The Apostle Paul concluded the first chapter of his inspired letter to the Ephesians by expressing how mighty and exalted Jesus Christ is. God has placed everything and everyone under His authority. But while Christ is exalted above everyone, what is the status of the people to whom Paul is writing? In chapter 2, verses 1 through 3 he says: “You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins, 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 children of disobedience; among whom we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
The previous condition of the Gentile people to whom Paul is writing was that they were dead. He does not mean that these people were dead physically because in the next verse he makes it clear that they were dead while they were following the ways of this world. The death that Paul is talking about is spiritual death. What caused this death? Paul writes that it was their own transgressions and sins. This agrees with what Scripture says elsewhere, “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23 NIV)
Paul goes on to specify what the sin was. It was following “the course of this world.” The Apostle John explains what this means in greater detail. He writes, “Don’t love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn’t the Father’s, but is the world’s. The world is passing away with its lusts, but he who does God’s will remains forever.” (1 John 2:15-17 NIV) It is because these people chose to follow man’s cravings, lust and boasting rather than love God, that they died spiritually.
But this is not the only reason they died. Not only did they turn their backs on God but they chose to follow someone else. Paul calls this being “the prince of the power of the air” (NIV, “the ruler of the kingdom of the air”). It is not entirely clear what this phrase means, but by considering some of the properties of air we can, perhaps, make a good guess. Air is necessary for man to live. Man can live without a great many things, but air is not one of them. Perhaps Paul is emphasizing that wherever man may live, without exception, this being is also present. In this life there is no place where man may go to escape the influence of this being. Air is also, for the most part, invisible. We know it only by observing its effects. In the same way we cannot directly observe this being. We can only observe his influence upon us and others. Paul identifies this “prince of the power of the air” as a spirit who is working in those who are disobedient. Wherever we see disobedience to God and His plan at work, we may be sure that we are seeing the effects of this spirit. It may be that Paul is using the word ‘air’ as a synonym for the attitude of disobedience. In any case, it is safe to say that this ruler is the same being that the Apostle John calls the “prince of this world,” that is the devil. (See John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11)
It is not only the Gentile people who were dead in their transgressions and sins. In verse 3, the Apostle Paul includes himself and the Jewish people as well when he says, “we also.” Racial heritage is not enough to save anyone. Those who choose to follow the ways of the world are spiritually dead regardless of their genealogy.
There is another similarity between the Jewish and non-Jewish peoples. Paul writes, “…[we] were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” (Verse 3) The phrase ‘by nature’ requires some explaining. There are some who believe that mankind was created with an evil nature. But this cannot be true for Scripture says, “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good…” (Genesis 1:31 NIV) Obviously, if God declared man to be ‘very good’ then he was not created with an evil nature.
Other people believe that mankind was good and pure when created but that we all inherit Adam’s sin. It is true that physical death came to mankind as a consequence of Adam’s sin, but spiritual guilt is not inherited. Scripture is very clear that each individual pays the spiritual consequences for his or her own decisions and actions. For example, it was revealed through the prophet Ezekiel, “…the soul who sins, he shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:4, 20 NIV)
If man was not created evil and he does not inherit guilt, then what does Paul mean? He can only mean that the nature of a person somehow becomes changed in order to make us ‘a child of wrath.’ What is the agent of this change? It is our own sin. In verse 1 Paul said that it was the transgressions and sins of the Gentile peoples which had caused them to die spiritually, and in verse three he included the Jewish people when he said that they followed their own fleshly desires. When we sin, it changes our nature. It transforms us from something which God had declared ‘very good’ into something which by its very nature is subject to God’s wrath. The expression Paul uses, ‘children of wrath’ is a figure of speech meaning someone who deserves God’s wrath. People do not suffer God’s displeasure or judgment because of what someone else did or because they have chanced to be born into Adam’s race, but because they themselves deserve it. When we sin, we die spiritually and expose ourselves to God’s righteous judgment.
If, as Paul says, both Jews and Gentiles have become corrupt in nature and deserve God’s wrath then is there no hope? Indeed there is. In verses 4 and 5 Paul writes, “But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),”
A great deal could be said about what Paul has written in these verses. But the key thing to note is that life is not self-generated. We all were spiritually dead because of our sin. If we are now alive, it is because God has made us alive.