Christopher Vitale
Introduction / Survey
Considered to be a quintessential work of Pauline contributions to Christian theology and ecclesiology (Neufeld 22), Ephesians reveals a Christian community that has not only spread widely and evolved greatly in its movement throughout the Mediterranean regions, but also identifies the ‘Church’ as inextricably linked with Christ as head of all things, within and beyond the cosmos.
Although the purpose of this paper is to exegete Ephesians 2:1-10, it is first necessary to understand the entire letter’s overall theme and how it relates specifically 2:1-10. Beginning with the theme itself, Ephesians largely communicates what it means to be reconciled with God, whose aim is to bring unity among all things through Christ’s death and resurrection (Soards 155; Coogan ‘Ephesians’). Because the unity theme is so prevalent throughout the letter, Christians often embrace Ephesians as a powerfully influential, almost poetic-like expression of the Gospel (Neufeld 22).
With the understanding of ‘cosmos’ as central to the letter’s theology, the grand scale phrasing in the text illuminates the echoing grand scale on which God rules the cosmos and offers an eternal relationship with humankind. At the core of the relationship is Christ, who is the head of the entire cosmos (1:22-23) and manifests his power through his symbiotic connection with the Church (Soards 155).
In turn, the Church is a cosmic entity defined as Christ’s body and which includes both Jewish and Gentile converts. Moreover, the Church and Christ are now essentially one entity — or, similar to the marriage between man and woman, the Church and Christ are joined together in a holy union: Christ is the bridegroom of the Church, and the Church is the holy temple comprising the body of believers and with leaders who have an even more central role as the foundation of the Church. (Soards 151, 152).
Because a central theme in Ephesians is reconciliation (Soards 155), while not delving deeply into the doctrine of justification (Browning ‘Paul’s Letter’), the letter addresses the ongoing problem of evil forces still at work, despite God’s saving power through Christ’s death and resurrection. In other words, although Christ’s work on the Cross defeated sin for both Jews and Gentiles, though also for all who are baptized into his death and resurrection, the power of sin can still influence those who are not living out the salvation they have received (Coogan ‘Ephesians’)
Further, because Christ’s resurrection is seen as a cosmic event, the final battle between good and evil now rests on Christ’s exaltation as ruler of the cosmos. Additionally, in conjunction with Christ, the universal Church helps keep believers unified in Christ and on the right side of the cosmic conflict (Coogan ‘Ephesians’; Dunn ‘Ephesians’). Therefore, the Church is the vehicle from which God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can empower believers to live out their salvation and fulfill their own cosmic role (Neufeld 19; Dunn ‘Ephesians’). Consequently, Ephesians 2:1-10, the focus of this paper, “declares that the work of Christ amounts to the movement from death to life for those who are saved” (Soards 154).
Also, being that the letter’s eschatology deals more with living out salvation in the present, rather than emphasizing Christ’s possibly imminent return, such as in 1 Thessalonians, the overall message is a reminder, and similar to Romans 6, that believers must live as a new creation through Christ’s death and resurrection (Coogan ‘Ephesians’).
Contextual Analysis
Whether Paul was or was not the author of Ephesians, the intended audience for this letter is not clear. Though the word ‘Ephesian’s is in the title, many scholars do not believe that the letter was specifically for Christians in Ephesus (Fowl 8). In addition, the occasion for the letter is not so straightforward: Unlike other letters by Paul, Ephesians does not address a particular problem the audience is facing, there are no explicit addressees, and scholars have mixed opinions about how much the accounts in Acts of Paul’s earlier ministry in Ephesus relate to the letter in question (Soards 152, Fowl 30; Neufeld 25).
However, because Acts provides an account of Paul’s initial visit to Ephesus, Ephesians shares biographical information about Paul (3:1-13; 4:1; 6:20); and because several other letters by Paul discuss the theological challenges concerning Jews and Gentiles, it might be possible to solve at least part of the mystery involving the occasion and the historical context leading up to it. What is for certain is that Ephesians borrows much of its text from Colossians — seventy-three verses, to be exact (Soards 151). Moreover, and similar to Colossians, as well as 1 Peter, Ephesians is layered in liturgical language, including the importance of baptism and being a morally grounded believer (Meeks and Fitzgerald 114).
However, as the point of this exegesis is not to compare the exact parallels between Colossians and Ephesians, it is still important to note the influence that Colossians has on Ephesians, whether written by Paul or another author. Particularly, Ephesians appears to be an intentionally edited version of Colossians, yet with the purpose of taking certain teachings from Colossians and making them more general in Ephesians (Coogan ‘Ephesians’). Nevertheless, while the parallels between Colossians and Ephesians cannot be understated, there is no clear indication that the author of Ephesians used a specific method to copy and revise the text — that is, similar to how, in Romans, Paul verifiably borrows texts from Galatians and 1 Corinthians (Meeks and in Fitzgerald 114).
In addition, the question of authorship has been an ongoing debate. On one hand, the suggestion that Paul wrote Ephesians means trying to explain why Ephesians 3 indicates that his audience was not familiar with him, despite him having a prior ministry there for many years (Neufeld 24). On the other hand, a pseudonymous author writing at a later date — later than Paul’s imprisonment during the 60s AD, yet still within the first century — would fit the evolution in theology and the historical situation at that time (Neufeld 24, 25). The evidence appears to lean toward the latter, given that the letter implies that the Ephesians may not have heard of Paul’s ministry (3:2). Still, the letter mentions Paul being imprisoned (3:13), though the pseudonymous author could have been imprisoned as well (Coogan Oxford).
Yet a possible third option is that Paul was in fact the author of Ephesians. Continuing with the idea that Paul wrote the letter while in prison, some scholarship suggests taking a closer look at the possible links between Ephesians and other Pauline ‘captivity’ letters, such as Philippians, Philemon, and 2 Timothy. Moreover, because Paul may have been imprisoned in Rome, Ephesus, or Caesarea, it is not out of the question to connect the writing of Ephesians with, say, Colossians and Philemon (Heil 4).
Also, other recent scholarship has scrutinized whether pseudepigraphical writing in the ancient world did indeed influence the disputed Pauline letters. By studying to what degree coauthors and secretaries were involved with composing Pauline letters, the analysis is quite complex and has not led to any sweeping conclusions about authorship, or that pseudonymity is a given with some Pauline letters (Heil 4,5).
What is more certain is the historical situation in which Paul lived and how it affected the letter to the Ephesians. Whether this epistle was written around Paul’s imprisonment in the early to mid-sixties, or in the latter part of the first century, early Christians witnessed and experienced dramatic, and sometimes tragic, changes within the second half of the first century and onward (Neufeld 25). From figuring out how to settle soteriological and eschatological differences between Gentile and Jewish Christians, to grappling with whether Jesus would soon return and put a final end to the cosmic age of evil and sin, to facing the first bouts of Roman persecution, the challenges Christians faced may have seemed insurmountable at times.
After all, the Jewish Christian versus Gentile Christian situation was already a major issue in itself; hence why, among its many points, Ephesians reinforces the unifying relationship that Jews and Gentiles are supposed to have: that they now have one common Savior, Jesus Christ (Neufeld 25, 26). This became particularly important because the Gentile Christians had far outnumbered the Jewish converts; therefore, the author of Ephesians found it necessary to remind believers of their call: that by living harmoniously together as fellow followers of Christ, they can much better witness to the world around them (Fowl 30).
Bearing the above in mind, the historical context in the first century further illuminates the occasion for Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Although already established earlier that the intended audience is not well apparent, the concern for unity within the Church is not ambiguous at all. Namely, the call to live out an authentic Christian life had reverberated throughout the Mediterranean; and that Christian life included mandating a strong synergy within and between congregations (Schnackenburg 34). As laid out in Ephesians, using Jews and Gentiles as the primary example, all are believers in the God of Israel and have received salvation through Jesus Christ. Meeks and Fitzgerald explain it as follows: “the dividing wall of the Temple…is broken down, and a new unified humanity has come into existence in the church” (631).
Thus, while Ephesians does not dwell much on a specific audience, it does not seek to dismantle false beliefs, and there are no lengthy speeches about God’s righteousness concerning Jews versus Gentiles (Fowl 28, 29), the author has enough preliminary information to preach a message of unity and love. Additionally, the audience knows enough about Paul and their belief in Christ to understand the overall purpose of the letter (Coogan ‘Ephesians’). At the minimum, many scholars agree that Ephesians was probably sent to numerous churches in Asia Minor (Meeks and Fitzgerald 114).
Form Analysis
Divided into two main parts (Soards 153) — the first one being theological (1:1 – 3:21), and the second one primarily serving as exhortation (4:1 – 6:20) — Ephesians contains striking differences in style, vocabulary, and overall structure from other Pauline letters (Soards 151). What follows is a summary of the differences, including how the subject of the exegesis this paper, Ephesians 2:1-10, factors into the analysis.
From a stylistic perspective, Ephesians most closely matches Colossians by containing numerous repetitive phrases and redundancies (pleonasms); long sentences (1:3-14; 4:11=16); atypical uses of prepositions, participles, adjectives, and clauses (1:17-19; 3:14-19); and other grammatical indications of pseudonymous authorship (Coogan ‘Ephesians’; Dunn ‘Ephesians’). Still, one could argue that the differences in style do not lead to a solid conclusion that Paul was not the author: The differences are not so great that they could not be explained for other reasons, such as Paul choosing to use a specific tone or temperament in conveying the message of Ephesians (Fowl 21), or that his writing style perhaps evolved over time.
Continuing on, it is also necessary to examine the vocabulary in Ephesians. When compared to the undisputed Pauline letters and to other books in the New Testament, Ephesians, comprising 2,429 words in total and with 530 vocabulary-specific terms. 41 of the terms do not exist in any other part of the NT, while 84 terms do exist in other parts of NT but not in other Pauline letters (Fowl 20). In addition, and which further supports the difference in linguistic usage in Ephesians versus other Pauline letters, some terms in Ephesians are either replaced from earlier letters or change slightly in label: ‘devil’ is used in place of ‘Satan’, ‘blood and flesh’ are used instead of ‘flesh’ only (6:12), and ‘heavenly places’ replaces ‘heaven’ (Soards 151).
Also pertaining to Ephesian is the genre and how this affects the stylistic flow throughout letter Ephesians reads rather much like a homily (Coogan ‘Ephesians’), though it appears to have its own distinct type of communication when compared to other Pauline letters, particularly the undisputed letters. Like the other Pauline epistles, Ephesians appears similar to a letter, with its opening greeting and closing regards (1:1-2; 6:21-24), as well as featuring exhortations somewhat characteristic of Paul (Meeks and Fitzgerald 114).
However, because the blessing in 1:3-14 is similar to a hymnal, the theological summary of the Jews and Gentiles in 2:11-22 has a sermon-like effect to it, and the admonitions and exhortations in 4:1 – 6:20 also have a sermonic flow, Ephesians gives the impression of a letter that would be read aloud in a liturgical or similar setting (Meeks and Fitzgerald 114, 115; Neufeld 19).
Additionally, some scholars claim that Qumran texts may have partially influenced Ephesians, though not quite theologically, or by similar types of Jewish literature. Whichever the exact influence, the liturgical overtones suggest a letter to be used as part of public worship, including the Eucharistic celebration (Schnakenberg 22, 26). Altogether, the Jewish, Christian, and Gentile influences on Paul’s rhetoric suggest appealing to an audience who can relate to both Gentile and Jewish cultures (Heil 10).
Further, and not surprisingly, the stylistic components already discussed also affect Ephesians 2:1-10. For instance, 2:1-7 is one of many examples of lengthy sentences — though this particular sentence is often broken up into shorter sentences, based on Biblical translation (Neufeld 89; Merkle 52).
Also, as a literary device, inclusio — which marks “a section by repeating a beginning word or phrase at the end” — is used to connect the believers once dead in sin with the living who now carry out the good blessings mentioned in chapter 1, and which include theological explanations that expound upon God’s work through Christ, first mentioned in 1:20. This makes for a crucial setup to the salvific message in 2:1-10, and which confirms the scholarly conclusion that Ephesians “reflects baptismal liturgy or catechesis” (Neufeld 90).
Detailed Analysis
The following detailed exegesis of Ephesians 2:1-10 is split into three sections: 2:1-3, 2:4-7, and 2:8-10. Namely, each section covers central interpretations that will then be fully summarized in the ‘Synthesis / Reflection’ section.
2:1-3
These first three verses contain two pronouns, ‘you’ and we’, which not only introduce the subjects and audience, but may also involve the relationship between Jew and Gentiles. Some scholars believe that the “you” means Gentile Christians, and “we” means Jewish Christians, being that the audience could very well have been predominantly Gentile (Fowl 67), though with language that is also relatable to Jews. That is, to an apocalyptic Jew, comments such as “age of the world” and “following the ruler of power” (2:2) would refer to the cosmic age of sin, and that those who were dead in transgressions / sins had broken God’s law established in the Mosaic covenant (Neufeld 90,91; Heil 95).
Although the terminology might have resonated more deeply with Jewish Christians, the message itself speaks to the broader Ephesian Christian population: They had once been enslaved in the ‘realm’ of sin, ruled by evil forces, and are now in Christ’s realm and within his rule (Fowl 68). The synonymous use of both ‘trespasses’ and ‘sins’ emphasizes the power of being so enslaved, of once having lived in utter despair and without hope (Schnakenburg 90, 91).
Not stopping there, the ruler of the evil age has lured the enslaved into a life of fleshly desires. Satan, who is clearly the ruler, wants full control of the world and to keep humankind trapped in the realm of sin. Therefore, by ruling the “power of the air” (or atmosphere), Satan wants eternal jurisdiction over all of creation. This, then, influences the “spirit that is now at work in the disobedient”: The spirit, in this case, is the human spirit corrupted by sin and which bars itself from receiving God’s Word, Jesus Christ (Schankenburg 92, Riensche 72).
Consequently, the former life the Ephesians had led was a life of spiritual death — one that had not yet been freed by baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection. In effect, and because of their once spiritual death, their bodies were alive, but their spiritual nature was divorced from real life in Jesus. This also means they could have been subjected to God’s wrath (Neufeld 90; Riensche 72, 73).
2:4 – 2:7
Although those dead in sin could have been susceptible to encountering God’s wrath, God is, first and foremost, filled with mercy and love for humankind. Verse 4, as it transitions from the reminder about spiritual death, now leads to the reminder about God’s role in humankind’s salvation. Just as in Rom 11:30-32, where Paul refers to mercy as forgiving disobedience, the same applies to God’s mercy described in Eph 2:4: Those who transgress against God align with Satan and remain in the realm of sin. However, God, in his infinite love, desires his creation to be whole with him; therefore, his richness in mercy is “beyond the wildest imagination” (Neufeld 94).
This means that while those who are already righteous may already be in accord with God, those were dead in sin were not necessarily guaranteed to be made righteous, even while God offers his merciful love to be redeemed from sin. Redemption, as also explained in Titus 3:5 and 1 Pet 1:3, is then carried out by becoming a baptized believer in Christ (Neufeld 94; Schnakenburg 93, 94), as implied in verse 5.
Next, in verses 5 through 7, the pronoun of “you” in 2:1 becomes “we” in verse 5: It appears that Paul wants to stress that salvation through Christ is for everyone, that all are made alive when entering into a new relationship with Christ (Fowl 73). More importantly, being made alive refers not only to salvation through Christ’s death and resurrection, but that also having a new life in Christ’s new life: Christ’s resurrection brings about new life, which then guarantees those who participate in this new life a path to their own bodily resurrection (Neufeld 95).
Additionally, when Paul refers to being ‘made alive’, it generally means resurrection (Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 15:22, 36); that is, in both the sense of Christ’s resurrection as well as the bodily resurrection that believers can expect to experience upon Christ’s return. And here again, baptism, as also stated in Rom 6:4, is the first step toward living a new life in Christ and embracing spiritual resurrection (Fowl 73; Riensche 73).
By emphasizing new life in Christ, Paul makes God’s intervening act a product of his merciful grace: “by grace you have been saved” (2:5). God must certainly be rooted in love to offer an unmerited gift to all who were dead in sin; and Paul apparently wants readers to be aware that God’s love equals God’s mercy — which, in turn, equals God’s grace (Heil 101, 102). It also means God has overtaken the ruler of the air and thereby freed all who have accepted God’s grace, once again made possible through baptism from spiritual death into life. Moreover, the Church, as described in Eph 1:22-23, unites believers in their salvation and embodies the sacramental life (Schnakenburg 95).
Thus, the believers, as a community within Christ’s Church on earth, are now included in God’s plan of salvation (Schnakenburg 95). Further, in the “ages to come” (2:7), which is to be understood as temporal, yet not indicating the imminent end featured in other Pauline letters, believer can still “look forward to an indeterminate future of showing forth God’s grace and kindness as the body of Christ in heaven and on earth” (Neufeld 98; Schnakenburg 96).
2:8 – 2:10
The final three verses in this exegesis are often the most cited, and sometimes the mostly hotly contested, in the world of Christian belief. Particularly, what does it mean to be saved through ‘faith’ and not from ‘works’ (2:8-9)? Although ‘justification’ and ‘righteousness’ are not featured in this passage, Paul appears to present salvation of something that has been completed; namely that, through Christ’s death and resurrection, believers are no longer oppressed by the ‘ruler of the air’; they are now “defined as participation in the person, fate, and task of Christ” (Neufeld 98, 99). What is more, and in conjunction with passages about salvation in other Pauline letters (Rom 8:24; Phil 2:12; 1 Cor 3:12-15), Paul explains salvation has something that has happened, is happening, and will happen (Lincoln 620).
Still, in regard to salvation, it is important to understand what Paul means by ‘faith’ in Eph 2:8. For starters, the Greek word for faith, ‘pistis’, can mean putting trust in God, similar to Rom 3:22 and Gal 2:16. However, as it applies to Eph 2:8, faith/’pistis’ refers to God’s faithfulness — that God, in his infinite love and mercy (2:4), has stood firm in his covenantal relationship with humankind (Neufeld 99, 100).
Yet the relationship with God must be a two-way, cooperative one, despite that humans cannot seek out their own grace, for grace can only be given as a gift from God (2:8). This leads to one of the most debated terms in soteriology: ‘works’. In Ephesians, ‘works’ does not mean ‘works of the law’, which is mostly discussed in Galatians and Romans. Rather, ‘works’, in the full context of 2:8-10, means that grace cannot be merited solely through deed-based works, that human effort is not the primary path to salvation (Fowl 79; Lincoln 622, 623).
Moreover, Paul warns about works as something that some may wish to boast. He seems especially concerned about Gentile Christians who perhaps may perceive themselves as more entitled than Jewish Christians, or that they might promote the boasting that he warns about in other letters (e.g., Rom 3:27; 2 Cor 10:17; Schnakenburg 98). Therefore, Paul wishes to remind the Ephesians of what he already establishes in verses 1 through 7: It is because of God’s love and mercy that he offers grace; and that through his grace, believers are both freed from spiritual death and called to be humble. After all, if God is the only one who can provide grace, then believers must make a point of appreciating the source of their salvation (Heil 105, 106).
Verse 10, then, echoes the importance of God’s grace offered through Christ as Savior. It also once again mentions ‘works’, but this time as ‘good works.’ Specifically, as a new creation in Christ, and due to God’s “handiwork,” believers are now to live out their salvation by infusing good works (Neufeld 100). In fact, when relating ‘good works’ to other passages in other Pauline letters, such as Col 1:10, 1 Tim 2:10, and Titus 2:7, believers are to live “in a way worthy to God” (Schnakenburg 99). However, it must be noted that God has enabled such works to be carried out; that because believers are a product of God’s own work, salvation is therefore for works and for faith to work through love (Gal 5:6; Lincoln 623, 624).
After all, being that God is love itself, and believers have been saved because of God’s love and mercy, to “live in good works” (2:10) means to be in a spiritual love with God, so that we “might be holy and blameless before God” (Heil 107), thereby remaining true to the covenantal relationship offered through Christ to humankind.
Synthesis
Having stepped through the three main blocks of passages in Ephesians 2:1-10, what can be learned from this detailed analysis? First, as Ephesians 1 paves a theological path for Ephesians 2 by summarizing God’s plan for salvation (1:3-6), its fulfillment through Christ (1:7-10), the sending down of the Hoy Spirit (1:11-14), and the Church’s role in carrying out God’s plan, Ephesians 2 then explains how the Ephesians received salvation. And though Paul does not specifically refer to Jews and Gentiles until 2:11-22, his first emphasis on “you” and “we” is a universal call to humankind that all who seek God’s grace through Christ will experience God’s merciful love and the means to be a new creation (Schnakenburg 100).
In turn, a ‘new creation’ means receiving salvation. And salvation begins with humankind being reminded that all –“you and we” — were once dead in sin. Interestingly, in the Ephesian Christians’ case, and because they had come from a pagan Gentile background, they may not have even been aware that they had once cut themselves off from God (Fowl 81). Yet, as 2:11-19 will go on to explain further, Christ’s death and resurrection calls those both “far off” from and “near” to God’s plan (Fowl 76). In either situation, those who lived in sin were allowed themselves to be ruled by the devil, who strives power over all creation and deceived the human spirit into a life of fleshly corruption (Riensche 74).
However, the ‘ruler of the power of the air’ has no power to stop Christ’s victory over sin and death though his sacrifice and resurrection. God’s own eternal power includes defeating death (Rom 4:17) and making Christ the “passageway to new life” (Dunn ‘Ephesians’). Thus, humankind, as described in Eph 2:5, can also ‘made alive’ by being led to God’s merciful grace and therefore freed from the realm of sin and a life of self-serving disobedience (Riensche 74; Dunn ‘Ephesians’).
Furthermore, believers experience the resurrection working through them as they also prepare for a future resurrection described in other Pauline letters (1 Cor 15:35-44; Rom 6:5), albeit the latter not explicitly mentioned in Ephesians (Neufeld 27; Dunn ‘Ephesians’). Still, the reference to “ages to come,” despite having roots in apocalyptic Judaism, remains eschatologically significant to believers who have new life and thus share in Christ’s resurrection (Fowl 24).
To make the transformation from the realm of sin to the realm of Christ a spiritual reality, believers receive salvation through God’s grace by being baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. In effect, Ephesians 2:1-10 describes the meaning behind baptism: it reflects “fully the drama of salvation when it becomes a ritual that reenacts the movement from death to life, from slavery to disobedience to the freedom of doing good works” (Neufeld 104, 105). In fact, many scholars agree that Ephesians 2:1-10 is a catechesis for baptism (Schnakenburg), and it therefore purposely highlights topics such as grace, faith, and the role of ‘works’ — all of which involve the ultimate reason for Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross: salvation.
Salvation itself, then, is not only a gift based in God’s loving grace and mercy, but it is the completed act that no other kind of act can replace (Lincoln 626). This includes all ‘works’ (and not only ‘works of the law’) that do not first involve receiving God’s sanctifying grace and becoming a new creation as a baptized believer. Then, as a new creation, believers live out the works that God has already established (Schnakenburg) 100, 101). This, in turn, solidifies the covenantal relationship that God has always sought to have with humankind, beginning with the Jews, fully completed through Christ’s work on the Cross, and then freely offered to all humankind — Jews and Gentiles alike.
Reflection
In today’s day and age, Ephesians 2:1-10 is one of several key passages (outside of Romans and Galatians) that ironically causes unnecessary division among the numerous Christian denominations. When reflecting upon this passage, it should actually be a cause for unity and theological harmony. For example, all Christians grounded in the Gospel would agree that Christ’s salvific act frees transgressors from the realm of sin, that grace can only come from God, that works alone do not initiate grace, and that “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6) is how believers are to live out their received grace, along with being morally obedient.
Sadly, a major impediment to unity among Christians involves the concept of ‘cooperative grace’ versus soteriological ideas such as ‘once saved, always saved’, or debates that confusingly conflate ‘works’ with ‘works of the law’. In Catholic apologetics, for instance, a common question to ask, when talking about how salvation happens and is maintained, is “what type of ‘works’ do you mean?” God’s works? Works as moral obedience? Works of the Law? Works of the flesh?
In addition, and as Ephesians 2:1-10 implicitly links baptism to receiving God’s sanctifying grace, the debates about baptism as a salvific act also rage on, despite the numerous Scriptural passages that support baptismal regeneration (e.g., John 3:5-6; Acts 2:38-41; Romans 6:3-4; 1 Peter 3:21). Furthermore, there are no shortage of arguments about what constitutes the ‘Church’ – whether it is both an invisible or visible institution, or either, or neither. In fact, because the Ephesians has strong, Catholic overtones to it, Neufeld, for example, makes a disclaimer to his Protestant readers that they may feel uncomfortable with the Catholic-like, theological and ecclesial messages in Ephesians.
Nevertheless, at the minimum, all well catechized Christians can (or should) agree that God’s salvific work is completed in believers who receive God’s grace, that Christ will one day return to eliminate the realm of sin entirely, and that all who have lived out their salvation will also one day be fully exalted and glorified. Still, this author prays that one day a Scripture passage such as Ephesians 2:1-10 — or the entire epistle itself — will be a source of salvific unity: that all believers are to be one body of Christ and as one Church (Eph 1:22-23).
Works Cited
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