Charles Hodge on Ephesians 2:5

V. 5. Καὶ ὄντας ἡμᾶς. The conjunction καὶdoes not serve merely to resume the connection; nor is it to be referred to ἡμᾶς, us also, us as well as others; but it belongs to the participle.—‘And being,’ i. e. even when we were dead in trespasses. Notwithstanding our low, and apparently helpless condition, God interfered for our recovery.

Συνεζωοποίησε τῷ Χριστῷ, he quickened us together with Christ. Ζωοποιεῖν means, to make alive, to impart life. In the New Testament it is almost always used of the communication of the life of which Christ is the author. It either comprehends every thing which is included in salvation, the communication of life in its widest scriptural sense; or it expresses some one point or moment in this general life-giving process. As the death from which the Christian is delivered includes condemnation (judicial death), pollution, and misery; so the life which he receives comprehends forgiveness (justification), regeneration, and blessedness. Thus in 2 Cor. 2, 12. 13, the apostle says, "And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses." As, however, in the passage before us, the words "hath raised us up," and "hath made us to sit in heavenly places," are connected with the word "he hath quickened," the latter must be limited to the commencement of this work of restoration. That is, it here expresses deliverance from death and the imparting of life, and not the whole work of salvation.

We are said to be ‘quickened together with Christ.’ This does not mean merely that we are quickened as he was, that there is an analogy between his resurrection from the grave, and our spiritual resurrection; but the truth here taught is that which is presented in Rom. 6, 6. 8. Gal. 2, 19. 20. 2 Cor. 5, 14. 1 Cor. 15, 22. 23, and in many other passages, viz. that in virtue of the union, covenant and vital, between Christ and his people, his death was their death, his life is their life, and his exaltation is theirs. Hence all the verbs used in this connection, συνεζωοποίησε, συνήγειρε, συνεκάθισε, are in the past tense. They express what has already taken place, not what is future; not what is merely in prospect. The resurrection, the quickening and raising up of Christ’s people were in an important sense accomplished, when he rose from the dead and sat down at the right hand of God. Εἰ γὰρ ἡ ἀπαρχὴ ζῆ, καὶ ἡμεῖς, is the pregnant comment of Chrysostom. The life of the whole body is in the head, and therefore when the head rose, the body rose. Each in his order however; first Christ, and then they that are Christ’s.

The apostle says, by way of parenthesis, by grace are ye saved. The gratuitous nature of salvation is one of the most prominent ideas of the context and of the epistle. The state of men was one of helplessness and ill-desert. Their deliverance from that state is due to the power and the unmerited love of God. They neither deserved to be saved, nor could they redeem themselves. This truth is so important and enters so deeply into the very nature of the Gospel, that Paul brings it forward on every fit occasion. And if the mode in which le speaks of our deliverance, does not of itself show it to be gratuitous, he introduces the declaration parenthetically, lest it should be for a moment forgotten.