Ephesians 2:1

Chapter Ephesians 2:1-10. Regeneration of the Ephesians, an Instance of Gratuitous Salvation

1. And youhath he quickened] The construction is broken, and the gap is filled by the inserted verb, inferred from Ephesians 2:5 below, where however "we" has taken the place of "you." Better, perhaps, did He quicken (as R. V.); the Gr. verb in Ephesians 2:5 being the aorist. Ideally, in their slain and risen Lord's triumph, actually, in their spiritual regeneration, "believing on His name," they had definitely received "eternal life." The English reader will remember that in the A. V. "to quicken" means seldom if ever to excite what already lives, but to bring from death to life.

Observe here the great theme of the Church and its Head treated in the special aspect of entrance into the Body by Divine regeneration of persons. For close parallels, though they treat the matter more from the side of Christ's atoning work, cp. Colossians 1:21; Colossians 2:13; passages which, if written shortly before this, may have suggested the form of the opening phrase of this.

who were dead Lit. being dead, "when you were dead;" devoid of spiritual and eternal life; see the next words. Obviously this weighty phrase needs to be read in the light of other truths; such as the existence of spirit, and the full presence of conscience, and of accountability, in the unregenerate. But those truths must not be allowed unduly to tone down this statement, which distinctly teaches that the state of the unregenerate has a true analogy to physical death; and that that analogy on the whole consists in this, that (1) it is a state in which a living principle, necessary for organization, growth and energy, in reference to God and holiness, is entirely lacking; (2) it is a state which has no innate tendency to develope such a principle of life. The principle must come to it altogether ab extra. The latest researches into nature confirm the conviction that dead matterhas absolutely no inner tendency to generate life, which must come into it ab extraif it is to live; a suggestive analogy.

On the doctrine of spiritual death as the state of unregenerate man, cp. ch. Ephesians 5:14; Joh 5:24; 1 John 3:14; 1 John 5:12; and see John 3:3; John 6:53. There are passages where "death" is used as a strong term to denote a comparativelylifeless state of the regenerate soul, needing (if it is to be escaped) not new birth, which is a thing once accomplished, but revival. But this modified sense of "death" must not be allowed to lower the absolute sense in a passage like this, with its peculiar doctrinal emphasis on the contrast of death and life. The state here described is not one of suppressed life, but of absence of life. Cp. 1 Timothy 5:6; Revelation 3:1.

2 Corinthians 5:14, sometimes quoted of spiritual death, is not in point: translate, "then did all die," and interpret of the death, representatively in Christ, of "all" at Calvary.

in trespasses and sins Better, in respect of your trespasses, &c. The Gr. construction is the dative without the preposition "in," (so Colossians 2:13); and indicates conditioning circumstances. What is the distinction between "trespass" and "sin"? It has been held that "trespass" is more of the conception, and "sin" of the act; or again that "trespass" is more of omission, "sin" of commission. But usage forbids any certainty in such inferences. In Ezekiel 18:26 the LXX. use the word paraptôma(trespass) of the sin which the "righteous" commits and in which he dies. Etymologically, it is a fall over;and this may be either over a pebble or over a precipice. In actual usage, however, there is a slight occasional tendency in "trespass" towards a mitigated idea of sin, a "fault," as in Galatians 6:1; and it is possible that we have this here; as if to say, "in every form of evil-doing, whether lighter (trespasses) or heavier (sins)." But it is more probable still that the phrase is used designedly for accumulation's sake alone, without precise distinction; as if to say, "evil-doing, however described."

See Abp. Trench, N. T. Synonyms, under the word ἁμαρτία, &c. And above, note on Ephesians 1:7.