But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
But God! We were by nature the children of wrath. We once lived in the passions of our flesh. But God!
In the next couple of verses, Paul is going to describe what God has done for us in spite of our natural rebellion. But what will be the motive for what He does? First, He is rich in mercy. Mercy is the willingness to forgo the punishment that would normally be required. He pities us and has mercy on us. And, God is rich in mercy. There is no slack in God’s use of His mercy. It is bountiful and abundant.
And second, because He has loved us. He sent His only Son to pay the penalty that we should have been required to pay. Because of this tremendous, unmerited love, what did He do?
We’ll include verse 5 here.
He made us alive together with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. Verse 1 told us that we were dead. Even though we were dead and had no spiritual life in us, God made us alive together with Christ. Then he emphasizes the motive: By grace you have been saved.
We were dead sinners, hating God, having no life in us, not seeking after God, all our righteousness being as filthy rags. In that condition, God made us alive when He made Christ alive. We were given life together with Him. Let that sink in.
Exported from Logos Bible Software, 3:10 PM October 28, 2020.