CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Ephesians 2:1. And you did He quicken.—The italics in A.V. and R.V. show a broken construction of St. Paul’s meaning, the verb being supplied from Ephesians 2:5, where the broken thread is taken up again. Dead in trespasses and sins.—“Dead through,” etc. (R.V.). “What did they die of?” it might be asked; and the apostle answers, “Of trespasses and sins” (so Alford). “The word for trespasses is one of a mournfully numerous group of words” (Trench). It has sometimes the milder meaning of “faults,” “mitigating circumstances” being considered. It makes special reference “to the subjective passivity and suffering of him who misses or falls short of the enjoined command” (Cremer). Meyer denies any “real distinction between the words for ‘trespasses’ and ‘sins.’ They denote the same thing as a ‘fall’ and a ‘missing.’ ”
Ephesians 2:2.—“Shadows,” says Meyer, “before the light which arises in Ephesians 2:4.” Wherein in time past ye walked.—It is a sombre picture—men walking about “to find themselves dishonourable graves” in the “valley of the shadow of death,” knowing not whither they go because the darkness—the gloom of spiritual death—“hath blinded their eyes” (1 John 2:11). According to the course of this world.—Well translated by our modern “zeit-geist,” or “spirit of the age.” The prince of the power of the air.—However contemptuous St. Paul may be of the creations of the Gnostic fancy, he never dreams of saying there is nothing existent unless it can be seen and felt. The dark realm and its ruler are not myths to the apostle.
Ephesians 2:3. Among whom also we all had our conversation.—St. Paul does not glorify himself at the expense of his readers’ past life. True his had not been a life swayed by animal delights (Acts 26:5), but it had been marked by implacable enmity to the Son of God. And were by nature children of wrath.—“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, … whether it be Jewish or Gentile.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ephesians 2:1-3
The Children of Wrath—
I. Are spiritually dead.—“Who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). The only life of which they are conscious, and in which all their activities are displayed, is a life of sin. They have no conception of a higher life. They are capable of a higher life, and know it not. The spiritual, the higher form of life, is entombed and buried under a mass of sin. It is inert, dead, in process of corruption. Dante refers to such as, “These wretched ones who never were alive; I ne’er forsooth could have believed it true, that death had slain such myriads of mankind.” Sin first benumbs, then paralyses, and finally slays our spiritual sensibilities. The soul dead to God shall not be insensible to the reality of the divine wrath.
II. Are under the spell of an unseen evil power (Ephesians 2:2).—“The children of disobedience” are those who are withholding their allegiance from the Lord Jesus Christ, all those who are unconverted; not mere gross sinners and open profligates, but such persons as are strangers to the spiritual life, although they may have many excellencies of nature and disposition. The apostle plainly asserts that before he was brought to the knowledge of Christ he was under the influence of the “prince of the power of the air.” This is a startling statement. It is more startling still if we consider what sort of man Paul was before his conversion—how excellent, how earnest, how devoted to the external duties of a religious life. But startling as it is, it is the apostle who makes it of himself; and the inference is unavoidable, that all that mass of persons who are out of Christ and who are not partakers of His resurrection life, who have given their hearts to the world and not to the Saviour, are just the captives of Satan, and, without knowing it, are doing his lusts and accomplishing his will. The disease is not less deadly because it eats out the life without inflicting pain. The pestilence is not the less awful because it comes without giving notice of its presence, borne on the balmy breezes of the bright, cloudless, summer eve. The vampire does not do its work the less effectually because it fans its victim with its perfumed wings into an unconscious slumber whilst it drains away his life-blood and leaves him a corpse. And Satan is not the less real or the less destructive because he works his fatal work upon our souls without our even being conscious of his approach.
III. Are prompted to sin by the instincts of a depraved nature (Ephesians 2:3).—There is the twofold province of a man’s being, by the lower of which he is allied to the brute creation, and by the higher to the angels, both being under the dominion of sin. There is the corrupt body of flesh, and in a higher sense there is the fleshly mind. Every unregenerate person lives more or less in one or the other of these provinces—either in the sphere of fleshly lusts or in the sphere of the fleshly mind. Either he lives simply an animal life, and is in consequence a fleshly man, whose life consists only in fulfilling the desires of his lower nature; or he lives in the higher province of the mind, but it is nevertheless the mind in darkness, in uncertainty, in doubt—mind and heart alike alienated from God through the unbelief which is in them. It would not do to argue from this that our passions are our sins. Sin is not in appetite, but lies in the insubordination of appetite. There is need of a curbing and governing will, and our discipline consists in subjugating the lower to the higher. A due balance between the two regions must be preserved, and it is when passion becomes master and the lower invades the province of the higher, when the subordinate becomes insubordinate, that appetite and passion become sin. The flesh is the great rival of the Spirit, for it asserts that dominion over a man which the Holy Spirit alone ought to occupy, and these two are constantly opposed to each other. The depravity within, working in the thoughts of the mind and the passions of the flesh, prompts to a course of disobedience and sin.
IV. Are exposed to condemnation.—“And were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men.” The apostle shows that even the Jews, who boasted of their birth from Abraham, were by natural birth equally children of wrath, as the Gentiles whom the Jews despised on account of their birth from idolaters. The phrase “children of wrath” is a Hebraism, meaning we are objects of God’s wrath from childhood, in our natural state, as being born in sin, which God hates. Wrath abides on all who disobey the gospel in faith and practice.
Lessons.—
1. Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.
2. Your adversary the devil walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
3. Because there is wrath, beware!
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Ephesians 2:1. A State of Sin a State of Death.
I. There are some respects in which the death of the soul does not resemble the death of the body.—
1. It does not involve the extinction of faculties and affections. The dead body moves not, nor feels, nor acts. The dead soul still thinks and feels and wills.
2. It does not exempt from responsibility. The dead soul is commanded to repent and believe and obey.
3. It is not incapable of restoration on earth. The spiritually dead may become spiritually alive here.
II. There are some respects in which the death of the soul does resemble the death of the body.—
1. In its cause. Sin.
2. In its extent. All men without exception.
3. In its consequences. The dead are utterly insensible, they fulfil none of the functions or duties of the living, they can be reanimated only by divine power. Address:
(1) Those who are spiritually dead.
(2) Those who have reason to believe that they are spiritually alive.—G. Brooks.
Ephesians 2:1-3. The State of Men without the Gospel.
I. The moral state of wicked men resembles a state of natural death (Ephesians 2:1).—From the metaphor used in the text we are not to conclude that all sinners are alike, for though all are in a sense dead some are under a greater death than others. The metaphor is usually applied to sinners of the most vicious character. When we speak of human nature as totally depraved we mean only a total destitution of real holiness, not the highest possible degree of vitiosity. In order to denominate one a sinner it is not necessary that he should be as bad as possible. Though natural death does not, yet spiritual death does, admit of degrees. Evil men wax worse and worse, add sin to sin, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath.
1. Sinners may be said to be dead in respect of their stupidity.—We read of some who are past feeling, whose conscience is seared, who have eyes which see not, ears which hear not, and a heart which is waxed gross. Their hearts are like a mortified limb which feels no pain under the scarifying knife.
2. They are represented as wanting spiritual senses.—They savour the things of the world, not the things which are of God. They indeed love the effects of God’s goodness to them, but they delight not in His character as a holy, just, and faithful Being. They may feel a natural pleasure in certain mechanical emotions of the passions excited by objects presented to the sight, or by sounds which strike the ear, as the artificial tears from the image of the Virgin Mary will melt down an assembly of Catholics, or as a concert of musical instruments will rapture the hearers; but they relish not the word and ordinances of God, considered as means of holiness and as designed to convince them of their sins and bring them to repentance. If the word dispensed comes home to their conscience, they are offended. They lose the music of the pleasant song, and talk against it by the walls and in the doors of their houses.
3. They resemble the dead in the want of vital warmth.—If they have any fervour in religion, it is about the forms and externals of it, or about some favourite sentiments which they find adapted to soothe their consciences, not about those things in which the power of religion consists. As death deforms the body, so sin destroys the beauty of the soul. It darkens the reason, perverts the judgment, and disorders the affections. To be carnally-minded is death.
4. They may be denominated dead as they are worthy of and exposed to punishment.—This is called death because it is the separation of the soul from God and heaven, from happiness and hope, from all good and unto all evil. This is a death which awaits the impenitent.
II. There is in ungodly men a general disposition to follow the way of the world.—“According to the course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2). They, like dead carcasses, swam down the stream of common custom, and were carried away with the general current of vice and corruption.
1. Most men have a general idea that religion is of some importance.—Few can wholly suppress it, or reason themselves out of it. But what religion is and wherein it consists they seldom inquire, and never examine with any degree of attention. Such opinions as flatter their ungodly lusts, or pacify their guilty consciences, they warmly embrace. That scheme of doctrine which will make converts without exacting reformation, and give assurance without putting them to much trouble, they highly approve. The path which will lead men to heaven with little self-denial they readily pursue.
2. There are many who blindly follow the examples of the world.—Whether such a practice is right or wrong they take little pains to examine. It is enough that they see many who adopt it. They would rather incur the censure of their own minds and the displeasure of their God than stand distinguished by a singularity in virtue.
III. They are under the influence of evil spirits.—“According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). The number of evil spirits is very great, but there is one distinguished from the rest, and called the devil, Satan, the prince of the power of the air. The manner in which he works in the minds of men is by gaining access to their passions and lusts, which he inflames by suggesting evil thoughts or by painting images on the fancy. It was by the avarice of Judas and Ananias that he entered into them and filled their hearts.
IV. The wickedness of men consists not merely in their evil works, but in the corrupt dispositions which prompt them to those works.—“The lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Ephesians 2:3). The lusts of the flesh are the vices of sensuality, as intemperance, uncleanness, debauchery, and excess of riot. The desires of the fleshly mind are the lusts which arise from the corruption of the mind in its connection with flesh, as pride, malice, envy, wrath, hatred, ambition, and covetousness. Though no man indulges every vice, yet every unregenerate man obeys the carnal mind.
V. The indulgence of carnal lusts and passions brings on men the wrath of God.—“The children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). A mind sunk in carnality is incapable of rational felicity; it is miserable in itself and from its own corruption and perverseness. If man subjects his nature to the lusts and passions, the order of nature is inverted, the law of creation violated, and the Creator dishonoured and offended.
Lessons.—
1. If you have not abandoned yourselves to the grossest forms of vice, it is because you have been placed under superior light and enjoyed a happier education than the heathen.
2. Though you may not have indulged all the lusts and vices which others have done, yet if you are children of disobedience you can no more be saved without renovation of heart and repentance of sin than they can.—Lathrop.
Ephesians 2:3. The State of Nature.
I. If by human nature you mean nature as seen in this man or that, then unquestionably nature is evil—individual nature, personal nature, is contrary to God’s will. But if by human nature you mean nature as God made it, as it has been once in one man of our species and only one, and as by God’s grace it shall be again; if you mean nature as it is according to the idea of the Creator as shown in Jesus Christ, as it is in the eyes of God imputed not as it is but as it shall be,—then that nature is a noble thing, a thing divine; for the life of the Redeemer Himself, what was it but the one true exhibition of our human nature?
II. Paul says that by nature we fulfil the desires of the flesh and of the mind.—I pray you to observe that it is the second and not in the first sense that he here speaks of nature. The desires of the flesh mean the appetites; those of the mind mean the passions: to fulfil the desires of the flesh is to live the life of the swine; to fulfil those of the mind is to live the life of the devil. But this is the partiality, not the entireness, of human nature. Where is the conscience, where the spirit with which we have communion with God? To live to the flesh and to the mind is not to live to the nature that God gave us. We can no more call that living to our nature than we can say that a watch going by the mere force of the main-spring without a regulator is fulfilling the nature of a watch. To fulfil the desires of the flesh and of the mind is no more to fulfil the nature which God has given us than the soil fulfils its nature when it brings forth thorns and briars. St. Paul, in the epistle to the Romans, draws a distinction between himself and his false nature: “It is not I, but sin that dwelleth in me.” Sin is the dominion of a false nature; it is a usurped dominion.
III. The next thing that Paul tells us is that by nature we are children of wrath.—In the state of nature we are in the way to bear the wrath of God. Yet God is not wrath; He is infinite love. The eternal severity of His nature does not feel our passions, He remains for ever calm; yet such is our nature that we must think of Him as wrath as well as love: to us love itself becomes wrath when we are in a state of sin. God must hate sin and be for ever sin’s enemy. If we sin He must be against us: in sinning we identify ourselves with evil, therefore we must endure the consuming fire. So long as there is evil, so long will there be penalty. Sin, live according to the lusts of the flesh, and you will become the children of God’s wrath; live after the spirit, the higher nature that is in you, and then the law hath hold on you no longer.—F. W. Robertson.
The Worst of Evils.
I. By nature all are the children of wrath.—
1. Because we want that original righteousness in which we were created and which is required to the purity and perfection of our nature.
2. Because all the parts and powers of our soul and body are depraved with original corruption. Our understandings are so bad that they understand not their own badness, our wills which are the queens of our souls become the vassals of sin, our memories like jet good only to draw straws and treasure up trifles of no moment, our consciences through errors in our understandings sometimes accusing us when we are innocent, sometimes acquitting us when we are guilty, our affections all disaffected and out of order.
3. Some may expect that as the master of the feast said to him that wanted the wedding garment, “Friend, how camest thou in hither?” so I should demand of original sin, “Foe, and worst of foes, how camest thou in hither, and by what invisible leaks didst thou soak into our souls?” But I desire, if it be possible, to present you this day a rose without prickles, to declare plain and positive doctrine without thorny disputes or curious speculations, lest, as Abraham’s ram was caught in the thicket, so I embroil you and myself in difficult controversies. Let us not busy our brains so much to know how original sin came into us, as labour in our heart to know how it should be got out of us. But the worst is, most men are sick of the rickets in the soul, their heads swell to a vast proportion, puffed up with the emptiness of airy speculations, whilst their legs and lower parts do waste and consume, their practical parts decay, none more lazy to serve God in their lives and conversations.
II. Ye parents to children, see how, though against your wills, ye have propagated this wrath-deserving on your children unto your children; you are bound, both in honour and honesty, civility and Christianity, to pluck them out of this pit.
1. This you may do by embracing the speediest opportunity to fasten the sacrament of baptism upon them.
2. Let them not want good prayers, which if steeped in tears will grow the better, good precepts, good precedents, and show thy child in thyself what he should follow, in others what he should shun and avoid.
3. In the low countries, where their houses lie buried in the ground, the laying of the foundation is counted as much as the rest of the foundation; so half our badness lies secret and unseen, consisting in original corruption, whereof too few take notice. Witches, they say, say the Lord’s Prayer backward; but concupiscence, this witch in our soul, says all the commandments backward, and makes us cross in our practice what God commands in His precepts. Thus every day we sin, and sorrow after our sin, and sin after our sorrow. The wind of God’s Spirit bloweth us one way, and the tide of our corruption hurrieth us another. These things he that seeth not in himself is sottish, blind; he that seeth and confesseth not is damnably proud; he that confesseth and bewaileth not is desperately profane; he that bewaileth and fighteth not against it is unprofitably pensive: but he that in some weak manner doeth all these is a saint in reversion here, and shall be one in possession hereafter.—T. Fuller.