TRANSCRIPT January 28, 2018 WHI-1399 Dead in Sin, Alive in Christ

Transcription

1 TRANSCRIPT January 28, 2018 WHI-1399 Dead in Sin, Alive in Christ 00:00:02 Michael Horton: We think of the work of Christ in past. Jesus was crucified and raised on the third day. We have to believe that to be Christians. But then, when we think of our lives, we think, well, I was born again, I was saved, I was justified, I'm being sanctified but we don t really think that everything that you just mentioned there is only by participating in his death, burial and resurrection. 00:00:33 Narrator: Five centuries ago in taverns and public houses across Europe, the masses would gather for discussion and debate over the latest ideas sweeping the land. From one such meeting place, a small Cambridge inn called The White Horse, the Reformation came to the English-speaking world. Carrying on the tradition, welcome to the White Horse Inn. 00:00:59 Michael Horton: Hello and welcome to another edition of the White Horse Inn where we are continuing our series on Paul's wonderful letter to the Ephesians. And before we get to verse 17 where we left off last time, I want to just catch us up. It helps to hear the letter. The letter was, first of all, heard. So, it helps to hear the sound map of the letter itself. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our father in the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Sather of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will so that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Turning now to verse 17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe. So, he basically wants us to know the inheritance and here in verse 17, first of all, don t we see a striking reference to the Trinity? 00:03:38 Kim Riddlebarger: It's amazing here because you have the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father and the Son mentioned, and then the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. So, for Paul, these Trinitarian references just drip off his lips.

2 00:03:49 Michael Horton: Here's a letter where he's writing to really simple Christians, a lot of them just brand-new Christians, yet, he believes that what they really need in order now to grow in Christ is to understand the inheritance that they have in Christ. He doesn t see these doctrines as the meat of the word which is too strong for new babes in Christ. He sees these truths as really the basics that people need to know in order to grow as babes in Christ. 00:04:24 Kim Riddlebarger: Well, he's talked in the opening part of this section, I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward the saints. So, this congregation and the congregations hearing this read loud, Paul has heard of their faith. So, these are folks eager to learn. These are folks who have already been given a taste of this, their preaching and their pastors and now are bringing as much a blessing to Paul because he's able to give to them. He just assumes that these folks have already been instructed to the point where this now will make sense to them. They obviously have been instructed in this. 00:04:55 Michael Horton: How about verse 19, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heavenly places. I tend to think that one of our issues today for a lot Christians is, we think of the work of Christ in the past as one thing. Jesus was crucified, dead and raised on the third day. We have to believe that to be Christians. But then, when we think of our lives, we think, well, I was born again, I was saved, even I was justified, I'm being sanctified but we don t really think that everything that you just mentioned there is only by participating in his death, burial and resurrection. In other words, that our personal conversion is actually being baptized into Christ, rather than some -- we tend to see these two things as floating apart from each other. Paul doesn t, does he? He says, basically, everything we're talking about here is your being inserted into Christ and the power, the immeasurable greatness of power that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. So, everything he's just mentioned that we have, our whole inheritance, is secure because Christ was crucified, buried, raised and seated at the right hand of the Father. 00:06:32 Adriel Sanchez: That s a great point because it helps to see that these historical realities actually apply to us. The power of God is at work. Some people have used the distinction between redemption; accomplish what God did in history and the application of that redemption which happens in time, today, the Spirit of God filling us, justifying us. You think about Jesus in John 15 talking about our union with him and how apart from me you can do nothing. It's that same powerful working of God that's at work in the lives of believers today. How? Well, through the application of these benefits and things like the hearing of the gospel, participating in the Lord's Supper. We're literally feeding on salvation through these ordinary signs and I think that s profound and a really important thing for people to understand. 00:07:17 Kim Riddlebarger: Yeah. Those historical events have ongoing consequences for all Christians. When Jesus raised from the dead, I was raised with him. When Jesus suffered and died in the cross, he died on the cross, the old substitutionary atonement, for me in my place. While we want to stress that these are historical events and therefore objectively true, whether I believe them or not, they still happen and still have the same impact. The consequence, the ef-

3 fects of those events live on into the present in such a way that I can't be a Christian apart from being united to the things that Jesus did presently. 00:07:49 Michael Horton: In Romans 6, Paul says, "Don t you know that you are crucified with Christ in baptism? You were raised with him in newness of life." So all of this is -- you find your whole life in Christ now. That s why Paul can't even talk about himself apart from Christ. His whole identity is wrapped up in not only Christ, but particularly Christ in his active obedience, death, resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father. In Christ, you have election, in Christ you have your adoption, in Christ you have your justification, in Christ you have your sanctification, in Christ you have your glorification. Don t look anywhere else. 00:08:31 Kim Riddlebarger: And it is so fundamental that Christ, being in Christ, means I'm with him when I'm buried in my tomb. It's pretty remarkable. What a great way to comfort the dying. 00:08:44 Michael Horton: As Paul tells the Colossians, If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. So what would Paul say to people today who are looking for their best life now? 00:09:03 Adriel Sanchez: When most people hear that phrase today, they think Joel Osteen or the type of life where God is here for me to make me wonderful and to give me all the things I've ever wanted. I think about when Paul is writing to the Philippians, for example, and he says for me to live is Christ, I think Paul really believed that was the best life and for Christians, that is the best life. And so, somehow through the work of our Lord, everything, even the way we view, the way we live today has been transformed. Suffering is transformed, the grave is transformed, death is transformed. So, we can view them unlike the rest of the world does and I think that s part of the reason why Paul, as he's talking about the resurrection in places like 1 Corinthians 15 says, If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we're of all people the most to be pitied," because he knows that Christians live in such a way that the world can look at them and say those people are weird. They go to church on Sunday, they love their neighbors, they serve each other, rejoice even in suffering, sacrifice for the good of others, that's the best life. And it might involve suffering and pain and difficulty. In fact, we're told that it will. 00:10:06 Michael Horton: He s writing from prison. 00:10:08 Adriel Sanchez: But he's writing from prison, yeah, good point. We've lost sight of that. 00:10:11 Michael Horton: So, look to Christ right now who is seated at the right hand of the Father and you see where you're going to be someday. I mean, that s a big part of this, right, that our inheritance is exactly everything that Jesus already possesses because he's been glorified. Our elder brother has gone up ahead of us and has secured our glorification, so we look at him and say, as he is, I will be. That is astonishing to be able to say that.

4 00:10:42 Kim Riddlebarger: I think that that line from the movie Shawshank Redemption where Red tells Andy, "Hope is a dangerous thing." But from a Christian perspective, hope is everything that is based on what Christ has done and what he secured and his ascension to heaven, I have a savior, I await his return, that is the Christian hope. So, no matter what happens to me, no matter what I'm called to endure, I have hope. So, even in death, we die but yet as people who have hope. One of the signs here of where we are as a church and as a culture is I remember in my parents' and grandparents' culture that dying people were almost relieved and anticipating the fact they'd run the race, they had lived a long full life. Now, they were going to die and be with the Lord. This is something that they anticipated. This was not something that -- if you're dying -- they didn t fear death. And the culture has changed so much that we will spend thousands of dollars to prolong life by 10 minutes or another day or two weeks because you just kind of wonder, is that hope kind of the common consciousness of the Christian community. I'm not sure that it is anymore. That falls on preachers for not emphasizing the hope that we as Christians have. 00:11:55 Adriel Sanchez: And the sad thing is if we're getting that Christianity is all about our best life now, meaning we have nice things and we're happy people then when we don t, we're hopeless. There's nothing. But if the hope is resurrection of the dead and the life to come, then we can actually endure all sorts of -- yeah, anything. I think about that book, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. He survived the holocaust and he talked about the importance of hope and how people who were there in the concentration camps who had hope and will to live had a far higher survival rate than the people who would basically abandon hope, just because they were thinking about what's around the corner, the hope of deliverance and redemption. We have such a massive hope as followers of Jesus Christ. 00:12:36 Michael Horton: Because it's certain. 00:12:37 Adriel Sanchez: Because we've got the sealing of the Holy Spirit like Paul said earlier in Ephesians. 00:12:40 Michael Horton: And Christ has already been glorified. We have to be. There's another -- sorry to keep quoting Calvin. He says, "Because of the ascension of Jesus Christ, we have to be glorified because we're united to Christ." Verse 21, this power that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. There's so much in that. 00:12:40 Kim Riddlebarger: We could spend hours on that. Well, for one thing, this passage and others like it tell us that Paul is not a milleniarian. He's not looking for a thousand-year reign of Christ in the earth, either before or after Christ comes back, because Christ's present reign now is brought in by virtue of Christ's resurrection and ascension. So, Christ takes his place at the Father's right hand and ushers in the age to come. These parallels, I think, the scene in the Book of Revelation where throughout you have John depicting things that occur on earth in contrast with things that are currently going on in heaven. That s one of the major themes of Book of

5 Revelation, to comfort the struggling sins on earth; he gives them intermediate glimpses of what's going on in heaven. So Paul says that God is above all rule, authority, power and dominion. No human can conquer him, no human can stay at his hand, so when fear rises up, he's nothing because the one who is above all things rules all things and controls all things and your fear is a heartbeat away from his eternal fate. 00:14:28 Michael Horton: What about here, the church as his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all? What an exalted view of the church here, that the church is not only his body, it's the fullness of him who fills all in all. 00:14:45 Kim Riddlebarger: Paul here is addressing the question unity and diversity. How can it be that there are Jews and gentiles? All that said, and these people are one because you have diverse members made into one body. So, part of it is this is Paul's way to explain how it is that all those in Christ have a first principal unity that transcends culture, race, everything else. So, this is one of our arguments I think we should be making loud and longly in today's discussion about race and racial differences and for Christians, those cultural differences are true but there's something more fundamental. What Paul speaks here, we're all divine image bearers and God has made individual Christians into a new culture. That s fundamental and explains, it helps us get through our individual cultural differences. 00:15:31 Michael Horton: Yeah, a new culture that doesn t get rid of our cultures but incorporates us as we are into this wonderful kingdom. Again, the way the reformers thought about this union with Christ which is what Paul has been talking about all throughout is that really you can Even talk about the one Christ being his head and his body. You have to be careful with that. The Roman Catholic church has turned that into -- this idea of a Totus Christus, the whole Christ, into a notion where Jesus disappears basically, and the church replaces Jesus. That s not what he's saying. What he's saying is as the exalted and ascended head different from the members, he nevertheless has made us the fingers, the feet, the knees of his body so that he can't be a King without a kingdom. He can't be a head without a body. He can't be a vine without the branches. 00:16:35 Kim Riddlebarger: This again is one of those things that I think we as pastors and certainly the evangelicals of our prior generation just assumed that when somebody becomes a Christian, oh, they joined the church because we're members of the body. And the way we exist in Christendom is to join a congregation that s a visible representation of the invisible body of Christ. I don t think Christians understand that anymore because they're consumers. So, they're looking for a church that suits their needs without giving a lot of thought to the fact that I'm a member of the body. I need to be part of the fellowship of the saints, where I'm hearing the Word and receiving the sacraments as opposed to what practical tips and pointers I can draw from going on Sunday. 00:17:18 Adriel Sanchez: Yeah, there are a couple of dangers, I think, with this whole idea of the head of the church. On one side, you can air like the Roman Catholics do, and have the pope who has basically replaced Jesus as the head of the church in one sense. On the other side, I think that the issue that you were just mentioning is the fact that I've talked to a lot of people who call themselves Christians who don t need to go to church because Jesus is the head of the

6 church and we're all Christians. We're part of the body which is not a visible gathering of people with sacraments and preaching. It's just this sort of invisible spiritual movement that we're all a part of. 00:17:51 Michael Horton: It's gnostic. 00:17:52 Adriel Sanchez: That s precisely what it is because it has a low view of means and the created order. It's just this -- 00:17:58 Michael Horton: And the incarnation. 00:17:59 Adriel Sanchez: And the incarnation. 00:18:00 Kim Riddlebarger: Yeah. There's no case in the New Testament of somebody coming to faith in Christ apart from the context of a local church. That's where people came to faith in Christ, was through the local church. And so, when they are brought to faith in Christ, they are baptized in water into Christ's body of which that local congregation was, one, represented part. 00:18:19 Adriel Sanchez: And going back to just the metaphor of the body that Paul is using here and that he also uses in 1 Corinthians 12. It does just emphasize how important it is for us as Christians to be united to local churches because you, as an individual, by yourself, are not the church. You're a part of the body. By yourself, you're as good as a severed hand basically. It's only as the body like Paul is going to say later in Ephesians 4 works together in love that we're actually growing together into the image of Christ. In the context of community, it's really easy to be a Christian on your own and read your Bible by yourself and come up with your own interpretations and do church at coffee shops with your best friends or whatnot. It takes a work of God's spirit to live the Christian life and fellowship with other sinners who are different than you are, Jews and gentiles, Black and White, everybody centered around the Lord's table. 00:19:16 Michael Horton: Yeah. You really are a branch, the way Jesus talks about this in John 15, to be a lone ranger Christian is to be a branch severed from the vine, is to be a finger cut off from the body. You say, no, I'm not cut off from the body because it's a spiritual body. It was a spiritual body that becomes visible and audible. It is a living body with a heartbeat and you can't have Christ as your head without being a member of his body. I mean, that s just a clear teaching of Paul here and elsewhere and of Jesus in John :19:59 Adriel Sanchez: And it's what Christians have always taught. I like sometimes with the people that are coming through our new members class, share that hope from Cyprian, outside of the visible church there is no salvation and talk about -- the Westminster confession of faith actually picks that up a little bit and says ordinarily outside of the visible church. 00:20:12 Michael Horton: Yeah, because Christ can save anybody he wants, and we don t talk about what he does there because that s speculation. What he's told us is whoever believes. And so, when they believe, and they're baptized, we bring them into the church, they are part of the church and outside of that church ordinarily, there is no salvation.

7 00:20:36 Kim Riddlebarger: Two of the simplest things in the New Testament, when Jesus is with his disciples on the last night, he says, "Do this in remembrance of me. As often as you assemble together, do this. Well, that s pretty clear that when the church assembles, they're to celebrate the Lord's Supper. The great commission, go in the world and baptize, make disciples in the name of Father So, the way in which those things come to pass are through the context of a local church. The church is the one called by God to administer the sacrament of baptism which is the sacrament of entrance into the church. So, it's impossible to conceive of the church as a commission as being the king of model that many have adopted of, well, I meet with my friends at the coffee shop. Christ commissioned the church to celebrate the Lord's Supper. Christ commissioned the church to baptize. Christ commissioned the church to go in the world and preach the gospel. So, there is no sense in which contemporary Christians can justify being a believer in Jesus but not desirous being a part of a local church. There's some folks who are luminaries where it's hard to find a Bible believing church that does this stuff that churches are supposed to do and there are times where you're transitioning from something you believe prior to what you believe now. It's okay to be between churches as long as your goal is to find a church where you join and where you become a member because the scripture assigns to that church the care of your soul. 00:21:56 Michael Horton: So the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. What a joy to be part of his reign. Wherever he is reigning, there is blessing. Wherever his body is, the head nourishes it. Next, Paul goes into this continuing his thought when he says in Ephesians 2:1, "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and we're by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind." I find it interesting that he doesn t start his letter here. He doesn t start by saying, "And you were dead in trespasses and sins." He starts with the solution and then moves to the plight. Why do we need to be chosen in Christ? Why do we need to be redeemed by Christ? Why do we need to be justified and sanctified and glorified? Why do we need all of this? Well, because you were dead in sin and we're part of that condemned mass of humanity. 00:23:12 Kim Riddlebarger: But, Mike, I thought people were basically good. That s one thing we're really up against in this culture. 00:23:18 Michael Horton: Yeah. I love what he says here, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. The whole self has been immersed, dipped into this sin of Adam that makes us corrupt and guilt for our sins, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Boy, that s different from chosen to be adopted as sons, children of wrath by nature. Now, does that mean by nature, children of wrath that just as human beings? 00:23:51 Rod Rosenbladt: No. As a particular kind of human being, as a son of Adam or daughter of Eve. That s that linkage to Romans 5, not that humanity itself unfallen would have this said of it. It wouldn t. But given what we've done in Adam and given what we've confirmed every day, we are by nature children of wrath, God's wrath.

8 00:24:19 Kim Riddlebarger: Yeah. It's a difficult thing to convince a modern American that the starting point is God creating divine image bearers who became rebels who are under his wrath. When they're going to start with the fact that people are basically good, and everybody should have a shot at it. 00:24:32 Michael Horton: Yeah. The starting point here is, look everybody is dead in trespasses and sins. So he has to choose people. They won't choose him. He has to redeem them. They can't redeem themselves. This is the situation that everything he set up until now solves. You're not sick and you just need medicine infused into you so that you can be a little bit better. 00:24:57 Kim Riddlebarger: Swim to the life ring and grab it. Well, it's a little late for that. I'm already floating about six feet under the water, cold and dead. 00:25:06 Adriel Sanchez: Kim, you had talked about how this is really difficult for the modern American to believe in. I just think that s so true because most people today -- I mean, here, Paul is saying you were spiritually dead apart from Jesus. Most people today would say of themselves, I'm a pretty spiritual person. I'm into spirituality. I got kind of the spiritual side of me that I love -- 00:25:06 Michael Horton: I'm an idolater. 00:25:27 Adriel Sanchez: I don t know if they say it like that. And Paul is really challenging that here. He's saying actually you're not very spiritual. You don t have at least the type of spirituality that God recognizes because you can only have that united to Jesus Christ. And I think that that s -- at least it helps us to see how maybe we want to approach some of the conversations that we have with people, working towards trying to help people to understand the fallenness of humanity. And it's interesting because people can see that. People can see that the world is broken when they look around. But I think it's touching on that to help them to see, no, actually we're not as good as we think. 00:26:03 Kim Riddlebarger: We have a long string in our culture from Emerson and Thoreau transcendentalism. Somehow or another, God is equated with nature and that contributes a lot to modern civil religion where people are -- yeah, they kind of believe in God, God is the generic nice guy, he's there to help, the therapeutic moralistic deism thing, the God who they identified with nature in such a way that when I see the beauty of the earth, when I see the birth of a child, those are divine spiritual things. That s really thick in the culture. 00:26:37 Rod Rosenbladt: Pastor, what do you mean I'm in trouble? What do you mean by that? I'm getting along. 00:26:44 Michael Horton: Well, and very often, sadly we have a long history of this in the church under what is called Arminianism, the view that God's prevenient grace makes it possible for everybody to believe and then they are born again as a result of their free will. Now, that s better than what most Americans actually believe. Most Americans, my Arminian friend, Roger Olson likes to point this out. Most Americans aren t Arminians at all. They're Pelagians.

9 00:27:16 Rod Rosenbladt: That s honest. 00:27:17 Michael Horton: Yeah. He says it's called what a lot of people call Arminianism is really semi-pelagianism or Pelagianism outright, basically, that they don t even need grace to believe in Christ. They believe in Christ and get the grace they believe. 00:27:32 Rod Rosenbladt: Interesting that Olson holds that. That s kind of encouraging. 00:27:38 Michael Horton: Yeah, he s Wesley. And I think he's right. I think that most preaching in America doesn t rise to the level of Arminianism. Is Paul the only one who believes that we're spiritually dead and can do nothing to help ourselves? Is he particularly bleak compared to Jesus and apostles? 00:27:53 Rod Rosenbladt: Well, in almost every case when you ask a question like that and then take the time to work in the four gospels, you find the greater offender is Jesus himself. The stuff about hell, when we say, oh, goodness, Paul was really a pessimist. He s saying most of it is in the gospels. The really troublesome passages are in the gospels. 00:28:17 Kim Riddlebarger: You're bad trees in a lesson of nature of a good tree, you're only going to bear fruit that corresponds with the rotten tree. You're a rotten apple tree, all your apples are going to be filled with worms and dead and awful. 00:28:27 Michael Horton: You are of your father, the devil. 00:28:30 Adriel Sanchez: Certainly, I think you can go to places like the Gospel of John and see Jesus time and time again reinforcing what we see here in Paul. You think of John 3 and Jesus talking about unless you're born again, you can't even see the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. What does it mean to be born again? The Spirit blows where it wishes. John 6, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. John 15, a passage we had referenced earlier, apart from me, you can do nothing. 00:28:57 Michael Horton: Or all the way back to the beginning of John, who are born not of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God. So, it's got to be God as the resurrection and the life standing over the grave saying, "Michael, come forth." 00:29:16 Kim Riddlebarger: Yeah. Like he said to Lazarus, "Come out." 00:29:17 Michael Horton: The good news, he turns to the good news, but God -- that s my favorite conjunction, but God. See, bad news talking about me, good news talking about God, but God not being dead in sins, 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 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Jesus Christ. Just an amazing passage. I mean, he -- even while we were dead, that absolutely undermines this notion that we are born again when we believe. We believe in Christ then we're born again, my free will triggered God's gift. No, he says

10 while you were dead, he made you alive together with Christ. I think of that best seller a long time ago by Billy Graham, How to be Born Again, typically American book, how to. You can't how to this one. You can't born again yourself. You have to be born again. That s Jesus' point in John 3, unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven. He's got to do it. 00:30:56 Adriel Sanchez: The emphasis here on God loving us even when we are dead in our trespasses and sin, I think it's really important because how many Christians do we know, maybe we were there ourselves at one point, who feel as though God loves me sometimes and he doesn t love me other times, on the basis of how I'm doing in life. God loves me when I'm doing good and when I'm not doing so good, God doesn t love me. 00:31:14 Kim Riddlebarger: Yeah, he's punishing me. 00:31:16 Adriel Sanchez: Man, if this could sink into our minds that God's love is magnified and that even though we were wretches like Paul says in Romans 5, terrible, not seeking him, dead, enemies. He chose to set his love on us and you see this in the Old Testament with the calling of Israel as well. It wasn t because they were greater than any other nation that God set his love upon them, it was just his promise, his goodness and we need that. We need to be reminded of that as Christians because we can go into the sort of he loves me, he loves me not mentality on the basis of our works. 00:31:49 Kim Riddlebarger: Right. I think we've done a poor job of talking about election. Without verse 4 of Ephesians 2, "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us. Even then, so the ground of the basis for anyone being saved is the love and mercy of God. It has to do with something good in God, not something good in us. 00:32:13 Rod Rosenbladt: Yeah, and I agree, you ve got to help some of your reps on this on the street. It's not very encouraging. The other thing, I think, that s worth mentioning here is recently I've discovered from our pastors in resistance to an apologetic case for the truth of the Christian faith or the gospel, after a long conversation, these pastors who are doing it not badly at all said they got to the real offense and the real offense was not with what I've done in my life. I couldn t be redeemed. You just don t know my history, but I do, and it came out as intellectual objections to arguments contending the gospel is true, but when it got down to it, that was the issue. I'm beyond it and I have been forever. 00:33:10 Kim Riddlebarger: That s one we've got an answer, too, though and I'm glad that pastors are able to get people to that point, making that admission. We can help there. We've got a gospel that addresses that. 00:33:19 Michael Horton: Yeah. Look, how much worse can it be then that we're all dead in trespasses and sins? You can't possibly think that you are any further beyond God's reach than the rest of us being dead? You're dead or you're not. 00:33:37 Adriel Sanchez: Such an encouragement for churches to preach the gospel because when we don t, we harbor what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the fellowship of the pious because there's no safety for sinners. There's nowhere to take my sin. I got to pretend like I'm this holy

11 righteous person and put on a certain front when I go to church, and everybody has fellowship with the pretend me, the fake me -- 00:33:57 Kim Riddlebarger: And that doesn t work. 00:34:00 Michael Horton: The thing here again is he doesn t talk about what is inside me. Yeah, I was dead, but I got better, the Monty Python scene. Rather, everything here is who I am in Christ and because of Christ. Look at this, in one verse, four times, five times he has a preposition in Christ. Verse 5, he says, "While we were dead, he made us alive together with Christ, so in his resurrection I have my new birth. By grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus," and then finishes, "with God's kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." He's so repetitive. 00:34:52 Rod Rosebladt: Yeah, in Christo, in Christo, in Christo. 00:35:00 Kim Riddlebarger: And down to verse 10, created in Christ Jesus for good works. So even sanctification is a result of union with Christ. 00:35:04 Michael Horton: Yeah. See, that s what it's all about. It's not that we get some of our gifts in Christ and some of our gifts somewhere else, even in the Holy Spirit or even in the Father. We get all of our gifts in Christ from the Father, by the Spirit but only in Christ. The Holy Spirit sweeps us, like a puppy crawling out of a box. That s what we are. We crawl out of Christ. The Holy Spirit sweeps us like a puppy back into the box, back into Christ, the only safe place, the only place where we not only have safety, but have joy and rich fellowship precisely because God is rich in mercy even though we were dead in our trespasses and sins and everything Jesus Christ is and everything Jesus Christ has won, he has become and accomplished for us. That is the good news. And it's been a joy for us to be able to talk about that. I hope you ve been edified by our conversation about Ephesians 1 and 2. We look forward to being with you again next as we continue our study of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. 00:36:27 Narrator: The White Horse Inn is a listener supported broadcast. For more information about this program, visit us online at whitehorseinn.org. If you sign up as an innkeeper, architect or reformer, not only will you get a complimentary subscription to our magazine Modern Reformation, but you'll also get longer editions of every White Horse Inn broadcast. To find out how to join one of these support programs, click on the support tab of our website, whitehorseinn.org. You can also give us a call at That's We'll see you next time at the White Horse Inn.