Eph 2:1-4 | KingComments | STEP | In chapter 1 you have seen what has been in the heart of God even before the foundation of the world. In chapter 2 you will get a clarification of what God has done with your life here on earth and what your position is in the world. It is not that much about the counsels of God here; that we have learnt in chapter 1. In chapter 2 God shows His grace and power with which He realized His counsels. Only God was able to change the condition in which we lived. In the power of God becomes visible in making alive those who were dead; in we see His power in bringing close to Him those who were far away from Him. . describe the nature of man, what his works are and to which influences he is subjected. Man is dead by nature; he is doing his works (deeds) under the influence of the devil and thereby in disobedience to God. The first verse is connected with of the previous chapter. There it is about the death of Christ in which He has chosen to enter voluntarily. Here it is about our death, where we were, due to our own faults. You stand here at the starting point of your life as a Christian. That starting point is death. Death here means that there is not a single trace of life to be found in human nature that is focused on God. Still there was energy, a certain kind of life. After all, it is said: “In your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked.” However, a life in sin is no life at all, it is death. Every step was made without acknowledging God and was therefore a false step. Every path was taken without asking God if that was the path He wanted you to go and was therefore a wrong path. A good illustration of this you find in the history of the prodigal son in Luke 15. The youngest son is asking his father to give him his share of the inheritance in advance. Then he goes away and squanders all that he owns in a lawless life. You can imagine him very engaged with all kinds of depraved activities. To his father however, he was dead, for what does this father say later? “For this son of mine was dead” ( ). In 1 Peter 4 death is spoken about in the same way: “For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead” ( ). Here also people are included who are actively participating in society, but without focusing on God. Your and my activities were all in the category of ‘trespasses and sins’. ‘Trespasses’ means that a rule that has been given is consciously being trespassed. ‘Sins’ are all deeds that are done without taking account of the authority above us. In 1 John 3 it is put as follows: “Sin is lawlessness” ( ). Lawlessness means that there is no acknowledgment of any authority, whereas God has the highest authority. . That characterized our walk, our whole behavior in the world. This attitude was fully in line with “the course of this world”, that is the elements through which the world is being guided, the character in which the world reveals itself. It is the atmosphere in which the world is plunged and where the goal of men is being determined, whereas God and His thoughts totally remain out of view. God is not only ignored, but all human activities are against Him. Man is adverse and rebellious. Behind this rebellion there is a director who is full of hatred against God and His purposes, “the prince of the power of the air”, that is satan, God’s unchangeable adversary. He fills the whole atmosphere with his unbounded hatred. Every human who is not connected to God breathes in that atmosphere. He wants to obstruct God as much as possible in the achievements of His counsels. Of that spirit of rebellion Job speaks in Job 21: “They say to God, ‘Depart from us! We do not even desire the knowledge of Your ways” ( ; cf. ). The important point is to recognize the source from which all words and deeds come, who is behind it. This ‘spirit’, this demonic mastermind, makes an exceedingly strong couple with “the sons of disobedience”. It is not about ‘children’, but it is said ‘sons’. The word ‘sons’ speaks of maturity, of dealing with understanding. If you just remember , you see that there is about consciously rejecting God. This is the picture that God shows here of you and me; this is how we were and this is how every person still is who does not take account of Him. Nobody is to be excused if he does not know God ( ). In contradiction of what we formerly were, it is said in 1 Peter 1 that we now are “obedient children” ( ) or according to a better rendering “children of obedience”. Here it does not say ‘sons’ because it is about the nature we received, a nature characterized by obedience. You have received the Lord Jesus as your new life. His life was all obedience. If He is now your life then you will not express this life differently than He did. . Unfortunately we are not all the time obedient as children of God. That is because we sometimes give room to our flesh. Then practically we are back for a moment in the same condition where we formerly lived in when we “lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind”. This means that emotion, will and mind were all put into the service of satan. He used (and uses) all of the human’s mind for his evil goal. I suppose I don’t have to say much about ‘the lusts of our flesh’. Everything in this world is about the satisfaction of wants. The world provides in this and maintains itself through it. Television commercials and bill boards along the road cater to it in a shameless way. Also the internet is such a fulfiller of fleshly desires. Everyone who cannot live without it is doing ‘the lusts of his flesh’. The human will is involved here. He consciously makes the choice to do it. A moment may come when it becomes an addiction and that such a person is unresistingly being guided by his lusts. But this is not how it started. The mind also has a part in this. How often did someone fulfill his lusts by first thinking about certain things? If the wrong thinking is not cut short, it will come to a will decision and then to the deed. So all in all it may be clear that people who are dead in trespasses and sins are “by nature children of wrath”. Here they are called ‘children’ and not ‘sons’. It is about the nature, about what characterizes the condition in which such a person lives. Because this is totally without God, it cannot be other than asking for His wrath. God cannot allow a condition that is against His nature. If He works toward a situation in which He will be ‘all in all’ ( ), He shall wipe out in His wrath all who want to prevent that. If that was also for you and me, who “even as the rest” were under God’s wrath, what then has stirred God to let us escape from that and to give us blessings that are far beyond our understanding? That will be made clear in the following verses and our admiration for Who God is will thereby increase more and more. Now read Ephesians 2:1-3 again. Reflection: What are the characteristics of a person who is not a child of God?

‏ Ephesians 2:1-4

Dead in Trespasses and Sins

In chapter 1 you have seen what has been in the heart of God even before the foundation of the world. In chapter 2 you will get a clarification of what God has done with your life here on earth and what your position is in the world. It is not that much about the counsels of God here; that we have learnt in chapter 1. In chapter 2 God shows His grace and power with which He realized His counsels. Only God was able to change the condition in which we lived. In Eph 2:1-10 the power of God becomes visible in making alive those who were dead; in Eph 2:11-22 we see His power in bringing close to Him those who were far away from Him.

Eph 2:1. Eph 2:1-3 describe the nature of man, what his works are and to which influences he is subjected. Man is dead by nature; he is doing his works (deeds) under the influence of the devil and thereby in disobedience to God. The first verse is connected with Eph 2:20 of the previous chapter. There it is about the death of Christ in which He has chosen to enter voluntarily. Here it is about our death, where we were, due to our own faults. You stand here at the starting point of your life as a Christian. That starting point is death. Death here means that there is not a single trace of life to be found in human nature that is focused on God.

Still there was energy, a certain kind of life. After all, it is said: “In your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked.” However, a life in sin is no life at all, it is death. Every step was made without acknowledging God and was therefore a false step. Every path was taken without asking God if that was the path He wanted you to go and was therefore a wrong path.

A good illustration of this you find in the history of the prodigal son in Luke 15. The youngest son is asking his father to give him his share of the inheritance in advance. Then he goes away and squanders all that he owns in a lawless life. You can imagine him very engaged with all kinds of depraved activities. To his father however, he was dead, for what does this father say later? “For this son of mine was dead” (Lk 15:24). In 1 Peter 4 death is spoken about in the same way: “For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead” (1Pet 4:6). Here also people are included who are actively participating in society, but without focusing on God.

Your and my activities were all in the category of ‘trespasses and sins’. ‘Trespasses’ means that a rule that has been given is consciously being trespassed. ‘Sins’ are all deeds that are done without taking account of the authority above us. In 1 John 3 it is put as follows: “Sin is lawlessness” (1Jn 3:4). Lawlessness means that there is no acknowledgment of any authority, whereas God has the highest authority.

Eph 2:2. That characterized our walk, our whole behavior in the world. This attitude was fully in line with “the course of this world”, that is the elements through which the world is being guided, the character in which the world reveals itself. It is the atmosphere in which the world is plunged and where the goal of men is being determined, whereas God and His thoughts totally remain out of view. God is not only ignored, but all human activities are against Him. Man is adverse and rebellious.

Behind this rebellion there is a director who is full of hatred against God and His purposes, “the prince of the power of the air”, that is satan, God’s unchangeable adversary. He fills the whole atmosphere with his unbounded hatred. Every human who is not connected to God breathes in that atmosphere. He wants to obstruct God as much as possible in the achievements of His counsels. Of that spirit of rebellion Job speaks in Job 21: “They say to God, ‘Depart from us! We do not even desire the knowledge of Your ways” (Job 21:14; cf. Job 22:17). The important point is to recognize the source from which all words and deeds come, who is behind it.

This ‘spirit’, this demonic mastermind, makes an exceedingly strong couple with “the sons of disobedience”. It is not about ‘children’, but it is said ‘sons’. The word ‘sons’ speaks of maturity, of dealing with understanding. If you just remember Job 21:14, you see that there is about consciously rejecting God.

This is the picture that God shows here of you and me; this is how we were and this is how every person still is who does not take account of Him. Nobody is to be excused if he does not know God (Rom 1:18-21). In contradiction of what we formerly were, it is said in 1 Peter 1 that we now are “obedient children” (1Pet 1:14) or according to a better rendering “children of obedience”. Here it does not say ‘sons’ because it is about the nature we received, a nature characterized by obedience. You have received the Lord Jesus as your new life. His life was all obedience. If He is now your life then you will not express this life differently than He did.

Eph 2:3. Unfortunately we are not all the time obedient as children of God. That is because we sometimes give room to our flesh. Then practically we are back for a moment in the same condition where we formerly lived in when we “lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind”. This means that emotion, will and mind were all put into the service of satan. He used (and uses) all of the human’s mind for his evil goal.

I suppose I don’t have to say much about ‘the lusts of our flesh’. Everything in this world is about the satisfaction of wants. The world provides in this and maintains itself through it. Television commercials and bill boards along the road cater to it in a shameless way. Also the internet is such a fulfiller of fleshly desires. Everyone who cannot live without it is doing ‘the lusts of his flesh’. The human will is involved here. He consciously makes the choice to do it. A moment may come when it becomes an addiction and that such a person is unresistingly being guided by his lusts. But this is not how it started.

The mind also has a part in this. How often did someone fulfill his lusts by first thinking about certain things? If the wrong thinking is not cut short, it will come to a will decision and then to the deed.

So all in all it may be clear that people who are dead in trespasses and sins are “by nature children of wrath”. Here they are called ‘children’ and not ‘sons’. It is about the nature, about what characterizes the condition in which such a person lives. Because this is totally without God, it cannot be other than asking for His wrath. God cannot allow a condition that is against His nature. If He works toward a situation in which He will be ‘all in all’ (1Cor 15:28), He shall wipe out in His wrath all who want to prevent that.

If that was also for you and me, who “even as the rest” were under God’s wrath, what then has stirred God to let us escape from that and to give us blessings that are far beyond our understanding? That will be made clear in the following verses and our admiration for Who God is will thereby increase more and more.

Now read Ephesians 2:1-3 again.

Reflection: What are the characteristics of a person who is not a child of God?

God, Rich in Mercy

Eph 2:4. In Eph 2:1-3 you have seen what the human nature is – dead, without any connection to God – and how he acts by his nature. This all is subjected to the wrath of God and is therefore the only prospect for man. We cannot imagine a view that is more hopeless than this. And then come those hopeful and shining words “but God”. These words bring a mind-blowing transformation in the desperate situation of a person and open a source of blessing which is beyond our thinking.

You’re going to see what the nature of God is and how He acts by His nature. In Romans 5 and Titus 3 you also read these words “but God” (Rom 5:8; Tit 3:4). There also these words are an introduction on what God has done and contrast sharply with what man is and has done.

In our verse God has not acted or God doesn’t act because we are so desperate. The first thing is not our misery or need. No, God is operating from Who He is and therefore His whole glory is being revealed. In what God is doing here, He alone is in action. Nothing is demanded from man; there is even no appeal for conversion. After all, how could a dead person hear anything, not to mention that he would be able to accede to any appeal?

Surely, man is called to repent and is held responsible to heed that call. That side of the truth you find in the letter to the Romans. In the letter to the Ephesians everything comes from God. God is love, and mercy comes from His love. God is rich in mercy. How rich He is in mercy you can see if you think of the desperate and miserable situation as it is pictured in Eph 2:1-3. In His great mercy God has bent down to you and raised you from that situation. In Ezekiel 16 we see a good illustration of that (Eze 16:1-14).

As already said, this action of God is based on “His great love”. Love goes a lot further than mercy. Mercy has to do with the misery in which a person is found. Love is above everything and apart from everything. God is love. That He was also when sin was not there yet and therefore there was no reason to show mercy. Then He had this thought to bless people with such wonderful, eternal and heavenly blessings that are only to be found in the mind of an almighty God.

When He wants to bless them, He finds them in a situation of the Eph 2:1-3. (It is important always to bear in mind that this is the background of God’s action.) Is God embarrassed by this situation? That is impossible. God would not be God if He would not use the situation, exactly to let shine “His great love with which He loved us”.

The expression ‘with which He loved us’ appears also in John 17 (Jn 17:26). Doesn’t it impress you that the expression there refers to the love of the Father for the Son? You see there that God loves us with the same love with which He loves the Son. This makes it clear once again that it is about an eternal love.

These are all actions out of God’s great love. You see how everything that God did to us, is associated with what He did to Christ. God’s great love we see exactly in the fact that He not only had compassion for dead sinners to whom He has shown His mercy, but that He also wanted us to be partakers in everything that belongs to the inheritance of His beloved Son!

This is quite a lot more than that only our sins would have been forgiven, isn’t it? Surely that would have been great on its own. And it would have been totally wonderful if He would have brought us back to paradise. But in connection with Christ God goes beyond all limits. To recognize this is the greatest revelation we could have after our conversion.

Eph 2:5. Think about it. The first step in the unfolding of His great love is that He made us “when we were dead in our transgressions … alive together with Christ”. This was the first thing that was necessary for us. It is clear that this step was needed to be taken by God. The same applies for the steps that follow after the first one, that these were made by God in order to bring us where He wanted us, according to His counsel. Receiving a new life, a new nature, stands in contrast to the depraved nature that characterized us in the past.

It is also not only said that we are made alive; that also can be said of the believers in the Old Testament. Not a single man will ever enter God’s kingdom without having been made alive, which means without having life from God. However, only of the believers that belong to the church, can it be said that they are made alive “together with Christ”.

Through our connection with Christ God gave us life that went through death. The life we received is resurrection life. The life that every child of God received who lives after the death on the cross, the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord Jesus, is the life of the risen and ascended Christ.

Before Paul continues to describe God’s actions, we read the words “by grace you have been saved”. This emphasizes how lovingly God dealt toward us, who had entirely no right or capacity to deserve God’s favor in any way.

Eph 2:6. Also the second step to God’s purpose is taken by Him: He “raised us up with Him”. This step is closely related to the previous one; they are also very similar, yet there is a difference. The words ‘made alive’ are about a change in our condition. We were dead and have received new life. The words ‘raised up’ are about a change in our position, the area in which we are. We were in the world, the area of death. When Christ was raised up from the dead, He also came into another area and He had nothing to do anymore with the world before His death and resurrection. The problem of sin was solved.

What God did to Him, He also did to us. Because we are raised up together with Christ, we also are no longer in the world the same way we were in the time before we were made alive. We now breathe in the atmosphere of life. And still that is not the end of God’s dealings with us.

The third step is that He has “seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus”. You don’t read here that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, but that we are there in Him. It is said this way because we are not actually there yet. He is there actually, and because the church is one with Him, we are also there. Although you are still on earth with your body, through faith you can accept that you are already in heaven in Christ.

The three steps we paid attention to and in which God showed us His great love, He has taken with a purpose. That purpose is described in the following verse.

Now read Ephesians 2:4-6 again.

Reflection: How did God show His great love in these verses? Do you know more proofs of that great love?