| What a dark picture precedes the above words. We “were dead in trespasses and sins,” and we “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 conversation in times 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, even as others.” How benighted and benumbed and depraved we all were, “but God!” But for His intervention there was no hope for any. “But God … rich in mercy,” and because of “His great love,” has “quickened us together with Christ,” “who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree,” so that now “by grace ye are saved.” “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” And not only so, “but God” still intervenes for us. “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” |
