![]() ![]() ![]() In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.Ī. “Before God we are both rebels and failures.” (Stott) Trespasses speaks of man as a rebel, sins speaks of man as a failure. The idea behind the word sins is that we have missed a mark, the perfect standards of God. In trespasses and sins: The idea behind the word trespasses is that we have crossed a line, challenging God’s boundaries. So the Spirit and Word work upon us still as men by rational motives, setting before us life and good, death and evil.”Ĭ. As the Puritan John Trapp wrote, “Howbeit, the natural man, though he be theologically dead, yet is ethically alive, being to be wrought upon by arguments hence Hosea 11:4, ‘I drew them by the cords of a man,’ that is, by reason and motives of love, befitting the nature of a man. We need not look for evidence of regeneration before we tell men to believe and be saved. Therefore, it is valid to appeal to all men to believe. Therefore, in some ways the unregenerate man is dead in other ways he is not. Under the power of darkness ( Colossians 1:13). It is an err because the Bible uses many different pictures to describe the state of the unsaved man, saying he is:Īn alien, a stranger, a foreigner ( Ephesians 2:12, 2:19). We err if we think that dead in trespasses and sins says everything about man’s lost condition. ![]() This takes this particular description further than intended, to say that unredeemed man is exactly like a dead man, because a dead man also cannot sin. This touches on one of the most controversial areas in theology - in what manner, and to what extent, is a person dead before conversion? Must a person be converted before he can believe, or can there be a prior work of God to instill faith that is still short of conversion? Those who argue that man must be regenerated before he can believe like to say that a dead man cannot believe. “The most vital part of man’s personality - the spirit - is dead to the most important factor in life - God.” (Wood) “Not in a moral sense, nor a mental sense, but in a spiritual sense, poor humanity is dead, and so the word of God again and again most positively describes it.” (Spurgeon) Yet it is a real death, a “dead death” nonetheless. To be spiritually dead does not mean that we are physically dead, socially dead, or psychologically dead. A being might be alive in one sense but dead in another. There are many kinds of life: vegetable life, animal life, mental life, moral life, and spiritual life. Who were dead in trespasses and sins: Though Christians are now alive, they must never forget where they came from. Now Paul considers what the implications of Jesus’ resurrection power are for our life.ī. Paul ended the last chapter by considering that the ultimate example of God’s power was the resurrection of Jesus. Paul wrote to believers who were made alive by God’s work. And you He made alive: The words He made alive are in italics, which indicates that they are added to the text but implied from the context. ( Ephesians 2:1) Christians are alive from the dead.Īnd you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,Ī. ![]()
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