Prison Epistles (Lesson 5)

Ephesians 2

vs 1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins

Verses one to three show our situation with God before becoming Christians.

“And you”

The “you” here refers to Ephesian believers. Paul was about to describe their spiritual history.

“He made alive”

The words “He made alive” are in italics, indicating that they do not occur in the Greek text; they are, however, found in verse five.

Translators supply these words to help us understand the context of the statements found in verses one through three.

So lets concentrate on the phrase “made alive”

“Made alive” is to come alive spiritually. God imparts divine life by regeneration at the point of our being born again.

“who were dead”

Unregenerate people are spiritually dead to God.

They are alienated from the life of God.

Non-Christians are living corpses before God.

Spiritual death is not extinction of being but separation from the life of God.

God says that as non-Christians we were dead, not sick.

Question 1. Where we dead in our sin or just sick?

“trespasses and sins.”

The is the sphere of non-Christians as apposed to the Grace that believers live in.

We were not dead because we committed acts of sin but because we were “in” sin.

We do not become cheaters because we cheat; we cheat because we are cheaters.

Commission of sins does not make us sinners; we sin because we are sinners.

A trespass is a transgression, a deviation from the direction God wants us to go. It is to step across God’s clear boundaries set forth in His Word.

“Sin” means to miss the mark here in this passage. The idea is to fall short of God’s standards. Sin is the failure to measure up to the glory of God.

This does not mean that all men are equally corrupt but that all men equally fail to measure up to a perfect God.

Question 2. One definition of sin is “To miss the _____.”

vs 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,

Verses two and three show how people operate in their non-Christian condition.

“in which you once walked”

“In which” indicates that the Ephesians once walked in the sphere of transgressions and sins. This was the sphere of their behavior. The idea of dead men walking is incongruous to us, but to God it is clear.

The word “walked” comes from two words—to walk and around. The idea is to live as a course of life. The course of life as non-believers is to live in transgressions and sins.

“according to the course of this world”

Unbelievers follow the standards of this world system, which are alien to God. The word “course” connotes ideas of thoughts, maxims, aims, aspirations, or hopes of the present value system.

The “world” is the fundamental belief systems of unbelievers, the atmosphere of values that they hold.

The word “world” carries the idea of viewpoint.

“according to the prince of the power of the air”

Satan is the “prince” or god who is over the power of the air.

The “power of the air” is Satan’s world system, his philosophy of life, which includes religion and righteousness without God as well as sin.

There is a principle that is busily at work presently among unbelievers. Satan controls or dominates non-Christians by worldview.

Question 3. Who is currently the ruler of the area around earth?

“Works”

This word in the New Testament is always used for supernatural power.

Satan works supernaturally by offering compelling attraction to his system of thinking.

“Spirit”

Non-Christians are not necessarily controlled directly by Satan, but they are on his wavelength; they are tuned to his philosophy and values.

“Sons of disobedience”

These are non-Christians. They are characterized by rebellion against God in a tyranny of darkness; they are not merely neutral toward Him.

“Disobedience”

This indicates that those in the satanic worldview are unpersuadable, non-compliant to God.

vs 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

“among whom”

The “whom” here refers to unbelievers who carried the negative volition of the previous verse. They were not open to persuasion about the truthfulness of Christianity.

“also we all once conducted [behaved] ourselves”

Our previous non-Christian experience had a way of life, a philosophy of life, behind it. There was a time when we ordered our lives by negative volition toward God.

“in the lusts of our flesh"

“Lusts” here is broader than sexual lusts. The word includes any kind of illicit desire.

Our “flesh” is our sin capacity as compared to individual sins. It is the source of sinning, the factory that produces sin or anything alien to God. The flesh can present itself in both respectable and disreputable manners.

“fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind”

Non-Christians carry out cravings of their sin capacity and their mind.

“Flesh” does not refer to our physical bodies but to a nature within us that is alien to all that God represents.

The sin capacity never improves; it is just as sinful 20 years after we received Christ as the day we believed in Him.

The pull of our sin capacity will always be there. We have a new nature and it is incapable of sinning.

The “mind” indicates that, as non-Christians, we went further than the blind impulses of our sin capacity. Our sin was more than overt; it lay hidden in the mind.

“and were by nature children of wrath”

We once functioned in our sin capacity, our unregenerate state.

“Nature” is our fundamental constitution. It makes us do what comes naturally. Because of this we were objects of God’s wrath from childhood.

“Children” indicates we were born into “wrath.” Wrath is God’s antagonism toward Satan’s offspring.

“just as the others”

All of mankind is in a state of wrath before God. What is true in some unbelievers is true in all unbelievers.

Question 4. Describe our Nature before Christ.

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

Verses one to three describe our horrible past, verses four to six demonstrate our blessed present status with God, and verse seven shows how God will display His magnificent grace in succeeding generations.

4 But God

Having stated that we were the “children of wrath” in the previous verse, Paul here made a right turn statement

“But God.”

These words are a sharp turn from the first three verses.

There was a time when we were hopeless before God; we were dead spiritually, but God stepped in and saved us by Christ. Everything changed because of who God is in His character and what He did to save our souls.

Against the hopelessness of the non-Christian, God radically directed His authority toward man by the exercise of four attributes or actions toward us in verses 4-7.

Mercy

Love

Grace

Kindness

“who is rich in mercy"

The Bible describes God as a person of “mercy.”

Mercy is God’s undeserved grace toward the sinner.

God is “rich” in this kind of mercy. “Rich” means wealthy, abundant in resources. God is very wealthy when it comes to His mercy.

“because of His great love with which He loved us”

God’s mercy stems from His “great love” for sinners.

Both words for love here refer to God’s one-way love for us. He loves us whether we reciprocate or not. He loves out of His capacity, not on the basis of our response to His love. God’s love is not conditioned on our love for Him.

Love is more than compassion. Love is active generosity. God is in common cause with the objects of His love. He interposes into the dire situation of sinful man to rescue him from his desperate state.

Question 5: Describe a story in the Bible that displays God’s mercy.