and *you*, being dead in your offences and sins --
The letter has just described the power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him above everything. Now that same power turns toward the reader. The first thing it says about him is that he was dead. Everything that follows in the chapter rests on that one word.
The word does not mean inactive. The very next verse describes these same people walking.
Ephesians 2:1 describes our state as "dead in trespasses and sins." Remarkably, the next verse goes on to speak of walking in those trespasses and sins. That is because the death spoken of here is death toward God. Those who are dead Godward are very much alive to "the course of this world," and to "the prince of the power of the air," who works in the "children of disobedience." Being dead toward God fits perfectly well with being alive toward the world and the devil. In fact the one springs out of the other… Man is not right. He does not understand that he is not right. He has no desire after God, who is right. In one word, he is dead toward God.
Chapter 2 does not start a new subject. It carries on what chapter 1 said about God's power.
So chapter 2 simply opens with, "And you, who were dead in trespasses and sins." God's power has worked "in Christ … and you." It worked in Christ when He was dead because of our trespasses and sins. It worked in us when we were dead in our own trespasses and sins. His life-giving power in us matches that supreme display which took place in regard to Christ.
One writer sets this letter beside Romans. The two start from different views of the sinner.
In two ways the starting point of Ephesians is completely different from Romans. The starting point in Romans is man's responsibility: he is guilty, all the world is guilty. There are proofs of sin in both Jew and Gentile; Romans looks at man as alive in sins. In Ephesians he is dead in them; a different thought altogether. He is alive in sin in Romans. For that very reason he is dead toward God — not a movement in his heart toward God. After a man is dead he neither speaks, nor moves, nor feels.
This diagnosis also rules out a popular hope about human nature.
See how serious spiritual death is. Many speak without knowing of a divine spark in every man that only needs fanning into a flame. But the Bible calls the sinner "DEAD in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1), and speaks of "being alienated from the life of God" (Eph. 4:18). It presses the need of the new birth even on a religious man like Nicodemus… A man can no more produce his second and spiritual birth than his first and natural birth. No man can give himself life. The power of producing life belongs to God alone.
Nicodemus was a respected religious teacher, and Jesus told him he must be born again.
The verdict is not reserved for the obviously wicked. It covers the person everyone admires.
As dead in sins, we are totally away from God. Do we not know it, dear friends? Take the most respectable, decent man in the world — the things of Christ have no interest for him. He is dead toward God. He may be intelligent, honest and so on, but you never find Christ in his heart. It was just the same with ourselves. It is not a question of hardened criminals; we were dead.
Because the condition is death, the answer cannot come from inside us.
Such were we, whether Jew or Gentile. At one and the same moment we were dead in trespasses and sins and yet active in every kind of evil. Very much alive to everything wrong, yet wholly dead to God. Being dead toward God, we had no point of recovery in ourselves: our only hope lay in Him. So we come to the great words that open verse 4, "But God —"
And what God gives goes past the bare need.
Being "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1), nothing short of being made alive would meet our case. Being made alive was therefore a necessity. But there was no necessity that we should be made alive together with Christ. That is the fruit of God's own purposes in grace.
- Dead — Godward. The death is toward God, not toward sin. A man in this state can be busy, clever and honest, yet make no move toward God.
- Dead — universally. The word covers Jew and Gentile, the criminal and the most decent man alive. No one is merely weak.
- Dead — helplessly. There is no spark to fan; no one can produce his own new birth any more than his first birth.
- Dead — then made alive. Because the case is death, the remedy is life given from outside, by the same power that raised Christ.
- Dead — but God. Verse 1 prepares the way for verse 4; the darker the state, the bigger those two words become.
in which ye once walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience
The apostle has just said his readers were dead in trespasses and sins . Now he describes how those dead people spent their days. In one sentence he names a world with a settled direction, an unseen ruler behind the air, and a spirit still at work in people today.
The verse opens with a puzzle: dead people do not walk. The death of verse 1 points in one direction only.
Ephesians 2:1 sets out our state as "dead in trespasses and sins." Strikingly, the next verse speaks of walking in those trespasses and sins. That is because the death spoken of there is death towards God. Those who are dead toward God are very much alive to "the course of this world," and "the prince of the power of the air," who operates in the sons of disobedience. Being dead towards God fits perfectly with being alive towards the world and the devil. In fact, the one springs out of the other.
"Course" here is not aimless drift. It is the ordinary flow of human life, and Scripture sets another way against it.
"The course of this world" stands in Scripture against "the way of life." To faith it plainly means the ordinary flow of natural human life. It stands in contrast to the way of those who share in the risen Christ. They have ceased to be of the world, though they are still in it as strangers and pilgrims… This verse shows us the true character of the present world by revealing the powers that govern its course.
Walking with it took no effort at all — that was the trouble.
There they were walking according to the course of this world. They floated with the stream, under the powerful and universal influence of Satan. He penetrates everywhere and reigns over everything, like the air, which is his seat.
The title given to this ruler is a picture, and it has a point.
The title, "Prince of the power of the air," was meant to show how his influence spreads through everything. As the air surrounds and penetrates everything, so the devil spreads through the realm of nature… They showed that they were under his power in this way — by their disobedience.
The same picture reaches further — to the very air people breathe.
The expression "prince of the power of the air" shows that giving in to Satan has polluted the very air people live in, as Adam and Eve did. Satan's evil influence has corrupted every area of human life.
If a spirit is at work in people, no one acts alone.
In the light of the Gospel, man is not an independent agent. Whatever is done here below is prompted either by the Spirit of God or by some spirit which is not of God… And Christians do well to remember this. The Holy Spirit testifies to the existence and power of Satan, the ruler of this present world, as clearly and positively as He testifies to the Anointed Captain of Salvation.
Yet Satan's puppets are willing ones.
He is the subtle schemer and they are only his puppets. Men are willing to carry out his schemes, because their hearts are hostile to God.
The phrase names character by family likeness.
Sons are those who reproduce the typical or distinctive traits of their fathers. This sense of representing a parent is often used in moral matters. So the "sons of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2) are those whose conduct displays disobedience as clearly as a son resembles a father.
Verse 2 describes one group; verse 3 widens it to another.
In verses 2 and 3 we again meet the distinction between the Gentile "you" and the Jewish "we." Yet both were active in what was wholly evil. The walk of the Gentile was marked above all by the world and the devil, since they followed false gods, and behind those gods lay the power of demons. The walk of the Jew was marked more by the lusts of the flesh.
For the believer, all of this belongs to the past. So what breaks Satan's hold?
Satan gained his power over men through disobedience. He holds that power over them today because they are still in a state of disobedience. Once obedience to God appears in any one of us, his power over us is broken.
- Dead — the death of verse 1 is toward God only. The same person is alive to the world and the devil, and one state grows out of the other.
- Driven — the world's "course" is its ordinary flow. Behind that flow stands a ruler whose influence spreads like air, into every area of life.
- Dependent — no one acts alone. Either the Spirit of God prompts what a person does, or a spirit that is not of God does — and men go along willingly.
- Displayed — "sons of disobedience" names a family likeness. Disobedience shows in conduct as clearly as a son resembles a father.
- Delivered — Satan gained his hold through disobedience and keeps it the same way. Where obedience to God appears, his power breaks, and the whole description becomes "once."
among whom *we* also all once had our conversation in the lusts of our flesh, doing what the flesh and the thoughts willed to do, and were children, by nature, of wrath, even as the rest
Paul has just described the Gentile world as dead in sin; now he turns and puts himself and his own nation in the same place. Two phrases carry the weight: "the desires of the body and the mind," and "by nature children of wrath."
The pronoun changes in this verse. Up to now the apostle wrote "you," meaning his Gentile readers. Now he says "we," and puts his own nation on the same level:
The Jew, with all his privileges and favours, was not one bit better than the outside Gentile. There may be outward differences, but before God the ruin is complete. … Solemn thought! We should always have delighted in the will of God and done it. But we did not love His way. We preferred our own, indulging our "desires" (or "wills") to the full.
The verse names two sources of desire: the body and the mind. The second is easy to miss, because it looks respectable:
Yet he distinguishes between "the desires (or wills) of the flesh" and "the thoughts." By this he means the cruder tendencies on one side, and the more refined, intellectual workings on the other. Suppose a man devotes himself to science and makes it his object — is this doing the will of God? No. It is the indulgence of the desires of the mind. It is just as much self as in others who give themselves over to the coarser appetites of nature.
The verse puts the mind's desires under the same heading as the body's. One writer explains why you cannot split them into a lower self and a higher one:
Here the desires of the flesh, as distinct from the mind, mean natural interests. The desires of the mind mean his mental powers, which set him apart from the animals. It takes in everything the natural man craves — his desires, tastes as well as lusts. … For the mind is not independent of the flesh; as the mind excites the flesh, so the flesh gives tone to the mind. That is, the higher and the lower qualities of nature influence each other, and both are "the flesh."
Everything before this phrase describes conduct. The phrase itself points somewhere else:
They were children of wrath, even as others, for that is the condition of men. In their nature they are the children of wrath. In their outward privileges the Israelites were the people of God. By nature they were men like others. And notice these words, "by nature." The Spirit is not speaking here of a judgment pronounced by God. He is not speaking of sins committed, or of Israel failing in their relationship to God by falling into idolatry and rebellion. He is not even speaking of their rejecting the Messiah and so cutting themselves off from every resource — though Israel had done all of this.
"Children of wrath" is a family word. It describes what a person inherits, and it points to something in God as well as in man:
The apostle tells us, "we also," Jews — we were walking in the same lusts; and therefore, according to the moral truth of our nature, we were, he says, children of wrath — heirs by nature of the wrath of that God who could not mix Himself up with sin. All were children of wrath. It was what they deserved, according to their nature, which was opposed to God.
Some argue that those God chose were never in this condition. The verse's "like the rest of mankind" rules that out:
Until they believe, all alike are sons of disobedience and children of wrath. That is certain. So the apostle groups himself with the most privileged of mankind, yet declares that "we all once lived in the passions of our flesh … and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." All were alike dead in their offences and their sins. … It is contradictory, unsound, and evil to claim that God's chosen were not dead but alive compared with the rest of men. It is just as wrong to say that faith only showed a life they already had.
The verse is the bottom of the descent. What comes next turns everything:
Notice how this takes in the whole race, both Gentile and Jew — all alike guilty and spiritually dead, all children of wrath. But at this very point divine love declares itself! When we were dead in sins, that is when mercy and love act. God's power makes the soul alive and blesses it beyond all measure.
- Nature, not record. The verse does not stop at sins committed; "by nature" reaches behind conduct to what a person is from birth.
- Nature shows in two ways. The body's cravings and the mind's refined pursuits both count as desires of the flesh. Each one feeds the other.
- Nature levels everyone. Paul sets the religious "we" beside the Gentile "you." Outward privilege changes nothing before God.
- Nature has an heir's portion. Children of wrath means wrath inherited and deserved, from a God who cannot mix Himself with sin.
- Nature meets mercy. Right where the verdict is total, divine love declares itself — acting toward the dead, not the deserving.
but God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love wherewith he loved us,
Verse 4 comes after a dark picture: people dead in sins, with nothing good in them. Then the sentence turns, and everything rests on what God is in Himself.
Two words break the description of ruin. One writer holds them up as the moment hope enters a hopeless case:
We were dead. There was no movement, no pulse of life towards God, no response to His claims or His pleading. And we were not dead only, but dead in sins. Chains bound us, darkness surrounded us. We were not only unresponsive in death; there was the added enmity of sin. Our case was hopeless to all "BUT GOD." How those two words "But God" break into the gloom! And being "rich in mercy," the great love with which He loves us is not a baffled and hopeless love. He has triumphed over death.
One writer defines the word, then points to a familiar roadside scene:
The riches of His mercy come first, and that mercy is the outcome of His great love. Mercy is that compassion that comes down to meet one in his circumstances of need, sorrow or misery. The Samaritan in Luke 10:33 did this. He "came where he was" — a man robbers had attacked and left half dead — and he cared for his needs. What great love has made our Saviour stoop so low to meet us at the very bottom of our hopeless misery.
The verse says mercy, not grace, and one writer refuses to treat the two as the same:
He is "rich in mercy." There is a difference between mercy and grace. Grace is a free gift, but mercy is much more; it speaks of demerit and brings our souls right to the heart of God Himself who has mercy. "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." No claim. Many young Christians have never taken their stand on the ground of mercy. So when something they trusted in breaks down, they are completely lost.
Mercy has a source: the "great love" named in the verse. That love decides how far the blessing goes:
Love is the nature of God, the spring of all His actions, and the source of all our blessings. If God acts according to the love of His heart, only His love can measure the blessing that results. So the question is not what amount of blessing will meet our needs. The question is how high a blessing will satisfy the love of God… God acts, then, "because of His great love", not because of anything that we are.
The love reached us when we were dead in sins. One writer draws out what that says about God:
The source of all our blessing is the heart of God. So it is only in redemption that we can see Him fully revealed. God came on the scene because of what He was as God. And notice the contrast: "even when we were dead in sins." He would have us remember that there was nothing but evil in us, and nothing but good in Him.
One writer draws out why the dark description of man comes first:
We have seen man and his natural condition. Now we are called to consider the One who made him… The fact of man's moral ruin becomes the occasion for displaying the perfection of the Divine character. Helpless sin is the opportunity for rich and saving mercy… What is the great proof here that He is rich in mercy? He loved His people in their natural condition, when they were dead in trespasses and sins. And because He loved them, He did not leave them as they were. He made them alive and gave them everlasting life.
Mercy this free still needs a foundation, and one writer names it:
But God! God now comes in and makes known the riches of His mercy. Yet a righteous, holy God cannot be rich in mercy unless His righteousness is fully met and maintained. His mercy must have His righteousness as its foundation. And this is blessedly the case. He is rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us. He gave His only begotten Son. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. He made full atonement on the cross, and now God can be rich in mercy.
- Ruin — our case was hopeless: nothing but evil in us, nothing but good in Him.
- But God — two words break into the gloom. The dead could not move, so God moved first.
- Mercy — compassion that comes down to where the person is. It weighs demerit, not merit, so no one has a claim.
- Love — mercy's source. Love sets the measure, so the question is not what meets our need but what satisfies His heart.
- Righteousness — mercy this rich still rests on the cross, where God gave His Son and made full atonement.
(we too being dead in offences,) has quickened us with the Christ, (ye are saved by grace,)
Ephesians 2 does not picture us as sick people needing help. It pictures us as dead — so verse 5 says what only God could do: He made us alive together with Christ, and grace is the reason.
Ephesians does not stop to prove that we are guilty. It treats the case as already closed:
In Ephesians the proof of guilt is needless. Man is viewed as so completely dead that it is only the removal of the cloth from off the corpse. So the apostle says, "You He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins." It is not simply, How is a sinner to be forgiven, justified? but "You He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins."
(Older translations read "quickened" where newer ones read "made alive.")
Death is final because the dead cannot answer. That was our state toward God when His love reached us:
Human love can do great things to serve and save the one it loves, as long as life lasts. But when death has done its work, love has reached its end and can do no more. And what is the most tragic, the most oppressive, the most heartbreaking thing in death? It is the unresponsiveness of the dead. Love may plead and agonize for one word from the silent lips — even for one flicker from the still eyelids in answer to its longing. It is all in vain. The silence is absolute, the breach is complete, love is beaten and death is the victor. But it is not so with God's love. His love is GREAT LOVE — greater than death. Our case was hopeless to all "BUT GOD." How wonderfully those two words break into the darkness!
If we were dead, then nothing in the verse can have started with us. Every verb belongs to God:
We were dead, says the apostle — dead in our trespasses and sins. God comes, in His love, to deliver us by His power. There was no good working in us: we were dead in our trespasses and sins. The movement came from Him, praised be His name! He has made us alive; and not only that, He has made us alive together with Christ.
The same act puts Jew and non-Jew in one place:
Jews and Gentiles are found together in the same new position in Christ. Resurrection has put an end to all those distinctions; they have no place in a risen Christ. God has made the one and the other alive with Christ.
The verse does not stop at "made alive." It adds "together with Christ" — and that phrase decides where our life starts:
It is not simply that we are made alive. We are made alive "together with Christ." When it is only the giving of life, as in John 5, Christ is the One who gives it. But Ephesians shows Christ in death, where He had in grace put Himself for us. We were there through sin and disobedience. He came there in grace and obedience. And now, as made alive together with Him, we are, so to speak, raised by God out of His grave.
Our case demanded life. It never demanded this much:
Being "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1), nothing less than being made alive would meet our case. So being made alive was a necessity. Being made alive together with Christ was not. That is the fruit of God's own purpose in grace.
Paul cannot finish his sentence without saying where all this came from. He throws the words in as an aside, and the tense of the verb matters:
His heart seems to overflow as he speaks of God's "rich mercy," His "great love," "the exceeding riches of His grace," and "His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus." In verse 5 he cannot hold back from adding, as a parenthesis, "by grace you have been saved." He writes as if to stress that we owe everything to the precious Saviour by whom "grace came." What happy assurance fills our souls as we consider the greatness of the salvation grace has worked! The verb is in the perfect tense — our salvation is secure and it lasts.
So this letter does not push salvation into the future. It speaks of it as done:
"By grace you have been saved." Salvation, according to this letter, is a present reality. We are as truly saved now as we ever can be. Some of the other letters speak of salvation as future. It is no less certain there. In those letters it comes at the end of our journey, when we shall stand before Christ in glory.
- Dead — Ephesians does not argue guilt; it uncovers a corpse. No response, no movement, no ability to change anything.
- But God — those two words break into the darkness. His love is greater than death, and it moved first, while we could not answer.
- Made alive — nothing less than new life could meet our case, so God gave it.
- With Christ — being made alive was necessary; being made alive with Him, out of His grave, was not. That is God's own purpose in grace.
- By grace — the aside names the source. The perfect tense names the security: already saved, and saved still.