Even when we were dead in sins (See Gill on Ephesians 2:1).
Hath quickened us together with Christ:
which may be understood either of regeneration, when a soul that
is dead in a moral or spiritual sense, is quickened and made
alive; a principle of life is infused, and acts of life are put
forth; such have their spiritual senses, and these in exercise;
they can feel the load and weight of sin; see their lost state
and condition, the odiousness of sin, and the beauty of a
Saviour, the insufficiency of their own righteousness, and the
fulness and suitableness of Christ's; breathe after divine and
spiritual things; speak in prayer to God, and the language of
Canaan to fellow Christians; move towards Christ, exercise grace
on him, act for him, and walk on in him: and this life they have
not from themselves, for previous to it they are dead, and in
this quickening work are entirely passive; nor can regenerate
persons quicken themselves, when in dead and lifeless frames, and
much less unregenerate sinners; but this is God's act, the act of
God the Father; though not exclusive of the Son, who quickens
whom he will; nor of the Spirit, who is the Spirit of life from
Christ; and it is an instance of the exceeding greatness, both of
his power and love; and this may be said to be done with Christ,
because he is the procuring and meritorious cause of it, by his
death and resurrection from the dead; and is the author and
efficient cause of it; and he is the matter of it, it is not so
much the quickened persons that live, as Christ that lives in
them, and it is the same life he himself lives; and because he
lives, they shall live also; it is in him as in the fountain, and
in them as in the stream: or else this may be understood of
justification; men are dead in a legal sense, and on account of
sin, are under the sentence of death; though they naturally think
themselves alive, and in a good state; but when the Spirit of God
comes, he strikes dead all their hopes of life by a covenant of
works; not merely by letting in the terrors of the law upon the
conscience, but by showing the spirituality of it, and the
exceeding sinfulness of sin; and how incapable they are of
satisfying the law, for the transgressions of it; and then he
works faith in them, whereby they revive and live; they see
pardon and righteousness in Christ, and pray for the one, and
plead the other; and also lay hold and live upon the
righteousness of Christ, when the Spirit seals up the pardon of
their sins to them, and passes the sentence of justification on
them, and so they reckon themselves alive unto God; and this is
the justification of life, the Scripture speaks of; and this is
in consequence of their being quickened with Christ, at the time
of his resurrection; for when he rose from the dead, they rose
with him; when he was justified, they were justified in him; and
in this sense when he was quickened, they were quickened with
him:
by grace ye are saved:
the Claromontane copy and the Vulgate Latin version read, "by
whose grace"; and the Arabic and Ethiopic versions, "by his
grace"; either by the grace of him that quickens, or by the grace
of Christ with whom they were quickened; the Syriac version
renders it, "by his grace he hath redeemed us"; which seems to
refer to the redeeming grace of Christ; and so the Ethiopic
version, "and hath delivered us by his grace"; and there is a
change of the person into "us", which seems more agreeable to
what goes before, and follows after; (See Gill on Ephesians
2:8).