Ephesians, Lesson 4.

Lesson 4

Ephesians 2: 1- 3, Dead in sin, alive in Christ.

V 1, And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,

God revived our spirit man. When we were born spiritually dead due to trespasses and sins. Greek for trespass is “paraptoma’’, which means crossing over the forbidden line. Trespass is usually an intentional act. Greek for sin is ‘’harmatia”, which means missing the mark or missing the bull’s eye. To sin is to miss the bull’s eye of God’s perfect standard. Sin is an unintentional act.

Romans 3:23, ‘’for all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God”.

Romans 6: 23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

V 2, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,

We once walked aimlessly, according to satan’s agenda, the prince of the world. We were once “the sons of disobedience”. We once walked in transgressions and sins, slaves to satan, the “prince of the power of the air’’. But when we are born again, God gave us new lives in Christ through spiritual rebirths and regenerations.

1 Peter 1:3, NIV, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’’.

1 Peter 1:23, “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever”.

Titus 3:5, “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit’.

V 3, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

Our lives were once dominated by the evil desires of the flesh. We may be walking and talking but we were dead in sins and separated from God. We were once the walking dead, alive in the flesh but dead in the spirit. When we became Christians, the Holy Spirit comes into us and gave us new spiritual lives in Christ. Even after salvation, the flesh and the spirit are still warring with each other. Now that we are made alive in Christ, born again, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, we became slaves to our new master, Jesus Christ. He operates by grace and gives us eternal life. We are no longer slaves to satan, who operates by law and death. Once we were children of wrath, but now we are children of God.

Galatians 5:16-17, “I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law”.

John 3:6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”.

James 1: 14-15, ”but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has been conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death’’.