Made Alive by the Father's Mercy
Paul describes the reader's past bluntly — dead, following the crowd and the powers behind it — then interrupts himself with 'but our Father'. Salvation is a gift so no one can boast, and the same mercy tears down the wall between Jew and Gentile.
2 1And you were dead in your wrongdoing and sins, 2in which you once walked, following this world's ways, following the ruler who wields power over the air, the spirit now working among the disobedient. 3Among them we all once lived in our flesh's desires, doing what flesh and mind craved, and were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. 4But our Father, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5though we were dead in our sins, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved, 6raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come he might display his grace's overflowing riches in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith—not your own doing; it is the gift of our Father. 9Not from works, so that no one may boast. 10We are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works our Father prepared beforehand for us to walk in them.
Brought Near by the Blood of Christ
11So remember: you Gentiles in the flesh were once called "uncircumcised" by those called "circumcised," a mark made in flesh by hand. 12Remember that then you were without Christ, excluded from Israel's community, strangers to the covenants of promise, with no hope and without our Father in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus, you once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14For he himself is our peace, who made the two one, tearing down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, a a v14 The Jerusalem Temple had a stone barrier warning that any Gentile who crossed it faced death — Paul's 'dividing wall of hostility.' 15destroying in his flesh the law of commands and decrees, to create the two in himself into one new humanity, making peace, 16and reconcile both to our Father in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17He came and announced peace to you far off, and peace to those near. 18For through him we both have access in one Spirit to our Father. b b v18 Here the whole Trinity opens the way home: it is through the Son, in the one Spirit, that we come to our Father. The gospel's destination is not merely heaven but the Father himself.
19So you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of our Father's household. 20Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21in whom the whole structure, joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22in him, you also are being built together into a home for our Father in the Holy Spirit.
