Dead in Our Transgressions

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 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. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. (Ephesians 2:1-3) Paul begins chapter two with some hard news.  After this massive, cosmic picture of all that God has done, is doing, and will do across the universe and arc of time, Paul sharply zooms in to the situation in Ephesus.  "As for you," he says, glaring now directly at them, "you were dead in your transgressions and sins…"  For the Ephesians, that was quite literally true.  They had all grown up pagan, totally outside the faith until the gospel came finally also to them. But then Paul slowly zooms out again.  "All of us" he continues.  Paul now includes himself.  He recalls his days of persecuting the church.  Paul too had been dead in his transgressions before Jesus met him on the road.   But really, Paul is now including all of us.  Not just these formerly pagan Ephesians.  Not just the formerly church-persecuting Paul.  But all of us, including those of us today who read this letter.  This is perhaps a bit odd, because many of us were born directly into the covenant of grace—directly into the church—such that there was never a pre-Christian time in our lives.  Never a time when "dead in our transgressions" was the complete and final word about us.  We have just always belonged to Jesus.   Yet there's still something true here for us.  Paul is talking figuratively here.  He's making a caricature, throwing sharp contrast onto the situation to purposefully make it stick out.  While a number of us may never have had a pre-Christian time in our lives, that doesn't mean that the ways of sin and death have not stained our souls.  It may be harder to see because we didn't have a conversion moment, but the same struggle is still there.  The Christian tradition throughout the ages has talked about Original Sin to capture this idea. All of us do still struggle with transgressions and sins.  We were born with it.  Sin came with our humanity.  It is highlighted a thousand times over in the news and social feeds that cross our screens, but it's also there in the personal, secret sins that you never could quite defeat.  Or the fantasies you entertain.  The vengeance you desire.  The words that slip out accidentally in fights with your spouse, children, or parents.     Many of us may never have been "dead in our transgressions" in the way pre-Christian Paul or the Ephesians were, but that doesn't mean that we don't need saving.  Indeed, it is only because of that saving grace of Jesus Christ that death has never had it's hold on us.  We will of course speak of this more as Paul carries on into some of those strong, Reformation Day Faith-Alone, Grace-Alone texts in this chapter that are for all the Saints—which is what today is: All Saints Day.  For now though, it is enough simply to remember our baptisms.  A plunging under the waters to picture our death to sin and death in all its ways as we die in the death of Christ which defeated both, so that, rising up out of the waters on the other side, we might have life instead.  His life.  A new life.  It is the same drama that Paul is painting here in the opening verses of chapter two. Though traces of death remain: it is not the final word about us.     Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)