Truly Alive

(Ephesians 2:1-2)

It is a sad fact of human existence that the whole of the human race was doomed to follow in the footsteps of Adam and Eve who fell from the grace of God through sin.

Sin is the one thing that stands between man and God. No man or woman has ever lived and been able to stand without sin. Every person was born a sinner, even before they had done a single thing.

While this sounds such a gloomy state of affairs, it is not. Because even though no person can stand in the presence of God on their own account because of sin, we are given the ability to escape sin. We are all able to be set free from sin and be made alive through Jesus Christ, and that is the message of these few verses today.

Dead through trespasses and sins

These verses today tell us that we were all dead or as good as dead because of our sinfulness. This is what the scriptures says:

And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 2:1-2)

It is in our trespasses and sins that we are separated from the glory and the grace of God.

God gave up on man because man chose to reject God. When you look at the original sin of Adam and Eve, their sin was not simply the taking of a fruit that they were instructed not to touch. Rather, their sin was to listen to and accept the word of the serpent over the word of God.

They rejected God and chose to listen to the devil instead.

This is also part of the reason why idolatry and the creation of false idols was so deeply rejected in the Ten Commandments.

If you look at the Ten Commandments you notice several things. All of them are about relationships. The first four are about our relationship with God and the remainder are about our relationships with others.

But of the first four that are about our relationship to God, the first and second commandments condemn anything coming between us and God, especially idolatry.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:2-3)

The very first sin was a breaking of the first commandment since Adam and Eve chose to allow the words of Satan, the serpent, to take precedence over the words of God. And ever since that time man has been continually putting things between himself and God.

It is for this reason that God gave up on man and why man, following the course of this world, is as good as dead.

Prince of the power of the air

These scriptures also make reference to the Prince of the power of the air. Who exactly is this prince?

It is quite easily recognised from the descriptions of this so-called prince that it is the devil himself.

It is the devil who controls this world and the ways of the world. The kingdom of this world is in the hands of the devil and he gives power to those whom he chooses for his nefarious purposes. This is why the scripture says of him:

”…following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

The devil controls all the wealth and the kingdoms of this world because it has been given into his hands by God. We see this in the section on the temptation of Christ during His forty days in the wilderness.

5 And the devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours.” (Luke 4:5-7)

All the glory, wealth, riches and power in this world has been delivered to Satan who gives it to those whom he chooses. And look at the condition he places on receiving these things: to worship him.

How does one worship the devil in this world, and I am not talking here about the blatant Satanic cults of this world. People worship Satan every time they put him or the things of this world before the things of God.

This is no different to what Adam and Eve did when they listened to the voice of the devil rather than the voice of God. It is the same today when people seek after the things of this world; the riches, delights, comforts and so on, rather than the things of God.

And this is sin. It is sin because it breaks the first and second commandments of the Ten Commandments given by God because in the first instance, those who do such things are putting the gods of this world, (money, wealth, material possessions), ahead of God. And in many cases they make these same things idols and indeed the world makes them idols for us so that we will worship at the altars of materialism and capitalism rather than humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God

But all is not lost.

Made Alive

The very first words of these verses today give us a great story of hope. He wrote:

”And you he made alive…”

In Jesus Christ we ARE made alive. In Jesus Christ we can receive righteousness by faith and be set free from our sins, past, present and future. In Jesus Christ we receive freedom from the law also so that we do not and cannot break the law of God.

All of this we receive by faith in Jesus Christ who redeemed us by grace through faith so that we can be made alive once more. We are returned by faith into the state that God first made man when He created Adam and Eve. They were created perfect and remained perfect until the fall, and it is the will and intent of God to once again create a people who will put God first and seek Him above all other things.

God created man for life. Man chose to reject the fullness of the life God gave him, but God has once again given man the opportunity to be restored. All of this He did in Jesus Christ.

In Christ Jesus we are set free from sin and we do choose to follow the way of God. We are even set free from the Ten Commandments, which does NOT mean we reject or oppose them. But where a person follows the law because they know it is the right thing to do, it ceases to be a “big stick” and instead becomes a principle of life.

Consider one of the other of the Ten Commandments… “Thou shall not kill.”

When you believe it is morally reprehensible to even consider the possibility of killing another person, do you need a commandment to keep you in line? And if you think this way, what is it that will stop you from killing?

It is faith. You believe it is wrong so you will not even consider it.

And in so doing you find life and peace.

So for a person who thinks this way, do they really need a law to tell them not to kill? No. They don’t need a law because it is part of their faith and their moral existence to utterly reject even the concept of killing another person.

So to a person of faith, the law is unnecessary.

And that is why the law can be removed through faith for those who have faith. We believe what the law tells us from a just, pure and moral perspective and we do not want to do the opposite of the law because it will displease God. We want to please God and we do so through faith in Jesus Christ who taught us what pleases God and how to live in His presence.

In Christ we die to this world of sin and trespass.

But in Christ we are also made alive to righteousness and holiness through faith. These things are ours for the asking and in the end we will receive the fullness of life when we come into the physical presence of God in the eternal kingdom.

This is our hope and joy; that we may be truly alive in Him.

You might also like:

The Sons Are Free
Freedom And Liberty
Spreading The Gospel 2
Jesus Is The Way
You Cant Go Back Part 1
A Way Of Escape
Free Gift From God
Greatest Gift Of All
Thank You Jesus
Sons Not Slaves
Where There Is Life There Is Hope
The Christian Value Proposition
The Hope Of Eternity Is In Christ
What Does It Profit A Man To Gain The Whole World And Lose His Life
What Shall I Do To Inherit Eternal Life
Food For Thought Food For Life
Peters Confession
Life In Abundance
Unstoppable
I Am The Resurrection And The Life
It Is Finished
This Life
Resurrection