“And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).

There are three descriptions of what we were prior to God’s work in us: We were “dead in trespasses [activities] and sins [character, attitude, condition].” The result was that we were unable to understand or seek God on our own (Romans 3:10,11). Nor are we able to know the “things of God” by our own intellectual prowess (I Corinthians 2:14). “We walked according to the course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2), in “bondage” to the world (Galatians 4:3) and with the eyes of our minds “blinded” by Satan (II Corinthians 4:4). We are “by nature the children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). Both our natural desires (Ephesians 5:5,6) and our willful unbelief (John 3:36) have placed us under the ever-increasing wrathful judgment of God (Romans 2:5–9).

The transformation performed by God on us can only be “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:10). It involves God’s rich “mercy” and “great love” (Ephesians 2:4) to make us alive when we were dead (see John 5:21–24; Romans 6:4–6,9–11).

That power “raises” us and “seats” us with God in the heavens (Ephesians 2:6). That “grace” is effected through faith, and even “that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8,9).

Whatever all of these promises may ultimately involve, they assure us of permanent status as the chosen, holy ones of God (Romans 8:29–39), “that in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). HMM III