Ephesians 2:1-10
Chapter 2
From Death to Life
You were dead because of your faults and sins.Once, you lived according to this world and followed the ruler who reigns between heaven and earth, and who continues to work in the disobedient.
All of us once belonged to them, and we followed human greed; we obeyed our natural urges and consented to their desires. By ourselves, we headed straight for judgment like the rest of humankind.
But God, who is rich in mercy, showed his great love.
As we were dead in our sins, he made us alive with Christ. By grace, you have been saved!
And he raised us up with Christ, giving us a place with him in heaven.
In demonstrating such kindness in Christ Jesus, God intended to reveal and unfold in the coming ages the extraordinary riches of his grace.
By God’s grace, you are saved through faith. This is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift.
This was not the result of your efforts, so you should not feel proud.
Our identity is God’s work. He created us in Christ Jesus for the good works he prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
Commentaries
From Death to Life.
Paul explains to the Ephesians that their belonging to the Church as members of the body of Christ has meant transitioning from a “reality of death” to a “reality of life,” as if it were a new creation. When reading this, we must consider the strong militant identity of the small communities that offered an alternative life to the widespread corruption into which the Empire had fallen and an alternative faith to Jewish law. They therefore had to defend themselves against the pagans and Jews who threatened their identity.