🇧🇷 🇺🇸 🇪🇸
🌐 🇧🇷 PT 🇪🇸 ES 🇺🇸 EN
365 Graça & Adoração Da Criação ao Apocalipse
Home › NT › Ephesians › Chapter 2
Ephesians — Chapter 2

Dead and Made Alive — Grace through Faith

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God."

— Eph 2:8

Ephesians 2 is the chapter of grace — the most complete description of the human condition without Christ and salvation as the exclusive work of God.

💀 Dead in Trespasses and Sins (2:1-3)

Eph 2:1-3
"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air... among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh."
The human condition without Christ: (1) dead (nekrous) — total spiritual incapacity; (2) following the course of the age (aion); (3) under the prince of the air (Satan); (4) children of wrath by nature. Spiritual death is not illness — it is death.

⭐ Grace through Faith (2:4-10)

Eph 2:4-6
"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 (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
The 'but God' (ho de theos) is the most dramatic turn in biblical theology. Three divine actions: made alive, raised, seated — all in the past (aorist), all 'together with Christ' (syn-). The believer's position is 'in the heavenly places' — present, not only future.
Eph 2:8-10
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works."
The clearest verse about grace in the NT. Salvation is: (1) by grace (chariti); (2) through faith (dia pisteos); (3) a gift of God (theou to doron); (4) not of works. But v. 10 completes: we are created for good works — grace does not eliminate works, it eliminates works as a means of salvation.

🏛️ Jews and Gentiles Reconciled (2:11-22)

Eph 2:14-16
"For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility... that he might create in himself one new man from the two, so making peace."
The 'dividing wall' (to mesotoichon tou phragmou) may allude to the Temple wall that separated the Gentile court from Israel’s court. Christ broke down every ethnic, social, and religious barrier. The Church is the 'new man' (kainon anthropon) — a new humanity in Christ.