The key salvation story ...

Monday, Nov 8, 2010. The New Testament letters are full of exciting stories and remarks, of deep thoughts and experiences of the early leaders of Christianity. Today, in Ephesians 2 we come to the key salvation story, told in a particular framework by Paul.

The key story …

1 At one time, because of the laws you had broken and your evil ways, you were spiritually dead. 2 You lived in the way the rest of the world lives, following the ways of the devil. His power is all around us, and he is the spirit who controls the people who disobey God. 3 We were like them, following the evil desires of our inner being and obeying the evil thoughts that came into our minds. God was angry with our evil ways, and the evil ways of all other people.

4 But because God is so full of mercy and because he loved us so much, 5 even though we were spiritually dead because of our evil ways, he made us alive in the same way that he brought Christ back to life. It is by God’s great kindness that we have been rescued from evil. 6 He raised us up with Christ and, in a spiritual sense, he made us to sit in heaven with him. (Ephesians 2: 1-10)

The essence …

There are several things in this story which we need to discuss in more detail. First of all, let us summarize the essence of it. Paul talks about a spiritually dead life and about becoming spiritually alive. That is the essence: “we were dead, by Christ we are alive”.

But what does it mean? How can we understand this? Is it just some abstract image? Or do we know its meaning? Paul talks about evil, and that is not an easy topic. Too many times in history the understanding of evil has been quite flat or even completely wrong. The struggle of God with the people of Israel in the Old Testament tells this story again and again, and it continues in the New Testament, for example by the conflicts with the Pharisees.

We want to discuss the different bits in more detail over the next days … exploring what spiritual death means and spiritual life! ... more texts