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.