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Human Beings Are Spiritually Dead; Living In Opposition To The Ways of God; Participants In the Rebellion Of The Fallen Angels So That We Follow The Adversary And Are Demonized To Various Degrees; Our Nature Has Been Corrupted; We Deserve Wrath. But We Have Been Saved By Grace And Made Alive And Raised To Heavenly Realms And Graciously Empowered To Do Good Works! From Death To Life; From Humiliation To Exaltation – All Because Of The Three-In-One God!

Sometimes a person can be really sick and resist going to the doctor – especially if he’s a man. He may not like going to the doctor. He may feel it’s a waste of time. He may believe he’s not very sick and will get better on his own. However, if someone is really sick, it can help the sick person get the care he needs if he understands just how sick he is really us. Then he may be willing to go to the doctor and receive proper care.

In a similar way, human beings know that there are lots of problems among us. It’s obvious that there are many things that are very wrong – misery, crimes, injustice, racism, wars, suicides. They know something is wrong, but many don’t understand just how sick humanity is. Therefore they resist going to the Great Physician to get the help they so desperately need. In this part of his letter to Messiah’s Community in Ephesus, the Lord’s divinely inspired representative helps us understand just how desperately sick humanity is.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

According to Rabbi Paul, humanity is way beyond sick. We are even beyond terminally ill. Because of our rebellion against God; because of our sins; because we have fallen short and missed the mark; because of our transgressions; because we have crossed important moral and spiritual boundaries that never should have been crossed, we are dead; spiritually dead. We are like spiritual zombies. We have the appearance of life but have no real spiritual life. We have no genuine connection to the Living God, who is the Source of life.

And there is more: Human beings are not only spiritually dead, but also living in opposition to the ways of God. You followed the ways of this world. The world is characterized by ways that are not God’s ways. “Your ways are not My ways, and your thoughts are not My thoughts” the Lord lamented centuries earlier to His rebellious nation.

What are the world’s ways? Living for self, not living for God; living for the world, and not God; living for now, and not for eternity; not submitting to God; trying to come to God on our terms, not His terms.

Human beings are not only spiritually dead, and living in opposition to the ways of God, but human beings are willing participants of a fallen world which is dominated by the fallen angels. You followed the ruler of the kingdom of the air. The ruler of the kingdom of the air is Satan, the head of the fallen angels. This is the evil spirit being who has authority over the air – the region under God’s Heavens. The Adversary does not rule in the Highest Heavens, where the Three-In-One God reigns supreme, but rules the lower heavens – this world. The Devil is the god of this world, having authority over the things under the sky.

When Adam and Eve joined the rebellion of the fallen angels, they lost their privilege to govern this world. Dominion of this world was transferred to the fallen angels. The head of the fallen angels became the god of this world. Jews and Gentiles are born into that demonic kingdom that opposes God, opposes truth, is full of unhappiness, ruination and death. We are subjects of that kingdom. We are controlled by that kingdom.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they sided with the Enemy against God the Father, the High King of Heaven, and King Messiah, the Son of the High King. Humanity has sided with the Adversary and follows him. You followed the ruler of the kingdom of the air.

And it gets worse. Human beings are not only spiritually dead, and living in opposition to the ways of God, and participants in the rebellion of the fallen angels so that we follow the Adversary, but we are oppressed, possessed, demonized to one degree or another. You followed the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. Satan and the demons are working in fallen humanity – tempting them toward evil; encouraging their further corruption; encouraging them to remain in rebellion against God: directing them towards disobedience; keeping them from the truth; distracting them from the truth; removing the Gospel seed when it is sown.

Humanity is not good. We are not even neutral. Humanity is characterized by disobedience. You followed the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. Humanity is disobedient to God; disobedient to the leadership of God; disobedient to the Word of God; disobedient toward the ways of God; the plans and purposes of God; the Gospel of God; disobedient to the Messiah and the salvation of God.

And it gets worse. Human beings are not only spiritually dead, and living in opposition to the ways of God, and participants in the rebellion of the fallen angels so that we follow the Adversary, and are demonized to various degrees, and characterized by disobedience – humanity’s very nature has been corrupted. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.

The flesh means not just our bodies, but our entire nature. Human nature has been corrupted. Oh, we can still think and reason and feel. We still have many talents and abilities, but we use our bodies, minds, wills, emotions, talents, and often our sexuality, in corrupt, rebellious ways.

Our nature is more like the nature of the Adversary than the nature of God. It has corrupt desires, and fallen human beings consistently gratify the cravings of our flesh and follow its desires and thoughts. The cravings of the flesh are not limited to sensual desires like sex outside of marriage, or eating too much or getting high on drugs or alcohol. The cravings of the flesh, the old, corrupt nature include our mind, our thought life. We pursue wrong philosophies and ideologies and false religions. We enjoy thoughts of hatred, unforgiveness, vengeance, jealousy. We can get pleasure from lying and stealing and being lazy. Humanity is characterized by giving into the desires of our fallen nature, getting perverse pleasures from giving into the cravings of a fallen body and a fallen mind.

There are consequences for creatures who have a corrupt nature. A holy and righteous God is disgusted by them and must ultimately reject them. We were by nature deserving of wrath. An infinitely holy God has every right to be angry with corrupted creatures and remove us from His presence and from His universe.

And it gets worse. Human beings are not only spiritually dead, and living in opposition to the ways of God, and participants in the rebellion of the fallen angels so that we follow the Adversary, and are demonized to one degree or another, and characterized by disobedience, and have a ruined nature – there is nothing that we can do to fix this horrible situation on our own. We can’t remove ourselves from the authority of the ruler of the kingdom of the air. We can’t give ourselves a new, godly nature. We can’t give ourselves new life so that we are no longer spiritual zombies. Dead men can’t give themselves life. When was the last time you saw a corpse give itself life? It can’t. It’s dead. The edenic curse pronounced for joining the rebellion of the fallen angels has come to pass – moht tamoot – dying you will die. You will surely die!

We must understand the human condition, how very sick we are, how terminal we are, and how utterly incapable we are of getting ourselves out of this horrible situation. I know. It’s not flattening. It’s not nice. It’s upsetting. It’s depressing.

That’s the bad news. But there’s Good News. We must also know that what we are completely incapable of fixing, God is more than able to repair! But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Messiah even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Messiah and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Messiah Yeshua, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Messiah Yeshua.

Even though we are rebels, and morally and spiritually repulsive to a holy God, and have no right to expect God to do anything other than reject us and punish us, God made it possible to be saved from our horrible, helpless situation.

Why? Because of who He is. Because of His nature; because of His attributes of love, mercy, grace. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Messiah even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.

We did not deserve to be rescued from our ruined nature and state of spiritual death, but God saved us and made us alive anyway – because of His love; and not just His love, but His great love – His nature to bless others; to do good to others; to give help where help is needed most; to see them reach their maximum potential. Motivated by great love for His fallen and spiritually dead creatures, the Lord made us alive, giving us new life, spiritual life, eternal life.

God saved us from our horrible, helpless situation because of His love and because of His mercy – His nature to not want to punish others the way they deserve. What we deserved is divine rejection, and punishment and the first death, and condemnation on the Day of Judgment, and the horrible Second Death in the Lake of Fire. But, the Lord is rich in mercy and did not give us what we deserve.

And the Lord is not stingy with His mercy, but is rich in mercy, generous with mercy – not giving us what we deserve; not maximizing judgment and punishment but abundantly pardoning, forgiving, relenting.

God saved us from our horrible, helpless situation because of His great love and because of His abundant mercy and because of His grace. Mercy is withholding punishment from someone who deserves it. Grace is giving something good to someone who doesn’t deserve it. God gave us something we didn’t deserve – salvation; rescue, deliverance from the real and deadly forces of Satan, sin, the sin nature and death.

Here the divinely inspired Rabbi gives us one of the great truths of the Faith – by grace you have been saved. Salvation comes from grace – God’s unmerited, undeserved favor. Even though we are rebels, and morally and spiritually repulsive to a holy God, and have no right to expect God to do anything other than reject us and punish us, God saved us from our horrible, helpless, situation because of His grace.

And there is more – much more! This loving, merciful, gracious God not only saved us and gave us new life and a new nature, but He also elevated us to the highest heights! And God raised us up with Messiah and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Messiah Yeshua, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Messiah Yeshua.

Before Messiah arrived we were at a very low place. We had a fallen nature. We were citizens of a dark, demonic kingdom. We were demonized and participants in the rebellion against the High King of Heaven, and His Son, King Messiah. But when we understand that the glorious Son of God lowered Himself, and left Heaven, and became a frail, weak human being, and died a horrible death, and was buried in the ground, and raised His Son from that very low place and exalted Him to the highest heavens and seated Him at the place of greatest honor – at the right hand of God the Father – when we understand that, then God the Father raises us from our low place and seats us at the highest place with Messiah.

How can it be otherwise? We are in Messiah, joined to our living Leader because of our faith. We must go where He goes. We must be where He is – seated in the heavenly realms, in the place of greatest honor.

Why would the perfect and glorious Creator take ruined creatures like us from a state of humiliation and put us in a place of greatest exaltation? Because God wants us to be an everlasting display of who He is. He wants to show us off as eternal examples of His kindness and His grace. He wants the universe to forever know that our salvation and exaltation is an expression of the incomparable riches of His grace.

The divinely-inspired Rabbi from Tarsus repeats this great truth of the Faith so that we really pay attention to it. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.

We are saved, with all the amazing riches that salvation includes; we are rescued, redeemed, delivered, not by anything that we can do, but solely, exclusively, completely based on the unearned, undeserved favor of God.

Salvation is not something that we could ever do on our own. We could never save ourselves. We could never reconcile ourselves to God. We could never redeem ourselves out of the satanic slave-market of sin and death. We could never give ourselves a new, godly nature. We could never give ourselves new life. We could never give ourselves eternal life.

Salvation only comes to us as a great gift, given to us by God’s grace. It could never be earned by our own efforts, our good deeds outweighing our bad deeds. Salvation is provided by God alone. Our only part in our salvation is to have a response of faith. By grace you have been saved through faith. Faith means knowing that God sent His Son, who died on a cross, rose from the dead and is alive now, a living Savior. Faith is knowing that, and transferring our loyalties to the Three-In-One God. That is the only part we play in our salvation – understanding, faith; belief; loyalty. By grace you have been saved through faith.

We are never to take credit for our great rescue. We should never claim our salvation was something easy that we could handle on our own; or that we saved ourselves in some way; or that we deserved salvation because of our merits or our worthiness or our works or efforts or good deeds or our good deeds outweighing our bad deeds. That is foolish, arrogant, proud, boastful – the exact opposite of what the fruit of salvation is – humility; the creature understanding that God is God and we are not; that the Creator is the center of the universe, not the creature; that we are entirely dependent on Him for life and for salvation and everything else.

And, just as we are saved by grace, we should understand that whatever accomplishments we achieve in life also flow from that same grace. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Messiah Yeshua to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

God created us; then when we fell, He redeemed us. He gave us a new nature. He gave us His Spirit to guide us and empower us. He gave us His Word to equips us to do good things. He provided a spiritual family to support and encourage us. He gives us our abilities. He gives us the opportunities to do good things. In a sense, all that we all that we are, all that we have, everything that we will ever accomplish are due to God and His grace.

In one sense, our good works aren’t ours. But, in another sense, our good works are ours. When we do something good; when we go out of our way to help someone; when we make an extra effort or work hard to do something good, we are doing something.

Yes, of course, we couldn’t do anything if it weren’t for God who prepared us and prepared our good works in advance, so we give Him the credit. We don’t want to praise ourselves, but if someone else does, we need to learn how to graciously accept praise. Mishle, Proverbs, tells us: Let another praise you, and not your own lips. Don’t praise yourself; don’t call attention to your accomplishments; but if another does, that’s OK. Don’t say: O, it wasn’t me – it’s all God. He gets all the credit. I had nothing to do with it. That’s a false humility. It’s right to direct the credit to God, but it’s also OK to receive praise. Let another praise you.

Humanity is very, very sick. If we know how sick humanity is, and if we know the Great Physician, and if we know the Message that will bring human beings who are terminally ill into the healing presence of the Great Physician, shouldn’t  this impel us, motivate us to passionately declare the Good News to everyone we can?

Thank You, Living God, that even though human beings are spiritually dead; living in opposition to You and Your good ways; willing participants in the rebellion of the fallen angels so that we follow the adversary and are demonized to various degrees; that even though our nature has been corrupted, and we deserve Your wrath, that because of who You are, out of Your great love, mercy and grace we have been saved and made eternally alive and joined to Your Son and raised to the highest heavenly realms and graciously empowered to do good works – that You will reward us for one day! Thank you Heavenly Father, for giving us new life; a new nature; a new relationship with You; and a new position for eternity. From the lowest to the highest, from humiliation to exaltation, from death to life – all because of You, and Your Son and the Holy Spirit!