Jesus' parables are something halfway between amusing stories from everyday life and riddles: in them He explains the inexpressible, the Message of His Kingdom, in simple human language. Many of them begin...
Jesus' parables are something halfway between amusing stories from everyday life and riddles: in them He explains the inexpressible, the Message of His Kingdom, in simple human language. Many of them begin just this way: "The Kingdom of God is like someone who..." - and then He sketches a situation familiar to His listeners, revealing to them the essence of His Gospel.
So, the most famous parable is about how the Word of God, like a seed, must fall into fertile soil in order to bear fruit and not be lost in vain. The evangelist wonderfully completes the parable by giving, immediately after it, the account of Jesus' family, where He speaks to the disciples a new riddle that expresses the same Message in other words: "Whoever hears the Word and does it has entered My family".
The listeners only have to compare these parable-riddles to understand what the Kingdom consists in that their Teacher brought to earth. Through his book, the evangelist offers this task not just to the small circle of disciples, but to all readers of the Gospel.
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2:4 Mercy removes misery: love confers salvation.
2:5 He hath quickened us together with Christ - In conformity to him, and by virtue of our union with him. By grace ye are saved - Grace is both the beginning and end. The apostle speaks indifferently either in the first or second person; the Jews and gentiles being in the same circumstance, both by nature and by grace. This text lays the axe to the very root of spiritual pride, and all glorying in ourselves.Therefore St. Paul, foreseeing the backwardness of mankind to receive it, yet knowing the absolute necessity of its being received, again asserts the very same truth, Eph 2:8, in the very same words.
2:6 And hath raised us up together - Both Jews and gentiles already in spirit; and ere long our bodies too will be raised. And made us all sit together in heavenly places - This is spoken by way of anticipation.Believers are not yet possessed of their seats in heaven; but each of them has a place prepared for him.
2:7 The ages to come - That is, all succeeding ages.
2:8 By grace ye are saved through faith - Grace, without any respect to human worthiness, confers the glorious gift. Faith, with an empty hand, and without any pretence to personal desert, receives the heavenly blessing.And this is not of yourselves - This refers to the whole preceding clause, That ye are saved through faith, is the gift of God.
2:9 Not by works - Neither this faith nor this salvation is owing to any works you ever did, will, or can do.
2:10 For we are his workmanship - Which proves both that salvation is by faith, and that faith is the gift of God.Created unto good works - That afterwards we might give ourselves to them.Which God had before preprepared - The occasions of them: so we must still ascribe the whole to God. That we might walk in them - Though not be justified by them.