When we enter the gates of heaven we will do so by God's mercy alone. It was mercy that caused God to construct a plan of salvation for us, it was mercy that caused Christ to go to the cross and bear the punishment for our sins, and it was mercy that raised Christ from the dead to prove His sacrifice on our behalf was acceptable to God. We will gain entrance to the presence of a holy God in no other way than by accepting the mercy He offers us. Today Paul talks about how dead we once were in our sins but that, through the mercy of God, we are now risen with Christ into new life.
"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient." (Ephesians 2:1-2) The apostle says to the church at Ephesus, "At one time you lived according to the desires of the flesh and according to the influence of the forces of spiritual darkness. You were under the sentence of death because of your sins. You were still physically alive, but spiritually you were dead men walking."
But it's not just the citizens of Ephesus or Gentiles in general who were under the sentence of death. It was the entire human race. King David spoke of the nature of man, a nature that causes us to want to go our own way, saying, "God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one." (Psalm 14:2-3, Psalm 53:2-3) No one, whether Jew or Gentile, was capable of doing enough good works to pay for his or her own sins, so Paul includes himself and his Jewish ancestors as those who were under the sentence of death, "All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath." (Ephesians 2:3)
Paul says, "We all were lost! We all had sinned, we were all under the sentence of death, and we all deserved that sentence." God could have left things just like that and decided we were unworthy of mercy. But He didn't! He couldn't! He loved us too much to leave us without hope. "But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich is mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions---it is by grace you have been saved." (Ephesians 2:4-5) This is the very definition of mercy: God offered us something we didn't deserve. He did it not because we made a successful appeal and convinced Him to go easy on us, or because at heart He thought we had pretty good intentions, or because we had done enough good works to outweigh our bad deeds. He did it because He loved us. Period. We didn't do one single thing to help ourselves; in fact, God bestowed mercy on us in spite of our inability to help ourselves. "But God demonstrates His own love for us for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
Not only did God extend mercy to us when we didn't deserve it, He also gave us a share in the inheritance of His own Son. "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 2:6-7) After Christ suffered and died, God raised Him from the dead and now Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. In Christ we too are seated in heaven. Our places are reserved for us. Though our bodies are still physically here on earth, the destinies of our souls are already settled. We have accepted the price that was paid for us. We have obtained mercy. Our names are written in God's family tree, and we (by mercy alone) are the brothers and sisters of Christ.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith---and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God---not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9) When we enter the gates of heaven we won't look around us and say, "Wow, I made it! I worked really hard and I did a lot of good deeds and I gave money to the church, so God let me in!" No, I think the first thing we will do is fall on our knees face down in front of our Lord in an attitude of such overwhelming thankfulness that I doubt we will even be able to speak. I think we may with grateful tears begin to kiss feet of our Lord just as the woman in Luke 7:36-50 did because we will know that it is through mercy alone that our sins, which were many, have been forgiven. God's mercy is a gift. We didn't deserve it and we did nothing to earn it and we will never be able to boast that we did.
Are good works of no value then? Of course not, but no work we will ever perform is worth anything of eternal significance if we do not perform it by faith in Christ. People who are agnostics and even atheists do a great deal of good works. They have no doubt filled many a hungry belly and put clothes on many a naked back. But will this earn them a ticket into heaven? Paul clearly says not, but we don't have to just take the word of a New Testament apostle for it. An Old Testament prophet like Isaiah said the same thing, "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." (Isaiah 64:6) Why were the good deeds we did on our own without Christ like filthy rags? Because we were filthy. And if we were unclean then anything we touched was unclean. We couldn't wipe our own uncleanness away because the more we tried to wipe our uncleanness off with our unclean hands, the more we spread the uncleanness all over ourselves. So where does works come in? Works of eternal value come into the picture after Christ has cleaned us up. "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10)
We were not saved by works, but after we are saved we are called to do good works in the name of Christ. We are to show the love of Christ to others and in this way lead others to Him. We can't save anyone, but we can lead those around to to the One who can.
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