Book Excerpt: Christ Unites
From Chapter 3: United to Life
What We Were: Spiritually Dead
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sin in which you once walked…” (Ephesians 2:1-2)
Paul prayed for the Ephesian church — and us — to know three things. He longed for us to know the hope of our calling, the riches of our inheritance, and the immeasurable power of God toward us who believe.
It was his third prayer, that we would understand God’s power toward us, that Paul felt most strongly about. He expanded upon the concept of God's power by telling of the resurrection power God released upon His Son, followed by the influential position Christ currently holds as the head of His church. He wants to fill all things, and He wants to use His church to do so.
The Power of God Is a Necessity in the Church’s Mission to Fill All Things With Christ
Paul aimed to bring the church into a comprehension of the power of God. We are a new creation in Jesus (1 Corinthians 5:17) and we are His workmanship now dedicated to a life of good works (Ephesians 2:10). God majestically brought us into that state of newness. But for us to appreciate this fresh life, Paul must go back and show us our former depths of despair. He has to teach us about our previous depravity. For him to detail our new unity to life, he must first detail old unity to death.
Paul said that we were a spiritually dead people, dead in the trespasses and sins in which we walked. To trespass is to willingly cross the line, to knowingly disobey. To sin is to miss the mark of God’s perfection. Sometimes willingly, sometimes because of our limitations, we were dead in sin. It killed us, so sin is a kind of suicide. Sin kills our innocence, our reservations, and our will, making us subservient to its desires.
Here, however, Paul is focused not on servitude, but death. Before Christ comes into our hearts, we are spiritually dead. God had told Adam death would be introduced if he ate the fruit. And eat he did, introducing three levels of death into the human race. We most often think of the second type of death — physical death. But we forget spiritual death precedes physical death — and eternal death follows physical death.
Mankind walks around the planet physically alive, but spiritually dead. Jesus said, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead,” a statement which affirms the idea of spiritually dead people walking around in physically alive bodies (Luke 9:60).
Spiritual death is not the only way the Bible describes lost humanity. We are made in the image of God, so even after dying spiritually, there is a shadow of God's image in us. We should expect to see kindness and innovation and care flow from humanity, but before Christ, the dominant state of a person is spiritual death. And, like physical death, over time our spiritual death leads to decay.
If people are not awakened to Christ and His gospel, the sins of their society will erode and enslave, growing into dominance. Only Christ can stop this downward cycle, bringing life through the new birth. His salvation snatches us from the clutches of sin’s slavery, but also sin’s death.
What We Were: Followers
“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…” (Ephesians 2:2-3)
When thinking of the old life of spiritual deadness, believers might recall a life of originality. You might think you did what you wanted, you called the shots. But it would be wrong to think this way, for our past life was not a self-willed one. Instead, Paul shows us we were all followers.
Again, Christ has made a way of escape and believers have experienced that rescue. We are no longer spiritually dead, and we are no longer hopeless followers. But what had we followed?
First, he tells us we were followers of the course of this world. In our old life, we lived exactly like the rest of the present age. Paul does not mean that we followed the people of the earth, but an organized system against God. This world system hates and opposes all that is of the true God, taking shape in ideologies or philosophies where He is pushed to the side. The age will promote views and politics and agendas and philosophies which compete with one another, but their commonality is that they push God and His gospel to the side.
This godless wave of a system is seen first at the tower of Babel, again at Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, and finally at the final judgment of Christ. It longs for humanity to be one, but without God and His Christ. There is no room for dissent in this system. Believers and their gospel must be pushed to the side.
Second, we were followers of the prince of the power of the air, Satan himself. For some, this means a knowing and direct allegiance to Satan, but for most this points to unrealized obedience to his plans and desires. The whole world lies under his power (1 John 5:19) and he has blinded the minds of unbelievers (2 Corinthians 4:4). He shapes the atmosphere humanity lives within, and believers used to swim in the current he influenced.
Third, we were followers of the passions of our flesh, the desires of the body and mind. In our old life, we were at the mercy of our sinful desires. Sin always takes God-given desires and perverts them, eventually enslaving us to the perversion.
Sin takes our hunger for food and makes us gluttonous or greedy or consumed with self-consciousness which would restrict us.
Sin takes our desire for rest and makes us lazy and unwilling to work, or sleepless and marginless, pridefully believing ourselves stronger than the weaklings who need rest.
Sin takes our desire for sex and moves it out of marriage and into reckless passion or ashamed fear.
Sin takes God-given, natural desires and twists them until all that is left is a slavemaster driving humanity further into depravity, for we are all born under sin (Romans 3:9).
Paul makes it abundantly clear: we were followers and could only exist as followers before Christ's glorious gospel came to us via the love of God. We are no longer to be followers of the age, of Satan or passions. Christ has set us free to follow Him.