Daily Bible Reading 29th September 2024 // Ephesians 2:1-5
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 in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
The implication of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 2:14, quoted at the end of yesterday's Note, is that it is not a question of degree which separates the spiritual and non-spiritual realm. The work of grace in the gospel is not a matter of 'bringing out' what is already there in a man, a sort of uncovering a man's 'better self', and encouraging it to take control. Nor is it a question of 'turning over a new leaf' either, or 'reforming' or 'brushing up one's life'. Paul uses the word 'quickened' in 1, which indicates that it is a matter of imparting or bestowing life, the implanting of something that was not there before, the imparting of the gift of life. And until this takes place, a man remains 'dead in trespasses and sins'. What is spoken of here is a completely new order of existence, which the New Testament describes as 'the kingdom of God'. And to be there, without this imparting of new life, would be like living in a country where all the money you had was of the wrong currency, with no currency office to exchange what you had, a country where they spoke a language of which you could not understand one word, a country where a scale of values operated that was completely beyond your understanding. It would drive a man mad!
To use a different illustration: think of a man with no ear for music condemned to live in a world of classical music. There is a whole world of wonder and beauty in classical music which a tone-deaf man can never penetrate, and you cannot even begin to describe it to him. How do you describe a tree, or the colours of a sunset, to a man who has been born blind? He has nothing, no apparatus with which to cope with such information. There is a complete inability in him, which no human means can ever overcome. This is an illustration of what it means to be 'dead in trespasses and sins'. A man may be alive enough in physical and mental faculties, but with regard to the one all-important factor, that which was meant to give him his distinctive status, as made in the image of God, he is dead.