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[Romans 6:23] ends with "For the wages of your sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord". This captures and summarizes [Eph 2:1-10] appropriately.
In [Eph 1:20] God raised Him from dead and seated Him at the right hannd, gave dominion over all, including His church made of saints, who were elected. As Paul concludes the previous part, he opens [Eph 2] with us being dead in our tresspasses and sins to contrast and then draws us to the awesomeness of God in raising us just like He did His Son.
The multiple references to sin, tresspases, lust shows the entrapment by our flesh, the world and the devil. Thie renders us completely wretched beyond all measure. Hence this state of transgressions and sinfulness calls for death with eternal punishment in hell. But by God's grace we have been saved, because God loved us and now we have been raised and seated with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Death came beacuse of the fall of man [Gen 3] where sin entered our world. This made us all the children of wrath. Wrath (greek Ogre or hebrew Qatsaph [Duet 9:7]) indicates anger but also natural disposition in agitation of our soul. This resulted in us being obstinate to God's will and law, which made us tresspass, to sin, since its in our very nature to disobey God. Then the only way we are saved is by God's grace which is a result of his (agapao) love for us.
His grace translates this way. We are drawn to the gospel of Jesus, we show/demonstrate our faith (both drawing and our faith is a result of God's grace), and the faith causes God's kindness in us to repent of our sins [Rom 2:6], which then leads us to our salvation, thu' Jesus' blood, cleansing our sins and being made a new [Jhn 3:4-16]. This concept of born again can be compared to how the hebrews believed Moses rasing up of the serpent will save them from death. Similarly, when Jesus was lifted up we have eternal life.
The free gift of God is our being saved from eternal damnation. This is free gift and not something we can earn, achieve or gain by any of our works, due to 3 reasons -
- It is for God's glory. If it was of our works, it would diminish His glory. Even Jesus did the works to glorify His Father [Jhn 17:4]
- So that we dont boast and become lawful in flesh like the pharisees, but remain humble, and
- There is no way to earn an invaluable gift. After the fall and our sinful nature we dont deserve any of it. Even our righteous deeds are like filthy rags [Isa 64:6], so what of our trespasses.
Use of the word grace multiple times (3) shows the emphasis Paul wants to make of this free gift. In greek, the word charis translates to gift from God, but also to credit [Luke 6:32] and favor [Act 7:46].
This credit gives us then a visual of a credit card that has unlimited credit that can be used to pay off all our debts.
Being justified by faith in Lord Jesus, the redemptive power then creates/writes the law in our hearts. [Rom 2:14] talks about how as gentiles we were outside the law, but after our justification, the laws are now in our hearts. [Tit 2:14] further emphasizes that our heart has been purified, zealous for good deeds.
This means that, now that we are saved by God, we become His new creation in Christ to do good works and walk in them, for not to be saved, but because we were saved.
Therefore good works are fruits of our salvation, as the law of God is written in our heart to show our love to our new found Brother and Father, in our heavenly adoption while being thankful for the family inheritance, that can only be obtained by God's grace.