The comic books of my youth often included ads for bodybuilder Charles Atlas, who promised to turn a 98-pound weakling into a well-muscled specimen of a man. This was just one of a much larger genre of ads aimed at both men and women using before-and-after images to sell their “miraculous” products.

In Ephesians 2:1–10, the apostle gives us a verbal description of salvation that transforms us from the inside out. He begins by reminding the Ephesians that they were dead in transgressions and sins, in which they “used to live” (v. 2). In other words, death, as Paul describes it, is more than cessation of bodily life. It is a spiritual condition that exists even before the body ceases to function. Death is a state of being marked by bondage to “the ways of this world” and obedience to “the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”

There is no moral program that can change this, no matter how rigorous. Salvation by grace and through faith is the only remedy to our sinful condition. What is more, Paul makes it clear that this salvation is something that God does by raising us with Christ and seating us with Him “in the heavenly realms” (v. 6). Although we are waiting for God to complete this through our bodily resurrection, salvation has already been inaugurated through the resurrection of Christ. Not only has God “made us alive with Christ,” He has “raised us up with Christ and seated us with him” to display His grace to us for ages to come. It is this resurrection power that motivates and enables us to do “the good works” God has prepared for us. All of this is an extension of God at work in us (v. 10).

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