“And you being corpses by your missteps and your malfunctioning behaviors, by means of which you walked at one time down the line of the aeon of this world, down the line of the chieftain of the authority of the air, the breath of what is now working within the sons of disobedience from distrust; among whom also we all retired at one time by means of the cravings of our biology doing the will of our biology and of our thoughts, and we were by nature children of natural impulse like also the rest; yet God being wealthy with mercy, because of His much agape which He loved us, and us being corpses by our missteps He made us alive together with the Christ—you are having been delivered by His charity—and awakened us together with the Christ and sat us down together with the Christ within the high heavens by means of the Christ, Yeshua, so that He might demonstrate within the upcoming aeons the beyond wealth of His charity with His simple kindness upon us with the Christ, Yeshua. Because you exist having been delivered through faith; and this not from you, the gift of God; not from works, so that not anyone might brag, because we are His opus, having been created by means of the Christ, Yeshua with reference to good works which good works God made ready beforehand, so that we would walk by means of them.”
-Ephesians 2:1-10
Ephesians 2:8-9 is often quoted as a proof text of “salvation by grace through faith,” but generally within the context of “salvation” referring to forgiveness for sins and pardon from a well deserved hell. But this context doesn’t actually fit the passage, which is clearly all about behavior. Paul even makes the distinction clear between those who succumbed to the cravings of their biology and their thoughts, being “children of natural impulse” (the word OPΓH literally means “natural impulse, passion,” and so also “wrath or heated anger” as well as “sexual passion”, which is why it transliterates into English as “orgy”) also calling them corpses (or “dead people”) because of their missteps and malfunctioning behaviors, and those who have been delivered from such behaviors through the sheer and simple kindness of God’s charity which joined us, united us together with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection as one thing with Him, so that His inheritance also becomes ours because we are one thing with Him. Paul calls us God’s opus, His epic poem like the Odyssey or Iliad, His great work with the specific reference so that we would produce good works which God has already gotten ready.
Very specifically, the Apostle says that we were specially created by means of Jesus Christ, joined to Him as one thing, so that we would walk by means of those good works. Not so that we would escape hell, not so that we would be forgiven, not so that we might be pardoned. But so that we would escape those malfunctioning behaviors which made us corpses through engaging and being voluntarily slaved to the Spirit of Christ, bypassing the cravings, triggers, and attachments of our own biology and our thoughts and thus producing good works because our actions, words, and thoughts have their origin with the Spirit of Christ instead of the malfunctioning biology of our brains.
God forgives freely and easily. He always has. All someone needs to do is to turn back towards Him like the prodigal son coming to his senses and returning home. As John wrote, “If we agree with Him out loud about our error, He is trusted and right to let our errors go and make us clean from every wrongdoing (just as He says in Jeremiah, “because I will be propitious to their intentional wrongs and I will absolutely not remember their errors,” and also in Ezekiel 18 where He declares in detail that the wicked man who turns away from his wickedness to do the right thing will be forgiven and none of his wrongdoing will be remembered). If we say that we haven’t erred, we make Him a liar and His Logos isn’t within us.” This was true before the cross, and it is true after the cross, but it is not necessarily true because of the cross, but because of who He is, His core nature and character. The cross, and our salvation which resulted from it, was about freeing us and saving us from our own faulty flesh, our own malfunctioning gray matter which craves and clings, and drives us insane with thoughts about things that haven’t even happened yet and may never happen. And for this, God went to unimaginable lengths to deliver us from ourselves, joining us to Himself through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ so that we would be one thing with Him, and the things we do, and the words we say would originate with Him, with our voluntary permission. And the fallout from this joining, the consequences of this joining and voluntary submission, are that we inherit everything Jesus Christ inherits, we become Him just as He became us. Everything that is His is ours, including the sufferings as well as being where He is and being seated at the Father’s right hand because He is seated at the Father’s right hand.
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