Alive: Grow in Your Relationship With Jesusናሙና

I was listening to a trivia podcast recently where the four hosts were discussing Christianity and the Bible. Some of the four had a religious background, but at least one did not. He expressed shock over a miracle in Acts where Paul brought a man named Eutychus back to life (see Acts 20:7-12). As an explanation, the host who told the story said, “It’s the Bible . . . That’s the kind of thing that happens in the Bible.” Another host replied, “Yeah. Zombies. Very common.”(6)

The hosts were correct in that the Bible often talks about dead people rising up and walking again, but the idea of the walking dead couldn’t be further from the truth. The Christian life is about the dead being made alive, and we see this in both spiritual and literal ways throughout the Bible. As you’ve read and studied the last few days, without Christ, you were dead in your sin; in Christ, you are fully, abundantly alive (John 10:10).

Ephesians 2:1-10 is often cited as one of the most powerful pictures of the Gospel in all of Scripture, and it all hinges on the “but God” transition of verse 4. Paul, the author of Ephesians, pointed out that all our "befores" looked similar—dead in our sin, walking according to the ways of the world, living in our fleshly desires.

Everything before that famous “But God” is in the past tense. That means “But God” makes it no longer true. You were dead, but now you are saved. Our befores were the same—dead. Our "afters" are also the same—alive! Now and forever.

I don’t know about you, but it is a relief to me that I didn’t have to earn my Salvation. I couldn’t. No amount of good works or charity donations or kindness toward people or volunteering could change my status from dead to alive. I needed a miracle. I needed Grace.

Depending on which dictionary or search engine you use, you may find definitions of Grace ranging from “a free gift of God to humankind for regeneration or sanctification”(7) to “simple elegance or refinement of movement.”(8) While it does mean all of those things, for the purposes of this study, we’re going to focus on the first definition.

We’ve seen how we deserved death, but instead, God sent His Son to give us life. The Grace of God is what makes this Gift of Life available. We’ve done nothing to deserve nor merit His Love and Forgiveness. It’s purely a Gift from God. Faith in Him is how we receive the Gift. So that’s what Ephesians 2:8 is saying—we are saved by Grace through faith.

At this point in the study, you may be asking yourself, Well, now what? or What does that mean for me on a daily basis? Paul, in another of his letters, says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17)! When we are saved by Grace from death to life, we become New Creations.

To be a New Creation doesn’t mean that we’re starting over as actual, physical infants. But it does mean that our lives will look different. Remember Ephesians 2:1-3? It was all in the past tense. Once we are saved by Grace through faith, we are no longer dead in our sin. We no longer walk in the ways of the world or our fleshly desires. Now we walk in freedom and obedience to Christ. But we don’t do this by ourselves or in our own power. We can’t. We do so by the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

Does that mean that from the “But God” to Eternity we will live sin-free lives? I wish that was the case! However, sadly, until we get to Heaven we will continually struggle to put off sin. The difference is that now we do so as those who are already forgiven of those sins.

A lot of people look at Grace and ask why we should even try to stay away from sin. Grace has us covered, right? Right. But, like these verses say, why would we want to keep living like dead people? We are not zombies! We are all the way alive in Christ.

In another of Paul’s letters, he gives us a good description of what living life in this New Way looks like: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Those who are alive in Christ can experience and display Peace, Patience, Love, Joy, and on and on—the Character of Christ.

6. Anna Ptaszynski, “463: No Such Thing As An Especially Attractive Barge,” January 26, 2023, in No Such Thing As A Fish, podcast, , https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/.

7. Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, s.v. “grace,” accessed October 12, 2023, https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/grace.

8. Oxford Languages, s.v. “grace” https://www.google.com/search?q=grace.