Ephesians 2:5 - The greatest rescue mission of all time

"...even we being dead in the trespasses, He made alive together with Christ (by grace you are having been saved)..."

-Yes, we were dead, and God made us alive (Colossians 2.13).  THE miracle of miracles, this, for what power on earth can actually do that, impart life to that out of which life has left?  Once life is extinguished, there is no bringing it back, there is no earthly power or knowledge for reversing this curse.  Death is the great final barrier, impenetrable, unavoidable, irreversible.  It looms on the horizon for every man, and in fact already has each person in its grip.  Man is born to die as sparks fly upward.  This is our destiny, situation hopeless.  Particularly because we are already dead, even while living.  Our spirits were born dead, separated from the life of God thanks to our first father.  Which highlights our dilemma still further.  There is no bringing the dead back to life, humanly speaking.  Unless...  What if there was some hope of a rescue, some possibility of defeating death, some power that could somehow bring life out of death?

-It is here that we arrive at the very heart of the Good News.  Yes, the very same mind-blowing power that God exerted when He raised Jesus from the dead, He also unleashed to bring us back to life.  But again, we are not talking merely about a resuscitation, a simple return to mortality.  No, almighty God imparted to these former children of wrath a new unending life, eternal and glorious, just as He did with Jesus.  We are made alive forever with Jesus in Jesus.  Curse reversed!  Situation hopeless is now full of sure and glorious hope!  We're talking about a complete juxtaposition - death defeated, turned completely on its head - and out of the grave bursts forth life like an unstoppable locomotive!  Not your average thrift store rescue, this - without a doubt the greatest rescue mission of all time...!

-Paul adds parenthetically that we are having been saved by grace - charis in the Greek, which gives us our word ‘charity’, undeserved favor, a gift you did not earn or deserve in the least.  And the gift is salvation, being saved or rescued from death, a rescue which took place at some point in the past and with results that are continuing in the present.  Grace and mercy go hand in hand here as in so many other instances, where God not only lets us off the hook but goes way beyond and gives us some blessing or provision which we have done absolutely nothing to deserve.  So many instances where the way He relates to us is clearly fueled by His great everlasting love, this one being the greatest.  All praise and thanks to God forever and ever...