Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Ver. 5. Hath quickened, &c.] The very first stirrings in the womb of grace are precious to God; he blesseth our very buds,Isaiah 44:3, according to the Geneva translation.
Even when we were dead] This is again repeated, because hardly believed. We are apt to conceit better of ourselves than there is cause for, and can hardly be persuaded that we are dead in sins and trespasses, and lie rotting and stinking in the graves of corruption, much worse than Lazarus did after he had lain four days in his sepulchre. We would be sorry but our penny should be as good silver as another's, and are ready, with the Pharisee, to set up our counter for a thousand pound. In fine, a dead woman we say must have four to carry her forth. A man shall have much ado to persuade the merry Greeks of this world, but that they have the only life of it, and that others are dead in comparison of them. Hence this iteration of the blow upon the natural man, to knock him down dead, as it were, to bring him to Paul's pass, Romans 7:9 .