Ephesians 2:5

Here is the end of the previously begun thought, while the rest is all a parenthetical insertion. Again Christ is the mediator, and the matter is worthy of trust: for if the firstfruits (the firstborn) lives, then we also live; since God gave life to …

Not only were we unfit to receive grace on account of ignorance of the divine precepts, but indeed also on account of our infirmity and powerlessness and concupiscence of earthly things: therefore the Lord willed to set up supports. That he might heal our languors, …

The exemplary cause of the blessing is that it is granted in Christ. In reference to this he states "even when we were dead in sins, he has quickened us together in Christ." He touches upon a triple blessing: justification, resurrection from the dead, and …

I found that faith was the sovereign gift of God; that I could not get it as of myself; and could not oblige God to bestow it upon me by any of my performances.

He hath quickened us together with Christ - In conformity to him, and by virtue of our union with him. By grace ye are saved - Grace is both the beginning and end. The apostle speaks indifferently either in the first or second person; the Jews and gentiles being in the same circumstance, both by nature and by grace.

), we are saved from the death of sin and have a principle of spiritual life implanted in us. Grace in the soul is a new life in the soul. As death locks up the senses, seals up all the powers and faculties, so does a state of sin, as to any thing that is good.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

Even when we were dead in sins,.... See Gill on Eph 2:

What God wrought in Christ, He wrought (by the very fact) in all united to Christ, and one with Him. by grace ye are saved--Greek, "Ye are in a saved state." Not merely "ye are being saved," but ye "are passed from death unto life" (Joh 5:24). Salvation is to the Christian not a thing to be waited for hereafter, but already realized (1Jo 3:14).

THERE have been conferences of late of all sorts of people upon all kinds of subjects, but what a remarkable thing a conference would be if it were possible for persons who have been raised from the dead! If you could somehow or other get together the daughter of the Shunammite, the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow at the gates of Nain, Lazarus, and Eutychus, what strange communing they might have one with another! What singular enquiries they might make, and what remarkable disclosures might they present to us!

THERE have been conferences of late of all sorts of people upon all kinds of subjects, but what a remarkable thing a conference would be if it were possible for persons who have been raised from the dead! If you could somehow or other get together the daughter of the Shunammite, the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow at the gates of Nain, Lazarus, and Eutychus, what strange communing they might have one with another! What singular enquiries they might make, and what remarkable disclosures might they present to us! The thing is not possible, and yet a better and more remarkable assembly may be readily gathered on the same conditions, and more important information may be obtained from the confessions of its members. This morning we have a conference of that very character gathered in this house, for many of us were dead in trespasses and sins, even as others—but we hope that through Divine energy we have been quickened from that spiritual death, and are now living to praise God! It will be well for us to talk together, to review the past, to rejoice in the present, to look forward to the future. "You has He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." And as you sit together, an assembly of men and women possessed of resurrection life, you are a more notable conclave than if merely your bodies and not your spirits had been quickened! The first part of this morning's discourse will be occupied with a solemnity in which we shall take you into the morgue. Secondly, we shall spend awhile in reviewing a miracle, and we shall observe dead men living. We shall then turn aside to observe a sympathy indicated in the text, and we shall close with a song, for the text reads somewhat like music—it is full of thankfulness, and thankfulness is the essence of true song. It is full of holy and adoring wonder! It is evermore true poetry even though expressed in prose. I.

THE cardinal error against which the Gospel of Christ has to contend is the effect of the tendency of the human heart to rely upon salvation by works. The great antagonist to the Truth of God, as it is in Jesus, is that pride of man which leads him to believe that he can be, at least in part, his own savior. This error is the prolific mother of multitudes of heresies!

THE cardinal error against which the Gospel of Christ has to contend is the effect of the tendency of the human heart to rely upon salvation by works. The great antagonist to the Truth of God, as it is in Jesus, is that pride of man which leads him to believe that he can be, at least in part, his own savior. This error is the prolific mother of multitudes of heresies! It is through this falsehood that the pure stream of the Truth of God has been tainted so that, instead of flowing on in one clear pure river, it has been sadly polluted. There have been many who have sought to hinder the flowing of the Water of Life, or to divert the stream from its proper current. Many have tried to mingle the fancies and fallacies of men with the Truth as it is in Jesus, in order, thereby, to make it more palatable to poor, fallen, human nature. It is my belief that all great reforms in the Church of Christ must have for their basis the declaration of the Doctrine revealed in my text—"By Grace you are saved." The tendency of the Church, like that of the world, is to fly away from this Truth which is really the sum and substance of the Gospel. A departure from this Doctrine is, in my opinion, the essence of those many errors which, springing up from time to time, have troubled and divided the Church and marred the beauty of the spouse of Christ. In all times, whenever this Doctrine has been obscured, the Church has become either heretical or Laodicean. She has either held some dangerous and damnable heresy, or she has held only a portion of the Truth and held it with so feeble a grasp that it has lost its ancient power in her hands—so that her enemies have prevailed against her.

Even when we were dead in sins - Dead in our souls; dead towards God; dead in law; and exposed to death eternal, Hath quickened us together with Christ - God has given us as complete a resurrection from the death of sin to a life of righteousness, as the body of Christ has had from the grave. And as this quickening, or making alive, was most gratuitous on God’s part, the apostle, with great propriety, says; By grace ye are saved.