Writings of the Tutor
This page contains primarily teaching messages given on Sunday mornings at Cornerstone Bible Church, as well as other miscellaneous writing.
What God Does to Walking Dead Men
Ephesians 2: 1-5
December 10, 2006
Introduction
This is the season. According to the song (sung by the inimitable Andy Williams), it’s the most wonderful time of the year. It definitely can be a wonderful time when we are consumed by the wonder of God Himself becoming an infant in order to save human beings from spiritual darkness. The miracle of the incarnation—of God with us, becoming one of us and thus becoming a faithful high priest who can sympathize with all our weaknesses—is on par with the miracle of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Unfortunately, as we all know, we live in the midst of a culture that has little consciousness of the Saviour, much less of our own sin that necessitated His coming. In some ways I enjoy this season just because it brings into sharp focus the fact that Americans, though often loaded with cash, are bankrupt. We have defined real life not in the terms that Christ used in John 17:3 when He said, “ . . . this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God” but rather in terms of the accumulation of material goods and the pursuit of leisure. Almost as if to our own culture, Jesus speaks in Luke 12:15-21:
15 . . . “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” 16 And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive. 17 “And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 ‘And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.” ’ 20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ 21 “So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
From as many times as I have acquired something new, thinking I would be somehow satisfied with that thing, only to be slowly but surely disappointed with that thing, you would think I would be utterly convinced that there is no real life to be found in stuff. Woe to me, so easily deceived by the same glittering, tinsel promises that stuff proclaims through its shiny appearance. So, today, if only for my sake, let’s take an opportunity to derive some clarity on the real meaning of life. Let’s make an effort to counter the confusion and fuzziness about why this is an important season. But mostly, let’s staple our attention to the most important thing in this and every season. Today we are going to seek to answer the question that gets at the real meaning of real life: How can we be rescued from death? How can we have true life? Or, Why would God save the likes of me and you from death? Our answer is found in the first five verses of Ephesians 2.
Let’s read that passage, (with some context, of course): READ Ephesians 1:18-2:10
Let’s Pray.
If you noticed, the first three verses of our passage are an anatomical study of spiritual death. We are going to look very carefully today at what it means to be physically alive but spiritually dead. It is a grim picture, but, because it is an accurate portrait of you and me apart from Christ’s grace in our lives, we do well to closely trace the gruesome features of what we were, why we were that way, and what we did when we were walking dead men. Merry Christmas!
You also likely noticed that the last two verses of our passage speak of life. Those verses show us precisely what God in His grace does to the walking dead.
To help prepare our minds and thoughts for our morbid contemplations, please look at this specimen from my yard. This is my favorite of the flowers that have been growing at our place this last summer. You’ll notice that what formerly smelled pleasant and was a delight to the eyes is now producing a noisome stench and is shriveled and ugly. So it is with death. Dead things stink. Dead things look awful. Three months ago, I would have taken this very flower and pressed it close to my nose. Now, one would have to be a morose gardener to put this thing up to one’s face. Rather, we would prefer to get far away from it. That is natural. We abhor death. It is disturbing to us.
As with flowers, so it is with people. Death, when it comes to human beings, is disturbing. It smells bad. It looks horrid. It is unsettling and fearsome. And so is the portrait of you and me painted in these verses.
Please consider an important distinction as we approach these first three verses:
This passage provides us with God’s view of the actual condition of human beings who are not yet recipients of His grace. Therefore, these verses apply to us all. For either you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ and therefore this passage is a description of you and your life before Christ saved you. Or, you have not yet placed your faith in Christ, and therefore this section describes God’s view of your life presently.
Verse One 1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
A. Like a forthright doctor low on tact, verse one gives us our ultimate diagnosis. Before we see the symptoms of our condition, before we see how we obtained this condition, we are told the root problem. What is that problem in one word? Dead. Apart from God’s work in our lives, we are dead.
You can imagine the shock you might feel. You have been experiencing severe pain and low energy and strange sensations and so you go to your physician for an appointment. You describe your symptoms, he performs some expensive tests and you consult with him about the results later that day. You were never prepared for what he was to tell you. We have familiarity with shocking reports from doctors this year. But our shock would be less than yours if your doctor were to look at you with grave concern and say: “I am afraid that you are dead.” Imagine your response. “But, but, Doc, I feel alive. I am breathing. Look! I can move my arms and my feet! I can still think. And Rene Descartes said that if I think, therefore I am. I can’t be dead!”
It does sound ridiculous. We know that we can think and move our arms and talk and laugh. We build buildings. We make plans. We go on trips. We get married and have kids. We even help other people. We can’t be dead. And though you may convince a human doctor that he has made a dreadful mistake in your diagnosis, there is no argument with one’s Creator. He made life. He knows that of which life consists. If He says we are dead, regardless of our excuses to the contrary, we are.
This naturally raises a question. What is death precisely? (This investigation in turn will help us define life.) The New Testament uses the word nekros here, which means “lifeless.” In other places it uses the word thanatos which means “that separation (whether natural or violent) of the soul and the body by which the life on earth is ended.”
But, as we see from the next few verses, this death in verse one is not physical. It is not the separation of the soul from the body (which is what we normally think of when we think of death), but this death is the separation of the soul from the soul’s source of life:God. Just like the body withers and dies when the principle of life—the soul—leaves it, so the soul dies when God leaves it. This is precisely why Romans 6:23 bluntly tells us that “the wages of sin is death.” And this is clearly the point here in verse one: You were dead in your trespasses and sins. Because of your lapses from uprightness, because of your violations of God’s perfect will and law, you are dead.
Of course, if you could show this doctor that you had never sinned nor transgressed against God and His ways, you could possibly have your diagnosis changed, but I have met no person who can say truthfully that they have never sinned. Perhaps our most persistent and grossest sins are not things we commit, but those things we omit. For example, have you ever, in the course of your life, not loved God with all your heart or all your mind or all your strength? That is the greatest commandment in all the Bible and I for one have broken it brazenly every single day. If you have, like me, then this verse holds true. You are dead.
Verse One tells us our root or ultimate condition, verse two will tell us how we got there.
Verse Two And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
1. We are the walking dead. I am not accustomed, other than in black and white movies about ancient mummies, to think of dead people walking. But this verse gives us the clue about this kind of death. It does not impair the functioning of the body; rather it kills the soul. Thus, a walking person can be dead and that is what we are apart from God’s grace.
2. The verse tells us three things that are influencing or controlling our walking as dead men. These three things form a sort of progression, much like playing pool. In order to get the 8-ball in the pocket, it must be hit with the cue ball, and in order to move that cue ball, one must shoot the cue stick at the right angle and with the right force. In this case the 8-ball is in the pocket (we ARE dead): now we see the troika of causes that put it there.
a. First, we walked according to the course of this world. The word ‘world’ here is used in the sense that we see it used in other key places in the New Testament to describe that arrangement of society and societies against the truth of God and His Son.
1 John 5:19—We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. Be careful: this is not the world that God made in Genesis 1 and pronounced good. This is ‘world’ in the sense of the world in rebellion against her Creator. To say that we walked according to the course (or age) of this world, is to say that we were simply following the flow of the current around us. We are fish that are part of the great school of fish following the natural pull of the current, of our instincts, and of the mass of other fish surrounding us.
This brings us to the second link in this causal chain.
b. Second, the flow of this world and direction of our walking in it were in accordance with the prince of the power of the air. If you were tempted to balk at the diagnosis of verse one, you will stand up and leave right here when your doctor tells you that, as a walking dead man, you are under the control and influence of an evil spiritual prince who rules the dominion of the air. As sciency-fiction as it may sound, that is precisely the case and it is a repeated idea in the New Testament. 2Cor. 4:4 In whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. 1 John 4:4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you, than he who is in the world. It is on issues like this that we see the Scriptures claiming the authority of divine revelation. We could not know this truth otherwise. To discover that the course of the world is under the power of a malevolent, invisible being is not something a scientist could claim. Only God can give us this knowledge. And we can be grateful to know the rest of the story.
This world has a course to it. If we doubt it, we need only turn on our television. It is a wonderful window into the world. This part of verse two tells us that this world courses on in the direction given it by this evil ruler. As most societies assume the tone of the government that rules them, so this world follows the direction of this invisible spiritual being. One ancient commentator put it this way:As the children of God have one head, so have the wicked; for each of the classes forms a distinct body.
Thus, when we become Christians, Christ is our ruler (Ephesians 1:22—He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church.) Conversely, if we do not trust in Christ, we are ultimately under the rulership of Satan. And this rulership affects individuals who are under that government.
c. Third: we walked of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. That is, you and I walked, but we were not animated by the life of God. We were animated and energized by another kind of spirit. It was the very spirit that today actively animates and energizes those who disobey God. Such people therefore can be called the very sons of disobedience.
Thus, in verse two, we see how it is we came to be dead. We simply walked according to this world, according to the prince of this world, according to the spirit of disobedience.
Now, in verse three, Paul gives us a view of what kind of activity walking dead men engage in. As all good mothers know, little itchy spots covering their child’s body are symptoms of chicken pox. Here, in verse three, we see the symptoms, the outward manifestations of this kind of death.
Verse Three 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest
Note carefully: with this subtle change in pronoun, from “you” to “we”, Paul joins himself to the Ephesians as a co-conspirator in the culture of death. Here we see how he and other walking dead men spent their time.
a. They literally lived (anastrepho—conduct oneself, sojourn) in the lusts (epithumia—desire, craving) of the flesh.
b. They indulged (poieo- do, carry out, perform) the desires (thelema—what one desires or wishes) of the flesh.
c. They indulged the desires of the mind.
d. They were children of wrath by nature, as all men were.
We might ask what precisely this means. What does such a lifestyle look like? Is that really so bad? Fortunately, Galatians 5:19ff exhibits for us what manner of living this commitment to follow one’s cravings and lusts results in:
19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
At the risk of missing the personal relevance, let us consider just one example of such living that involves two of these practices: Strife (eris—contention, strife, wrangling) and Drunkenness.
For example, Alexander the Great killed Clitus, one of his best friends through over-drinking and anger. (Read Plutarch, 49-51)
You and I congratulate ourselves on keeping our clothes shiny in public. But can you tell me that if each of your meditations were made public you would avoid spending time behind bars? And though man looks upon the outward appearance, the main stage upon which God’s eyes rest is the heart and its meditations. Paul, the Ephesians, the rest of mankind, you and I were walking dead men who were indulging in lust and desire and were actually, by nature, children worthy of wrath.
Before we turn from this foul portrait to go forward and behold the glorious face of God as revealed in His mercy in verse 4, we should take stock. Do you get it? These verses are damning. They paint a grotesque scene. But just as Jesus embraced the ugly, torturous cross in order to enjoy the fellowship of the Father in the heavens, so we must not only understand this picture, but embrace it. As long as these verses describe someone you know and not you and me, we will never comprehend the extremity and enormity and wonder of grace. We are like the vicious murderer who wants to hear his pardon before his sentencing. It is only as he realizes his desperate situation that he will be in a position to begin to perceive, much less glory in, his forgiveness. It was the very sinful woman who loved Jesus much (as recorded in Luke 7) because she knew she had been forgiven much. How much do you love Christ? How much do you want to love Him who is worthy of all the love your heart and soul and mind can express? Then do not close your ears! Listen to this litany of your desperate acts and desperate nature. Reckon the truth. You were dead. You walked according to the course of this world. You were a slave in the dominion of darkness. You were a disobedient son. You were a child of wrath. It is the only way we can be prepared to hear and understand mercy and grace.
What possible hope do such dead people, walking in sin and trespasses, pursuing death, have for life?
Verses Four and Five 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
This is one of the most glorious conjunction phrases in the Scripture. “But God . . .” It contrasts so starkly with “And you . . .” in verse one. Gazing with perfectly clarity and understanding on Paul and the Ephesians and me and you and all men, alone comprehending how great our transgressions and sins and death, God, alone, gives Life to the dead. Let us take the time to truly enjoy these prodigious verses.
1. First, we must note the hero in this section of the passage. There is a great contrast with the first three verses of this chapter wherein you and I and Paul and the Ephesians are the major actors. We were the ones who were doing things and making it all happen. We were the ones who were sinning and transgressing and lusting and following our lusts. But here in verse four and five, note, who is the one who acts? Who is the one who carries the day? Who is the one alone responsible for the successful rescue of walking dead people? God!
2. Second, another alarming contrast materializes when we juxtapose the first attribute recorded of human beings (in verse one) with the first attribute of God (in verse four). In verse one, what is the first thing we learn about ourselves? We are dead in sin! In the fourth verse, as God comes into the scene, what is the first thing we perceive about Him? He is merciful! Isn’t this the ideal combination? That a wretched man is met by a merciful God? If we were strict materialistic evolutionists we would call it a fortunate act of chance. Like the interesting coincidence between our physical need for oxygen and its abundance in the earth’s atmosphere, it stupefies us to learn that the one merciful deity that a dead man can afford to meet is the very One we encounter in the Scriptures. Yet, like our oxygen rich atmosphere, this conjunction is no function of chance. God, in His mercy, meets us in our death and, instead of justice, He expresses His love and mercy!
3. Third, in this fourth verse we are told who God is and why He does what he does before we are told what He does in verse five.
Who is He?:
a. He is rich in mercy. Rich—plousios—wealthy, abounding in resources
Mercy—eleos—kindness toward the afflicted
b. He is great in love. Great—pleistos—most, at the very most
Love—agape
Why does He act as He does?:
a. Because He loves us with this great love. This love is directed to you and I. If we can remotely comprehend the antagonism between a holy God and a sinful person then we can appreciate the surprise and irony of this truth. He loves US. It is not as though He has chosen to shed His love upon a worthy subject, much like monarchs of old would do when they wanted to choose a man or woman fit to be in their presence. Remember Artaxerxes. He had hundreds of women try out for the position of Queen of Persia. It was the best and most beautiful of all women that he chose to bring near to himself. Esther was chosen because of her overwhelming beauty and her superior qualities. Strangely, you receive God’s love not because of your qualifications, but in spite of your alienation and enmity towards Him. This King had a different approach. And so it clearly states in verse five: He acted this way toward us even when we were dead in our transgressions. This idea is found throughout the Bible: Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, nlet us reason1 together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as owhite as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
Romans 5:6-8: 6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Our God is that wonderful. He has the power, the richness of mercy and the greatness of love to make even His enemies part of His beloved family.
b. Why does He act as He does? He acts in response to His own character, not to what our condition merits or warrants. As Charles Spurgeon said, “it is not love of something good in us; it is love of us because of everything good in Him.” Think for a moment about what our spiritual condition warrants from a holy God. What does one do with a human being so thoroughly sinful that he or she is said to be dead in sin? Well, one does with such a person as one does with dead, stinky flowers. One throws them away. Or, since sin is infectious and one person’s commitment to follow their lusts infects others with the same fever, you quarantine them forever. People dead in sin are dangerous to themselves and other people. They are like unwitting carriers of the plague. For a time, they are super-infectious and completely unaware of their sickness. We can all remember getting a bad cold or flu from a friend. In the same way, we can all think of at least one or two evil episodes in our past that we participated in precisely because one of our friends encouraged us to. That is one reason why God says the wages of sin is death. It kills the host and all those he or she passes the disease to. That is just one reason why God’s wrath visits sinners with eternal separation from Himself.
Ironically, though justice demands our eternal death, God saves us from His justice and wrath by embracing us in mercy. Our transgressions, though deadly, were not a deterrent to God. I love the picture presented by the passage in Psalm 40 where it says, “He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay; and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.” God sees us stuck and helpless and mired in mess and filth and sin and transgression and He, Himself, comes down to pull us out and sets us on a new path. His love and His mercy arc over the separation and enmity yawning between us because of our direct, intentional disobedience to our Creator. His love and mercy overcame all of the demands of simple justice that we pay for our crimes. Rightly deserving of condemnation and rejection and separation, we instead receive mercy and love at the hands of the Just, Holy, Righteous One. Truly, mercy triumphs over judgment! And it is this fact that should cause us to sing and fall down in praise. God acts toward us out of His rich mercy and great love.
4. Fourth, we do see in verse five what God does out of His mercy toward walking dead men! Even though we were dead in our own transgressions, He made us alive together with Christ!
We were dead and God gave these dead people life. He made you and I alive.
Did we earn it? Did we make ourselves candidates for a life-transplant by our clean living? How did we convince the Maker of all to give us life? What merit or activity on our part recommended us to His love and mercy? Please look closely. If we really understand the teaching of this passage, we must see how ludicrous it is to suggest that we were or did something to procure Life. Rather, God, acting in reference to His own lovingkindness, showed love to sinful us. We are like Adam before he became a living being (as it says in Genesis). A lifeless form of clay was Adam before God made him alive. As lifeless dust, Adam had no leverage on God. But God, who loves life and delights in giving it to His creation, breathed into Adam’s very nostrils the breath of life. He made dirt live! Rather than considering his past qualifications, Adam can only look to his Creator in awe and thanksgiving. Dead in sin, we can only do the same as we see Him give us life.
5. Fifth and finally we should note the last phrase in verse five. We are used to seeing information contained in parentheses. That which is in them is usually additional, but not crucial, information. But these parentheses at the end of verse five should be plated in gold. The truth they contain is not parenthetical or disposable. It is vital truth that is as glorious as it is crucial. By grace you have been saved!
As though to summarize the wonder of all that God is and does toward us, we have this memorable phrase that sums it all. By grace you have been saved! What is grace? It appears from this passage that it is simply the saving work of God. Grace is rich mercy and great love in action. It is not abstract. It is not removed from human experience. Grace means salvation for you and me who have placed our faith in Christ personally. God shows you His mercy and His love and gives you His life and that is what grace is. By grace, you have been saved.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved). (Eph. 2:4-5)
What can we possibly do with this passage to live in light of it? Here are just a few suggestions.
1. Remember from whence ye came. If you enjoy God’s mercy today, recall that it is a gift of grace and there was a day when you were without God and without hope. There are two rulers in the world. You and I have followed both.
2. Have compassion on those who are spiritually dead. You did not acquire life by your own credentials. It was pure grace and mercy. Live like a man forgiven much so that you may love your lord and your neighbor much. Share the good news with those who are dead, because the Bible says that the gospel is the power of God for salvation.
3. Love your own Saviour with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.
4. Give thanks in all things for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
5. Glory in God and in His lovingkindness. Obey Him with all your being as your spiritual act of worship, but glory in Him and His great work in you.
Romans three reminds us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus . . . (Romans 3:23-24).
More Questions from the Prosecution (editorial)
This week, the jury in the Scott Peterson double murder case recommended to the judge that Mr. Peterson be executed. Just last month he was convicted of first degree murder for the killing of his wife, Laci, and was found guilty of second degree murder for the killing of his unborn son, Connor. If he is indeed guilty of such foul crimes, he is deserving of the sternest of punishments.
Yet if one carefully considers the Peterson case in light of thirty years of Supreme Court rulings (Roe v. Wade, etc.) the defendant should be culpable for just one murder, not two. Scott Peterson, it appears, did murder his wife. But, it would also appear, in reference to Connor’s death, that he merely performed an abortion on his own child.
Though all of the jurists disagreed with such an assessment, what—in the eyes of our nation’s legal system—could be considered so reprehensible in Scott Peterson’s treatment of Connor? What, to a nation that allows its people to abort the unborn, could be wrong about Connor’s death? Was it that he neglected to preserve the life of the mother? Or, was it wrong merely because he did not wait to obtain her permission? Perhaps his deed would have been acceptable if he was merely a professional and not the father. Maybe the real thing missing in Mr. Peterson’s case was that he lacked the adequate and proper medical training to make it official. If only he had been a general practice physician—under the Hippocratic oath—instead of a fertilizer salesman, he would only answer for one murder, not two, this month. Or perhaps it was wrongful death because he held malicious intent toward his patient. If only Scott had killed his son “for the good of the mother” or to “prevent a life filled with anticipated unnecessary hardship,” then he would have been (some say) merely aborting a fetus instead of murdering a very, very young man.
It is precisely at the point of “intent” that the alleged distinction between murder and abortion simply evaporates like winter frost in the bright sun of morning. There is effectively and productively no difference in the intent or the outcome of either. The savage father who kills an unborn son wants him dead. Death is the goal. In like manner, the doctor who kills the unborn son or daughter of his patient seeks an identical outcome: a dead child. Whatever doctors will say about the humanity of an unborn child, they, at least, will not deny that the fetus is a living thing. The end of that “thing’s” life is the point. Regardless of whatever other motives are adduced in support of the act—health, convenience, or supposed necessity—the real, longed-for result is the same: death.
As obvious as that fact is, ours is a nation that is hesitant to perceive the inherent conflict. On the one hand, we see the verdict in Scott Peterson’s trial as particularly just, specifically because he not only murdered his wife, but aggravated the deed by killing his son as well. On the other hand, some think it only natural and right that under that same legal system, a woman should have the freedom to seek for her child the same fate that Mr. Peterson apparently sought for Connor.
We are somehow expected to turn a dull, tearless eye on the plight of thousands of human beings killed by trained professionals in the clinics of America, while any substantial moral concern we might muster is to be relegated toward sufferers in the animal or plant kingdoms. It is considered morally obligatory by many today to fight the overharvesting of Minke whales in the North Sea, whereas any hint of outrage over the practice of abortion is seeming evidence of a tilted mind.
The degree of civilization a society possesses is directly gauged by the way those citizens with power treat those vulnerable citizens who have none. If we, as a culture, refuse to protect the lives of the unborn—so vulnerable, but precious in the sight of their Maker—then we reveal that the difference between our nation and those nations we rightly censure for human rights abuses, is negligible. If it were America’s citizens that were on that witness stand, fielding questions from the prosecution over the whereabouts of our very youngest sons and daughters, what would be the defense? And what, ultimately, the verdict?