Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2267
“And you has He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” Ephesians 2:1.
OUR translators, as you observe, have put in the words, “has He quickened,” because Paul had thrown the sense a little farther on and it was possible for the reader not to catch it. They have but anticipated the statement of the fourth and fifth verses—“God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ.”
Here is the point. God has quickened us who were dead in trespasses and sins, spiritually dead. We were full of vigor towards everything which was contrary to the Law of God or the holiness of God—we walked according to the course of this world, but as for anything spiritual, we were not only somewhat incapable and somewhat weakened, but we were actually and absolutely dead. We had no sense with which to comprehend spiritual things. We had neither the eyes that could see, nor the ears that could hear, nor the power that could feel.
We were dead, all of us, and yet we were not all like one another. Death may be universal over a certain number of bodies and yet those bodies may look very differently. The dead that lie on the battlefield, torn by dogs or birds, rotting, corrupting in the sun—what a horrible sight! The corpse still looks like life, yet your beloved one in the coffin is as dead as the mangled bodies on the battlefield. Corruption has not yet done its work and tender care has guarded the body from what will surely come to it, yet there is death—sure, complete death—in the one case as well as in the other.
So we have many who are lovely, amiable, morally admirable, like he whom the Savior looked upon and loved, yet they are dead for all that. We have others who are drunks, profane, unchaste—they are dead, but not more dead than the others—it is only that their death has left its terrible traces more plainly visible. Sin brings forth death and death brings forth corruption! Whether we were corrupt or not is not a question that I need to raise here—let everyone judge concerning himself. But dead we were, most certainly. Even though trained by godly parents, though well instructed in the Gospel scheme, though saturated with the piety that surrounded us, we were dead, as dead as the harlot of the street, as dead as the thief in the jail.
Now, the text tells us that though we were dead, yet Christ has come and, by His Spirit, He has raised us out of the grave. This text brings us Easter tidings! It sings of resurrection! It sounds in our ears the trumpet of a new life and introduces us into a world of joy and gladness. We were dead—but we are quickened by the Spirit of God! I cannot help stopping a minute to know whether it is so with you, my dear Hearers, and praying that what I might have to say act as a kind of sieve, separating between the really living and those who only think that they are alive, so that, if you have not been quickened—if you are only “a child of nature, finely dressed,” but not spiritually alive—you may be made aware of it. If you have been quickened, even though your life is feeble, you may cry to the living God with the, “Abba, Father,” which never comes from any lips but those which have been touched and quickened by the Holy Spirit!
I. First, let us talk a little about OUR QUICKENING. You who have been quickened will understand what I say. To those who have not, I daresay it will seem as an idle tale.
Well, dear Friends, if we have been quickened, we have been quickened from above. “You has HE quickened.” God, Himself, has had dealings with us. He has raised us from the dead! He made us at the first and He has new-made us! He gave us life when we were born, but He has given us, now, a higher life which could not be found anywhere else. He must always give it. No man ever made himself to live. No preacher, however earnest, can make one hearer to live. No parent,
however prayerful, no teacher, however tearful, can make a child live unto God. “You has HE quickened,” is true of all who are quickened! It is a Divine spark, a Light from the great central Sun of Light, the great Father of Lights. Is it so with us? Have we had a Divine touch, a superhuman energy, a something which all the learning and all the wisdom and all the godliness of man could never work in us? Have we been quickened from above? If so, I daresay that we remember something of it! We cannot describe it—no man can describe his first birth—it remains a mystery. Neither can he describe his new birth—that is still a greater mystery, for it is a secret inward work of the Holy Spirit, of which we feel the effect, but we cannot tell how it is worked.
I think that, usually, when the Divine Life comes, the first consciousness that we get of a quickening is a sense of pain. I have heard that when a man is nearly drowned, while he lies under the power of death, he feels little or nothing— perhaps even has pleasurable dreams—but when, in the process of restoring him, they have rubbed him till the blood begins to flow and the life begins to revive a little—he is conscious of pricking and great pain. One of the tokens that life is coming back to him is that he wakes up out of a pleasant sleep and feels pain! Whether it is so or not with every person restored from drowning, I do not know, but I think that it is so with every person restored from drowning in the river of sin! When the life begins to come to him, he feels as he never felt before—sin that was pleasant becomes a horror to him! That which was easy to him becomes a bed of thorns. Thank God, dear Hearer, if you have living pangs! It is an awful thing to have your conscience hardened, as in the very fires of Hell, till it becomes like steel. To have consciousness is a great mercy, even if it is only painful consciousness and if every movement of life within seems to harrow up your soul. This Divine Life usually begins with pain.