Ephesians 2:1

“And you did He make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins”

“You”: This includes Christians from. Gentile background. in Ephesians 2:3 Paul will include Christians from. Jewish background in the expression “we too”. “When Paul speaks of you, he is speaking of the Gentiles; when he speaks of us he is speaking of the Jews, his fellow countrymen. In this passage he shows how terrible the Christ-less life was for Gentile and for Jew alike (Barclay p. 95). “Did He make alive”: God's great power is also seen in the fact that God can raise men from spiritual death (Ephesians 1:19-20). “When ye were dead”: The Jehovah Witnesses and other groups claim that "death" equals annihilation, but such is not true of physical death (James 2:26) and neither is it true of spiritual death. Death is simply. separation. Sin alienates and separates the human soul from God (Isaiah 2:1). Those dead in sin still had. soul or spirit (Matthew 10:28). Barclay gives us some good observations concerning spiritual death. “Sin kills innocence. No one is precisely the same after he has sinned. The experience of sin had left. kind of tarnishing film on his mind and things could never be quite the same again. Sin kills ideals. Each sin makes the next sin easier. Sin is. kind of suicide, for it kills the ideals which make life worth while. In the end sin kills the will. At first. man engages in some forbidden pleasure because he wants to do so; in the end he engages in it because he cannot help doing so. Once. thing becomes. habit it is not far from being. necessity. Sin kills ideals; men begin to do without. qualm the thing which once they regarded with horror. Sin kills the will; the thing so grips. man that he cannot break free” (pp. 97-99). “Sin kills truthfulness, industry, integrity, and all virtue” (Pulpit Comm. p. 61). Yet. state of death infers. pervious life, these people were not born spiritually dead.

“It is quite possible for one to manifest the most vigorous physical and mental life, while at the same time he is spiritually dead” (Erdman p. 48). “Lots of people who make no Christian profession whatever, who even openly repudiate Jesus Christ, appear to be very much alive. One has the vigorous body of an athlete, another the lively mind of. scholar,. third the vivacious personality of. filmstar. Are we to say that such people, if Christ has not saved them, are dead? Yes, indeed, we must and do say this very thing” (Stott p. 72).

“Through your”: The sins and trespasses that killed us were our own. We were not separated from God because of the sins of others (Ezekiel 2:20; Matthew 18:3; 1 Corinthians 14:20). One of the easiest ways to undermine the false doctrine of total inherited depravity is to point out that God has no plan of salvation for babies and infants. His only plan of salvation contains conditions that no baby can meet, that being hearing the gospel (Romans 10:17), faith in Christ (Mark 16:16), repentance (Acts 2:38), confession (Romans 10:9) and. voluntary submission to baptism (Acts 22:16). Lenski argues, “The view that Paul refers to. nature that is developed by actual sins disregards this context” (p. 413). Rather, he has missed the point. This whole context includes such phrases as "your trespasses and sins", "wherein ye once walked", "among whom we also all once lived", and "doing the desires". How can anyone read these verses and walk away thinking that these people had not brought this condition of spiritual death upon themselves because of their own actions?

Hugo McCord offered. very insightful view of the statement of David in Psalms 51:5. that is often twisted. “David's abject and contrite admission that he had been born into. world of sin...is much misused. In truth he had been formed in. world where sin is, and his mother had been. sinner before he was born. Then, in sequence, he himself became. sinner, stealing. man's wife, but that is not to say that he had been born. sinner”. [Note:. "The Living Messages of the Psalms", C. Hugo McCord, pp. 218-219] Years ago. heard someone say, that being born into. sinful world, no more made David "inherently depraved", than being born in. potato patch, makes one. potato. Paul pointed out that everyone becomes. sinner, because eventually everyone sins (Romans 5:12 “so death spread to all men, because all sinned”.)

“Trespasses”: Sin can never be viewed as. right. When we are sinning were are in forbidden territory. “Sins”: “Etymologically, (trespass) points to sin as. fall, and (sins) to sins as. failure” (Gr. Ex. N.T. p. 283). “These two words seem to have been carefully chosen to give. comprehensive account of human evil. A trespass is. false step, involving either the crossing of. known boundary or. deviation from the right path.. sin however means rather. missing of the mark,. falling short of. standard” (Stott p. 71)..

The word rendered sins in the above passage means missing the mark. Hence sin happens when we miss the real purpose for our existence (Ecclesiastes 2:13). “One misses his mark by failing to fulfill his purposes in life. Our purposes in life are to act, think, and speak like God who created us, thus glorifying Him” (Caldwell p. 69).