Dead in Sin
IT IS A WELL-KNOWN FACT THAT WE HUMAN BEINGS TEND TO GRADE ourselves by our own standards. As many have said, we grade ourselves on the curve; in our eyes we are not that bad; we are always better than the other guy. That is another way of saying that we deceive ourselves, and if it is true that we deceive ourselves, then, truth be told, we are living in the bondage of deception and untruth…
JESUS SAID…
NAS John 8:32 and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
WHAT WE BELIEVE HAS THE POWER TO EITHER SET US FREE OR keep us in bondage. With Jesus’ words in mind, if what we believe is not the truth, we are in bondage, no matter what we tell ourselves. One of my purposes in choosing the book of Ephesians for us to study is because it so clearly lays out the truth for us, the truth about God and the truth about us. Ephesians 2:1-3 has some great truths for us to embrace…
NAS Ephesians 2:1-3 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
“WHAT A PICTURE OF THE LOST SINNER!” – Wiersbe…
PAUL IS DESCRIBING THE CONDITION OF MANKIND APART FROM CHRIST. This is a composite picture of you and me before we were saved…
“DEAD IN SIN”… The Bible says that a person who is not a Christian is “dead in trespasses and sins”…
REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE OUR WORLDLY CULTURE MAY CURRENTLY THINK about spirituality and religion, probably foremost that everyone regardless of belief or deed, will go to heaven when he or she dies, the truth of the Bible is only believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are going to heaven. If you are not in Christ, you are “Dead in Sin”…
CONSIDER FOR A MOMENT JUST HOW POLITICALLY INCORRECT that statement is, how intolerant. The country in which we live, for the most part, refuses to recognize the existence of evil, and it is heard today in a variety of ways that people do not really sin; they just make mistakes in judgment…
YET THE BIBLE SAYS THAT BOTH EVIL AND SIN ARE REALITIES OF OUR WORLD and our human existence…
NAS John 8:32 and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
NAS John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.
HEAR THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE AND ESCAPE THE IMPRISONMENT OF ignorance, superstition, and mental manipulation by the media…
BACK IN CHAPTER ONE, PAUL PRAYED THAT HIS READERS MIGHT BE GIVEN a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of God, and they would be enlightened to know the hope of God’s calling, the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance. In vv. 17-18 of chapter 1, Paul wrote…
NAS Ephesians 1:17-18 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
PAUL ALSO PRAYED THAT HIS READERS WOULD EXPERIENCE GOD’S supernatural power in their lives. Listen carefully and thankfully to Paul’s exalted language in v. 19 of chapter 1…
NAS Ephesians 1:19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might
PAUL THEN PRAISES GOD FOR EXERCISING THAT SAME MIGHTY POWER in raising Christ from the dead and exalting Him to be head over all things for the church.” – O’Brien….Verses 20-23 of chapter 1 read…
NAS Ephesians 1:20-23 (the strength of His might) which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. 22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.
IMAGINE THE GRANDEUR OF BEETHOVEN’S FIFTH SYMPHONY playing loudly and dramatically behind these beautiful, awe-inspiring and inspirational words from Scripture. I have been mentioning Beethoven’s Fifth throughout the blogs based on chapter 1 in a well-intentioned but ultimately, I know, futile attempt to provide a worthy stage for what has to be one of the greatest chapters in all of Scripture. And I am not speaking in exaggeration…
OBVIOUSLY, THE DEATH PAUL IS SPEAKING OF IS SPIRITUAL, NOT PHYSICAL…Unregenerate, unsaved people are, as we well know, very much alive physically…
“SINNERS ARE NOT ONLY DEAD, THEY ARE ENSLAVED BY THE WORLD AND live for its pleasures and fashions. Tell them that this world is under the condemnation of God and is passing away, and they will laugh at you (or maybe sue you for “hate speech” – TAR). They are also enslaved by Satan, who is at work in the lives of unsaved people. This does not mean that he necessarily makes them drunkards or murderers; his usual tactic is to give people false security through self-righteousness. Jesus called the Pharisees ‘children of the devil’ (John 8:44), yet they were religious, upstanding citizens.” – Wiersbe…
THE SWEETEST PERSON YOU KNOW, IF THAT PERSON IS NOT A BELIEVER in Christ, is dead in his or her own sins. “One who is spiritually dead has no communication with God; he is separated from God by his sins.” – Hoehner…
“THE PHRASE ‘IN YOUR TRESPASSES AND SINS’ SHOWS THE SPHERE of the death. This suggests that sin has killed people and that they remain in that state until by grace they are saved.” – Hoehner…
THE GREEK WORD FOR “TRESPASSES” IS παράπτωμα (pa-rahp-to-ma). It is often translated “transgression” as in the NET Bible…
NET Ephesians 2:1 And although you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
παράπτωμα (pa-rahp-to-ma) REFLECTS THE “IMAGERY OF one making a false step so as to lose footing: παράπτωμα (pa-rahp-to-ma) is a violation of moral standards, offense, wrongdoing, sin. – [BDAG]…
THE WORD SHOULD BE SEEN AS A PARALLEL TO SIN, AN ACCOMPANYING WORD that means basically the same thing as sin, rather than something different than sin. The linguistic term for this is “hendiadys”: two nouns connected by and meaning the same thing for purposes of emphasis. The two words used together articulate just how bad the sinner’s situation really is…
“SIN” IS THE GREEK WORD ἁμαρτία (ha-mar-tee-a). It is commonly defined as “missing the mark.” It is a departure from a standard of uprightness, either human or divine. The word has a wide range of meanings in Scripture “ranging from involuntary mistake or unintentional error to serious offenses against a deity. If you go over the posted speed limit on the way home from church, you have sinned; you have missed the mark of a legal standard. More seriously and more biblically, when you break the laws or standards of God, you have sinned…
NAS Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned-
NAS Romans 3:10 as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one;
NAS Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“THOUGH SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT IN THEIR ROOT MEANINGS, ‘TRESPASSES’ AND ‘sins’ are basically synonymous. Both suggest deliberate acts against God and His righteousness and thus failure to live as one should. The plural of these two nouns signifies people’s repetitious involvement in sin and hence their state of unregeneration.” – Hoehner…
“WE ARE BORN BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH; when we reject Christ knowingly after reaching an age of accountability, we become children of disobedience by choice. When we trust Jesus Christ, we become children of God.” – Wiersbe…
WE ARE SINNERS NOT ONLY BECAUSE WE SIN; WE ARE SINNERS ALSO BY NATURE…
THE FIRST THREE VERSES OF CHAPTER 2 ARE NOTABLE IN THE GREEK TEXT in that they do not include a main verb. There is a verb in English – “were” – but not in Greek. In Greek verse 1 begins with a dangling participle (ὄντας [on-tas]). The NET Bible notes makes this comment: “The syntax in Greek for vv. 1–3 constitutes one incomplete sentence, though it seems to have been done intentionally. The dangling participle leaves the readers in suspense while they wait for the solution (in v. 4) to their spiritual dilemma.”…
NEXT WEEK IN A BLOG I’M ENTITLING “ALIVE IN CHRIST,” we will look into the blessed solution for spiritual death…
IN VV. 2-3, WE SEE THE TERRIBLE CONDITION OF V. 1 DELINEATED…
NAS Ephesians 2:2-3 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
“MANKIND’S UNREGENERATE CONDITION IS FURTHER DELINEATED in three ways: (1) The unregenerate follow the ways of this world. Unbelievers follow the lifestyles of other unbelievers; they experience the world’s peer pressure. ‘This world’ is a reference to the world system, the satanically organized system that hates and opposes all that is godly while exalting man.” – Hoehner/TAR…
JOHN, PERHAPS MORE ELOQUENTLY THAN ALL THE WRITERS OF THE N.T., speaks of this world system…
NAS John 15:18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.
NAS 1 John 2:15 Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
“THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR” OR “THE RULER OF THE KINGDOM of the air” is Satan…
NAS 1 John 5:19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
SATAN IS ALSO CALLED “THE GOD (little g) OF THIS AGE”…
NKJ 2 Corinthians 4:4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
IN PASTOR MATT’S SERMONS ON THE BOOK OF REVELATION, we have been studying the Tribulation, the 7-year period that follows the Rapture of the church. “In the middle of the Tribulation Satan will be cast down to the earth, no longer to rule the world or have access to God’s presence.” – Hoehner…
NAS Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
“THE UNSAVED ARE NOW IN THE CLUTCHES OF THIS ‘RULER’ AND FOLLOW him like obedient slaves in his opposition to God.” – Hoehner…
IT IS ONE OF THE GREAT IRONIES OF HISTORY THAT THE UNSAVED MAN who is so concerned about freedom and considers himself to be free is in reality in bondage to Satan, “the prince of the power of the air”…
“’SONS OF DISOBEDIENCE’ IS A SEMITIC IDIOM THAT MEANS ‘people characterized by disobedience.’ A ‘son of disobedience’ is a distinctly disobedient person, a person who repeatedly and willfully disobeys God.” – NET Notes/TAR…
NOTE FINALLY V. 3 OF EPHESIANS 2…
NAS Ephesians 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
THAT IS A SOBERING ASSESSMENT OF WHO WE WERE BEFORE CHRIST…
WE “WERE BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH, EVEN AS THE REST”…
“WERE” IS IN THE IMPERFECT TENSE IN THE GREEK TEXT. The imperfect tense in Greek “speaks of continuous action or state of being in the past. Our totally depraved condition before salvation was a continuous one, from birth on without a cessation of that condition.” – Wuest…
THAT CHILLING TRUTH SHOULD CAUSE US ALL TO WALK HUMBLY BEFORE GOD and in relation to other people, perhaps especially unbelievers…There should be an abiding sense in all Christians of humility toward unbelievers: “There but for the grace of God go I”…
“THE UNBELIEVER NOT ONLY IS UNDER THE PRESSURE OF THE WORLD SYSTEM and Satan’s control but he also enjoys it.” – Hoehner… The unbeliever is not only a slave to Satan, he is a willing slave. Unbelieving man loves his sin…
“EPHESIANS 2:1-3 PRESENTS A HOPELESS PICTURE OF an unregenerate person who deserves nothing but God’s wrath.” – B.K.C.…
BUT, THANKS BE TO GOD, LISTEN TO V. 4, the verse that will begin next week’s blog, Lord willing…
NAS Ephesians 2:4-5 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
“BUT GOD”… Some have called these two words the most beautiful in all the Bible. Yes, without Jesus, we are “Dead in Sin” – “But God” – but because of God love and grace, we are made alive in Christ – Blessed be His precious name!…
NAS John 8:32 and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
I WONDER HOW MANY OF US IN OUR PRAYERS HAVE EVER THANKED GOD FOR telling us the truth – not only about Himself and the world – but ourselves…
THE TRUTH ABOUT OURSELVES HELPS US ESCAPE THE BONDAGE of self-deception…“The truth shall make you free”…
– Professor Thomas A. Rohm
