The Reality Of the Living Dead Eph 2:1-6

I recently watched the movie, Dead man walking, which describes the experiences of a man sentenced to die for a horrible crime. At the end of the film, he finally acknowledges his crime. He repents and accepts Christ, and is then led to the room where he would die by lethal injection. The thing that really struck me at that point was the cry by the jail warden as he led the man to his final appointment with death, "Dead man walking. Dead man walking". Although he was still alive, he was legally dead. There was nothing that anybody could do at that point for this man. Every avenue of possible reprieve had been exhausted. Right up to the last minute his lawyer and his spiritual advisor waited at the phone in the hopes of a miracle. But it never came. All had failed.That is the most hopeless place for any human being to be.

In Ephesians 2, Paul describes the life of the believer in tenses. Past, present and future. Of the past he speaks of a place of hopelessness at which every human being has stood. Not in a physical sense, but in a spiritual sense. Every one of us was in time past, under the penalty of death. Sin had judged us, and we were found guilty by our transgressions. There was no way of escape. All was hopeless. But then there was a miracle. God entered into the picture and 2000 years ago insured that every one who would acknowledge their sinfulness and call upon the name of His son would be pardoned. Would be made alive again. Right in the midst of that journey of death, with our enemy shouting the words, "dead man walking, dead man walking," God entered into the picture and provided the miracle that would set us free.

He paints a vivid contrast between that past prison of death into which all us were born and the present position of deliverance into which those of us who have put our faith in Christ have been brought. It is a text of hope. It is a revelation of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in providing for us the true pardon from sin and deliverance from the shackles of death.
There are three important aspects to what Paul is describing in this text..
Ephesians 2:1-10
Paul speaks firstly of:
I. The Reality of Living Death
" Ephes. 2:1-3 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, [2] in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. [3] All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

Paul makes the case here that before we can understand our present potential and our future promise, we must recognize our past predicament.
So Paul speaks of the condition we find ourselves in without Christ.
Dead, disobedient, depraved, doomed

a. Dead
We were dead in more ways than one. He states two causes of the spiritual death. Trespasses and sins. Trespasses paraptoma -to slip, fall, or stumble or to deliberately deviate from a right direction. the deliberate breaking of established laws. Sins of commission. hamartia - missing the mark. Sin means missing the mark, sins of omission.
We were guilty on both counts, and some of us continue in spite of outward appearance to pursue that conduct. Maybe not so much the trespass, but very likely the sin - missing of the mark (The most common. Used in NT 173 times).
This is what is described in Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," In other words, we fall short, we fail to do the things that give God glory.

Some would argue that they are not that bad. That they have only committed very minor sins, and therefore do not deserve the same treatment as someone for example who is a murderer and a robber. They do not deserve to be under judgment of death. Well, consider the fact that the majority of the audience to which Paul was addressing this letter were basically very good people. People such as the thousands of devout, God fearing Jews in Jerusalem for Pentecost Ac 2:5 The Ethiopian Eunuch, who had traveled great distances to worship God and was reading Isaiah when Philip found him Ac 8:27-28 Cornelius, a devout God-fearing Gentile who "prayed to God always" Ac 10:2 Lydia, a prayerful woman "who worshipped God" Ac 16:13-14 The "noble" Bereans - Ac 17:11 Saul of Tarsus (i.e., the apostle Paul) - Ac 22:3; Phi 3: 4-6 You see, what he is trying to say is that death is death. In God's way of measuring things, there is no difference. There are no degrees of death. If you have been dead for a minute or a year, you are still dead. Someone who has been hit by an Amtrac train is no more dead than someone who dies peacefully in their sleep. They are both just as dead.

The beautiful little daughter of Jairus had been dead for only a few minutes when Jesus reached her father's house, but she was dead, nevertheless. As she lay there, she probably looked as if she was asleep. No corruption was evident. But she was dead.

Later on, in the gospel of Luke we read that as Jesus entered the village of Nain they were carrying a young man out to bury him. He had been dead for a day or two. But he was no more or less dead than the daughter of Jairus. Still one more example. The grave side of Lazarus. He had been there for 4 days. The Bible tells us that He was already offensive. Corruption had set in. But the Lord Jesus brought him back to life.

In every one of these instances it took the same mighty, mega, energizing power (as described in 1:19 - energeia, kratos, ischus, dunamis -) to bring them back to life. They were all just as dead, and it took Jesus to bring them back to life.

Only the Son of God could speak life into the daughter of Jairus, the young man of Nain, and Lazarus.

So each of us was dead. Some of us were totally corrupt with the vileness of sin while others did not know much about the worst sins at all. But all of us were equally dead before God, and needed the restorative power of Jesus Christ in our lives. You see, God's definition of sin is always far more narrow than ours. Luke 18:9-14 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' 13"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' 14"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

The Pharisees definition of sin was far narrower than God's. And guess what? God makes the rules!
So Paul says that in our sins we are dead.
Our past state is not only described as being dead but also as being
b. Disobedient.
"in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient." In other words, we were once these sons of disobedience. Deadness and disobedience characterize our life before Christ. And to walk as sons of disobedience means to walk according to the course of this world. The world's course is the world's system of values. This system of values is inspired by the master of the kingdom of the air, who is Satan. He is the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. In other words, to fall in line with the spirit of the times is to align oneself with the philosophy of Satan.

Notice that in spite of the fact that we were dead, we were also still alive. We were able to walk around. You know, that is what satan does to us.

In the film "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" there is a most gruesome scene. While Indiana and his party are walking through a passage in a cave, they stumble across the natives in the midst of a satanic ritual. They are about to sacrifice a man into a boiling pit of lava. Before he is sacrificed, the satanic priest walks up to him, places his hand right into his chest and removes his heart. He holds the heart in his hand, still beating. The victim looks on in horror, still very much alive. Then, screaming for his life he is plunged into the pit of fire. As gruesome as that scene was, it brought home to me that this is exactly what satan does while we are dead in our sins. He steals our hearts, keeps us alive, and then burns us in the pit of hell.

Some of us may have even lived incredibly good lives. Full of religious acts. There may have been the appearance even of some spiritual life in us, but satan had our hearts, and we were ready to burn. Paul speaks about this as dead works, or works unto death. I like the term I once heard someone use. "Bad good" Did you know that there is such a thing as bad good?

In spite of all the good we may do, we could still be dead. There are certain characteristics of a physically dead body which have a parallel to a spiritually dead body.

No appetite - For the Word of God.

No awareness - of personal need.

No activity - dormant and uninvolved in spiritual things other than Sunday morning church. The Christians in Paul's day would have been appalled at the concept of being involved with spiritual things only one day a week. And this is the conduct of many professing Christians today, because of the condition we are in. There has not been a transition from death into life.

This is what describes the life of the typical unbeliever. It describes our life before Christ. We are not only described as dead, and disobedient, we are described as
c. Depraved.
In verse 3 we read that we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh. Unsaved people live by their lusts. This is not simply referring to sexual desires. Lusts refer to any selfish desires we may have. And we are described as people who live a lifestyle of indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind. We were self-indulgent. And a self-indulgent person who is driven by his or her desires can be described as depraved.
Finally we are described as
d. Doomed.
In the last phrase of verse 3 it says we were by nature children of wrath. Those who do not receive Jesus Christ are objects of God's condemning judgment. They are objects of God's wrath. In short, they are doomed.

No one is doomed by some capricious and arbitrary desire on the part of God. God is holy and just and righteous and fair. In reality, God doesn't send anyone to hell, people send themselves there. By rejecting Jesus Christ, people bring upon themselves judgment and condemnation. We read in John 3:17-18 "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. [18] Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son"

Jesus came into the world to save us from our sins. But if we persist in willfully rejecting the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be condemned by our own actions.

What a picture of lost humanity we find here. It is the picture of every lost man and woman. It is the picture of dead men walking. We are dead, disobedient, depraved, and doomed. The cell door has swung shut, and there is nothing we can do to free ourselves.

This is the condition that we were in and so is everyone who is outside of Christ. The reality of a living death. But notice the upside of what Paul writes, and that is:
II. The Response of a Loving God
Ephesians 2:4-5 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, [5] made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.

But God! - because of His great love for us.

Deliverance is by Love. God is merciful because of His great love for us. If we got what we deserved from God, we would be in a tremendous amount of trouble. God is motivated not by what we deserve, but by the richness of His love. He reaches out to vile, sinful, godless, perverted, unworthy, unholy, repulsive, depraved human beings, engulfed by sins and trespasses, in the service of satan, and because of His love for them transforms them into brilliant specimens of sainthood.

This is what makes mans sin so terrible. It is not so much that it is a sin against the law as it is a sin against God's love.

Suppose someone was driving too fast down a neighborhood street and killed a little child playing in the street. He would be charged with man slaughter and speeding. He would then be tried, and most likely would be found guilty. If so, he would probably pay a fine or go to prison. After serving his sentence, he would have satisfied the requirements of the law. But that is true only regarding his sin against the law. What about the child's mother? Could he ever make up for her loss through his sentence? No. From her perspective he sinned against her love, not against the law. The only way he could ever be restored to her would be if she offered out of her own heart, complete, free and unconditional forgiveness. Humanly that is almost impossible and highly unlikely. But because that is one of the divine attributes of God (God is love), He is able to and in fact does do that. We have not only sinned against God's law, but killed His Son as well. And he continues to do so in his open rejection and denial of Him. Yet God reaches out and offers unconditional and complete forgiveness to those who accept it.

Oh the response of a loving God - Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan, Oh the grace that brought it down to man. Oh the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary. Deliverance is by love.
Deliverance is also for life.
We see finally that once we have recognized the reality of the living death, received the response of a loving God, we can now live with:

III. The Resultant Living Hope.
vs. 5. Even when we were dead in sins, He made us alive together with Christ.
This deliverance is for life. Not in the sense of forever, although that is part of it, but rather for the purpose of life. We have been delivered so that we can be alive. We are told that God has made us alive together with Christ. Christ has given us new life. We no longer simply exist, we now really live. He is not merely referring to life eternal, He is also referring to life abundant. The life of Christ lives in us, and we live in Him. This is what Paul's final thought is in this regard. He wants us to understand that there is more to life than living. Life in itself is not enough. We must also have liberty.

This is graphically illustrated for us in the story of Jesus' friend Lazarus. He had been in the grave four days. Jesus called out to him to come forth from the grave and he was raised up from the dead. But he was still bound up in his grave clothes. He was living, but was not liberated. Jesus called out to those around and said, "Lose him!" Then he was free. Some are alive, yet still in grave clothes. Reminded of the stink of the death of their previous live. Weighed down by the weight of that heavy burden. Jesus Christ can set you free. When Jesus sets you free you are able to:

1. Walk in the spirit - your feet are loosed.

2. Work in the spirit - hands are set free

3. Witness in the spirit - mouth is set free.

Free to reign with Him in the heavenlies. Free to participate in spiritual blessings

Jesus, Oh, Jesus. Wont you come upon us now O Lord and free us. Free us. Oh, free us. To lay down our lives in love and worship you!