In the Roman Empire, gladiators were the rock stars, the professional athletes. The really good ones were celebrities much like the ones in America today: just as likely to wow a crowd by making their well-trained bodies do things that seem to defy the laws of physics in competition as they are to destroy a hotel room in a fit of rage later that night.
In Francine Rivers’ novel As Sure as the Dawn, she describes how Atretes – a giant German warrior who was taken as a slave and trained in the arena – has achieved celebrity status. Julia, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy merchant, becomes something of an Atretes groupie. She creates a love affair in her mind worthy of a romance novel cover and she uses what influence she has to make this fantasy a reality. But – as all such affairs do – it fails to live up to the dream and ends badly. Atretes knows he’s only a piece of meat to her, a role player in her own dream world, and Julia is disappointed – and scared – of Atretes and his volatile temper.
But there’s a problem: Julia is pregnant. She hides it as best she can, but when the baby – a strong boy who clearly got his father’s genes – Julia rejects the child, and orders her maid to take the baby outside the city and abandon him there.
If you weren’t there for the beginning of this series, Pastor Phil described the practice of “exposing” babies like this – which was totally legal in both Greek and Roman societies. If you didn’t want your baby – most often because of visible physical defects or because you were unable to meet the economic cost of a kid – you took it outside the city to an appointed place and simply left it there. If the child was lucky, someone would come pick it up and take it as a slave. Otherwise – well, you can imagine how well most infants would do, when left to face the elements. They faced certain death.
This is what Paul says about us in Ephesians 2:1-10. We were once those abandoned helpless babies, the tragic product of a depraved world system. We were dead and our destiny was eternal separation from God – unless someone intervened for us.
But no one came to save us.
So God did it for us.
He saw that there was no man,
and wondered that there was no one to intercede;
then his own arm brought him salvation,
and his righteousness upheld him.
Isaiah 59:16
God Himself would act on our behalf – the One we had offended with our sins, the One we had rebelled against would fight for us. He saw that we did not have the ability to earn our salvation, to save ourselves, to impress Him with our efforts. We were like those babies, abandoned out in the open – unable to even care for ourselves. So He alone would save us – even at the cost of His own Son. It doesn’t make sense – it doesn’t seem like a good trade: the perfect Son of God for me… a sinner.
But God did do just that, didn’t He? He sent His Son to die for us – we who were helpless to save ourselves. Think of it! Paul describes this in Romans 8:32
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
There is probably a lot that you and I have to be ashamed of in our lives. We have all failed, we have all made a mess of things, and we all have plenty of baggage hidden in a closet that we hope no one ever finds out about. But Paul makes it clear: that baggage is not who you are. Notice the verb tense in Ephesians 2:1
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
But you have believed – you have abandoned any hope in your own efforts to live a good life, to be a good person – and you’ve put your trust in Christ’s finished work on the Cross. You have been adopted and you now have a new identity in Him (2 Cor 5:17). If God’s mighty right arm has saved you from death once, He is surely strong enough to overcome the weakness and sin that still remains in you and me.
Spend some time this morning thinking about what this means. How should we live, now that He has saved us? Reread Paul’s words in Ephesians 1:3-14 and remember all the things God has done in you and for you – and be humbled. Forgive others – because He has forgiven you. Help the weak, the poor, the “losers” – because that was once you and me. Most of all, trust in God – trust in the same power that saved you from eternal death – to now graciously make you into the person your Creator always intended you to be!
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