Ephesians overview – 3:14-19, Filled by God due to grace (Rom 5:12-21), part 5

He who is filled to the fullness of God is a poor sinner like the rest of us, who is believing the abundance of grace.

All of us, though born in Adam: condemned, sinners, under the penalty of death, are to be filled with the love of God and the gifts of God. There is not some exceptional kind of man that walks in holiness.

In vs. 17 we find two kingdoms: Adam’s – a world full of graves.

Christ’s – kings in life eternal.

Rom 5:17

For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

May God open our eyes to the facts. Satan is deathly jealous of the church, which is already in the heavenlies. Satan’s knows that the church will share Christ’s throne and soon reign with Him in indescribable glory. Therefore he will blind you, if he can, to your present place of royal power of life in Christ and the abundance of Christ’s love for you.

“I have found that I have no unusual endowments of intellect, but I this day resolved that I would be an uncommon Christian.” [David Livingston]

We’re not all called to be missionaries to Africa, but right at home, at work, wherever you are right now, we can all refuse to be content with anything else besides a life that reigns with Christ, and that by grace, for God has already, through the obedience of the One, made us the type of humanity that He desires. All it takes is faith in who God has made us to be.

How many Christians will experience some form of regret at discovering they have lived in doubt, fear, and defeat; rather than a victorious reigning in life in Christ?

If we haven’t already, we should all refuse to be content with a Christian existence that cannot finally be summed up as “He reigned in life through Jesus Christ,” – over sin, Satan, the world, difficulties, addictions, adverse surroundings and circumstances.

We don’t understand all of God’s decree in creating a human race that He knew would fall. We can say, because God says it, that God desired that all men would be secure forever, by Christ’s work. We know He desired all believers to be secure forever outside of any work of their own, for that is what happened.

The ordinary conception of justification does not happen beyond the pardon of sin.

We should have confidence that our sins will never be reckoned to us – whether they are past, present, or future sins.

Rom 4:6-8

just as David also speaks of the blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

7 "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven,

And whose sins have been covered.

8 "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account."

Eph 1:7-8

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, 8 which He lavished upon us.

Col 2:13

And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,

Act 13:38-39

“Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 39 and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.”

We will be judged or evaluated according to what we have done, but sin will not be reckoned to us.

2Co 5:9-10

Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Rom 5:18

So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

Christ’s act of righteousness is the crowning act of Christ’s life of obedience, when He yielded up His life, and in contrast to Adam’s act that brought perdition upon the human race, Christ’s act brought salvation. Justification means life, hence “justification of life” is a beautiful phrase to describe it. A life not justified before God, no matter what happens within it, is a life of condemnation. Nothing good can be done as God would say is good. Nothing eternal in meaning could be done. Nothing of true divine love or divine favor can be done. Try as it might to mimic something good, the unjustified life will in the end always be a selfish one, and therefore a lonely one. There is deep darkness in the Lake of Fire, which is ultimate loneliness. Only in time does the omnipresence of God provide light to the path of all men. Even rejecting God, all men experience something of the presence of God, in all manner of ways in which the church, the gospel and grace and the love of God are manifested to the world. But if they have rejected Christ they continue to live in Adam, condemned under sin and death.

Rom 5:19

For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

The second clause is probably a deliberate echo of Isa 53:11.

Isa 53:11

As a result of the anguish of His soul,

He will see it and be satisfied;

By His knowledge the Righteous One,

My Servant, will justify the many,

As He will bear their iniquities.

Justification provides not only release from the penalty of sin, but also a place in the risen Christ Himself. The history in Adam of believers was ended at the cross.

And, because of this, in His death Christ fulfilled the Law, and the Law no longer has any claim on the conscience of the believer. You and I are never under a curse. We reap what we sow, but not ever under the curse of the Law. We possess the blessings of Christ. It drives Satan and the world mad that we have received such over the top blessings by faith through grace. It drives them mad that we continue to claim ownership of those blessings immediately after sinning or failing in some way. We do not condone failure, we learn to hate it, but we have become convinced that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. It drives them mad that we grow more mature by that same grace, not of our own effort, but through our faith in the more of Christ that we have comprehended and known. Satan and the world want to label us by our past failures while we claim to forget what lies behind and reach forward to what lies ahead. Satan and the world want to convince us that what lies ahead has been cut off from us, taken off the menu, but we claim that it is never removed and we further claim that God has forgiven us of all sin and that He has predestined us all to become conformed to the image of Christ. This drives them mad, but like our Lord, we do not compromise the truth and promises that we know and love in the face of the red-faced, screaming mob.

Rom 5:21

that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And finally, the paragraph ends and unfolds another of God’s great purposes: that grace should have a kingdom where death had its kingdom. It is to be a kingdom of righteousness in which all claims to righteousness can only come from one place – Christ the King’s cross.

And now in chapter 6, our old man, all we were from Adam, is brought in. It is brought into view because though it is dead, it can still act upon us if we allow it to, like a decaying dead animal can make us sick.

Psa 51:10-12

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

11 Do not cast me away from Thy presence,

And do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation,

And sustain me with a willing spirit.