Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2968
“His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in sins.” Ephesians 2:4,5.
You notice, in this chapter, the remarkable change of subject which commences at the 4th verse. Paul had been giving a very sad description of what even the saints are by nature and of their conduct before conversion. And then, as if he was quite weary of writing upon that painful topic, he says, “But God”—and goes on to tell what God has done. What a relief it is to turn from ourselves and from our fellow men, to God! And I do not know when God, in His rich mercy, ever seems so lovely in our eyes as when we have just gazed upon our own abundant sins. The diamond shines all the more brilliantly when it has a suitable foil to set off its brightness—and man seems to act as a foil for the goodness and the mercy of God! Perhaps you remember that the Psalmist, when he had said in his haste, “All men are liars,” turned abruptly from that theme and said, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?” It is as if he had said, “I will not have anything more to do with man. I find him to be only like a broken cistern that can hold no water— but as for my God, He has never failed me and He never will—so, ‘I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.’”
I want, at this time, to intertwine these two subjects—ourselves in our fall and God in His Grace—ourselves in our sin and God in His love—“His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in sins.” I shall not need so much to preach as just to refresh your memories—to revive your recollections of the great tidings which the Lord, in His Grace, has done for you. I want you who know the Lord to remember what you were—and what God has done for you. Those two themes will bring out the greatness of His love, so they shall be our two objects for meditation. First, what we were. And secondly, what God did for us.
I. First, then, WHAT WE WERE. The text says that “we were dead in sins.”
O Believer, whatever life of a spiritual kind you have in you, today, was given to you by God! It was not yours by nature. Before God looked upon you in love and pity and said unto you, “Live,” you were dead! That is to say, as far as spiritual things are concerned, you were insensible—insensible alike to the bearers of Divine Wrath and to the melodies of Divine Love. You could even lie at the foot of Sinai and not shake with fright, although Moses did exceedingly fear and quake. And you could lie at the foot of the Cross and yet not be melted by the death-cries of Immanuel, although the earth did quake and the rocks were rent and the graves were opened at that doleful sound! Do you not remember, Beloved, when you passed through such a time as that? I do—when utter callousness and coldness of heart reigned supreme within us, when the world—painted harlot as she is—could attract us, but we were insensible to the inexpressible beauties of Him who is altogether lovely, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!
And as we were insensible to spiritual things, being dead, so we were, at that time, without power to do anything. We were preached to, called and bid to come, but, as far as all goodness was concerned, we were like a corpse—unable to hear the sweetest music, or the crack of doom resounding overhead! Do you not remember, dear Friends, when it was so with you? You thought then that you could do something good in your own strength, but it was a dreadful failure when you attempted it! Your resolutions, when you got as far as resolving, all fell to the ground, for you were, in the emphatic words of Paul, “without strength.” Yes, you were insensible and powerless.
And, what is worse still, we were then without will or desire to come to God. We had no disposition to move towards the Lord, no aspirations after holiness, no longing after communion with our Creator. We loved the world and
were content to fill our treasury with its paltry pelf. This seemed to be the only portion for which we cared. If we could have become rich and increased with goods, we would have said, “Soul, take your ease—there is nothing more for you to desire.”
That was our state by nature. We were dead. And did the Lord love us then, when there was nothing whatever in us to commend us to Him—nothing by which we could possibly rise into a condition that would be estimable in His sight? Did He love us then? Yes, He did—and there must have been surprising Grace in that “great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in sins.”
While we were dead as to spiritual things, there was, alas, a life in us of another kind. If you read the chapter from which our text is taken, you will find that the dead people are described as walking. They were walking corpses—a strange commingling of metaphors, and yet most certainly true with regard to all ungodly men. They are dead to goodness, but, as for the evil within them, how full of life it is! The devil within them and the flesh within them were active and, as the corpse gives forth corruption and fills the tomb with putridity, so did our sin continually give forth evil emanations which must have been most nauseous to God! Yet, notwithstanding all this, “He loved us, even when we were dead in sins.”