You were dead in the trespasses and sins
Wed, 22 March, 2006: Today’s Bible readings.
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 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– 3 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. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2 is an amazing chapter. Paul tells us so much just in the ten verses we have listed here. We could be kept busy thinkin about this for quite some time. But we will just think about one small part of what Paul tells us here. Paul tells us the effects of Original Sin upon us. We are all born spiritually dead.
What do we learn from this?
All of us come into this world spiritually dead. In our natural condition, we are dead in our trespasses and sins. We aren’t sick. We aren’t impaired, or disabled. We don’t need something to help us get better. We don’t need to be rescued. We don’t need to do something that will fix or cure ourselves. When you’re dead, there is nothing that can help you. There is no fix or cure for being dead. You can’t make yourself better.
The only solution to our problem of being dead is for God to make us alive. We don’t do that to ourselves. God must do it. We are no more able to make ourselves alive than Lazarus was able to bring himself back from death. We can only come to life spiritually as God works within us to give us spiritual life. Just as Jesus called Lazarus to life again, so God must call us to life, or we will remain spiritually in the tomb.
Where is Christ in this passage?
God has made us alive together with Christ. Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for the sins of all of His people, and then He was raised again to life. And in our spiritual resurrection, we are joined together with Jesus Christ, our Substitute and Savior.
