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not that his body was tenantless, or that he had become a nonentity, but that he had a new
master, Christ, now taking the place previously occupied by sin, "the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8: 2). "We
have the mind of Christ" (I Cor. 2: 16). Later in Rom. 12:, the Apostle returns to the
theme and says that we are "transformed by the renewing of the mind" which is
expressed in Eph. 4: 23 as the renewing of the spirit of the mind.
The dominion of sin and death has been broken. Christ now has "dominion",
"dominion" being the Greek verb kurieuo, and "Lord" being the Greek word kurios. We
acknowledge the Lordship of Christ now, and in so doing make it gloriously possible for
the life we now live in the flesh to manifest and anticipate this resurrection power and
glorious victory that are resident in the concept "Lord". Gal. 2: 20 says that this life
now lived in the flesh is by "the faith of the Son of God". Rom. 8: 9-11, which
immediately follows the statement concerning the mind of the flesh (the carnal mind)
attributes the quickening of the mortal body here and now to the indwelling of the spirit
of Christ. "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life
because of righteousness", and if this resurrection spirit dwell in us, He that raised our
Saviour will also quicken these mortal bodies by that same indwelling spirit. In Col. 2:
the Apostle not only repeats the teaching of Eph. 2: (Col. 2: 13), but applies it with the
trenchant question:
"Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, AS
THOUGH LIVING in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" (Col. 2: 20).
We can perhaps appreciate the reason why the Apostle broke the thread of his
argument in Eph. 2: 5, 6 by interposing the words that are placed in parenthesis (by
grace ye are saved). The word here translated "ye are saved" is the perfect passive
participle "ye have been saved". Sometimes salvation is introduced as a process "ye are
being saved" as in I Cor. 1: 18; here it is a work done in the past which has continued
and present effect. The words that are interjected come again in verse eight, where they
introduce the great plan of salvation by grace through faith. It is important however to
remember that before the Apostle has said "raised together" and "made to sit together"
which seem to include nearly all that salvation has wrought, he cay say, immediately after
the quickening has been mentioned, "ye have been saved by grace", for quickening
means life, and life however feeble, if it be life after death, is marked with immortality.
Moreover, this life is not isolated, it is "with Christ". Those who have passed from death
unto life, those in whom the minutest germ of incorruptible life is at work, these are they
who "have been saved". True, salvation is still spoken of as a "hope" (Rom. 8: 24), and
as yet unseen; nevertheless the word used in Rom. 8: 24 is esothemen "ye were
saved", saved from the beginning, even though salvation in some of its aspects is yet
future.