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 [Verse 1-10] the power of God becomes visible in making alive those who were dead; in [Verse 11-22] we see His power in bringing close to Him those who were far away from Him.
[Verse 1]. [Verse 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 [Verse 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” [Luke 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” [1John 3:4]. Lawlessness means that there is no acknowledgment of any authority, whereas God has the highest authority.
[Verse 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.
[Verse 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.
[Verse 1]. [Verse 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 [Verse 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” [Luke 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” [1John 3:4]. Lawlessness means that there is no acknowledgment of any authority, whereas God has the highest authority.
[Verse 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.
[Verse 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.
Verses that belong to this explanation: 1-3
1 And you [hath he quickened], who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
 | Author: Ger de Koning Rank: Author Posted on: 2024-05-03 Source: Title: Ephesians Author: Ger de Koning Copyright: kingcomments.com Note General: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author or the publisher. |
Sin is the death of the soul. A man dead in trespasses and sins has no desire for spiritual pleasures. When we look upon a corpse, it gives an awful feeling. A never-dying spirit is now fled, and has left nothing but the ruins of a man. But if we viewed things aright, we should be far more affected by the thought of a dead soul, a lost, fallen spirit. A state of sin is a state of conformity to this world. Wicked men are slaves to Satan. Satan is the author of that proud, carnal disposition which there is in ungodly men; he rules in the hearts of men. From Scripture it is clear, that whether men have been most prone to sensual or to spiritual wickedness, all men, being naturally children of disobedience, are also by nature children of wrath. What reason have sinners, then, to seek earnestly for that grace which will make them, of children of wrath, children of God and heirs of glory! God’s eternal love or goodwill toward his creatures, is the fountain whence all his mercies flow to us; and that love of God is great love, and that mercy is rich mercy. And every converted sinner is a saved sinner; delivered from sin and wrath. The grace that saves is the free, undeserved goodness and favor of God; and he saves, not by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus. Grace in the soul is a new life in the soul. A regenerated sinner becomes a living soul; he lives a life of holiness, being born of God: he lives, being delivered from the guilt of sin, by pardoning and justifying grace. Sinners roll themselves in the dust; sanctified souls sit in heavenly places, are raised above this world, by Christ’s grace. The goodness of God in converting and saving sinners heretofore, encourages others in after-time, to hope in his grace and mercy. Our faith, our conversion, and our eternal salvation, are not of works, lest any man should boast. These things are not brought to pass by any thing done by us, therefore all boasting is shut out. All is the free gift of God, and the effect of being quickened by his power. It was his purpose, to which he prepared us, by blessing us with the knowledge of his will, and his Holy Spirit producing such a change in us, that we should glorify God by our good conversation, and perseverance in holiness. None can from Scripture abuse this doctrine, or accuse it of any tendency to evil. All who do so, are without excuse.
Verses that belong to this explanation: 1-10
1 And you [hath he quickened], who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised [us] up together, and made [us] sit together in heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in [his] kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
 | Author: Matthew Henry Rank: Priest AD: 1714 Source: Title: Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible Author: Matthew Henry |
We find Him, when he speaks of such as "were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein they had walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, who worketh in the children of disobedience."
 | Author: Tertullian of Carthage Rank: Author AD: 220 |
There is a distinction between the death of the body and the death of the soul. There is no reproach in the death of the body as such and hence no moral danger since there is no reproach. The body’s death is merely a matter of nature, not of choice. This death had its origin in the transgression of the first human being, and thereafter it has had its subsequent effect on nature. Its release will be swift. But the death of the soul is the result of free choice. Hence it entails reproach, from which there is no easy release. It is a much weightier task to heal a deadened soul than to raise a dead body, as Paul has already shown. Yet this is what has now happened, incredible as it may be. .
 | Author: John Chrysostom Rank: Bishop AD: 407 |
There is, we know, a corporal, and there is also a spiritual, dying. Of the first it is no crime to partake, nor is there any peril in it, inasmuch as there is no blame attached to it, for it is a matter of nature, not of deliberate choice. It had its origin in the transgression of the first-created man, and thenceforward in its issue it passed into a nature, and, at all events, will quickly be brought to a termination; whereas this spiritual dying, being a matter of deliberate choice, has criminality, and has no termination. Observe then how Paul, having already shown how exceedingly great a thing it is, in so much that to heal a deadened soul is a far greater thing than to raise the dead, so now again lays it down in all its real greatness. And you, says he when you were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein aforetime ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience. You observe the gentleness of Paul, and how on all occasions he encourages the hearer, not bearing too hard upon him. For whereas he had said, You have arrived at the very last degree of wickedness, (for such is the meaning of becoming dead,) that he may not excessively distress them, (because men are put to shame when their former misdeeds are brought forward, cancelled though they be, and no longer attended with danger,) he gives them, as it were, an accomplice, that it may not be supposed that the work is all their own, and that accomplice a powerful one. And who then is this? The Devil. He does much the same also in the Epistle to the Corinthians, where, after saying, Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, 1 Corinthians 6:9 and after enumerating all the other vices, and adding in conclusion, shall inherit the kingdom of God; he then adds, and such were some of you; he does not say absolutely, you were, but some of you were, that is, thus in some sort were ye. Here the heretics attack us. They tell us that these expressions (prince of all the power of the air, etc.) are used with reference to God, and letting loose their unbridled tongue, they fit these things to God, which belong to the Devil alone. How then are we to put them to silence? By the very words they themselves use; for, if He is righteous, as they themselves allow, and yet has done these things, this is no longer the act of a righteous being, but rather of a being most unrighteous and corrupted; and corrupted God cannot possibly be. Further, why does he call the Devil the prince of the world? Because nearly the whole human race has surrendered itself to him and all are willingly and of deliberate choice his slaves. And to Christ, though He promises unnumbered blessings, not any one so much as gives any heed; while to the Devil, though promising nothing of the sort, but sending them on to hell, all yield themselves. His kingdom then is in this world, and he has, with few exceptions, more subjects and more obedient subjects than God, in consequence of our indolence.
| Author: John Chrysostom Rank: Bishop AD: 407 |
[The Greeks] speak of trespass as the first step toward sin. It is when a secret thought steals in, and, though we offer a measure of collusion, it does not yet drive us on to ruin…. But sin is something else. It is when the collusion is actually completed and reaches its goal. .
 | Author: Jerome Rank: Priest AD: 420 |
Death is understood in two ways. The first is the familiar definition—when the soul is separated from the body at the end of life. The second is that, while abiding in that same body, the soul pursues the desires of the flesh and lives in sin. –.
 | Author: Gaius Marius Victorinus Rank: Author AD: 400 |
The listed verse explanations of the individual persons have nothing to do with the explanations of the other persons. This also applies to the Bible translations.
