Ephesians 2:4-5
“But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),”
Where this sits
The turn of the letter. The three verses before it describe the reader as dead in trespasses, walking according to the course of this world, by nature children of wrath.
Reflection
The sentence begins with two words that carry the whole letter: But God.
Everything before them is a description of a corpse. Paul has just spent three verses saying his readers were dead in trespasses, following the course of this world, and by nature children of wrath. It is an unsparing paragraph, and it leaves the subject with nothing to contribute — which is the point of describing the condition as death rather than sickness. A sick man can cooperate with treatment. A dead one cannot.
Then: but God. The grammar changes subject, and the new subject does all the verbs from here on.
Rich in mercy is a merchant's phrase, and Paul uses wealth language throughout this letter — riches of grace, riches of glory, unsearchable riches. He is describing an account that cannot be overdrawn by the size of the need presented to it.
And the timing is precise: even when we were dead. Not after we improved. Not once a first step had been taken. The love is dated to the period when there was nothing to love in the ordinary sense, and nothing being offered back.
The parenthesis Paul inserts — by grace you have been saved — is grammatically unnecessary and he cannot help himself. He says it again nearly identically four verses later.
- Theme:
- Mercy
- Book:
- Ephesians