Sunday School Lesson
November 20
Lesson 12 (KJV)
We Are God’s Handiwork
Devotional Reading: 1 Timothy 2:1–8
Background Scripture: Acts 19; Ephesians 2; Revelation 2:1–7
Ephesians 2:1–10
1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2 Wherein in time 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:
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Key Text
We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.—Ephesians 2:10
God’s Exceptional Choice
Unit 3:
We Are God’s Artwork
Lessons 10–13
Lesson Aims
After participating in this lesson, each learner will be able to:
1. Identify the basis of salvation.
2. Contrast salvation by works with salvation by grace.
3. Write a prayer of gratitude for the salvation available through grace. Lesson Outline Introduction
How to Say It
Ephesians Ee-fee-zhunz.
Gentiles Jen-tiles.
Introduction
A. Leaving Hospice
A hospice is a wonderful but sobering place. For terminally ill patients, today’s hospice facilities provide care that brings comfort for the patient and the patient’s family and friends. But no ill person looks forward to going to hospice, for few patients leave the hospice alive.
Because hospice patients expect death, the few who are discharged describe the experience with amazement and words like, “I was ready to die, but here I am alive. It is like I was dead and now I’m resurrected or something. I guess God has more for me to do.”
“From death to life” is how in our text Paul describes becoming a Christian. The old life was really death, but the new life is real life, a fundamentally different existence. And it is really true that God made us alive in Him because He has work for us to do.
B. Lesson Context
Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians as a prisoner of the Roman Empire (see Ephesians 3:1; 4:1; 6:20; also Lesson Context of lesson 10). If he wrote during his imprisonment in Rome mentioned in Acts 28:30–31, then he was living in his own rented house and could receive visitors, both his fellow Christian workers and those interested in hearing about Jesus. He was not in a dark dungeon, as we might imagine a prisoner to be. However, his situation still was not pleasant. Being a prisoner meant he could not move about as he pleased. It meant that he faced the threat of a judgment against him that could even mean his execution. Confinement, worry, shame—these were his experience.
But Paul’s prison letters do not suggest that the misery of Paul’s condition dictated his outlook. Even as a prisoner, Paul repeatedly emphasized that Christians have an exalted place in God’s plan. Being a prisoner might seem like death, but Paul could only speak of being raised from the dead.
Paul’s readers, though not prisoners, were also in a difficult position. Their new faith put them at odds with the world around them. Many of their familiar relationships had been cut off: Christians of Jewish background were sometimes no longer welcome in the synagogue; Christians of Gentile background were no longer to participate in the worship rites of paganism. Each group was under additional scorn for associating with the other. Christians were suspected of wanting to undermine the foundations of their communities.
Paul’s message to the Ephesians emphasizes a different perspective, the perspective of God. From God’s throne, Christians are not downtrodden but victorious. They are not rebels against the community but God’s agents of renewal for the world. Despite rejection by neighbors or even those in authority, Christians—then and now—are the grateful recipients of everything God has done. We’re already experiencing God’s eternal blessings and anticipating a still greater future when Christ returns. We live together as God’s temple (Ephesians 2:11–22). And Paul himself, proclaiming the gospel despite his confinement, exemplified what the lives of his audience were truly like (3:1–19).
But this status was not something they deserved or had earned. The work was all God’s. They needed God’s work in Christ to rescue them from the helpless state of death and make them alive to all that God had for them.
I. Dead in Sin
(Ephesians 2:1–3)
A. Living for the Enemy (vv. 1–2)
1. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Ephesians 1:18–23 (see lesson 11) spoke forcefully of Jesus’ resurrection. With the opening and you here, Paul moves from God’s display of power in Christ to the results for humanity. God has also given us a resurrection from death. This is summarized with the older word quickened (compare Colossians 2:13).
The immediate result of this transaction is not immunity to physical death (such death is overcome later; see 1 Corinthians 15). Rather, the new life at issue in the passage before us is spiritual in nature. Spiritual death is a consequence of our trespasses and sins.
Only here and in Romans 5:20–21 do the Greek nouns behind this phrase occur in such proximity to one another (there as “offence” and “sin”). It’s as if Paul was making sure the Ephesians didn’t miss the point: they were guilty of rebellion against God, deserving of death. Death is the consequence of sin (Romans 6:23). To be a sinner is to be spiritually dead: without true life, without connection to God, without hope. And to die in one’s sins is to be eternally separated from the Lord, with no hope of life following death. We may not want to admit it, but we are committing spiritual suicide when we sin. Those having been made alive in Christ should entertain no longing for that previous state.
2. Wherein in time 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.
Before coming to faith in Christ, Paul’s readers lived under the sway of the trends and influences of a world in rebellion against God. Though this might have felt like freedom, it certainly was not. Before Christ they actually were in bondage to three closely related influences.
Before they came to love and submit to Christ, Paul’s readers may have believed themselves to be free. But such was not the case. First, they had lived according to the course of this world. That means they had acted as if God’s standards for living were not valid. Today we still hear voices that call us to selfish sin, to moral failure, and to dishonesty. The world wants to direct us by its standards. If we let it, we are neither free nor godly.
Second, Paul connected this with serving the prince of the power of the air. Paul and his readers were acutely aware of the evil influences that attacked them. The prince of these spiritual forces of evil is unnamed here but corresponds with “the devil” later (Ephesians 6:11–12). The spiritual beings who are in rebellion against God are not our friends, but seek to destroy us and keep us far from fellowship with the Lord. The phrase of the air does not refer to a specific location, but to the spiritual nature of this evil. The letter to the Ephesians addresses this reality more than any other writing of Paul.
Even so, Paul was confident that Jesus has authority (and therefore victory) over all the spiritual forces that are in rebellion against God (see Ephesians 1:21; lesson 11). But this is an ongoing battle (see 6:12). This leads to Paul’s third element.
B. Ensnared by Selfishness (v. 3)
3a. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
The third element that promotes sin lies within us. We all (Paul includes himself) had been driven in times past by personal lusts of our flesh. (Conversation in this older sense refers to one’s conduct.) Paul clarifies by indicating that such behavior includes both desires of the flesh and of the mind. If one’s body indicates that something feels good, the person may do it despite moral consequences. We can blame our sinfulness on our bodily desires. But the problem begins deep inside us, in how we think and what we want.
3b. And were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Paul’s summary of that former life includes the fact that he and his readers had been even as others. That children of wrath characterization of unbelievers is quite striking (compare Ephesians 5:6). We should note that the word others is inclusive. It is not just pagan Gentiles who deserve God’s wrath. Jews outside of Christ do not get a pass. Without Christ they too are children of wrath.
Paul’s use of the word nature indicates something fundamental about us. As a result of our inherent tendency to sin, “there is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). We need not debate the possibility of living a perfect life and thereby earning our salvation. Although that is the standard (Matthew 5:48), it does not happen. It will not happen.
Such was our former life: infatuated by the sinful world, beset by temptations from the evil one, and controlled by out-of-control passion for the forbidden fruits desired by body and mind. When drawn to the influences of the world and the devil, people mired in sinful desires think themselves to be in control, but they are not. They are slaves to passion and lust.
What Do You Think?
How can reflecting on the sinful patterns of your past contrasted with your grace-filled present encourage you as you face uncertain times?
Digging Deeper
Who can you share your personal testimony with to encourage that person’s own faith journey?
From Condemnation to Comfort
One Christmas I offered to spend a Saturday making cookies with my friend and her two toddlers. She is a single mom, and I love making cookies—so the fact that I’d also be helping her out was a bonus. After a few hours, the boys got bored “helping,” which gave us two moms time to chat.
The conversation turned to parenting, and I found myself confessing my shortcomings. My friend admitted the same, with relief in her voice and demeanor. In my days as a young mother, I hadn’t had friends to whom I could admit such mistakes in a loving environment. I was so happy to be that sort of friend to her.
We’ve all fallen short—sometimes sinfully—in every role we fill. Paul included himself as a sinner, no better than anyone else by nature. As Paul did, we all lived under condemnation until Christ. When the opportunity arises, will you offer comfort rather than condemnation? —P. M.
II. Alive in Christ
(Ephesians 2:4–10)
A. Loved by God (vv. 4–7)
4. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us.
Having characterized one’s pre-Christian past as consisting of infatuation with worldly influences, devil-driven disobedience, and indulgence in sinful passions, Paul moved the discussion to his readers’ future life. This shift is signaled by movement from the “and you” (Ephesians 2:1, above) to the but God of the verse before us.
If God had no wrath, the world would have no justice. But if God had no mercy, the world would have no hope. Left to ourselves, we are rebels deserving of ruin and judgment, of death and all that it entails. But thanks be to God, we are not left to ourselves. God is not merely merciful, but is rich in mercy, just as He is rich in grace (Ephesians 1:7; see lesson 10). Because of God’s infinite wisdom, utter righteousness, and richness of grace, His eternal plan is to be merciful through the self-sacrificial work of Christ. God’s justice is satisfied by Christ’s righteous life and self-sacrificial death, the innocent Lord himself willingly taking the place of the guilty. By this amazing means, God can be both righteous and gracious, both just and merciful (Romans 3:25–26).
Any hope for us must begin with God’s mercy and love. Even while deserving God’s wrath, people still bear His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26–27). God has gone to great effort to save His lost image-bearers (Luke 19:10; etc.).
Paul is given to large statements when it comes to the nature of God. We see a great example in the description here of God’s attribute of being rich in mercy (compare Romans 2:4; also Ephesians 2:7, below). Paul expands on this imagery by describing God’s mercy as a great love wherewith he loved us. Paul used repetition for emphasis. He was barely able to contain his excitement! God spends His inexhaustible supply of mercy on us freely and lovingly. “His mercy endureth for ever” is the repeated refrain of Psalms 118 and 136.
5. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved).
Life before Christ was one of being dead in sins. But as Christ has been raised from death to resurrected life, so too are we quickened (also Colossians 2:13). When through faith we are joined with Christ, we are joined in His resurrection. That means we are already transferred from death to life. But it also promises a resurrection to come (1 Corinthians 15:20–26). Resurrection life is both present and future. Salvation is both present and future.
The parentheses around the statement by grace ye are saved may lead us to believe that this affirmation is somehow secondary to the thought at hand. But what is mentioned so briefly here serves two purposes: (1) it anticipates a fuller explanation of salvation by grace a bit later; and (2) it helps paint the larger picture of God’s attitude toward His wayward children as His grace is considered alongside His mercy and love.
6. And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Our spiritual resurrection from the death of sin is followed by an “ascension.” Christ’s story is now our story; Christ’s life is our life. Christ ascended to Heaven after His resurrection (Luke 24:50–51; Acts 1:1–9; etc.); and following our resurrection from spiritual death, we are positioned in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (compare Colossians 3:1–3). By God’s grace we share Christ’s victory and are agents of Christ’s rule. Having front-row seats in the glorious light of the presence of Christ and His victories means we no longer fear the spiritual darkness.
7. That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
Paul gives an eternal reason for God’s rescue of sinners from spiritual death: that we might serve as a demonstration of His marvelous grace forever. The era that begins with salvation through faith in Christ is not an intermediate stage in God’s plan. Rather, it is for all time, a plan for the ages to come. Again, Paul pictures God’s grace as inexhaustible riches. To this is added the element of God’s kindness, a word that implies essential goodness (compare Romans 2:4). His grace in his kindness is not God’s response to anything meritorious we have done; rather, it is an offer that should draw a response from us.
What Do You Think?
Would you describe yourself as being “rich in mercy”? Why or why not?
Digging Deeper
How can meditating on God’s character—including His mercy—encourage you to seek growth in that area in your own life?
B. Saved by Grace (vv. 8–9)
8a. For by grace are ye saved through faith.
The concept of by grace are ye saved, introduced in Ephesians 2:5 (above), is now explored in greater depth. Salvation by grace expects and requires a response. The salvation God offers is of no effect unless accepted through faith on the part of the one who is dead in sins. Faith is often defined as “assent plus trust.” In other words, assent is accepting the gospel facts as true. Trust, on the other hand, is surrendering control of one’s life to Jesus on the basis of who He is and what He has done (John 3:16; Acts 10:43; 16:31; 1 Timothy 1:16).
8b. And that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.
A technical issue of the original Greek must be considered, an issue that is not apparent in our English translation. Every Greek noun and pronoun has a grammatical gender: either masculine, feminine, or neuter. So the gender of one or both pronouns that and it in verse 8b here must match the gender of one or both nouns grace and faith in verse 8a to determine the antecedent.
But there is no match. The nouns are both feminine, while the pronoun that is neuter. The pronoun it does not actually exist in the Greek text; it has been supplied in English for smooth reading.
We conclude, then, that not of yourselves is not referring to any one particular element of verse 8a, but to God’s system of salvation as a whole. Salvation is a gift; it cannot be earned. We are not partners with God in bringing salvation. We are recipients of this rich gift of God.
What Do You Think?
Who in your life would benefit from receiving grace from you as a taste of God’s willingness to extend grace?
Digging Deeper
What prevents you from extending grace (which is undeserved) to that person?
9. Not of works, lest any man should boast.
If salvation resulted from our own efforts, we could be justifiably proud. Paul knows well the danger here. Before he met Christ, Paul’s seemingly spotless life was a source of pride to him, evidence of his moral superiority (see Philippians 3:4–6).
But there are no works, no actions we can take, that make us worthy of being self-excused from our sins. The best among us still have lapses and failures; we still yield to self-centeredness and gratification of lusts. We have no room for boasting, only for humility.
C. Prepared for Work (v. 10)
10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. In the spiritual world of righteousness, there is no such thing as a self-made woman or man. Our spiritual resurrection is God’s workmanship. We are the very people whom God has made—His deliberate, artful product.
Our new life has purpose, and this is part of God’s design. We have been rescued from spiritual destruction so that we might be instruments of good works. Yet we must realize that living the life that pleases God is not how we are saved. Good works are not a payment for our salvation, nor are they the condition of our receiving the gift. The gift is free. But the effect of the gift is transformation. Though the struggle against “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2, above) will continue, in Christ we have new motivation to serve and obey. And through God’s Holy Spirit, we have new power to do so. As our sin made the old creation spin toward destruction, so by God’s grace our new creation sets us on a course to do God’s will on earth “as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Our aim becomes bringing our lives into line with the gift we have received, so that we reflect our new identity as God’s people (Ephesians 4:1).
What Do You Think?
What biblical texts reveal the good works that God has prepared for all Christians to do?
Digging Deeper
How do you discern what good works God has prepared in advance for you to do?
Write Your Story
I always knew I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. I wrote my first book at 13 (it’s cringe-worthy to think about now!) and spent my young adult years honing my skills and learning the craft. I began to have success by the time I was married with children.
At the same time, my heart was yearning to be closer to God. The closer I got to Him, the clearer it became that writing was a talent He gave me. I had a choice to make: Do I continue the path I’m on, publishing more stories and establishing myself with worldly success, or do I focus the talent God gave me to bring others closer to Him? God was asking me to tell people about Him. What will your choice be, when you’re faced with how to use the gifts that God gave you? —P. M.
Conclusion
A. Reacting to the Call
If we are new to faith, we may feel overmatched by our calling. How can we measure up to expectations? How can we possibly overcome all the wrong in our lives? Paul reminds us to put our focus not on our inadequacy but on Christ’s abundance. In Christ God has done everything for us. Forgiveness is full, and His power is sufficient. We need only continue to receive and trust, doing moment by moment what the Spirit directs and enables.
If we have followed Christ for a long time, we may fall into a habit of thinking we deserve any good things or benefits we have. Paul reminds us that our best was never good enough; that we stand with Christ by His action, not ours; and that whatever is good in our lives is now the result of freely receiving God’s gift.
And if we are still considering faith in Christ, Paul gives us a powerful introduction to what God offers us. God has done all for us. But as we receive His gift, we will be forever different, set on a path to become what God, the good God of grace and mercy, has intended for us since before the beginning.
What Do You Think?
What truth from this text challenges one of your patterns of thinking, speaking, or acting?
Digging Deeper
What truth encourages you to continue in your faithful efforts and habits?
B. Prayer
O God, Your mercy is everlasting, and Your truth endures through the ages. May we receive Your gracious gift afresh. And may we, as Your handiwork, live lives that fit the richness of Your grace. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
C. Thought to Remember
We live now and forever by accepting God’s gift through Christ’s victory
Standard Publishing. KJV Standard Lesson Commentary® 2022-2023 (pp. 277-291). David C Cook. Kindle Edition.