November 29th 2018 – Ephesians 2:10-13

"10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. 11Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ."

Ephesians 2:10-13

But let us return to the thought, touched upon earlier, of our being 'His workmanship'. The hidden implications of this phrase are very considerable. It will be noticed that Paul uses the word 'created' in reference to our new status in Christ Jesus. The word in the Greek - 'ktisis' - comes from the thought of the divine creative act in Genesis. This is a favourite theme of the apostle's, as we may recall from the well-known words in 2 Corinthians 4:6: 'For God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts ...'. Central to the biblical view of creation is that it is 'creation ex nihilo' - creation out of nothing, and we must necessarily understand this of Paul's words here. God created the world out of nothing, and in the new creation He does likewise. We are re-created in the new, or last, Adam, and this inevitably excludes anything that we could do or contribute to God's workmanship. It is all of God, and all of grace. The new life in Christ is totally new, owing nothing to anything man can do. Indeed, this is presupposed in the opening verses of the chapter: we are by nature dead in trespasses and sins and this means that the whole of the first, original creation of man is 'a dead loss' and therefore salvation must mean 'a new thing'. The whole operation is to be done over again. It is a real, new beginning by God. The Divine Potter makes the clay into 'another vessel'!