Grace of God — W.F. Anderson

The Grace of God Meets Our Sinful Condition

All of that is entitled chapter 3, beginning with verse 3. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.

But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.

That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. As we have time this morning, I want to turn later on to Romans chapter 3 and then to Ephesians chapter 2 to consider this subject of grace.

But let me say this, in Titus chapter 3 we have our foolishness. We also ourselves were sometimes foolish and disobedient, and the description of that foolishness is followed immediately by a description of the grace of God.

In Romans chapter 3 we have our guilt, and that guilt is immediately followed by a description of the grace of God. And in Ephesians chapter 2 we have our distance and helplessness, and that description is immediately followed by a description of the grace of God.

So, we have our foolishness in sin, our guilt in sin, and our distance and helplessness in sin. Now, you'll find that the grace of God meets that need exactly in redemption. You have it in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 30,.

Redemption Answers Our Foolishness, Guilt, and Helplessness

"...of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, even redemption.". Redemption, then, is composed of three things. Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification.

For our foolishness in Titus 3, the Lord Jesus Christ has made wisdom. For our guilt in Romans 3, the Lord Jesus Christ has made righteousness unto us. And for our distance and helplessness in Ephesians chapter 2, the Lord Jesus Christ has made sanctification.

And those three things form the redemption of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, we have our foolishness in Titus 3, for that the Lord Jesus Christ is our wisdom. Our guilt in Romans 3, the Lord Jesus Christ is our righteousness.

And for our distance and helplessness in Ephesians 2, the Lord Jesus Christ is our sanctification. Or I could put it this way. Here in Titus 3, we have a description of the grace of God. And so in Titus 3, we have the fullness of God's grace.

In Romans 3, and going on to Kindred passages in chapters 4 and 5, we have the frayness of God's grace emphasized. While in Ephesians chapter 2, we have the fruitfulness of God's grace. Let me go over those again.

In Titus 3, we have the fullness of God's grace. In Romans 3, the frayness of God's grace. And in Ephesians 2, the fruitfulness of God's grace. And just in case we don't get to those last two passages, let me touch on them briefly right now.

In Romans chapter 3, we have the frayness of God's grace. A God without any merit on our part, without any obligation on His, freely justifies us through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. In Ephesians 2, we have the fruitfulness of God's grace.

That is what it produces. And in that second chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians, we have what we were. But the great contrast is what we have become by the grace of God. And we see the fruit of God's grace manifest in the second of Ephesians.

While here in Titus chapter 3, we have the fullness of because the Apostle exhorts all language in Titus 3 to describe what the grace of God is in His fullness. It's composed of three things here in Titus chapter 3.

The Three Elements of Grace in Titus 3

First of all, in verse 4, you have the kindness of God. Again in verse 4, you have the love toward man of God, which by the way is all one word. And thirdly, you have in verse 5, the mercy of God. Now grace, therefore, because he goes on to say that being justified by His grace in verse 7.

Grace is composed of three things. The kindness of God, the love toward man of God, and the mercy of God. Now that love toward man of God may sound like a weird expression, but I want to put it that way, because love toward man is all one word in the original.

The love toward man of God, and the grace of God. Now briefly, let's look at this passage, and I do trust that in our time together, we will have time to look at Romans and then at Ephesians. So we should just have time briefly to touch upon the teachings of each of these passages.

In verse 3, we have what we were. I want you to notice in each of these passages that the grace of God comes in following a description of what we were in our sin, and the grace of God meets us right where we were, and in what we were.

It's not that we're changed, and then God manifests His grace. It's not that God gives us His grace in order to change us, but right where we are, there the grace of God meets us. And so we have the description of our foolishness.

We were sometimes foolish. And those of us who this morning are saved by the grace of God look back upon what we were before we were saved, and we agree 100 with the apostle we were foolish. Fools make a mock of sin, the wise men write in the book of Proverbs.

But who among us didn't make a mock of sin before he was saved? The idea of sin bringing any consequence or of being an offense to God was foreign to us. We could laugh at such a thought, and go on our merry way in our own iniquity, and we made a mock of sin, and God said, that man's a fool.

Human Folly and the Judgment of God

The Lord Jesus Christ called a man a fool who made provision for time and not for eternity. Who had such a great promise of harvest time, he tore down his barns and built. And then God came to him in the night and said, Thou fool!

Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, and then whom shall these things be that thou hast provided? And you and I, before we were saved, made everything of time and nothing of eternity, and God said, that man is a fool.

That man is a fool. The Lord Jesus Christ called a man a fool when he said, The individual who builds a house upon a foundation of sand is a fool. The individual who neglects and rejects the words of our Lord Jesus Christ has built the structure of his whole life upon sand.

And when the storm of God's judgment beats upon us, that house will fall with one tremendous crash, and great will be the whole world. And you and I were like that, we were fools. We completely ignored and rejected the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and built the whole structure of our life upon some shifting sand that would not stand the test of the judgment of God.

We were fools. And so you can see that was a little bit, we were disobedient, and for this cause the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. So tell to your children, it was our natural best to disobey, just as it is when an individual child is born into your family, it's his natural best to disobey.

Now, God has put moral integrity, or did put it into the heart of Adam. God put a measure of responsibility into the life of Adam. Adam had to name all the animals that God created. Adam had the responsibility of tending the garden of Eden.

But sin changed that measure of responsibility into a desire of independence, and that became disobedience. And so the thing that God has put within the heart of my child, responsibility, as he grows up, sin has perverted it into independence in his own will.

And so our natural vengeance is to disobey. We were disobedient. And we haven't time to look at all these words, but I think with a great deal of thanksgiving to God that he can put in the past, since we were hateful and hating one another, especially that Paul should write such a thing this time.

Wasn't he lovely? Titus was a Gentile, and Paul was a Jew. And before Paul's conversion, the soul of Tarsus would just as soon have sat in the face of Titus and looked at him. A dog of a Gentile! And the Gentile would just as soon have cut the throat of a Jew.

In fact, the Roman governors in Judea often thought it would have been better to wipe them out than to have tried to govern them. Hateful and hating one another! Now how does Paul write to this man? How does this former Jew write to this former Gentile?

In the first chapter in the fourth verse of Titus, my own time, in the common sense. Oh, you see what the grace of God does. To Titus, my own son, in the common faith. Why? Paul led Titus to the Lord Jesus Christ, brought him into the greatest benefit that God could give to man.

Why did you do it, Paul? Oh, the grace of God. I was once hateful, and so were we all in hating one another. But now, God's grace is manifest. First of all, in three things. First of all, in kindness.

The Kindness of God

The first of these three things that you have in verse 4. After that, the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appears. This word kindness is often translated goodness in the New Testament, or good.

For instance, you have in Romans chapter 3 in verse 12, there is none that doeth good, no not one. It was used in the secular Greek of a moral goodness. Uprightness and honesty as well as kindness. Because you see, when God exercises his kindness toward us, it must be a righteous kindness.

God cannot be kind to us and be unrighteous to us. When God is kind, he must be righteous. But it is a lovely word, kindness. You have it again in Ephesians chapter 2 in verse 7, that in that coming day he's going to display his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus, throughout that countless, countless ages of eternity.

But it's a moral kindness, and that's why no human being apart from the manifest grace of God can show any goodness. When you and I are wanting to show kindness, it's very seldom of the upright kind. You know how it is with you in the traffic coppers when you see the other person so often.

If he doesn't give you the ticket when you're disobeyed, oh you think he's a good fellow. If he doesn't give it to you, he's mean. You see, you think he's a good fellow when he's unrighteous. But if he's righteous, he's not a good fellow.

He's very mean to you. Just like James McGinley, the Scotch preacher from California, on one occasion was sailing down the highway about ten miles an hour faster than the speed limit. He discovered very quickly he had left his guardian angel, as he called it, ten miles behind him.

And so the traffic cop pulled him in, the highway patrolman, breaking the speed limit. And you're going ten miles an hour faster than the speed limit. You know, if the speed limit was 50, you were doing 60, or if it was 60, he was doing 70, whatever it happened to be.

But the traffic cop was very courteous to him, the highway patrolman was very courteous to him. So Mr. McGinley took the thing by the horns and said, hey, you're so kind to me. You've treated me so courteously, though I have broken the law.

You must be a Christian. Oh no, said the patrolman, I'm not a Christian. I ought to be, but I'm not. So quick as a wink, Mr. McGinley whipped out his pocket testament, and he opens it up, and the first thing you know, the car doors open, they're both sitting in the car, and there he's giving the man the gospel.

And that went on for about thirty minutes, as he explained the way of salvation to the man, and urged upon the acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Though he said the man at that time did not receive the Lord Jesus Christ, but he forgot all about the traffic ticket.

And so as Mr. McGinley drove off, he said, my old nature was rejoicing that I didn't get the traffic ticket, and my new nature was rejoicing that I had witnessed to a soul about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well that's the way we are. That man didn't give him the traffic ticket, and we thought he would be kind, but he wasn't. He was unrighteous. Now God can't do that. God cannot be kind to us while he's unrighteous.

He must be kind. And so he is, thank God. So he is. All kindness, the goodness of God to men and women who are lost in their sins and disobedience to God, and hating God, and living in malice and envy, and all the rest of it.

Well how could God do this? Well that's a disgrace, my friend. He sent his beloved son to the cross to die for us, in order that kindness might reach you and me. And on the basis of the death of his own well-beloved son, God sent kindness of all mankind today.

And that kindness could reach you today, my friend, only because the Lord Jesus Christ died for you. Because for your sake the Lord Jesus Christ was willing to give up his life and shed his precious blood that God, for Christ's sake, might forgive your sins and mine.

That's his kindness. Hurrying on, the love of God towards man. We get our words so interesting from this. It's only used one other time in the New Testament. This has the idea of compassion, and the word used for love in this phrase is the emotional word for love.

The Love of God Toward Man

It's the love of a heart that just reaches out and wants to embrace in affection the object of its love. A very affectionate word. It's only used one other time in the New Testament. I mean this combination of love towards man.

And Luke writes it in the book of Acts after their shipwreck on the Isle of Moab. Do you remember how they had spent days and nights in that raging storm? They hadn't eaten for so many days. They must have been a gone, haggard-looking bunch of men upon that ship before that storm was over.

If you've ever been in a storm at sea for any extended length of time, you're usually 260, because if you can't eat, you don't have time to eat. You don't get to change your clothes. You're in your bunk for four hours and you're sopping wet clothes, and four hours later you're up back on watch.

You can't leave the boat that way in wartime. And by the end of three or four days, you're a sorry-looking outfit, I'll tell you that. How well do I remember? And these men had gone through a storm like that for days and days and days and days, and now the ship was broken up and they were wrecked and coming in on broken pieces of wood and some of them swimming.

They made their way to land and the draggers, they were drawn out to the surf and cast up on this island. What a sorry crew they must have looked, a whole lot of them. And then Luke writes these words, we were shown no little kindness by the barbarous people of that place.

And his word kindness is this word love for men. You know, I don't know what those barbarians were like, but they just had pity in their hearts for such a bedraggled-looking compass, and they shouldn't have.

Ah, my friend, God looked down upon you and me and our helplessness, our sins. What a sorry picture we present to the living and holy God as he sees us wallowing in our sins, unhappy, fighting one another, men at one another's throats.

What an awful picture presented to the eye of God. And God has taken pity, the love of God for men, manifesting through us. And then the last word is the word mercy. His mercy is included in that. There are two kinds of mercy in the scriptures.

The Mercy of God and the Freeness of Grace

One is that which touches close to pity because of the helpless condition of an individual. The other is the mercy that a criminal begs of a judge, and that's the words of Jesus. You know, when a criminal asks mercy, he's acknowledging his guilt, and he's simply asking that the court show him some favor that he doesn't deserve.

He casts himself upon the mercy. He realizes he has no case, he has no ground for acquittal, and he'll not be justified by the court. And so acknowledging his guilt, he casts himself upon the mercy. My friend, that's such a great thing to do.

I had no case before God, my sin mounted up in a great mountain higher than I could conceive, and I had to acknowledge I'm guilty of them all, and I had to acknowledge the sentence of God against me was just and righteous and holy, and I deserve to die.

And that's when God's mercy sees me. The mercy of God. It's used in Romans chapter 9 where Paul is writing of what Moses learned of God. When God said, I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion, so that it's not of him that willeth nor of him that willeth, but of God that showeth mercy.

Oh my friend, I could struggle and strive and set my will to do better and to please God. I could run. I could run in the way seeking to eventually gain heaven in the favor of God, but because of my sin, God writes it's not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth.

I have nothing, nothing, I can do to gain the favor of God. Nothing. And then God's mercy, mercy comes out to me. You remember that those words were originally given in the 33rd chapter of the book of Exodus, and in chapter 32, Israel had been dancing around with a golden calf, and they had broken the law of God.

They had forsaken the God that brought them out of the land of Egypt, and if God had risen up in pure righteousness, he would have destroyed that people right there in the plain of Sinai. Why didn't God do that?

I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. Ah my friend, and if God treated you and me in pure righteousness as we deserve to be treated, you and I would be bound for a lost eternity without one glimmer of hope.

Then why should God send his Son to die for us upon the cross? Why should God offer a free salvation to you and me? Only one reason. I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. The mercy of God. And so you have his kindness, his love toward man, and his mercy.

Could I say that his kindness is the height of great kindness? Oh, how it elevates us, and it's going to be shown to all eternity in Ephesians 2, 7. That's the height of his grace. The love toward man, that's the breadth of his grace.

It reaches out and embraces the whole human race. And mercy, that's the depth of his grace. It goes down, down, down to the depth of the lowest sinner, whoever we are. And God extends mercy to the Lord Jesus Christ, to that individual.

That's the grace of God. There's a prior manifestation of that grace in the Lord Jesus Christ himself, which is really the basis of our whole subject. We know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor that he whose poverty might be rich.

Listen my friend, is there a one of us, is there a one of us with a goal to say that he deserves that Jesus Christ should die upon the cross for him? That's the modernist gospel. See how wonderful man is, that God would send his son for man.

We're quite a wonderful people, you know, when God taught that we were worthy. Such a sacrifice is the sacrifice of his son. Man is a wonderful being. Ah my friend, ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We didn't deserve that sacrifice, we deserved condemnation. We were under condemnation, under the sentence of death. Was there any compulsion upon the Lord Jesus Christ to leave the heaven of glory, and come to the sinful cross of Calvary, and all its shame and suffering?

Not at all. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, became poor. And you gaze at the cross, my friend, and see how poor he became. Heaven is a place of light, unsullied by any darkness, for in God there is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

Christ's Poverty and the Grace of the Cross

And the Lord Jesus Christ came from the highest heights of life, all the way down into this world, and on out beyond it. And into the midnight darkness that wrapped the cross around him, he came from light, went out into darkness, where he experienced the judgment of God, and where he had to run.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor. That ye through his poverty, that's it my friend, through what he experienced on the cross, his poverty, you and I might be rich.

That's the grace. His kindness, his love toward man, and his mercy. Now briefly, Romans chapter 3. I do want to cover all three portions of the word of God in connection with grace. Romans 3. And we have in this epistle the demonstration of our absolute guilt and the impossibility of God justifying us on the basis of our own works.

It's totally impossible. Any man who talks about getting to heaven by his own works or efforts does not know, probably has never read with any measure of understanding, the epistle to the Romans. Because Mr. Smart was bringing out the other night, or the other morning was.

When you come to chapter 3 verses 19 and 20, you've got your mouth shot. And any man whose mouth is still open talking about his own works, getting into heaven, that man has never been through the first three chapters of Romans or his mouth would be shot in the acknowledgment of guilt.

My friend, there isn't a leg for us to stand on when the apostles through those first three chapters. Whether you're Jew or Gentile, you haven't a leg to stand on if you'll read the verses of these first three chapters of Romans.

We're guilty, none righteous, no not one, condemned with a shut mouth under the righteous judgment of God. And then what? Then what comes in? Verse 24, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Justified how? Freely. By his grace. Ah, you see in Romans it's the freedom of God. Why does God declare me righteous? By experience and works and nature I'm not righteous. My friend, use a little common sense.

Use your mind, your brain. How can God say you're righteous on the basis of your works when you commit sin? How can God say you're righteous when you're not righteous? He can't do it on the basis of your works.

So, on a totally different basis altogether, he must declare us righteous. And since it cannot be on the basis of works, it must be free, so it's grace. And it's on that great basis of the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ whom God has set forth a propitiation in his blood through faith.

As he goes on to say in the 26th verse, because the Lord Jesus Christ has shed his blood on the cross, God's grace goes out to you and will justify you freely without a cost through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Oh, my friend, you and I haven't one iota of righteousness before God. So, God turns around and he says, on the basis of the shed blood of my Son, I'm going to give you my own righteousness in Christ.

And that's a free gift. Oh, briefly, for the sake of time, the fifth chapter, I just want you to go through here very briefly on this subject of righteousness. Verse 15,. For not as the offence, so also is the free gift.

For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God. And the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. The free gift, the gift by grace. Notice again the 16th verse,.

Not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift, the gift, all the way through this chapter. Again, the 16th verse,. But the free gift is of many offences unto justification. The 17th verse,. For if by one man's offence death reign by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ.

Verse 18,. Toward the end of the earth, even so the righteousness of one, by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. How God over and over and over and over shone the freeness of his grace, the free gift.

Justification Is a Free Gift, Not the Reward of Works

By grace are ye saved through faith and not by yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. My friend, you can talk about faith and works if you want to, they go together all right.

The faith, the true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will produce works, but you can never talk about grace anymore. You can't do it. Grace is the freeness of God's gift, to you and me when we didn't deserve it.

And over and over in this chapter, the apostle speaks of the gift of God, the free gift of God. What isn't the gift free? Well, he's just compounding words upon words to impress your heart and mind with the idea that it's free.

You know, you've got a lot of things that are free that aren't free. You go into the store, and there's a big sign. Free! You get such and such a thing, if you buy something else. Well, it's not free, it costs you the price of what you had to buy to get it.

It's not free, in the fullest sense of the word. My boy thinks he's getting things free in the cereal box, and he's not getting them free. It's costing me money every time we buy a box of cereals. You ask him if that thing was free.

Sure, it didn't cost him anything, but ask me if it was free. No, it wasn't free, it cost me some money. All these premiums and coupons that you get, you know, they're free. Well, they're not free, you've got to pay for them.

But the grace of God is free. It's a free gift. The FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, was considering a number of years ago restricting the advertising on the radio, but I guess they would have lost too much money, to exclude the use of this word free when there was any obligation in connection with it.

But they gave up the idea of being hopeful. But that's the true idea of freeness. If it's free, there's no obligation attached to it. You have the idea of God's freeness in Luke 6 .35 where he's kind.

The same word we've been looking at in Titus 3, to the unthankful and to the evil. And Luke says, expecting nothing again. That's free. Expecting nothing again. And God gives a free gift of His righteousness.

Now notice how he emphasizes that here in Romans 5, verse 19. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of how many? One. So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

It's not by your obedience, neither is it by my obedience that were made righteous. It's by the obedience of one man, the Lord Jesus Christ. By his obedience, not by mine, nor by yours. By his obedience.

And what was that? He was obedient to God even to death. The death of the cross. Man in the Garden of Eden disobeyed unto death. The Lord Jesus Christ obeyed unto death. By the disobedience of Adam, you and I were constituted sinners.

By the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're constituted righteous. It's the free gift by His obedience and not by our own. Now we must hurry. Ephesians 2. I'm just touching on these and you can study them out for yourself.

Grace Brings the Spiritually Dead to Life

Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1. And you have be quickened who were dead. Oh, dead. Now what can you do with a dead man? Can you exhort him to work to clean up his life? Can you exhort him to live better?

Can you tell him if he just obeys God everything will be all right with him and he'll live again? Can you tell him to do anything? No, he's dead. He's dead. The only thing a dead person can do is work corruption.

That's exactly what happens. You put him in a grave and the body goes to corruption. And that's exactly what you have spiritually and morally in the rest of Ephesians chapter 2. We were dead in verse 1.

We began to work corruption right away. Notice what he has to say. When in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our manner of life in time past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath,.

That's the corruption in verse 3. The death works in verse 1. You only get to heaven by working, my friend, if you're unsaved this morning. The only thing you can work is corruption. And there's plenty of it in your life, whether you admit it or not.

All these proud people who are going around the city of Augusta, Junkies are going around the city of Florence. Me and my good work. What a stench in the nostrils of God. It's corruption. That's all it is.

Corruption. The only thing you and I could work in our unsaved state was corruption. We were dead in trespasses and sins, but now notice. Now notice verse 5. Even when we were dead, oh yes, in the midst of our death and corruption, what?

Hath quickened us together with Christ by grace. Are you sick? Great. When I was dead, yes, when I was dead. When I was working corruption, yes, when I was working corruption. What happened? Oh, uh, God, uh, God imparted grace to me whereby I could stand upright and obey his commandments and fulfill his word and thus get eternal life.

No. No, you've got a misconception of grace if you think that's what grace is. We were made alive, quickened by his grace. That's it. When I was dead, he graciously imparted life. For in my state of spiritual death, there was nothing I could do to gain it, to earn it, nor to deserve it.

But he imparted it freely in his grace. So you have in Romans chapter 4, all this verse that men and women can't quite believe. Even dear Alexander White, a priest in St. George's of Edinburgh had a difficult time when he preached the sermon on that.

I think he eventually got through it. He had a difficult time with it. But God justifies the ungodly. Who does he justify? The ungodly. Not the moral, not the refined, not the righteous. God justifies the ungodly.

Because it's grace, my friend. It's free. Oh, but I'll tell you one thing. You once lay hold of the gift of God's grace and you'll not be ungodly anymore. There isn't anything to transform the life like the truth of the grace of God.

But now notice, I said Ephesians 2 is the fruitfulness of grace and you have the results of grace here. For instance, in the 12th verse, we who sometimes were far off were made nigh. That's one of the fruits of grace.

But I had in mind three things in Ephesians 2. Verse 5, when we were dead, we were quickened or made alive. Verse 6, we were raised up together. And again in verse 6, we were made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

We were made alive. That's a change of our condition. We were dead. We were raised together with Christ. That's a change of our position. Resurrection speaks of its opposite, burial. And now the exaltation of that position, we were seated together with Christ, in Christ actually, in heavenly.

Just think of it, my friend. We were dead. What did God's grace do? Made us alive. Did it leave us here? No, it raised us to walk in newness of life and now seated in heavenlies in Christ Jesus. You can't get any higher than that.

You can't get any higher than that. Where is the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, in Ephesians chapter 1, he's been seated in the heavenly places far above all things. And where is this poor, dead, ungodly sinner in chapter 2?

The very same word, seated in heavenlies. Are you telling me anything but the grace of God that could take a poor, dead sinner and put him that high? And I and you who are saved this morning by the grace of God are now seated in heavenlies in Christ Jesus.