Brother George

“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;” (Ephesians 2:1)
This verse is good news to a sinner, it denotes the very fact that we are not dead any longer, but that at one time we were dead. Another point that this verse teaches is that we are alive in Christ and we had nothing to do with getting life, because we were dead. I suppose if we went to the graveyard and stood over the graves of our loved ones and speak to them and tell them to arise and receive life that there would not be a one of them that would arise because they are dead. Just as they are dead naturally, we were just as dead spiritually. Dead is dead and if we were dead we could not act. The Primitive Baptist have always contended that we were passive in being born again.
The older that I get the more I love the message of salvation by grace because it takes the condition away from me and puts it on someone that was able to save to the uttermost. It also takes the glory away from man and puts it where it belongs, that is on the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse two Paul says; “You were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” He is saying that we were Adam multiplied, that we are the offspring of Adam and if an offspring of Adam, we are sinners by nature and sinners by practice. Sin is a sickness, sin is inherited, it is passed down from generation to generation and it is terminal, therefore it brings forth death. “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned:” (Romans 5:12) In Romans chapter three Paul tells us the wretched condition that we were in through the fall of Adam. “As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, and they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no not one.” (Romans 3:10-12) This puts us in a bad way, a way that we can not get ourselves out of based upon our own merit, because we have no righteousness of our own. We have no good works, all our works are as filthy rags before God and we, by our works have no standing with God.
Job asks the question; “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.” (Job 14:4) But thanks be to God of what Paul wrote; “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God`s elect? It is God that justifieth.” (Romans 8:33) As death came upon all men because of one mans’ disobedience, it took the obedience of one man, the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ to stand as our surety. Christ is more than our security, he is our surety, he is the one that God required to stand as our surety that he might be the one that the penalty of the sin debt was required of. “We are speaking of perfection, we are speaking of holiness, and we are speaking of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ who was made to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2nd Corinthians 5:21)
Now as we go back to the text; “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;” We find that Jesus paid the sin debt, that Jesus fulfilled the law to a jot and to a tittle, that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for sin, that he is our surety, that he is our righteousness and that we stand just before a Holy God as if we had never sinned. But his work did not stop there because he has the power to give life, because he is life in itself. He is still on his throne quickening, giving life to those that are dead in trespasses and in sins. He speaks to the hard and stony heart of a sinner, and he takes out the hard and stony heart and puts in a new heart, a heart that has feelings. Therefore we are not dead anymore, we have been made alive in Jesus Christ and his blood has been applied and hath washed us, cleansed us, and made us to be the righteousness of God in him.