man. Having explained in verse 4 that God saves because of his own free mercy and love, Paul reiterates the fact that God does not save humans because they are improving themselves. Rather, resuming the thought of verse 1, Paul prefaces the statement about what God did with the words “even when we were dead in our trespasses” (2:5). Then the next phrase explains what God did to save these people who were dead in sin: he “made us alive together with Christ” (2:5). This is regeneration. Dead people