Christians Before Christ
Ephesians 2:1-3
Sermon Summary Many people have the mindset that they are not really bad people. They live moral lives, and their sin isn't very wicked. But Paul speaks the truth on this matter - before Christ, all men are dead in sin and in desperate need of a dramatic change. |
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Ephesians 2:1-3
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 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 - 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.
In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson published his famous work, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Dr. Jekyll was supposedly your average, everyday fellow. He was the kind of man who might live next door to you. Mr. Hyde was anything but that. He was, in many ways, the embodiment of evil. He was a murderous criminal who had a ravenous infatuation with dark and sinister behavior.
Towards the end of the story, you come to find out that the two personalities are actually one man. And you come to find that the demonic Hyde is nothing more than the full realization of the twisted inner life of the unassuming Dr. Jekyll.
And so, the book becomes an interesting evaluation of the nature of man. While it entertains, it also causes you to question what is the real constitution of man’s nature.
While Stevenson’s book does not provide the answers, the passage before us this morning most certainly does. The Apostle Paul, in these three short verses, provides us with a study of man’s inherent depravity.
One of the essential dynamics of a properly developed anthropology is the examination of whether man is basically good or basically evil. And Paul shows us that each and every one of us, apart from the saving influence of Christ, is a Mr. Hyde.
The word “depravity” comes from the Latin word pravous, which means “crooked or perverse.” It rightly describes the true, spiritual state of men apart from Christ. It portrays the state into which we are born and out of which we must be delivered.
To be sure, we will not fully understand the true wonder of God’s grace unless we understand just how sinful we really are. But there is a downside to this. It means coming to terms with what the Scripture says about ourselves. And Scripture does not portray us in the way we would like. Our concept of ourselves is usually quite flattering. It is much better. We want to think of ourselves as Dr. Jekyll. In that sense, our thoughts might be a lot like social media and how it often misrepresents reality.
In the same way, our perception of our moral and spiritual state is usually much brighter than reality. But in this passage, Paul does not mince words. He is not sparing when he speaks of our condition, our conduct, and our condemnation.
In the first few words of this passage, Paul orients us to just how lost we are. He says, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” Here Paul lays bare just how desperate our condition is as sinners.
I. Our condition is desperate
When attempting to describe what our fallen condition is like, Paul chooses a word that creates a rather pungent metaphor. He likens us not to one who is simply weakened or even in what the medical world might call “in critical condition.” He puts us straight in the morgue. He says we are dead in our trespasses and sins.
Again, this is not that we are in danger of becoming spiritually dead. He is not describing one who is in a stage 4 sort of battle with reference to sin. We are dead. We might be living biologically; we might be active in many ways, but spiritually we are long past the stages of rigor mortis.
Of course, this is metaphorical language and we need to interpret what this means. To say something is dead, we mean that there is an unconsciousness about it. It is unfeeling and unresponsive to that which pertains to life.
So, when it comes to all things pertaining to spiritual life (which is found only in God), we have no sense of it. We have no interest in God, no desire for his way, and no affection for a future with him. All our moral inclinations are adrift, so to speak. There is no anchor that keeps us following God and his ways.
When I was first starting out in the ministry and seeking to plant my first church here in Ashland, I had a mentor and an overseeing church in Columbus. One evening my mentor and his wife invited me over for dinner. When I got there, we could not find him. His wife and I went around the property looking for him. We peeked in his office, walked over to the pasture, and called around the house. We went back to the office and, upon further examination, we found that he had collapsed behind his desk. His wife immediately called 911. The operator summoned the emergency response team, but also began to give instructions, which were relayed to me. I was asked if he had a pulse. I didn’t feel one. I was instructed on how to give CPR. So I did, but there was no response. We found out later that he had had a massive heart attack and probably died instantaneously.
But the fact is that he had no consciousness of what was going on around him. He did not have any recognition of us, no responsiveness to our calls, no ability to get up and act the way he was supposed to act.
That’s the predicament of every person apart from God. That’s what our condition is. There is only deadness in reference to the things of God.
You understand that what Paul says here is in keeping with the testimony of the rest of Scripture. In the very first pages of the Bible, we read about Adam and God’s threat to him about the one tree he was not to take fruit from. God said, “In the day you eat of it, you will surely die.”
While physical death did not come to them immediately, it was evident that they did sink into spiritual and moral death. We read how they sewed together fig leaves because there was this feeling of shame that they began to experience. In other words, they started looking at one another in ways that they had not previously. There was some sort of perversion that had arisen out of their now-fallen condition causing them to want to hide themselves.
We also read how they could no longer stand the truth. Rather, when confronted by God they began to pass blame away from themselves for the incident (Adam blamed Eve; Eve blamed the serpent).
Worst of all, they avoided God. They hid from Him when he approached and called for them. It’s an indication that their friendship with the Lord had died. This relationship, which was the chief expression of their spirituality - the chief expression of life itself - had now flat-lined. In being alienated from God, they had, in a real sense, lost their line to life.
There’s no doubt that here in Ephesians you have a reference to the book of Ezekiel and the vision of the dry bones. There in the graveyard, the Lord expresses the true condition of the souls of men. Ezekiel’s vision is one that has physical dynamics (the bones and the sinews being repaired as he preaches), but the import of it is that this is not first and foremost a lesson in biology. It is indicative of the woeful plight of the souls of men.
Similarly, Ezekiel also speaks of the heart of stone and how it needs to be surgically removed by the hand of God. In its place, there needs to be installed a heart of flesh - one that is alive.
There are many more passages that we could reference, but this at least shows that Paul is speaking in line with the rest of what God has revealed about us. When it comes to who we are, we recognize that the core of our being has been radically affected by sin.
Thus, despite what our culture often says, we are not “basically good.” Neither can we say that we are basically bad. And while it may be true to say that “to err is human,” that statement does not fully represent how dire our condition really is. Our condition is much more desperate. Apart from Christ, we are utterly depraved. We are inherently crooked and unresponsive to all things pertaining to God.
Thus, our condition is such that our only hope in this world is the mighty intervention of God and his grace.
You can see this depravity further spelled out in the words that follow. While Paul speaks of our nature in verse 1, in verse 2 he describes our former way of life. So we not only see that our condition is desperate, but we also learn that our conduct is dreadful.
II. Our conduct is dreadful
In verse 2, Paul lays out three specific ways in which we show our depravity. He says that in former times we were followers of the world, Satan, and our passions.
When the NT speaks of the “world,” it can have several different meanings. In many cases, as is the case here, it refers to the “totality of sinful humanity.”
We are in a world where we are surrounded by a vast number of people. And we recognize that these vast legions of people are also sinners who are also depraved. What happens, then, is that all of these people create a culture that is antithetical to God. There is a common spirituality that creates a common mindset, with common values and common practices - all of which are in direct opposition to God, and all of which are quite influential. And there are people who just go with the flow. They simply follow the norms of that culture and do what is culturally acceptable.
Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “More is caught than taught.” That’s the idea here. Due to the influence of the systems of thought around us, many people have picked up their beliefs and practices, not so much from intensive study, but simply by the influence of the culture around them.
For instance, most people today embrace an evolutionary worldview despite there being zero scientific evidence for it. Furthermore, there isn’t a firm moral standard in our society. People don’t have any grounding when it comes to their moral base, so they can live as they please without any reference to God. Maybe they will be very moral in many respects. Maybe they will be all about carousing. Either way, they are led by the standards of the world around them rather than the standards of God.
But you will notice that Paul takes it one step further. The depravity of man is not only witnessed in the fact that we naturally follow the course of the world, but it is also evidenced in the fact that we are avid followers of Satan.
Paul says that we were “following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”
Now, we recognize that virtually no one would say, “I follow Satan.” Yet the fact of the matter is, anyone who has not experienced the saving grace of Christ is indeed a follower of Satan.
Remember again the words of the book of Genesis. In the garden, Adam and Eve chose to follow the advice of the serpent and eat the fruit. From that point on, mankind became adherents of Satan’s bandwagon. The Lord would even say that there would be a discrepancy between the seed of the Woman and the seed of Satan. In other words, there would be a line of people dedicated to God as a result of being saved by his grace, and there would be those who would be dedicated to rejecting God and following Satan’s lead.
To say that the vast majority of the world follows the prince of the power of the air might seem preposterous to some. But that is just the thing. Satan does not care if you acknowledge him or not. As a matter of fact, one of his greatest desires is that you would deny him altogether. But the fact is that ever since the fall, we naturally are happy to follow his lead.
Lastly, when it comes to our conduct, we follow our passions. Verse 3 says, “we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.”
If I might summarize this in more contemporary language, Paul is essentially saying that everyone “follows their heart.” Disney has been telling us to do this for years, but the truth is we don’t need encouragement. We already do. That is our default position by nature.
The problem is that our hearts are evil. The passions and desires that are mentioned here are governed by a depraved mind and a corrupt heart. So the kinds of things that our passions are craving are not going to be godly. Our desires are going to be evil desires. Our passions are going to be set on things that are immoral and ungodly. Our lives are going to be about personal indulgence, pleasure, and selfish gain.
So what you have here is an unholy trinity: the world, the flesh, and the devil. When it comes to our conduct, if we truly understand it rightly, it is a trifecta of wickedness. We are by no means going in the right direction. There’s no sense of God in our souls and there is no inclination for him in our life.
And this, of course, leads to our demise. Paul has shown us our depravity, and it is clearly seen in our condition and our conduct. But it is also seen in our deserved condemnation.
III. Our condemnation is deserved
In the last part of verse 3, Paul says that we were “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
There’s no doubt that Paul here is seeking to show that the Jews had no real distinction from the Gentiles. Here he shows us that all men have one thing in common: they are all by nature children of wrath.
Again, notice the language that Paul uses. It is indicative of what we call original sin. Original sin is that sin that we have inherited from our father Adam. Adam, as our representative, acted on behalf of all men. When he sinned, we all fell in him and became corrupt with him. His sin is transferred to everyone who descends from him. Original sin, then, is the lack of original righteousness and the corruption of our whole nature.
This stands in contrast to the Pelagian view, which says that Adam’s sin does not affect us directly, except to set a bad example that we may tend to follow. Pelagius said that we are born innocent and we essentially repeat Adam’s fall when we commit our first sin. Unfortunately, we are surrounded by bad influences, which we end up following. So, our nature (according to Pelagius), was not one of wrath or inherent guilt.
But here we see that our nature is to be under God’s wrath. We are children of wrath in that we stand condemned by God’s justice from the very earliest point of life; indeed it is from the womb itself. You understand that this entails guilt from the time we are born. God does not punish the innocent. He is not angry where there is no sin. So to say that we are children of wrath means that we come into this world bearing guilt. As a result, we are liable for its punishment.
To put it another way, some would say that all men, by virtue of their birth, are children of God. This shows that such a statement is not true. We are born as God’s enemies. It is as if He has his bow pointed at us and is ready to cut us down.
It is only when we are converted and adopted into his family that we may say that we are his children.
This stands in direct opposition to so much of the broader culture. To hear and believe what Paul says here will likely place us in opposition to what most of the evangelical world around us. As I mentioned at the outset, this is not the way we like to think of ourselves. We want to think that we are better than this. We like to think there is something admirable within us. We want to at least say that there was a time when we had things going for us.
We must come to grips with the fact that God’s evaluation is the right evaluation. And apart from the grace of God, our situation is bleak. We are sinners who justly deserve his displeasure. We stand under his curse as a covenant breaker.
Conclusion:
And this is why God’s power is truly the miraculous thing that it is. It is one thing to say that God, in his power, can move nations and direct the course of history. But it is a whole different category of things to say that God can restore a human soul.
And this is what makes grace so wonderful. That despite this radical depravity - despite having followed our sinful proclivities and justly deserving his displeasure - God has seen fit to pardon us and deliver us from this miserable condition.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 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 - 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.
In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson published his famous work, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Dr. Jekyll was supposedly your average, everyday fellow. He was the kind of man who might live next door to you. Mr. Hyde was anything but that. He was, in many ways, the embodiment of evil. He was a murderous criminal who had a ravenous infatuation with dark and sinister behavior.
Towards the end of the story, you come to find out that the two personalities are actually one man. And you come to find that the demonic Hyde is nothing more than the full realization of the twisted inner life of the unassuming Dr. Jekyll.
And so, the book becomes an interesting evaluation of the nature of man. While it entertains, it also causes you to question what is the real constitution of man’s nature.
While Stevenson’s book does not provide the answers, the passage before us this morning most certainly does. The Apostle Paul, in these three short verses, provides us with a study of man’s inherent depravity.
One of the essential dynamics of a properly developed anthropology is the examination of whether man is basically good or basically evil. And Paul shows us that each and every one of us, apart from the saving influence of Christ, is a Mr. Hyde.
The word “depravity” comes from the Latin word pravous, which means “crooked or perverse.” It rightly describes the true, spiritual state of men apart from Christ. It portrays the state into which we are born and out of which we must be delivered.
To be sure, we will not fully understand the true wonder of God’s grace unless we understand just how sinful we really are. But there is a downside to this. It means coming to terms with what the Scripture says about ourselves. And Scripture does not portray us in the way we would like. Our concept of ourselves is usually quite flattering. It is much better. We want to think of ourselves as Dr. Jekyll. In that sense, our thoughts might be a lot like social media and how it often misrepresents reality.
In the same way, our perception of our moral and spiritual state is usually much brighter than reality. But in this passage, Paul does not mince words. He is not sparing when he speaks of our condition, our conduct, and our condemnation.
In the first few words of this passage, Paul orients us to just how lost we are. He says, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” Here Paul lays bare just how desperate our condition is as sinners.
I. Our condition is desperate
When attempting to describe what our fallen condition is like, Paul chooses a word that creates a rather pungent metaphor. He likens us not to one who is simply weakened or even in what the medical world might call “in critical condition.” He puts us straight in the morgue. He says we are dead in our trespasses and sins.
Again, this is not that we are in danger of becoming spiritually dead. He is not describing one who is in a stage 4 sort of battle with reference to sin. We are dead. We might be living biologically; we might be active in many ways, but spiritually we are long past the stages of rigor mortis.
Of course, this is metaphorical language and we need to interpret what this means. To say something is dead, we mean that there is an unconsciousness about it. It is unfeeling and unresponsive to that which pertains to life.
So, when it comes to all things pertaining to spiritual life (which is found only in God), we have no sense of it. We have no interest in God, no desire for his way, and no affection for a future with him. All our moral inclinations are adrift, so to speak. There is no anchor that keeps us following God and his ways.
When I was first starting out in the ministry and seeking to plant my first church here in Ashland, I had a mentor and an overseeing church in Columbus. One evening my mentor and his wife invited me over for dinner. When I got there, we could not find him. His wife and I went around the property looking for him. We peeked in his office, walked over to the pasture, and called around the house. We went back to the office and, upon further examination, we found that he had collapsed behind his desk. His wife immediately called 911. The operator summoned the emergency response team, but also began to give instructions, which were relayed to me. I was asked if he had a pulse. I didn’t feel one. I was instructed on how to give CPR. So I did, but there was no response. We found out later that he had had a massive heart attack and probably died instantaneously.
But the fact is that he had no consciousness of what was going on around him. He did not have any recognition of us, no responsiveness to our calls, no ability to get up and act the way he was supposed to act.
That’s the predicament of every person apart from God. That’s what our condition is. There is only deadness in reference to the things of God.
You understand that what Paul says here is in keeping with the testimony of the rest of Scripture. In the very first pages of the Bible, we read about Adam and God’s threat to him about the one tree he was not to take fruit from. God said, “In the day you eat of it, you will surely die.”
While physical death did not come to them immediately, it was evident that they did sink into spiritual and moral death. We read how they sewed together fig leaves because there was this feeling of shame that they began to experience. In other words, they started looking at one another in ways that they had not previously. There was some sort of perversion that had arisen out of their now-fallen condition causing them to want to hide themselves.
We also read how they could no longer stand the truth. Rather, when confronted by God they began to pass blame away from themselves for the incident (Adam blamed Eve; Eve blamed the serpent).
Worst of all, they avoided God. They hid from Him when he approached and called for them. It’s an indication that their friendship with the Lord had died. This relationship, which was the chief expression of their spirituality - the chief expression of life itself - had now flat-lined. In being alienated from God, they had, in a real sense, lost their line to life.
There’s no doubt that here in Ephesians you have a reference to the book of Ezekiel and the vision of the dry bones. There in the graveyard, the Lord expresses the true condition of the souls of men. Ezekiel’s vision is one that has physical dynamics (the bones and the sinews being repaired as he preaches), but the import of it is that this is not first and foremost a lesson in biology. It is indicative of the woeful plight of the souls of men.
Similarly, Ezekiel also speaks of the heart of stone and how it needs to be surgically removed by the hand of God. In its place, there needs to be installed a heart of flesh - one that is alive.
There are many more passages that we could reference, but this at least shows that Paul is speaking in line with the rest of what God has revealed about us. When it comes to who we are, we recognize that the core of our being has been radically affected by sin.
Thus, despite what our culture often says, we are not “basically good.” Neither can we say that we are basically bad. And while it may be true to say that “to err is human,” that statement does not fully represent how dire our condition really is. Our condition is much more desperate. Apart from Christ, we are utterly depraved. We are inherently crooked and unresponsive to all things pertaining to God.
Thus, our condition is such that our only hope in this world is the mighty intervention of God and his grace.
You can see this depravity further spelled out in the words that follow. While Paul speaks of our nature in verse 1, in verse 2 he describes our former way of life. So we not only see that our condition is desperate, but we also learn that our conduct is dreadful.
II. Our conduct is dreadful
In verse 2, Paul lays out three specific ways in which we show our depravity. He says that in former times we were followers of the world, Satan, and our passions.
When the NT speaks of the “world,” it can have several different meanings. In many cases, as is the case here, it refers to the “totality of sinful humanity.”
We are in a world where we are surrounded by a vast number of people. And we recognize that these vast legions of people are also sinners who are also depraved. What happens, then, is that all of these people create a culture that is antithetical to God. There is a common spirituality that creates a common mindset, with common values and common practices - all of which are in direct opposition to God, and all of which are quite influential. And there are people who just go with the flow. They simply follow the norms of that culture and do what is culturally acceptable.
Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “More is caught than taught.” That’s the idea here. Due to the influence of the systems of thought around us, many people have picked up their beliefs and practices, not so much from intensive study, but simply by the influence of the culture around them.
For instance, most people today embrace an evolutionary worldview despite there being zero scientific evidence for it. Furthermore, there isn’t a firm moral standard in our society. People don’t have any grounding when it comes to their moral base, so they can live as they please without any reference to God. Maybe they will be very moral in many respects. Maybe they will be all about carousing. Either way, they are led by the standards of the world around them rather than the standards of God.
But you will notice that Paul takes it one step further. The depravity of man is not only witnessed in the fact that we naturally follow the course of the world, but it is also evidenced in the fact that we are avid followers of Satan.
Paul says that we were “following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”
Now, we recognize that virtually no one would say, “I follow Satan.” Yet the fact of the matter is, anyone who has not experienced the saving grace of Christ is indeed a follower of Satan.
Remember again the words of the book of Genesis. In the garden, Adam and Eve chose to follow the advice of the serpent and eat the fruit. From that point on, mankind became adherents of Satan’s bandwagon. The Lord would even say that there would be a discrepancy between the seed of the Woman and the seed of Satan. In other words, there would be a line of people dedicated to God as a result of being saved by his grace, and there would be those who would be dedicated to rejecting God and following Satan’s lead.
To say that the vast majority of the world follows the prince of the power of the air might seem preposterous to some. But that is just the thing. Satan does not care if you acknowledge him or not. As a matter of fact, one of his greatest desires is that you would deny him altogether. But the fact is that ever since the fall, we naturally are happy to follow his lead.
Lastly, when it comes to our conduct, we follow our passions. Verse 3 says, “we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.”
If I might summarize this in more contemporary language, Paul is essentially saying that everyone “follows their heart.” Disney has been telling us to do this for years, but the truth is we don’t need encouragement. We already do. That is our default position by nature.
The problem is that our hearts are evil. The passions and desires that are mentioned here are governed by a depraved mind and a corrupt heart. So the kinds of things that our passions are craving are not going to be godly. Our desires are going to be evil desires. Our passions are going to be set on things that are immoral and ungodly. Our lives are going to be about personal indulgence, pleasure, and selfish gain.
So what you have here is an unholy trinity: the world, the flesh, and the devil. When it comes to our conduct, if we truly understand it rightly, it is a trifecta of wickedness. We are by no means going in the right direction. There’s no sense of God in our souls and there is no inclination for him in our life.
And this, of course, leads to our demise. Paul has shown us our depravity, and it is clearly seen in our condition and our conduct. But it is also seen in our deserved condemnation.
III. Our condemnation is deserved
In the last part of verse 3, Paul says that we were “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
There’s no doubt that Paul here is seeking to show that the Jews had no real distinction from the Gentiles. Here he shows us that all men have one thing in common: they are all by nature children of wrath.
Again, notice the language that Paul uses. It is indicative of what we call original sin. Original sin is that sin that we have inherited from our father Adam. Adam, as our representative, acted on behalf of all men. When he sinned, we all fell in him and became corrupt with him. His sin is transferred to everyone who descends from him. Original sin, then, is the lack of original righteousness and the corruption of our whole nature.
This stands in contrast to the Pelagian view, which says that Adam’s sin does not affect us directly, except to set a bad example that we may tend to follow. Pelagius said that we are born innocent and we essentially repeat Adam’s fall when we commit our first sin. Unfortunately, we are surrounded by bad influences, which we end up following. So, our nature (according to Pelagius), was not one of wrath or inherent guilt.
But here we see that our nature is to be under God’s wrath. We are children of wrath in that we stand condemned by God’s justice from the very earliest point of life; indeed it is from the womb itself. You understand that this entails guilt from the time we are born. God does not punish the innocent. He is not angry where there is no sin. So to say that we are children of wrath means that we come into this world bearing guilt. As a result, we are liable for its punishment.
To put it another way, some would say that all men, by virtue of their birth, are children of God. This shows that such a statement is not true. We are born as God’s enemies. It is as if He has his bow pointed at us and is ready to cut us down.
It is only when we are converted and adopted into his family that we may say that we are his children.
This stands in direct opposition to so much of the broader culture. To hear and believe what Paul says here will likely place us in opposition to what most of the evangelical world around us. As I mentioned at the outset, this is not the way we like to think of ourselves. We want to think that we are better than this. We like to think there is something admirable within us. We want to at least say that there was a time when we had things going for us.
We must come to grips with the fact that God’s evaluation is the right evaluation. And apart from the grace of God, our situation is bleak. We are sinners who justly deserve his displeasure. We stand under his curse as a covenant breaker.
Conclusion:
And this is why God’s power is truly the miraculous thing that it is. It is one thing to say that God, in his power, can move nations and direct the course of history. But it is a whole different category of things to say that God can restore a human soul.
And this is what makes grace so wonderful. That despite this radical depravity - despite having followed our sinful proclivities and justly deserving his displeasure - God has seen fit to pardon us and deliver us from this miserable condition.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.