This passage in chapter 2 contains a devastating description of our human corruption and sinful nature. We need to see this clearly if we are to understand why mankind needs the gospel of Jesus Christ. Appreciating it deeply will also help us in our approach in evangelism and sharing the gospel.
The description here is the biblical diagnosis of fallen man in a fallen world and society. It explains why we need to depend totally upon the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing us to spiritual life in Christ. Unless fallen man is convicted of his sinful depraved condition and his helpless spiritual state, he will not cry out for mercy and deliverance from the hand of God. The sharing of the gospel, in dependence on God’s Spirit, must necessarily bring him to realize his terrible spiritual state and his desperate need for a Saviour.
A self-improvement plan would not help him. Giving him the best education available and human wisdom could not solve his predicament. Even religious pursuits and spiritual activities would be of no avail.
Let us now focus on three major truths about the depraved state of unredeemed human beings.
1) Without God, we are dead in our transgressions and sins. ‘Death’ here (2:1) refers to a state of spiritual death, a state alienated from the life of God, lacking life. Such ones in this state have no desire or love for God, no sensitive awareness of His personal reality, no longing for fellowship with Him or His people. A life without God, even for a person who is physically fit and mentally alert, is a living death. And those who live it are dead even while they are living. The tragedy of human existence is that people who are created by God and for God are now living without God. In the sphere which matters the most, the soul, such ones have no life. At this point, we need to note that men without God are spiritually dead; they are not just spiritually sick.
2) Without God, there is no true freedom; instead, there is a fearful bondage to forces over which we have no control. We are held captive to the world, the flesh and the devil.
a) We follow the ways of the world; we look to a whole social value system which is alien to God and His ways. These values dominate us, holding us in captivity and bondage. They lead us to political oppression, organized tyranny, materialism, various forms of discrimination, injustice and lawlessness. Culturally, our minds and values surrender to the pop-culture of television, films, social media, magazines and books. Although at times we realize the emptiness and ‘dead-ends’ of all these pursuits, we find ourselves unable to extricate ourselves from this bondage.
b) We follow the ways of the kingdom of the air, the spirit which is now at work in those who are disobedient. It is a clear reference to the devil, the prince of the power of the air, under whom the negative principalities and powers operate in the unseen world. He is the source of temptations to sin, to evil, rebellion and violence; he works continuously and tirelessly to oppose God and His people. He leads unbelievers to follow his agenda and to build his own kingdom, apart from God. Whether we like it or not, we are either under the rule of God or under the control of the devil. We might be under the impression that we are truly free to do what we like, without God, yet, in reality, the devil is leading us and prodding us along, with empty promises, deceptions and the lure of what the world can offer through him. We are in fact under his control; we are captives to this formidable foe; only divine energy and power can rescue us from him.
c) All of us live, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature, and following its desires. We are walking in the flesh. The flesh here refers to our fallen self-centered human nature, energized by the desires of the body and mind. We must first acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with natural bodily desires, whether it be for food, sleep or sex. God has made the human body this way. It is only when these desires are perverted into sinful desires which manifest as intellectual pride, false ambition, malicious thoughts, rejection of truth, gluttony and selfish pursuits that they become cravings of our sinful nature. Do not be fooled. These sinful desires may appear as respectable, even ‘spiritually acceptable’; they are, however, despicable in the sight of God.
3) Without God, we are spiritually dead and enslaved by the world, the flesh and the devil. What is more, we are also condemned for “like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath”. The wrath mentioned here is the wrath of God. It is a wrath that is neither an arbitrary reaction nor an impersonal process. It is God’s personal, righteous, constant hostility to evil, His definite refusal to compromise with it and His determination to condemn it. His wrath is not incompatible with His love. Both the wrath of God and His love are held together in His character. God always reacts to evil in the same unchanging and uncompromising way. Without God, we are under His dreadful judgment.
We need to address what we mean by the term “by nature”. It points to the origin of our condition as members of a fallen race. Paul is saying that our inherited human nature itself deserves God’s wrath and judgment. This is supported by Paul’s argument in Romans 5:12-14 that all men sinned in and with Adam. He is not saying that all men inherited a sinful nature which led them to sin and so to die. The Old Testament has a strong sense of the solidarity of the human race. It speaks of the next generation as being already “in the loins” of the present generation, a truth which modern genetics may be said to underline. Therefore, it is in order to say that we sinned in Adam, and that in and with him we incurred guilt and died. It is in this sense that we may be described as “by nature” sinners and subject to God’s just judgment. “Nature” does not refer to human beings as originally created but refers to the fallen character of man.
Some have the idea that human beings are born into this world in a state of innocence, or born morally neutral, with no bias in their hearts towards either good or evil. It is as if every human being goes through his own probation. If every individual is born innocent with no inclination towards good or evil, we would expect that some of the people would remain innocent; we should expect to find pockets of society with sinless people. But in reality no such civilization can be found because we are not born morally neutral. We are in fact born fallen, and opposed to God. That is the reason we are under the wrath of God.
In summary, Adam was the first man, but he was also the father and representative head of the human race; his response to God’s command determined the status of the whole human race. Adam sinned and fell. In him, we also sinned. Since we share in his humanity, his sin spread to us all. The result is that in Adam, all have sinned and all die. In Adam, we are dominated by the old order. By nature, then, we belong to Adam’s family and are under the dominion of sin. We live within the sphere of rebellion against God.
To suggest that human beings are born in a state of moral and spiritual neutrality so that they do not need to be regenerated (made alive by God) but only to be properly trained and to be surrounded by good examples would result in the teaching of Pelagius. Pelagius, in the fourth century, taught the complete freedom of the individual, who is thus responsible for every action taken. Every sin is a result of individual choice and “We have within us a free will which is so strong and steadfast to resist sin…” Pelagius’ teaching was opposed by Augustine in particular and was rejected by the leaders of the early Church; his teaching was even branded as heretical.
What Pelagius advocated would contradict what Ephesians taught that we were dead in our sins and that we were under bondage to the world, the flesh and the devil. This is what Augustine calls “not able to not sin” (non posse non peccare) (Enchiridion 118). Our fallen state makes us only choose what is contrary to God and His ways. Only when God makes us alive in Christ, that is, when God regenerates us by His grace through faith and unites us with Christ, that we are enabled through the Holy Spirit to choose God and His ways. So we are able to not sin (posse non peccare).
Death, slavery and condemnation. These are the three truths which describe our human condition without God. Outside Christ, man is dead because of sins; enslaved by the world, the flesh and the devil; and condemned under the wrath of God. No part of the human person outside Christ is untainted by the fall. This is not saying that total depravity means that nobody is capable of any good. The image of God, in which human beings were originally created, has been damaged grievously but not entirely lost. Yet the condition of fallen man describes a radical problem that requires a radical solution, and that brings us to God’s solution outlined in the subsequent verses.
Let us now focus on the following verses:
“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved” (verses 4-5).
“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. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (verses 8-10).
Notice that we were made alive with Christ. We were dead, and dead men do not rise. It is God who has taken action to reverse our condition in sin. It is essential to hold this contrast together: what we are by nature and what we are by grace, the human condition and the divine compassion, God’s wrath and God’s love.
One of the most profound issues of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth Century was the relationship between grace and merit. Grace is something we receive. It is not because we earn it but because, out of God’s mercy and benevolence, He gives it to us as a gift. Merit, on the other hand, is a reward that is owed to someone for doing some work. Notice that in verses 8-9, it is by grace we have been saved through faith. This is definitely not by works but it is a gift from God. There is no merit involved and therefore there is no room for boasting. The Reformation insists that salvation is by faith alone; there is no merit or works involved. Before the Reformation, the teaching of the Western church was that justification is accomplished through a mixture of faith plus works (which include sacraments, in particular the sacrament of penance, confession and “works of satisfaction”).
Because “by grace we have been saved through faith” is a gift of God, the conclusion must be that faith itself is a gift of God. It is not an expression of human achievement, of human effort, or of human ability. We should be ever so grateful that every believer has received as a gift not only the salvation that comes through faith, but the gift of faith itself.
Faith is not the Christian’s righteousness, but it is the instrument of his justification. Christ, with what He has done and suffered, is the meritorious cause of our justification. Faith does not earn anything from God by its own worthiness, but simply receives the gift of what Christ accomplished.
Teaching that human nature after the Fall is only partially depraved, not dead in sin but only sick, and therefore able to take the first step in regeneration, implies a Semi-Pelagian theology of salvation. Likewise, teaching that people may lose their salvation after they have received it is Semi-Pelagian heresy. According to Semi-Pelagianism, the grace of God is necessary for salvation as medicine is to heal a dying man. But a type of co-operation must take place between the patient and the physician for the healing medicine to have its effect. What happens is that God brings the medicine to the dying man, but the dying man must cooperate by opening his mouth to receive it. This is the analogy often used. The teaching in Ephesians, and also the Reformed view, would be that man is not only critically ill, he is dead. The man does not even have the power to open his mouth to receive the healing medicine. Rather, the medicine has to be injected into him by the physician.
The problem is that even though we have the power to choose in human matters, we are dead to the things of God, and as a result have no desire for the things of God. Rather, we follow a different course. We follow it willfully. We follow it freely, in the sense of doing what we want to do. But with respect to spiritual things, we are dead.
We must understand that (1) God has chosen believers in Christ before the creation of the world, (2) we are saved by grace through faith, and (3) there is no place for boasting because we are not chosen based on merit. Understanding these three matters will help us tremendously in our approach to Christian living and evangelism. Knowing that it is God, through the Holy Spirit, who made us alive in Christ means that we have to prayerfully depend on God’s Spirit to convict man of sin and to draw them to desire to respond in faith and repentance to the message of the gospel. We are reminded of what the Lord Jesus said in John 6:65, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them”. It is therefore important that our approach is not to sway the will of the listener to the gospel through the use of worldly methods and human persuasion, through manipulation of the emotion through music, emotional presentations and visual effects. We are to present the message of the gospel accurately, not depending on charisma, as Apostle Paul reminded us in 1 Corinthians, but looking to God to preach the message of the cross and the need for man in his depraved human condition to cry out to God for His mercy and grace. It does not mean that we do not take care to communicate clearly and as effectively, as we should, in presenting the gospel, but ultimately, whom or what do we depend upon to bring the message home? It is helpful to quote Charles Colson in his book “Loving God” at this point:
“But, the church is in almost as much trouble as the culture, for the church has bought into the same value system: fame, success, materialism and celebrity. We watch the leading churches and the leading Christians for our cues. We want to emulate the best-known preachers with the biggest sanctuaries and the grandest edifices. Preoccupation with these values has also perverted the church’s message. The assistant to one renowned media pastor, when asked the key to the man’s success, replied without hesitation, ‘We give the people what they want’.”
Some people say, “if the people want celebrity to draw them to the gospel, let us give it to them; if they want performance, music and multi-media presentations, let us oblige.” This seems to be the current focus of evangelism. Let there be no mistake about it; we do pray and organize prayer meetings but the Lord sees clearly whom and what we depend upon. Do we depend on wordly power or power from God?
Ponder what Charles Spurgeon communicated decades ago:
“Brethren, we shall not adjust our Bible to the age; but before we have done with it, by God’s grace, we shall adjust the age to the Bible…If any of you wish to preach a gospel that will be pleasing to the times, preach it in the power of the devil, and I have no doubt that he will willingly do his best for you…In reference to ministers, many church members are indifferent as to the personal piety of the preacher; what they want is talent or cleverness. What the man preaches does not matter now; he must draw a crowd, or please the elite, and that is enough. Cleverness is the main thing. Whether he preaches truth or error, the man is held in admiration as long as he can talk glibly, and keep up a reputation as a speaker…We have a faith to preach, my brethren, and we are sent forth with a message from God. We are not left to fabricate the message as we go along. We are not sent by our Master with this kind of general commission – ‘As you shall think in your heart and invent in your head as you march on, so preach. Keep abreast of the times. Whatever the people want to hear, tell them that, and they shall be saved.’ Verily, we read not so. There is something definite in the Bible. It is not quite a lump of wax to be shaped at our will, or a roll of cloth to be cut according to the prevailing fashion…We must preach the gospel so distinctly that our people know what we are preaching…We have nowadays around us a class of men who preach Christ, and even preach the gospel, but then they preach a great deal else which is not true, and thus they destroy the good of all that they deliver, and lure men to error. They would be styled ‘evangelical’ and yet be of the school which is really anti-evangelical.”
What the prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon, communicated decades ago still holds sway today; it is pertinent that we do God’s work in God’s way and not allow the spirit of the world, the desires of the flesh and the deception of the evil one compromise the truth and message of the gospel.
In sharing the gospel, it is pertinent that repentance and forgiveness of sin ought to be pressed on the attention of every man, woman and child throughout the world. All need to be told of the necessity of repentance, for all are by nature desperately wicked. It should be clear that without repentance and conversion none can enter the kingdom of God. We need to tell all that God is ready to forgive everyone who believes in Christ. Repentance and forgiveness are linked together. Our repentance itself cannot purchase our pardon, for forgiveness is the free gift of God to the believer in Christ. However, it is also true that a man who does not repent is a man who is unforgiven, for a forgiven believer will always show some fruit of repentance. It is therefore pertinent that in the sharing and preaching of the gospel, there must be the communication of the need for repentance and the dreadful spiritual state of those who remain outside Christ. Intellectual assent, emotional response and the repetition of some prayer formula do not equal to true regeneration. This may lead to apparent increase of number of ‘conversions’ and response on paper but this does not result in true conversions to Christ. The Church is then inundated with tares rather than wheat; we have many who claim to be believers but who are not truly in Christ.
Verse 10 of chapter two which emphasizes that we are created for good works prepared by God again dismisses the antinomian teaching that ‘all I have to do is believe and I am not expected to perform good works’. Justification is indeed by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. It means that true faith will inevitably manifest itself in the performance of works of obedience to God. Here we have to be careful not to swing to the other extreme teaching of legalism, which suggests that we need to be careful to keep the laws of God in order to please God and to earn our salvation. We may end up in a keeping of rules and regulations to a point that we equate these rules with spirituality and we may measure our standing with God by the way we perform our spiritual disciplines. We are accepted in the Beloved, in Christ, solely through the merit of the Lord Jesus and not on the basis of our performance.
The reason why justifying faith must produce good works is that faith receives Christ, and so the believer is in union with Christ by the Holy Spirit. Christ then dwells in the believer’s heart by the Spirit, transforming the character of the soul and the activity of the body. The necessity of faith for sanctification reminds us that holiness is by grace.
As pointed out by Sinclair Ferguson in the book “The Whole Christ”, both legalism and antinomianism stem from a failure to grasp the goodness and graciousness of God’s character. The antinomian spirit cannot see the law as a wonderful gift of God and it dislocates God from His good law, finding ways to argue that God does not require obedience. On the other hand, the spirit of legalism sees the law as a covenant of works rather than as a way to honor and give pleasure to the One who saved them by grace. It is only understanding and tasting union with Jesus Christ Himself that will lead us to a new love for and obedience to the law of God.
In other words, the remedy for both antinomianism and legalism is a fuller and more biblical understanding of grace and the character of God.