Ephesians 2:1-9
“God’s Gift”
We are living in a time of grace. It is a time where God is patiently waiting for the full number of people to be gathered by the call of His Word. God is using those of us who trust Him as witnesses to His grace. We are people who were formally numbered among the dead and dying. We are called to tell our story of how God has brought us from death to life through His Son Jesus Christ. The stories vary in the details of our former life, but they all share the common thread of God’s gift of salvation revealed to us by means of His Word. God in His love reached out to the dying race of humanity and provided the necessary gift that we could not supply for ourselves. This gift comes only through Jesus Christ. It is intended for every human being and is given to all who believe.
The first thing we need to hear from scripture is that…
Everyone needs God’s Gift
This is where verse 1 of our text begins. Talk about a reality check. Paul states clearly that “you were dead in your transgressions and sins”. The entire canon of scripture supports this sad state of affairs. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 5:12 echoes, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.” Every man, woman and child is born with the infectious disease known as sin. Sin is everything that is contrary to God’s holy law and includes both inherited and actual sin. No one is immune from this. The fact is we are all infected from the point of conception. Psalm 51:5 points this out. “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” The Bible says that at one point all of us were dead in our sins.
Scripture goes on to say that we deserve this death. Romans 6:23 declares that the wages of sin is death. Wages are something that we earn and deserve. These wages come in the form of an inheritance that is rightfully ours. It has been passed down from Adam’s single act of disobedience. Romans 5:18 puts it this way, “The result of one trespass was condemnation for all people.” Verse 3 of our text this morning proclaims the gruesome truth of where we were with respect to our sinful nature. We were by nature objects of wrath. There are no loopholes in the law of God’s Word. The truth is every single person from infant to elderly needs God’s Gift.
The good news is…
God’s Gift delivers salvation!
Verses 4 and 5 declare to us, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions!” In light of our sinful state we were a corpse, unable to do, think, say, or react in any way. But God… God in His great love for us would not allow us to remain in that state. His Word tells us that He made us alive. And this life comes through Christ. The pirates who said, “Dead men tell no tales”, didn’t know the power of the living Word of God!
In the first chapter of John, Jesus is described as the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Where the Word is there God is also. God shows up and works through His Word. In His Word to us He tells us that salvation by grace through faith is His gift to us. Ephesians 2:8,9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast.” Salvation comes to us because of God’s grace. His grace is delivered by means of faith. And according to these verses faith is a gift that we can not supply. Neither you nor I nor anyone else can supply it.
2 Corinthians 4:4 explains that, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Every one of us at some point was an unbeliever. God’s Word here clearly tells us that in that state we cannot see the light of the gospel. Like a person neck deep in quick sand, we need to be rescued. Thanks be to God, that’s exactly what happens! God comes to all people in the same way. He comes to supply us with His Gift of faith that enables us to believe and trust Jesus for our salvation.
2 Corinthians 4:6 goes on to say, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” God is the Giver. He gives us the very faith to believe. But this is not some mystical, spooky operation. God uses His Word to produce faith in us. His Word is the means by which faith comes to us. Romans 10:17 states, “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” We are saved when God gives us faith through His Word to believe the gospel message of what Christ has done for us! The Word of God is the primary means God uses to save us. Listen to 1 Peter 1:23, “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” It is the Word of God that reveals both our need for God’s gift and the salvation provided by His gift through Jesus Christ!
This same Word reveals another means that God uses to deliver salvation. God uses baptism to give some of us His gift of salvation. God uses this visible means to give us His invisible grace. Baptism is another way God uses to bring His Word to people. It’s the way He’s brought His Word, His gift of faith and salvation to this infant this morning. Acts 2:38 proclaims, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” And in Acts 22:16, “Be baptized and wash your sins away.” 1 Peter 3:21 states that baptism now saves you. And again in Titus 3:5-6, “God saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.” And in Mark 16:16, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.”
It is clear from these passages that God connects Baptism and salvation. The saving power of baptism is not in the Pastor, not in a ceremony, and not in a place. The saving power is the water working through the word of God. Ephesians 5:25-27 tells us that, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” God provides baptism as a means for some to believe the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ.
This leads us to a final question...
Who can receive this Gift?
Most have no problem believing that God can produce faith in older children and adults. But some take issue with whether infants can believe. Remember, faith is a gift from God. Does God not have the power to allow an infant to believe and trust Him? Is there any doubt that an infant trusts his mother and father? If we needed further proof, Jesus tells us that infants do in fact believe. In Matthew 18:3-6 Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” In verse 3 Jesus used a word for “little children” that is the same word used in Luke 1:59 to describe Jesus as an 8 day old infant. Verse 6 goes on to say that these “little ones”, referring to those “little children” in v.3, believe in Jesus.
This gift of salvation is for infants and God delivers it in baptism. Acts 2:38-39 declares, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off-for all whom the Lord our God will call.” The word used for children here is literally “offspring”. Infants are indeed included in God’s promise of forgiveness.
Not only does God forgive our sins but He also gives us the Holy Spirit. Whether it is through the read Word, preached Word, or the water Word, God provides salvation and the Holy Spirit. There are no so called second baptisms of the Spirit. Ephesians 4:5 states that there is one baptism and 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body.” God doesn’t hold anything back. He gives the whole package!
1 Timothy 2:3-4 tells us that God wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. John 3:16 tells us that God’s gift is for the world. That’s every ethnic group, every class, every man, every woman, and every infant, child, and adult. Sin has corrupted all people from conception to adulthood. God sent Jesus at conception to live to adulthood to pay the price for everyone’s sin. This Gospel has been handed down to us through His Word. Romans 1:16 states that the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. Ephesians 2:8,9 tells us that faith is a gift that only God can provide. We are powerless to supply it. An infant is a perfect example of the state that all people find themselves in. We are helpless and unable in any way to provide for our own need. God comes to infants in the same way He comes to an adult. Both are spiritually blind and cannot see the grace of God until God reveals it. The work of God in salvation is a profound mystery that requires no effort on our part. This brings with it a true assurance that does not rely on rituals or prayers but solely on the work of Christ.
All of humanity has a great need and God provided the way to supply the need. He has done so from the time of the Apostles to the present. In Acts 10 the entire household of Cornelius was baptized. In Acts 16 the entire household of Lydia and the entire family of the Philippian jailer were baptized. Households included everyone living in the house, including servants. Households had such a strong meaning in this culture that if someone were excluded from an event that was intended for the household it would have needed to be explained. There is no mention of any exclusion in any of these reports from Luke. It must be understood that all, including the infants were baptized.
So not only is the gift promised to infants through baptism, it was also practiced! The testimony of those Christians who followed the Apostolic church also bear witness to this practice.
Council of Mileum II [A.D. 416]: "[W]hoever says that infants fresh from their mothers’ wombs ought not to be baptized, or say that they are indeed baptized unto the remission of sins, but that they draw nothing of the original sin of Adam, which is expiated in the bath of regeneration . . . let him be anathema [excommunicated]. Since what the apostle [Paul] says, ‘Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so passed to all men, in whom all have sinned’ [Rom. 5:12], must not be understood otherwise than the Catholic Church spread everywhere has always understood it. For on account of this rule of faith even infants… are therefore truly baptized unto the remission of sins, so that that which they have contracted from generation may be cleansed in them by regeneration" (Canon 3).
Augustine [A.D. 408]: "The custom of Mother Church in baptizing infants is certainly not to be scorned, nor is it to be regarded in any way as superfluous, nor is it to be believed that its tradition is anything except apostolic" (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 10:23:39).
John Chrysostom [A.D. 388]: "You see how many are the benefits of baptism, and some think its heavenly grace consists only in the remission of sins, but we have enumerated ten honors [it bestows]! For this reason we baptize even infants… so that there may be given to them holiness, righteousness, adoption, inheritance, brotherhood with Christ, and that they may be Christ’s members" (Baptismal Catecheses in Augustine, Against Julian 1:6:21).
Cyprian of Carthage [A.D. 253]: "If, in the case of the worst sinners and those who formerly sinned much against God, when afterwards they believe, the remission of their sins is granted and no one is held back from baptism and grace, how much more, then, should an infant not be held back, who, having but recently been born, has done no sin, except that, born of the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of that old death from his first being born. For this very reason does he [an infant] approach more easily to receive the remission of sins: because the sins forgiven him are not his own but those of another" (Letters 64:2).
Origen [A.D. 248]: "The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants. The apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of the divine sacraments, knew there are in everyone innate strains of [original] sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit" (Commentaries on Romans 5:9 [A.D. 248]).
Irenaeus [A.D. 189] (A disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John): “Jesus came to save all through himself; all, I say, who through him are born again in God: infants, and children, and youths, and old men. Therefore he passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, sanctifying infants; a child for children, sanctifying those who are of that age .” (Against Heresies 2:22:4).
For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions, being spiritually regenerated as newborn babes." (Fragment 34 [A.D. 190]).
The testimony of scripture and the practice of believers, from ancient times to the present, is to bring the Word of God to all people. None are to be excluded from His grace. God provides us with His Gift because He loves us. The fact is that we all need it. From an infant to an adult, God provides what we are unable to supply. What an amazingly gracious and merciful God we have! Glory to His Name! Amen!
