God Saves Us Out Of Spiritual Death

Ian experienced ‘the death rattles’, his body paralyzed with poison. For years, he’d rejected the idea of an afterlife. With his life flashing before him, he wasn’t sure anymore. He suddenly saw his mother’s face in his mind’s eye. She urged him to call on God from the bottom of his heart for mercy. Call on God he did! And there in an ambulance, his sins were immediately forgiven. ‘Peace came flooding in. That peace has never left me since,’ Ian shares years later.

Read Ephesians 2:1-5.

Over the last 3 days we looked at God’s salvation. But what does He save us from? He saves us from spiritual death. Apart from Christ we are dead in our sins (v1), cut off from our Creator. We’re saved from the hold of Satan. He is ‘the spirit at work in the disobedient’ (v2), who tempts us to sin, then hooks us to a life of sin, all the time accusing us. We’re saved from the power of sin (v3). Sin has a power over us. On our own we may be able to change our external behavior, but our hearts have deep roots of selfishness and unbelief, which only Christ can uproot.

But most dramatically we’re saved from God’s wrath (v3). We are on a collision course with a Holy God. On Judgment Day He will pour out on us the punishment that we deserve. Since we have sinned against an infinite, eternal God, the consequences will be infinite and eternal. We’re doomed to a Christ-less eternity. The worst thing that could have happened to Ian was not dying, but dying without Christ! In fact when Ian died God even let him briefly taste the horrors of hell – a place Ian says is ‘utter darkness, regret and hatred’ – to show him what he’d been saved out of! Thankfully God is rich in mercy and love (v4). On the cross God took our sin, put it on his Son and punished it there. Now for those who trust in Christ, death is replaced with life (v5), hell with heaven, judgment with mercy.

Why do you think our sinfulness so saddens and angers God? Have you, like Ian, received God’s blood-bought grace? If so, when was the last time you truly thanked God for this precious gift?