Everybody recognizes that our world has evil in it, but we assume that the primary problem is other people. So we put locks on our doors and filters on our internet to keep evil out.
We also tend to think that we’re not really that bad. We’re basically nice folks who get confused and lose our way, or we’re just weak. The famous psychologist Carl Rogers said that we are basically good, and our main problem is that we have lost touch with our inner goodness, and oppressive or distorting societal structures have obscured our goodness.
In his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul blows up our culture’s entire understanding about evil. He starts his explanation of the gospel with the truth about the evil in us so that we can fully grasp what made Jesus’ rescue operation necessary: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Ephesians 2:1-2a ESV).
Two words jump out at me in that passage. The first is you. Paul says that you were dead in trespasses and sin. Of course this includes me and every other believer. There’s only one category of people: sinner. Sin is a fatal disease that exists in the heart of every person.
The second word that challenges how our culture thinks of itself is dead. Our problem is not that we’re good people who occasionally lose our way and do bad things. Our problem is that we are spiritually dead.
Many people think of sin as bad actions that we do, but the word “dead” shows us that sin is not so much an action as it is a condition. You don’t have the flu because you cough and sneeze and run a fever; you cough and sneeze and run a fever because you have the flu. In the same way, we’re not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners.
Every parent, of course, sees this in their kids. No one taught my kids how to be jerks to each other. I never sent them to “sin camp.” My kids didn’t learn selfishness or rebellion from their environment. Their sin is inherent in their nature.
That’s because all of us, Paul says, are spiritually dead. And because we are dead in our sins, no amount of religious behavioral change can fix us. We may learn to cover up the rotting areas of stench in our lives with religion or manners or culture, but we are still dead. In the end, no amount of religious perfume can cover the stench of spiritual death.
And it gets worse. Paul then begins to unpack for us what spiritual deadness looks like. He says we were “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:2b-3).
In case you didn’t catch that, Paul says that we were followers of Satan. When you and I joined Satan’s rebellion, we became his sons and daughters, and his spirit began to shape and lead us. From there, we began to live “in the passions of our flesh.” Things other than God became our master. We obeyed the impulses of the body and mind, and because of this, we “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
You and I deserve the wrath of God. We really are dead in our sins. Our blasphemy against God deserves the eternal punishment of hell. Paul starts here, because in order to really understand the gospel or place any value on it, you have to understand what you were saved from.
A lot of times we try to jump right to the good news of the gospel without grappling with the bad news. But every physician knows that if you misdiagnose the disease, you’ll mis-prescribe the cure. Until you understand the problem, you’ll never cherish grace.
Charles Spurgeon said,
“The reason we think too lightly of the Savior is we think too lightly of sin. Only he who has stood before his God … feeling the rope of God’s judgment about his neck, will be the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him.”
We were dead in sin. We were by nature children of wrath, sons and daughters of disobedience, followers under the influence of Satan. We didn’t need a Jesus who would come as a life-coach to help us turn over a new leaf. We needed a resurrected Savior who could give us new life.
We didn’t need to be edited, updated, rebooted, or enhanced; we needed to be forgiven, restored, redeemed, and resurrected. We needed to be saved.
That’s a lot of bad news. And it could have stopped there.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5).
We were helpless. But God …
There’s the good news.
When we were dead in sin, God bared his mighty arm and went to work.
For more, be sure to listen to the entire message here.
