Craig T. Owens

Last week I shared how important it is for us to remember what we were before meeting Christ, and what we now are after meeting Him (you can click here to read that post). But we need to spend some time looking at how we went from “were” to “are.”

First, we need to recall how bad we really were without Christ. We were…

• …dead (Ephesians 2:1)—this is a rotting corpse.
• …separated (2:12)—we faced a gaping, unbridgeable, uncrossable chasm.

• …alienated (4:18)— we were completely shut-out from fellowship with God.
• …given over (4:19)—this implies an open betrayal which resulted in us running the opposite direction from God.

“The man on the street would simply shrugged his shoulders at this charge and say, ‘Sure, no one’s perfect.’ Even we Christians talk about failures and defeats, but the Bible uses other terms. It speaks of wickedness and rebellion (Leviticus 16:21). The Bible speaks of King David as despising God (2 Samuel 12:9-10). It charges another man of God with defying the word of the Lord… (1 Kings 13:21). It is evident by these descriptive synonyms for sin—rebellion, despising, defying—that God takes a far more serious view of sin than the man on the street or even most Christians.” —Jerry Bridges, in Transforming Grace (bold font added)

…and then a miracle occurs! You who once WERE far away [dead, separated, alienated, disgustingly sinful] HAVE BEEN brought near through the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13). Jesus Himself becomes our salvation … He IS the miracle! Notice the wording here—

• He Himself IS our peace (v. 14a)
• HE has made the two one (v. 14b)
• abolishing IN His flesh (v. 15a)
• create IN Himself (v. 15b)
• IN this one Body…by which HE put to death their hostility (v. 16)
• THROUGH Him we both have access to the Father (v. 18)

Jesus Himself IS (1) our peace, (2) our reconciliation, and (3) our atonement.

Not only must we always remember what we WERE and what we ARE, but remember the MIRACLE whereby this transformation could happen: The blood of Jesus spilled for us on the Cross!

We’ll be continuing our walk through the Book of Ephesians next Sunday, and I’d love to have you join us.