The second chapter of the great Rabbi’s letter to the congregation at Ephesus is very important. It contains some foundational doctrines: the doctrine of the Total Depravity of man; the doctrine of salvation by grace alone; the relationship between Messianic Jews and Messianic Gentiles. May the Lord help each one of us to understand and embrace and apply these important truths!
Many people will tell you that humanity is OK. We might have a few problems, but we are basically pretty good. In contrast to that is the inspired rabbi’s understanding of human nature – which is also the Lord’s understanding – and the truth.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins: The doctrine of Total Depravity doesn’t mean that each individual is totally depraved – that they are as bad as they can possibly get. It means that sin has affected every human being, and sin has touched every aspect of humanity – body, soul, mind, spirit, will, your relationship to God, your relationship to life, your relationship to salvation.
Notice that little phrase, “in your trespasses and sins”, that this master teacher of Messiah’s New Covenant Community uses. Just as believers are “in Messiah”, so those who are out outside of Messiah, those who are unbelievers are “in something” – not in Messiah, but in their trespasses and sins. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, trespassed, and by doing so, they joined us to sin.
Now, don’t be too harsh with them. They opened the door to sin, but each one of us willingly walked through that door on our own. They did not remain within the proper boundaries, but neither did their descendants. We are in our own trespasses and sins. All of us have sinned. And, there are terrible consequences that come from being in our trespasses and in our sins.
Because of the Fall of Man that took place in the Garden of Eden, which was a real fall that took place in a real place by real people, resulting in real consequences; because Adam and Eve crossed moral and spiritual boundaries that should not have been crossed, humanity died.
When we are in our trespasses and sins; when we cross boundaries that the King of the universe has commanded not to be crossed; when we miss the mark and fail to do what is right and fall short of doing what the Lord God requires of us, the result is awful. We certainly are not OK. We most certainly are not good. We assuredly are not acceptable to, and will not be welcomed by an infinitely holy and pure God. In fact, we are not even alive! Humanity – we are dead!
Something essential about us has died. Our sins and trespasses don’t just hurt us a little bit. Our sins and trespasses don’t merely injure us. We are not merely wounded with a slight wound from which we can recover. We have been killed! We are dead!
Human beings may walk and talk and think and eat, enjoy art and science and literature; we may marry, and enjoy the pleasures of marriage, and have children; we may be religious and pray, but something critical, something crucial, something essential about us is dead! We are no longer alive the way we need to be. We are headed for the First Death – Physical Death, which will be followed by the Second Death, which is destruction of body and soul in Hell! This is the human situation. This is reality. Human beings are come into this world dead – mere flesh. They are missing something essential of the Spirit and of life.
And it gets worse! Not only is humanity dead, killed by our trespasses and sins, but our fallen human nature is satanically allied and diabolically empowered! And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked. To walk means to live, to do. So, they lived badly. They did many wrong things. They used to live 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.
This world, and “the world” here means humanity that is in rebellion against God, has a course. It has it own ways, ways that are in opposition to the ways of God. The Lord has His ways, and humanity has its ways. Strive to be first. Look to you own interests. Take care of number one – yourself. Do what is best for you. Make yourself appear to be wise. Seek power. Lord it over others. Crush your enemies. Revenge yourself on those who hurt you. Cover up your mistakes. If necessary, shift blame to others. Don’t apologize. Don’t take God too seriously. You are in charge. You call the shots. Ignore God’s Word if you don’t like it. Crucify the Son of God if He gets in the way! “Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters.”
The people of Ephesus lived the way the rest of fallen humanity lived, opposing the good Lord and His good ways. And, the people in Ephesus also lived according to, in agreement with, following the ways of the prince of the power of the air. This is the evil spirit being who wields power and authority over the air – the region between Earth and Heaven. The Enemy of our souls does not rule in the Highest Heavens, where the Triune God reigns supreme, but the Devil rules over the lower heavens – this world, this realm. He is the god of this world, having authority over the things under the sky.
Satan, the Adversary, is real. You don’t believe it? You contradict the Word of God? You are very foolish. By denying the Devil you follow the way of the Devil himself, who corrupted Adam and Eve by causing them to question the truthfulness of the Word of God. It was he who caused Eve to question the Word of God. “Has God said?” Yes, God has said! The Word of God tells us that Satan is real! Deny this at your peril. You don’t believe in the enemy? You don’t know who you are fighting? Then, you almost certainly will lose the struggle. We are fighting a real battle against real rulers, real powers, real world forces of this darkness, against real spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places).
Not only is humanity dead in our trespasses and sins, but human nature has been corrupted so that we are comfortable with the demonic. We are uncomfortable with the holy God, and run away from Him, and try to hide from Him in the trees; but we are comfortable with the ways of the prince of the power of the air. We are naturally inclined toward the Adversary and his ways and methods and values and priorities.
Not only is fallen, sinful humanity living according to, in agreement with Satan and his demonic allies, but these real and evil spirit beings are actively working in the sons of disobedience! Satan and his fallen angels not only are at work on us, they are at work in us! They have some degree of access to, and influence over, the minds and hearts and souls of human beings. The whole world lies under the power of the Evil One. We are under their dark influence. How frightening! How horrifying!
Sons of disobedience – what an interesting term Paul uses to describe fallen humanity. Disobedient children. The Lord has a right to give commands, issue orders, and we are obligated to obey, but humanity is disobedient. We don’t obey the way that we should. Because of our fallen, sinful nature, because we are in our trespasses and sins, because we are far from God, because evil spirit beings are working on us and in us, humanity consistently disobeys, and rebels against the will of the Supreme Monarch, and breaks the Lord’s good commands.
You’ve heard people say, “we are all the children of God. We are all sons of God, no matter who we are or what we believe or what we do. We are brothers and sisters.” That is true – to some degree. Human beings are the sons and daughters of God, made in His image, with tremendous value and potential. But, not all the children of God the Father are good sons and daughters. Many, most of the children are wicked, disobedient children.
It is only those human beings who are joined to Messiah, and who are indwelt by the promised Holy Spirit, and who show that they are in Messiah by turning away from their sins, and their evil ways, who are the sons and daughters of God who are acceptable to Him, and who will be welcome in the Father’s eternal home. Which kind of child are you? A son of disobedience, or a child of God who has received divine sonship because of coming to know the unique Son of God, Messiah Yeshua, and have placed your faith in Him, and are following Him?
This disobedience particularly affects the following two areas: Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind.The lusts of the flesh are those desires and cravings connected to the physical: giving into and overdoing good sensual desires that promise pleasure, or yielding into bad sensual desires; in appropriate sexual activity, drinking too much, drugs, overeating, and the list goes on.
The desires of the mind have to do with mental sins: embracing false ideologies and philosophies and religions; not staying within proper theological and doctrinal boundaries, ignoring the truth and substituting lies; embracing wrong thinking; cultivating thoughts that seem right, that are pleasing to your mind, but are false and contradict the Word of God and a Biblical world-view.
This disobedience, this willingness to yield to the lusts and desires of the flesh and the mind results in very bad consequences. And were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. Children of wrath are human beings who were made in the image of God, but who have become worthy of the extreme displeasure, the great indignation, and the wrath of a perfectly righteous and infinitely holy and pure God, who loathes sin with an intense hatred, who abominates evil, and who is a consuming fire.
God is angry with disobedient, sinful, rebellious, trespassing, demonically dominated, corrupt human beings. Not just a little angry, but a lot angry. Yes, God so loves the world, but He is also is so very angry at the world. Can you love someone, and be disappointed at them for repeated failures, stupidities, rebellions and crimes so that you are also angry at them? Yes, you can.
And, what does the Torah teach us is to be done to wicked, disobedient, incorrigible children, who refuse to change their evil ways, who will continue to do more harm, and wreak more damage to more people? If they refuse to repent, wicked disobedient children are to be executed. And, that same end will happen to all the disobedient, wicked children of the world, who are headed to the Second Death.
Don’t think that because you are part of the chosen nation, chosen to accomplish the Lord’s purposes, that you are exempt from the corruption of human nature. This spiritual disaster that has devastated humanity applies not to Gentiles, but to Jews as well. The history of Israel shows this so clearly. The history of the Jewish people is a history of some successes, but also one failure after another. Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart; always resisting the Holy Spirit; receiving the Torah, yet not following it; sins abounding; golden calves worshiped; idols embraced; children sacrificed; adulteries committed; the Lord denied; the poor oppressed; prophets being sent to correct us; prophets scorned; prophets rejected; prophets murdered; resulting in divine punishments and disciplines and judgments, droughts, famines, plagues, war, cities destroyed; the Temple destroyed not once but twice; exiles; and the worst of all – the King Messiah of Israel, the holy Son of God, sent by God the Father, Himself willingly volunteering to humble Himself, come to Earth, become a man, and live among us as a weak human being, all done to help us, to love us, to teach us, to save us – His teachings scorned, He Himself mocked and rejected, despised, insulted, humiliated, spit on, beaten, whipped and crucified. Then, His emissaries and followers, rejected – and we continue to be despised and rejected.
Jews, Gentiles, all of humanity has been corrupted. We are sinful, antagonistic toward God, ruined, dominated by the devil, encompassed by evil spirits. We are not saved. We are lost. We are not headed to life. We are dead, and we are headed to the First Death and the Second Death. We are headed to Hell, and there is nothing we can do about it. We are dead in our trespasses and sins, and the dead are powerless. They can’t help themselves! On our own, regarding the need for salvation, we can’t do even a little. We are totally hopeless. That is the reality of the human situation. That is the human dilemma.
But due to our supremely merciful Creator, we were not left in that horrible situation. 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 Messiah (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Messiah Yeshua. Not only did our kind Maker grant us mercy; not only did He abundantly forgive and pardon all of our transgressions and sins; not only did He love us, not only did He save us, not only did He give us new life, a new quality of life that is in tune with God’s life, eternal life, but He highly exalted us. He raised us up from our extremely low condition, not just a little – not just raising us up back to life on Earth, but He raised us up higher, much much higher, all the way past this Earth, past the air and the lower heavens and all the up to Heaven and the Highest Heavens. There, in the Highest Heavens He didn’t put us off to one side (that would be good enough for us) but in the Highest Heavens God the Father caused us to be seated with the Son of God in the place of highest honest, next to the very throne of God the Father! That is where those are in Messiah will most certainly wind up!
So, from a starting point, a beginning condition of being dead in trespasses and sins, enemies of God, disobedient children, yielding to sinful lusts of body and mind, abominable to a holy God, children worthy of the righteous indignation and wrath of God Almighty, we have been forgiven; we have been saved; we have been enlivened, we have been raised up, we have exalted, we have been empowered and we have been eternally enriched!
Why? Why would the Supreme Being do all this? What motivated this great activity on the part of the Infinite One? The Creator was motivated by His mercy, by His desire to not give to His sinful, erring sons and daughters what we deserve, to punish us the way we merit, but because He is rich in mercy – not stingy with His mercy, but rich in mercy like the man who is forgiven a huge debt that he could never pay off; rich in mercy like the man who embezzle from his employer and gets caught and is facing years in jail and the destruction of his life is forgiven; and also motivated by His love for us – not just a little love for us, but great affection for us; a huge desire to do exceedingly much good for us, to restore us, and elevate us and bless us, the Lord intervened to save us. He worked so as to give us life, new life, the kind of life we need – real life, Messiah’s life, God’s life, eternal life, life with Messiah, life with God!
The Lord also did all these wonderful things for us for another reason. So that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Messiah Yeshua. Those who are in Messiah, those who have been joined to the Son of God, will, from age to age to age to age, ages stretching on throughout eternity, be a demonstration of the amazing grace and the exceedingly great kindness of this wonderful God.
Think about this: It is the Master of the Universe’s intention that we be an eternal display of the kindness that He has extended to us, and His grace – His unmerited favor, His unearned goodness. And, that we show forth not just a little bit the grace He gives to us, but the riches of His grace. And not just the riches of His grace, but the surpassing riches, the overabundant, the superlative, the exceedingly generous, the way beyond nature of His grace toward those of us who are in Messiah Yeshua.
And, if you are not in Messiah Yeshua? Then you are still a disobedient child, dead in your trespasses and sin, and you can expect the wrath of God, who is a consuming fire, to come your way! Take my advice. Make sure that you are in Messiah Yeshua!
And, if you are in Messiah, won’t you muster the courage to tell those outside of Messiah that they must get in Messiah? And, out of gratitude for all that God has done for you, and will do for you, and because of His great love for you, and the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness given to you, won’t you live an obedient life that pleases this gracious and loving God?