Our Former Slavery to Sin, the World and the Devil
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 Ephesians 2:1,2 (NIV)
Setting these verses (and their place in the paragraph of 2:1-10) in context, Paul has outlined his prayer that his readers’ eyes be enlightened by the Holy Spirit to know the implications of God’s call on them, the wealth of His inheritance that awaits them in heaven and above all, the surpassing greatness of His power available to them now. God has given a supreme, historical demonstration of this power by raising Christ from the dead and exalting Him above all the powers of evil. He has given a further demonstration by raising us with Christ and so delivering us from the bondage of death and evil. This section is one long sentence which in the original, does not have its verb until 2:5 but English versions bring it forward to 2:1 to make better reading sense of the passage.
‘As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins’ (2:1). This ‘death’ is a factual statement of everyone’s spiritual condition outside of Christ and is traced to their ‘transgressions and sins.’ The two words seem to have been carefully chosen. A ‘transgression’ is a false step, involving either a crossing of a known boundary or a deviation from the right path. A ‘sin’ is missing the mark, falling short of a standard. Together the two words cover the active and passive aspects of our wrongdoing, our sins of commission and omission. Before God we are rebels and failures. The result is that we are ‘separated from the life of God’ (4:18). If eternal life is fellowship with the living God then spiritual death is the separation from Him that sin inevitably brings.
From God’s perspective, the sinful condition of humanity is a way of life, a walk, step by step in evil (cf. 4:17). The Jews called their laws of conduct Halakah which means ‘walking’ (cf. Mark 7:5: Acts 21:21). Paul says here: this is how ‘you used to live’ (literally: used to walk [2:2]). He describes this former way of living in three ways, in terms of its power in the world, its spiritual nature and its activity in human lives. It firstly ‘followed the ways of this world’ (2:2). The phrase brings together two concepts: ‘this age’ of evil and darkness (in contrast to ‘the age to come’ which Jesus introduced) and ‘this world,’ society organised completely apart from God (and so in contrast to the kingdom of God which is His new society under His rule).
Our second captivity was to the devil, ‘the ruler of the kingdom of the air’ (2:2). The ‘kingdom of the air’ or the domain of the air is another way of indicating the ‘heavenly realm’ which from 6:12 is the abode of ‘rulers … authorities … the powers of this dark world … the spiritual forces of evil’ against which God’s church wages war. The phrase, ‘the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient’ is a further description of ‘the ruler of the kingdom of the air’ (2:2). The old life, without the energising of God (1:11,20) is subject to the energising of the powers of evil (‘the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient’). Any surrender to the power of evil creates life habits completely contrary to God’s nature and purpose, so those who do so are rightly described as ‘those who are disobedient’ (2:2; cf. 5:8).
The third influence that holds us in bondage is ‘the cravings of our sinful nature’ (2:3), further defined as this sinful nature’s ‘desires and thoughts’ (2:3). Our body’s ‘natural’ desires are not implicitly wrong. Taking food, sleep and sex as examples, the desire for food is only wrong when it becomes gluttony; the body’s desire for sleep only becomes wrong when it becomes a form of sloth and the body’s desire for sex only becomes wrong when it becomes lust. Note that ‘the cravings of our sinful nature’ include wrong desires of the mind as well as the body. Intellectual pride, false ambition, rejection of known truth and malicious thinking are all wrong. In Philippians 3:3-6 Paul includes self-confidence, pride of ancestry, parentage, race, religion and righteousness.
This is what we once were, but is no longer true of us. As Paul is about to explain, Christ has set us free. We are called to live out of our new life in Christ and not our old life in the flesh.
And his fullness fills you, even though you were once like corpses, dead in your sins and offences. It wasn’t that long ago that you lived in the religion, customs, and values of this world, obeying the dark ruler of the earthly realm who fills the atmosphere with his authority and works diligently in the hearts of those who are disobedient to the truth of God Ephesians 2:1,2 (The Passion Translation)