The Walking Dead

Over the next few weeks, one of the (recently graduated) high school seniors that I mentor will be joining me in a project to exegetically break down the second chapter of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. I'm eager for you all to read Chase's writing. He has been given a special gift in communication. I can't wait to see how he refines it as we go through the chapter. You'll hear from Chase next time, but today, I'm going to focus in on Ephesians 2:1-3.

Paul writes:  "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." (ESV)

Although these verses talk about death, they should be viewed as extremely comforting to the believer. Notice that Paul is writing to his audience in the past tense. He refers to a previous life. The believer is no longer dead in their sin. They no longer follow the prince of the power of the air. They no longer are enslaved to the passions of the flesh. They are no longer children of wrath! But, if this is a past time of life, and we no longer are subject to the hold of sin; if we are no longer dead, why would Paul even bother to bring it up? The idea of being dead in our sins has huge implications on the story of the gospel.

When sin entered into the world, all of humanity, all creation was fractured. Instantly, there was separation between God and man. Man was no longer able to have a perfect relationship with the Lord, because man was no longer holy. In Genesis 2:3, Eve responds to the serpent's temptation to eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil by stating that they were told they would "surely die" from eating the fruit. While this isn't exactly what God said to them when he established this command, I do believe there is truth to what Eve has said. In pursuing the desire to be as knowledgeable as God, Adam and Eve experienced a terrible death. Not physically, obviously, because they continued to breathe and move and live. However, their death was absolutely spiritual, and that is definitely worse.

Have you ever seen a movie during which one of the characters attempts to have a conversation with a dead person? Usually this will happen right after the person has died, and often their loved one is holding their body and will tell them how much they love them. There's one thing we can always be certain will happen when the living try to talk to the dead: the dead won't respond. They can't respond to sound, smell, sight, touch, etc. If someone has died, they are no longer able to move around or to laugh or to react to anything. It is obviously not a good state to be in.

Spiritually, this is who we all were before Christ. Because "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), we know that our sinfulness causes our death. Now, we do not begin our lives spiritually alive, and then become dead once we sin. No, we are dead from conception. David writes in Psalm 51 that "in sin [his] mother conceived" him. We are still physically alive, but we are like the walking dead. We cannot react to the things of spirituality. We are unable to do anything on our own to repair the fracture in our relationship with God. He must save; He must rescue us.

These first three verses of Ephesians chapter two sum up how we all once lived. There are no exceptions to the death that sin brings. Each word is essential to the next verses, because we must first understand sin and our death-like spiritual state before we can ever begin to talk about the rest of the Gospel.

Fortunately, there is good news! Chase will be looking at the life that we now have as believers after we've been justified by the blood of Christ.