Ephesians 2:1-3
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 inthe sons of disobedience— 3among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the bodyand the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
I think the first 3 verses of Ephesians 2 is one of the most controversial and straight forward description of the Scripture on the nature of man. Some would get really offended if they read this not because they are not the same as the ones being described in this verses but because of the current philosophies that are being taught in our world.
There are 3 schools of thought when it comes to human morality and standing with with God being espoused in the world today. The first group says MAN IS INNATELY GOOD. This is what we call humanism. Most of the so callled feel good movies teaches this. There is some goodness in a man. The human spirit prevails. Man can be good even without God.
Humanistic teachings sounds noble but who are we kidding. If man is inherently good, why do we lock our car doors in the parking lot even when we would just leave the car for 5 minutes. Why would there be multiple locks in our homes when we consider our home a refuge. When people ask if God is good, why is there evil in the world – well Ephesians 2:1-3 is the answer.
The second school of thought is that man is just spiritually sick in need of medicine and that medicine is Jesus. We are not totally bad or sinful and we just need Christ. I grew up with this kind of theology. I thought I was just spiritually sick in need of a fix. I saw the Scripture as God’s program to make bad people good.
But if you study the book of Romans and the book of Ephesians you would see that man is not good, nor sick but we are dead.
Ephesians 2:1-3
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 inthe sons of disobedience— 3among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the bodyand the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
The Scripture uses the word dead in our sin. We are by nature dead and incapable to respond and we need a power way beyond us to help us. We are not sick, we are dead.
The Greek word used for the word death means DOUBLE DEAD or what we Filipinos call BOTCHA.
Not only are we dead in our sin but the Scripture calls us SONS OF DISOBEDIENCE who follows the Prince of the Air – Satan. That means if given a choice we would follow Satan and not God.
And lastly we are described as by nature children of wrath.
Nature is who we are. We are by nature sinners and sinful. If free to choose God or sin we choose sin. In order for us to choose God, we must want God and it would require a higher power for us to want God.
Romans 1:18-20
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
In a nutshell: We are hopeless and helpless without Christ. We enter into this world CONDEMNED.
The good news is that Ephesians 2 did not end in verse 3. Check out my blog tomorrow for my notes on verse 4-10 of Ephesians 2.