David said, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity..." (Psalm 51:5). Spiritual death is where we live until we put our faith in Christ (yeah, that's a little mind blowing), and so, Paul describes what living in spiritual death looks like.

• In spiritual death, we were walking in trespasses and sin, following the course of this world. We had completely missed the mark of God's holiness and righteousness.
• In spiritual death, we were following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. We weren't just aimlessly wandering, we were being led - and we willingly followed.
• In spiritual death, we lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and mind. the works we produced were merely the fulfillment of our own desires. Matthew Henry said, "The carnal mind makes a man a perfect slave to his vicious appetite - the fulfilling of the wills of the flesh."
• In spiritual death, we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Our holy God hates sin, and thereby sinners. Psalm 5:5 says, "The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers." Now, God is also LOVE, so He is capable of loving and providing salvation.

Spiritual death was our situation from birth until new birth. Spiritually dead. Eternally lost.  Without hope. But God...

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ."

So, spiritual death is where we were. We had been born into death, which is why we needed to be born again. When we put our faith in the saving work of Christ we were born into spiritual life.

We didn't invite Jesus into our hearts, as we hear so often. We've already seen, He is in heaven at the right hand of God, but in addition to that, our hears were dead. According to Jeremiah, we had hearts of stone. 

We could not invite God into our death. God and God alone took out our hearts of stone and gave us living hearts. He made us alive with Christ.

Now, here's where it gets crazy in the realm of spiritual geography. God didn't just make us alive in Oklahoma or Oahu. He made us alive in Christ, in the Beloved. And where is the Beloved?

If you said, "At the right hand of the Father," then here's a smiley-face sticker for you. 😊 (If you didn't, read this.) Father made us alive in Christ. You are now living alive instead of living dead. AND, He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus.

This can be a little confusing, because if your life is anything like mine, it doesn't seem like heaven. Many pastors have chosen to teach that Paul is speaking about a promised future. We don't have it yet, but it's guaranteed.

While we do have a promised future of heaven, that's not really what Paul is saying. According to  the passage, we have been raised and seated - past tense. But we know we aren't there yet. 

This conundrum in our thinking occurs because we don't truly grasp the reality of spiritual geography. The verse doesn't say God has seated us in heaven, but in the heavenly places, or in the spiritual realm. Prior to our second birth, we were a physical being with no access to the spiritual. After we have been placed into life, we have the ability to move "spiritually," directly to the throne of grace. We can commune with God, dwell with him, abide in him.

And as amazing as our salvation is - we have spiritual life and access to God - we are also still physical beings trapped here in a physical world. And we wait.

We are waiting to be shown the immeasurable riches of his grace in Christ Jesus. God has take the filth of our sins and washed it away with the blood of Christ. We can have a relationship with him because of his mercy and grace.

We don't deserve it. We couldn't do anything to make it happen. God gave us life through the death of his Son, and He has placed us in the spiritual realm so we can truly live as his children in the here and now. 

This is a debt we could never repay, and yet God is not finished. In the coming ages He wants to show us the immeasurable riches of his grace. We already become overwhelmed when we sing about his Amazing Grace now, but God... God has even more grace.