Ephesians 2
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, [SUP]2 [/SUP]in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. [SUP]3 [/SUP]All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. [SUP]4 [/SUP]But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, [SUP]5 [/SUP]made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. [SUP]6 [/SUP]And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, [SUP]7 [/SUP]in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. [SUP]8 [/SUP]For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— [SUP]9 [/SUP]not by works, so that no one can boast. [SUP]10 [/SUP]For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
"Even when" we are dead in transgressions, as when we are born sinful, as when we are of original sin, God's grace saved us, and this is by no act, or work, or decision, or manifestation of our own, but it is His work alone.
The first lines are as, "here is evidence you are born into sin", "you cannot fix this", "you know you all are this", and "even when" you are this, the focal point, "you are made alive in Christ". Christ's salvation saved us. There is no other way it should be put.
Saying otherwise makes God to be a liar, makes Jesus' sacrifice for naught, tells the Spirit you have some other knowledge or means or capacity it does not have.
God did this, not some literal interpretation from Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus. Not me, not you. God did it.
