Dead in Sin, Alive in Christ

I know it’s been a while since we’ve been together but luckily we aren’t in the middle of a chapter, we are starting Ephesians 2 and we are going to look at the first 7 verses. Let’s pray and then we can go ahead and dive in.

Ephesians 2:1–7 NASB95

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 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. 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. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For the Gentile

What I want us to notice first is who Paul is talking to in the first 2 verses. Paul starts by saying “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked.” At this point, Paul is addressing Gentiles in the Ephesian church. Now the way that Ephesians 1 ends, is with this great declaration of the sovereignty of Jesus. Paul talked about how God the Father raised Christ from the dead and Christ is seated above all rule, authority, power, and dominion. Everything is under His subjection and He is the head over all things to the church. So when we get to Ephesians 2:1, we see this contrast between a living and reigning savior and spiritually dead sinners. It’s like Paul takes the air out of the room by contrasting the majesty of Jesus with the depravity of sinful men and women. Paul is calling the Gentile believers out and by saying you walked like the world, you lived your life for yourself and were lead by the prince of the power of the air, Satan. The spirit that worked in you is the same spirit that works in all unbelievers, in some ways, you weren’t special. You weren’t more deserving than any others. You were dead and sin and we were too. One of the things that I love about Ephesians 2 is that it really gets to the core of the issue. Pretty much any time that I preach at a camp or give a really evangelistic talk, I spend some time in Ephesians 2 because dead people don’t know that they are dead. Spiritually dead people don’t understand the extent of their situation unless God reveals it to them. I share this all the time, Francis Schaeffer, one of my favorite apologists was once asked how he would share the gospel with someone if he only had 1 hour to do it and he said that he would spend 45 minutes telling them the bad news and only 15 minutes on the good news. If you tell someone that they need to be saved, they probably have no idea what you are talking about because they do not recognize what they need to be saved from. Paul tells us in verse 1, we need to be saved from spiritual death and the judgement that is due to our trespasses and sins.

For the Jew

Next, it is important for us to see that Paul in verse 3 does not exult in his Jewish lineage but he recognizes that the Jew as well as the Gentile are all in the same boat. He says in verse 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. The Jews were in just as much need of a Savior as the Gentiles and they needed to be saved from the same thing. John Piper summarizes the situation like this: We were sick unto death with sin. We were sabotaged by Satan. We were sentenced to hell. Paul is saying that every single one of us lived according to the lusts of our flesh and the desires of our mind. All of us were born not children of God but children of wrath. This is why you do not need to teach children how to sin, it is the natural setting of all of us to sin. So in some ways, even now as Christians, we still have that influence of the old nature still hanging around us. In what ways can we recognize the 'spirit of disobedience' working in our own lives? I know for me that there are so many times where I see old behaviors, old sins come up that I’m like, “Come on dude, you’ve been here before, why do you keep coming back.” It is part of that spiritual struggle that Paul talks about in Romans 7 I think. Paul says in Romans 7:15-19

Romans 7:15–19 NASB95

For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.

That’s the daily struggle for believers, we know what we should do but we don’t always do it and the things that we do, we don’t really want to. But in someways that can be encouraging because the unbeliever doesn’t struggle in that way because they live in the lusts of their flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind.

What does God do?

So what does God do about this? Ephesians 2:4-6

Ephesians 2:4–6 NASB95

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

As Martyn Lloyd-Jones would say, thank God for the buts in the Bible. In light of the bad that we do, in light of the deadness of our hearts, God who is rich in mercy loves us and makes us alive together with Christ. I love how John Stott summarizes this:

The Message of Ephesians 2. Man by Grace, or the Divine Compassion (2:4–10)

But God … These two monosyllables set against the desperate condition of fallen mankind the gracious initiative and sovereign action of God. We were the objects of his wrath, but God, out of the great love with which he loved us had mercy upon us. We were dead, and dead men do not rise, but God made us alive with Christ. We were slaves, in a situation of dishonour and powerlessness, but God has raised us with Christ and set us at his own right hand, in a position of honour and power. Thus God has taken action to reverse our condition in sin. It is essential to hold both parts of this contrast together, namely what we are by nature and what we are by grace, the human condition and the divine compassion, God’s wrath and God’s love.

So stop and meditate for a minute on that great contrast between what we were and what God makes us to be. Nothing in our hands we bring, simply to the cross we cling right?

Why does He do it?

Last thing that we will talk about is why does God do this? Why does God show such great mercy to undeserving, spiritually lost and dead sinners? Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:7 “so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” God does this so that for ages to come, for all eternity, the surpassing riches of His grace would be proclaimed and seen. He does it all for His glory. Charles Spurgeon said,

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. XXVIII The Exceeding Riches of Grace (No. 1,665)

When all the saints shall be gathered home they shall still talk and speak of the wonders of Jehovah’s love in Christ Jesus, and in the golden streets they shall stand up and tell what the Lord has done for them to listening crowds of angels, and principalities, and powers.

This is what we should be talking about now, this is what we should be proclaiming now. The 21st century church is evidence of what Paul writes about in this chapter. For ages, God has shown His grace through Christ and brought dead sinners to salvation and that is an encouraging thought. That’s everything that I’ve got, what jumps out to you all?

How does Paul's explanation of grace in Ephesians 2 challenge common perceptions of deserving salvation?

In light of Romans 7, how can you find encouragement in your own struggles against sin?