North Athens Baptist Church

In Ephesians 2:1 the Apostle Paul says this about the believers in Ephesus: “And you were dead in trespasses and sins…”  Some years ago a movie circulated in American theaters entitled The Way We Were.  It was a nostalgic look at the past, which is the way most people want to remember earlier years.  In the first verses of Ephesians 2 Paul, too, looks at the past.  Only his view is not nostalgic.  On the contrary, it is filled with the utmost realism.  Many have pointed out that these first three verses of Ephesians 2 are a short summary statement of what is found in the first three chapters of Romans.  This caused Paul to paint one of the most pessimistic pictures of human nature found anywhere.  Paul first plumbs the depths of pessimism about man. However, after he has done this he also “rises to the heights of optimism about God” and of how his grace saves sinners.  How are we to assess human nature? In the whole history of the human race there have only been three basic answers to that question.  The first is that man is healthy, man is sick and the Biblical answer: man is dead.  Like a spiritual corpse, a sinner is unable to make a single move toward God, think a single thought about God, or even correctly respond to God-unless God is first present to bring the spiritually dead person to life, which is what Paul says God does.  There is a phrase in verse 3 that shows the seriousness of deadness.  At the end it says, “We were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” In other words the things we have done to bring the wrath of God upon us we have done by nature.  We need a Savior not just because we have sinned, but because we are by nature sinners.  At the end of verse two it says that we are “sons of disobedience.” Which is another way of saying that disobedience is in our spiritual genes.  Rebellion runs in the human family.  It is part of our sinful nature.  Now what does that have to do with being dead? It sounds like we were very much alive and active in our rebellion and disobedience.  Indeed we were.  But in being alive to disobedience we were dead to obedience.  In being alive to rebellion we were dead to submission.  In being alive to unbelief we were dead to faith.  We had no living spiritual nature to incline us to do anything for the glory of God and in reliance on his power.  And lacking that spiritual nature we were dead: dead to righteousness, dead to holiness, dead to obedience, and dead to faith.  Spiritually speaking I was dead.  Without a Savior I had no spiritual inclinations at all, for there was no spiritual life at all.  And therefore I needed a Savior not only to forgive me for my sins, but also to give me spiritual life so that my heart would incline to trust him and obey him.  In these verses, as in the first three chapters of Romans, we see clearly outlined the nature of man without God.  So when Christians discuss the “free will of man” here is where they must begin.  Man will always act according to his nature.  What is his nature?  He is “…dead in trespasses and sins…and by nature children of wrath…”