A verse by verse commentary on Ephesians 2 1-11 dealing with God's mercy in raising us to life in Christ when we were dead in sin, We are seated with Him in heavenly realms. By grace we have been saved to be rich forever. We are God's workmanship created to do good works.

1. EPHESIA S 2 1-11 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
1
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions
and sins,
BAR ES, "And you hath he quickened - The words “hath he quickened,” or
“made to live,” are supplied, but not improperly, by our translators. The object of the
apostle is to show the great power which God had evinced toward the people Eph_1:19;
and to show that this was put forth in connection with the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus, and his exaltation to the right hand of God in heaven; see the notes at Rom_6:4-
11; compare Col_2:12-13; Col_3:1. The words “hath he quickened” mean, hath he made
alive, or made to live; Joh_5:21; Rom_4:17; 1Co_15:36.
Who were dead in trespasses and sins - On the meaning of the word “dead,” see
the notes at Rom_5:12; Rom_6:2, note. It is affirmed here of those to whom Paul wrote
at Ephesus, that before they were converted, they were “dead in sins.” There is not
anywhere a more explicit proof of depravity than this, and no stronger language can be
used. They were “dead” in relation to that to which they afterward became alive - i. e., to
holiness. Of course, this does not mean that they were in all respects dead. It does not
mean that they had no animal life, or that they did not breathe, and walk, and act. Nor
can it mean that they had no living intellect or mental powers, which would not have
been true. Nor does it settle any question as to their ability or power while in that state.
It simply affirms a fact - that in relation to real spiritual life they were, in consequence of
sin, like a dead man in regard to the objects which are around him.
A corpse is insensible. It sees not, and hears not, and feels not. The sound of music,
and the voice of friendship and of alarm, do not arouse it. The rose and the lily breathe
forth their fragrance around it, but the corpse perceives it not. The world is busy and
active around it, but it is unconscious of it all. It sees no beauty in the landscape; hears
not the voice of a friend; looks not upon the glorious sun and stars; and is unaffected by
the running stream and the rolling ocean. So with the sinner in regard to the spiritual
and eternal world. He sees no beauty in religion; he hears not the call of God; he is
unaffected by the dying love of the Saviour; and he has no interest in eternal realities. In
all these he feels no more concern, and sees no more beauty, than a dead man does in the
world around him. Such is, in “fact,” the condition of a sinful world. There is, indeed,
life, and energy, and motion. There are vast plans and projects, and the world is
intensely active. But in regard to religion, all is dead. The sinner sees no beauty there;
and no human power can arouse him to act for God, anymore than human power can
rouse the sleeping dead, or open the sightless eyeballs on the light of day. The same
power is needed in the conversion of a sinner which is needed in raising the dead; and
one and the other alike demonstrate the omnipotence of him who can do it.

2. CLARKE, "And you hath he quickened - This chapter should not have been
separated from the preceding, with which it is most intimately connected. As Christ fills
the whole body of Christian believers with his fullness, (Eph_1:23), so had he dealt with
the converted Ephesians, who before were dead in trespasses, and dead in sins. Death is
often used by all writers, and in all nations, to express a state of extreme misery. The
Ephesians, by trespassing and sinning, had brought themselves into a state of deplorable
wretchedness, as had all the heathen nations; and having thus sinned against God, they
were condemned by him, and might be considered as dead in law - incapable of
performing any legal act, and always liable to the punishment of death, which they had
deserved, and which was ready to be inflicted upon them.
Trespasses, παραπτωµασι, may signify the slightest deviation from the line and rule of
moral equity, as well as any flagrant offense; for these are equally transgressions, as long
as the sacred line that separates between vice and virtue is passed over.
Sins, ᅋµαρτιαις, may probably mean here habitual transgression; sinning knowingly
and daringly.
GILL, "And you hath he quickened,.... The design of the apostle in this and some
following verses, is to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and to set forth the sad estate
and condition of man by nature, and to magnify the riches of the grace of God, and
represent the exceeding greatness of his power in conversion: the phrase
hath he quickened, is not in the original text, but is supplied from Eph_2:5, where it
will be met with and explained: here those who are quickened with Christ, and by the
power and grace of God, are described in their natural and unregenerate estate,
who were dead in trespasses and sins; not only dead in Adam, in whom they
sinned, being their federal head and representative; and in a legal sense, the sentence of
condemnation and death having passed upon them; but in a moral sense, through
original sin, and their own actual transgressions: which death lies in a separation from
God, Father, Son, and Spirit, such are without God, and are alienated from the life of
God, and they are without Christ, who is the author and giver of life, and they are
sensual, not having the Spirit, who is the spirit of life; and in a deformation of the image
of God, such are dead as to their understandings, wills, and affections, with respect to
spiritual things, and as to their capacity to do any thing that is spiritually good; and in a
loss of original righteousness; and in a privation of the sense of sin and misery; and in a
servitude to sin, Satan, and the world: hence it appears, that man must be in himself
unacceptable to God, infectious and hurtful to his fellow creatures, and incapable of
helping himself: so it was usual with the Jews to call a wicked and ignorant man, a dead
man; they say (i),
"there is no death like that of those that transgress the words of the law, who are called,
‫,מתים‬ "dead men", and therefore the Scripture says, "turn and live".''
And again (k),

3. "no man is called a living man, but he who is in the way of truth in this world.----And a
wicked man who does not go in the way of truth, is called, ‫,מת‬ "a dead man".''
And once more (l).
"whoever is without wisdom, lo, he is ‫,כמת‬ "as a dead man";''
See Gill on 1Ti_5:6. The Alexandrian and Claromontane copies, and one of Stephens's,
and the Vulgate Latin version, read, "dead in your trespasses and sins"; and the Syriac
version, "dead in your sins and in your trespasses"; and the Ethiopic version only, "dead
in your sins".
HE RY, 1-3, "The miserable condition of the Ephesians by nature is here in part
described. Observed, 1. Unregenerate souls are dead in trespasses and sins. All those
who are in their sins, are dead in sins; yea, in trespasses and sins, which may signify all
sorts of sins, habitual and actual, sins of heart and of life. Sin is the death of the soul.
Wherever that prevails there is a privation of all spiritual life. Sinners are dead in state,
being destitute of the principles, and powers of spiritual life; and cut off from God, the
fountain of life: and they are dead in law, as a condemned malefactor is said to be a dead
man. 2. A state of sin is a state of conformity to this world, Eph_2:2. In the first verse he
speaks of their internal state, in this of their outward conversation: Wherein, in which
trespasses and sins, in time past you walked, you lived and behaved yourselves in such a
manner as the men of the world are used to do. 3. We are by nature bond-slaves to sin
and Satan. Those who walk in trespasses and sins, and according to the course of this
world, walk according to the prince of the power of the air. The devil, or the prince of
devils, is thus described. See Mat_12:24, Mat_12:26. The legions of apostate angels are
as one power united under one chief; and therefore what is called the powers of
darkness elsewhere is here spoken of in the singular number. The air is represented as
the seat of his kingdom: and it was the opinion of both Jews and heathens that the air is
full of spirits, and that there they exercise and exert themselves. The devil seems to have
some power (by God's permission) in the lower region of the air; there he is at hand to
tempt men, and to do as much mischief to the world as he can: but it is the comfort and
joy of God's people that he who is head over all things to the church has conquered the
devil and has him in his chain. But wicked men are slaves to Satan, for they walk
according to him; they conform their lives and actions to the will and pleasure of this
great usurper. The course and tenour of their lives are according to his suggestions, and
in compliance with his temptations; they are subject to him, and are led captive by him
at his will, whereupon he is called the god of this world, and the spirit that now worketh
in the children of disobedience. The children of disobedience are such as choose to
disobey God, and to serve the devil; in these he works very powerfully and effectually. As
the good Spirit works that which is good in obedient souls, so this evil spirit works that
which is evil in wicked men; and he now works, not only heretofore, but even since the
world has been blessed with the light of the glorious gospel. The apostle adds, Among
whom also we all had our conversation in times past, which words refer to the Jews,
whom he signifies here to have been in the like sad and miserable condition by nature,
and to have been as vile and wicked as the unregenerate Gentiles themselves, and whose
natural state he further describes in the next words. 4. We are by nature drudges to the
flesh, and to our corrupt affections, Eph_2:3. By fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of
the mind, men contract that filthiness of flesh and spirit from which the apostle exhorts
Christians to cleanse themselves, 2Co_7:1. The fulfilling of the desires of the flesh and of

4. the mind includes all the sin and wickedness that are acted in and by both the inferior
and the higher or nobler powers of the soul. We lived in the actual commission of all
those sins to which corrupt nature inclined us. The carnal mind makes a man a perfect
slave to his vicious appetite. - The fulfilling of the wills of the flesh, so the words may be
rendered, denoting the efficacy of these lusts, and what power they have over those who
yield themselves up unto them. 5. We are by nature the children of wrath, even as
others. The Jews were so, as well as the Gentiles; and one man is as much so as another
by nature, not only by custom and imitation, but from the time when we began to exist,
and by reason of our natural inclinations and appetites. All men, being naturally children
of disobedience, are also by nature children of wrath: God is angry with the wicked every
day. Our state and course are such as deserve wrath, and would end in eternal wrath, if
divine grace did not interpose. What reason have sinners then to be looking out for that
grace that will make them, of children of wrath, children of God and heirs of glory! Thus
far the apostle has described the misery of a natural state in these verses, which we shall
find him pursuing again in some following ones.
JAMISO , "Eph_2:1-22. God’s love and grace in quickening us, once dead, through
Christ. His purpose in doing so: Exhortation based on our privileges as built together,
an Holy Temple, in Christ, through the Spirit.
And you — “You also,” among those who have experienced His mighty power in
enabling them to believe (Eph_1:19-23).
hath he quickened - supplied from the Greek (Eph_2:5).
dead — spiritually. (Col_2:13). A living corpse: without the gracious presence of
God’s Spirit in the soul, and so unable to think, will, or do aught that is holy.
in trespasses ... sins — in them, as the element in which the unbeliever is, and
through which he is dead to the true life. Sin is the death of the soul. Isa_9:2; Joh_5:25,
“dead” (spiritually), 1Ti_5:6. “Alienated from the life of God” (Eph_4:18). Translate, as
Greek, “in your trespasses,” etc. “Trespass” in Greek, expresses a FALL or LAPSE, such
as the transgression of Adam whereby he fell. “Sin.” (Greek, “hamartia”) implies innate
corruption and ALIENATION from God (literally, erring of the mind from the rule of
truth), exhibited in acts of sin (Greek, “hamartemata”). Bengel, refers “trespasses” to the
Jews who had the law, and yet revolted from it; “sins,” to the Gentiles who know not
God.
RWP, "And you did he quicken (kai humās). The verb for did he quicken does
not occur till Eph_2:5 and then with hēmās (us) instead of humās (you). There is a like
ellipsis or anacoluthon in Col_1:21, Col_1:22, only there is no change from humās to
hēmās.
When ye were dead (ontas nekrous). Present active participle referring to their
former state. Spiritually dead.
Trespasses and sins (paraptōmasin kai hamartiais). Both words (locative case)
though only one in Eph_2:5.

5. CALVI , "1.And you who were dead. This is an ἐπεξεργασία of the former
statements, that is, an exposition accompanied by an illustration. (118) To bring
home more effectually to the Ephesians the general doctrine of Divine grace, he
reminds them of their former condition. This application consists of two parts. “
were formerly lost; but now God, by his grace, has rescued you from destruction.”
And here we must observe, that, in laboring to give an impressive view of both of
these parts, the apostle makes a break in the style by ( ὑπερβατὸν) a transposition.
There is some perplexity in the language; but, if we attend carefully to what the
apostle says about those two parts, the meaning is clear. As to the first, he says that
they were dead; and states, at the same time, the cause of the death — trespasses
and sins. (119) He does not mean simply that they were in danger of death; but he
declares that it was a real and present death under which they labored. As spiritual
death is nothing else than the alienation of the soul from God, we are all born as
dead men, and we live as dead men, until we are made partakers of the life of
Christ, — agreeably to the words of our Lord,
“ hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God,
and they that hear shall live.” (Joh_5:25)
The Papists, who are eager to seize every opportunity of undervaluing the grace of
God, say, that while we are out of Christ, we are half dead. But we are not at liberty
to set aside the declarations of our Lord and of the Apostle Paul, that, while we
remain in Adam, we are entirely devoid of life; and that regeneration is a new life of
the soul, by which it rises from the dead. Some kind of life, I acknowledge, does
remain in us, while we are still at a distance from Christ; for unbelief does not
altogether destroy the outward senses, or the will, or the other faculties of the soul.
But what has this to do with the kingdom of God? What has it to do with a happy
life, so long as every sentiment of the mind, and every act of the will, is death? Let
this, then, be held as a fixed principle, that the union of our soul with God is the true
and only life; and that out of Christ we are altogether dead, because sin, the cause of
death, reigns in us.
(118) “Il expose et esclarcit ce qu’ avoit dit ci-dessus.” “ explains and illustrates
what he had formerly said.”
(119) Classical writers employ the same metaphor, to denote not spiritual death,
with which they were unacquainted, but the absence of moral principle, or utter
ignorance of right and wrong. Thus Epictetus says, νεκρὸς µὲν ὁ παιδευτὴς νεκροὶ δ
᾿ ὑµεῖς ὅτε χορτασθὢτε σήµερον καθὢσθε κλαίοντες περὶ τὢς αὔριον πόθεν φάγητε
“ instructor is dead, and you are dead. When you are satiated to-day, you sit down
and weep about to-morrow, what you shall have to eat.” — Ed.

6. ot only did God raise Jesus from the dead, but He raised the people of Christ from
the dead also. This raising is from the death in sin, and not that death to self from
which we rise in newness of life symbolize by baptism-Rom. 5:10. See John 5:28-29
where conversion is our first resurrection and baptism is a symbol of it. The second
resurrection is of the body from death at the second coming.
Some feel that conversion has two parts-a death and resurrection to new life.
Being dead mean separation of soul and God. The unbeliever does not die
spiritually, for he is already dead. He will die physically and then the second death
is spiritual death or separation forever. He is born once and dies twice. The
believer was dead but is born again or raised to life. This is the first resurrection,
and the second will be of the body, and so we have two births and one death.
Barclay writes that sin kills-
1. Innocence-once stained you can never recover as if you never sinned.
2. Ideals-until you no longer have a high view of life and purity.
3. Will-at first sin is by choice but then gets a grip so you cannot choose.
The paradox is that we need people who like us the way we are so that we can
become different from what we are.
Sin is the failure to be what we ought to be. In sin we miss the true aim of our life
and miss the mark of what we were meant to be.
BI, "And you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.
The quickening power of the gospel
This the peculiar characteristic of the preaching of Christianity in the first age. It
came into a world preoccupied by other systems of religion, Jewish and Gentile, and
succeeded where they had failed. The secret of its success is the same today--vital
power.
I. Upon whom is it exerted?
1. The spiritually dead.
2. The bondslaves of Satan.

7. 3. The subjects of Divine wrath.
BURKITT, "Observe here, 1. The deplorable condition which the Ephesians were in
by nature, and all persons with them before their conversion from sin to God. It is a
state of spiritual death; the natural and unregenerate man is a dead man, spiritually
dead in sin. Our apostle doth not say they were in a dying, but in a dead condition;
not half dead, but altogether dead.
But how so?
ot dead as to natural actions, they can eat and drink; not as to rational actions,
they can reason and discourse; not as to civil actions, they can buy and sell, bargain
and trade. or is the natural man dead to moral actions; he can pray, read, and
hear the word, meditate upon it, and discourse of it; if he please, he can hearken to
the voice of God's judgments, consider and call his own ways to remembrance.
But as to spiritual acts, to be spiritually performed, here he is dead, till quickened
by a vital act of the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to enlighten blind eyes, and whose
delight it is to quicken and enliven dead souls.
But what doth this state of spiritual death imply?
It doth suppose and imply a state of separation from God, insensibility of that
dismal state, an impotency and inability to recover ourselves out of that condition,
and our loathsomeness and offensiveness to Almighty God, whilst we continue in it.
In short, every unregenerate man is a dead man, in a double sense.
He is, 1. Legally dead, being under the condemnatory sentence of the law; we call a
man underthe sentence of death, a dead man.
2. Spiritually dead, as being destitute of a principle of spiritual life, a quickening
principle to enable the soul to perform spiritual operations. Thus before
regeneration are we dead, in opposition to justification: and dead in opposition to
sanctification also; and the fatal instrument, by which our souls die, is here
discovered, dead in or by trespasses and sins. This is the sword that kills souls, and
cuts them off from God. You hath he quickened, being dead in trespasses and sins.
Observe, 2. The choice and singular privilege and favour vouchsafed to the
Ephesians, in and under the power of spiritual death; they were quickened; that is,
made spiritually alive by the quickening or life-giving power of the Spirit of God. A
regenerate man is a living man; he lives a life of justification, which consists in
pardon of sin.
A condemned man's pardon is his life; and he lives a life of sanctification, having
received from the Holy Spirit a vital principle of grace in all the powers and

8. faculties of the soul: justification reconciles God to us, sanctification reconciles us to
God; justification takes away the legal enmity, sanctification the natural enmity
between God and us.
Here note, That the person who is spiritually quickened, is universally quickened;
there is not a faculty in the soul but is spiritually dead, and therefore not a faculty
but must be spiritually quickened. As there is an universal pollution in every
faculty, so must there be an universal renovation; for no spiritual duty can be
performed without it, no spiritual privilege can be enjoyed without it, and we can
never be saved hereafter, is not spiritually quickened here: but if quickened aright,
we live a divine life, the life (in some measure) which God himself lives; and this
must needs be an excellent life and a pleasant life here on earth, and shall be an
everlasting life with Christ in heaven: Whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall
never die.
Observe 3. The person quickening described: You hath he quickened; that is, God
the Father, who, Eph_1:17, is said to have given them the spirit of wisdom and
revelation, in the knowledge of himself. Man in his natural state considered, is
unable of himself to quicken himself; he doth not so much as desire the quickening
grace of God, till God gives the grace of desire.
Alas! the understanding is naturally so blind, the heart so hard, and the will so stout
and stubborn, that none but a divine power can enlighten the one, and efficaciously
incline the other: it is a change of stone into flesh, of a dead sinner into a living saint.
A change from nature to grace requires as much or more divine power, than a
change from grace to glory. To see a creature naturally filthy, now to delight in
purity; to see a sinner that by nature drinks in iniquity like water, now thirsting
after righteousness; to see a man that loathed the holy law and holy ways of God,
now longing to walk in them, and to come to an exact conformity to God in them;
these acts are above nature, contrary to nature, and consequently the God of grace
is the author of them: You hath he quickened.
II. Through whom does it operate? Christ, the manifested Son of God, is the Alpha
and Omega of its proclamations.
1. Through faith men are united to Him.
2. Share in His resurrection.
III. In whom is its source? It is God who ordained the means of salvation, sent His
Son into the world to die for sinners, and raising Him from the dead raised also all
those who were united to Him by faith by a spiritual resurrection, that they might

9. “walk in newness of life.” This gracious work is due--
1. To His nature. “Being rich in mercy.”
2. To His affection for men. “For His great love wherewith He loved us.” (A. F.
Muir, M. A.)
Regeneration
I. The change here noticed is of a remarkably decided nature. A change of the whole
human character, by which the dispositions of men become thoroughly altered from
that which is evil to that which is good, and by which there are implanted and
formed within them those spiritual graces which are essentially connected with the
bestowment of the Divine favour and the restoration of the Divine image.
II. This change is accomplished purely by Divine agency.
1. The agency of the Spirit of God in the work of renovation is sovereign.
2. The agency of the Spirit is mysterious.
3. The agency of the Spirit is connected with the instrumentality of the Word.
III. This change is absolutely essential for the salvation of the immortal soul.
1. This is evident, if you consider the occupation, society, and enjoyments of heaven.
2. It is also evident by considering the express testimony of God on the subject. (J.
Parsons.)
Quickening of the dead
I. The Scripture phrases by which the sinful state of man is described. Sleep.
“Therefore let us not sleep, as do others,” etc. (1Th_5:6, etc.). “Wherefore he saith,
‘Awake thou that sleepest,’” etc. (Eph_5:14). Death in trespasses (see text). “And

10. you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh,” etc. (Col_2:13).
A corrupt tree. “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,” etc. (Mat_7:18). “For he
shall be like the heath in the desert,” etc. (Jer_17:6). Darkness. “But ye, brethren,
are not in darkness,” etc. (1Th_5:4). Led captive, etc. (Eph_2:3). Enmity (Rom_8:7).
II. How the scriptures describe the change that is wrought in those that shall be
saved and state God as the Author of it. Being quickened--by God (see text). Born
again--by God (Joh_3:3; 1Pe_1:3). Washed and sprinkled--by God (Eze_16:8-9;
Eze_36:25). Writing the law in the heart--by God (Jer_31:33). Grafting--by God
(Rom_11:23-25). Creating light to shine where was darkness (2Co_4:6).
III. o means short of God can quicken and convert such a sinner. Let us consider
everything that is likely.
1. Will miracles? o (Exo_8:16-18; Joh_12:10-12; Act_4:16-17).
2. Will the fulfilment of prophecies? o (Cf. Mat_27:62, etc. with Mat_28:11, etc.)
.
3. Will prosperity? o (Psa_73:3).
4. Will adversity? o (Pro_27:22).
5. Will preaching the gospel? o (1Co_1:23).
6. Will one rising from the dead? o (Luk_16:31). The necessity of a Divine agent in
the Church of God.
IV. Evidences of being quickened.
1. A feeling sense of the evil of sin (Rom_7:18; Psa_38:3-7).
2. A dying to self-confidence, and a trusting in Christ alone (Rom_7:7-11; Gal_2:19-
20; Php_3:7-9).
3. An appetite for the means of grace (1Jn_2:3).
4. Love to the brethren as such (1Jn_3:13-14). (H. Foster, M. A.)

11. Various manifestations of death
The frightful presence of death is manifested in many ways.
1. The dead have no motion; they cannot come to God; they are helpless as was
Lazarus till the voice of Jesus reached him; grace alone can quicken the dead soul.
2. The dead have no sensation; they are past feeling; all the fountains of passion and
emotion are sealed (Eph_4:19); so that before they can love God or hate sin they
must get a new life.
3. The dead have no enjoyment; food satisfies, beauty pleases, and music charms no
more. It is even so. Sin has perverted the moral sense, and shut up the heart against
the enjoyment of God Himself. His character and His love please us no more. All the
wonders of grace, as well as the excellencies of the Divine character, which the Cross
reveals, fall upon us like sunbeams on the eyes of the dead.
4. The dead have no restorative power. Life, that mysterious, incomprehensible
principle, which, though ever present with us and filling all things, eludes research
and baffles reason, has a wonderful restorative power. Indeed, life is a sort of
miracle, for it reverses, suspends, and modifies most of the laws of nature. In every
plant, in every living creature, you see life assimilating and incorporating most
heterogeneous elements, counteracting the law of gravity, nullifying the most potent
chemical agencies, and resisting the mechanical laws. The dead are destitute of all
these mysterious powers; they remain as they are, or they become more and more
corrupt. There is no healing process going on in the dead soul by which, in the
course of nature, it can become pure and healthy and happy in the enjoyment of
God. (W. Graham, D. D.)
The dead man
I. St. Paul reminds the Ephesians of their former condition. Contraries give lustre
one to another. It magnifies grace marvellously to consider the opposite condition. It
should also stir up our thankfulness when we consider from what we are delivered.
ow to come to the words themselves. What is death? Death is nothing else but a
separation from the cause of life, from that from whence life springs. The body
having a communicated life from the soul, when the soul is departed it must needs
be dead. ow death, take it in a spiritual sense, it is either the death of law, our
sentence--as we say of a man when he is condemned, he is a dead man--or death in
regard of disposition; and then the execution of that death of sentence in bodily
death and in eternal death afterward. ow naturally we are dead in all these senses.

12. 1. First, by the sin of Adam, in whose loins we were, we were all damned. And then
there is corruption of nature as a punishment of that first sin, that is a death, as we
shall see afterward, a death of all the powers; we cannot act and move according to
that life that we had at the first; we cannot think, we cannot will, we cannot affect,
we cannot do anything [that] savours of spiritual life.
2. Hereupon comes a death of sentence upon us, being damned both in Adam’s loins
and in original sin, and likewise adding actual sins of our own. If we had no actual
sin it were enough for the sentence of death to pass upon us, but this aggravates the
sentence.
3. We are dead in law as well as in disposition. This death in law is called guilt, a
binding over to eternal death. ow what is the reason of it why we are dead? First
of all, the ground of it is; by sin we are separated from the fountain of life; therefore
we are all dead. Secondly, by sin we lost that first original righteousness which was
co-produced with Adam’s soul. When Adam’s soul was infused it was clothed with
all graces, with original righteousness. The stamp of God was on his soul. It was co-
natural to that estate and condition to have that excellent gracious disposition that
he had. ow, because we all lost that primitive image and glory of our souls, we are
dead. ay, sin itself, it is not only a cause of death--of temporal death as it is a curse,
and so of eternal death; of that bitter sentence and adjudging of us too, both that we
feel in terrors of conscience and expect after--but sin itself is an intrinsical death.
Why? Because it is nothing but a separation of the soul from the chic! good, which is
God, and a cleaving to some creature; for there is no sin but it carries the soul to the
changeable creature in delight and affection to its pride and vanity, one thing or
other. Sin is a turning from God to the creature, and that very turning of the soul is
death; every sinful soul is dead. In these and the like considerations you may
conceive we are all dead. Let us consider a little what a condition this is, to be “dead
in trespasses and sins.” And what doth death work upon the body?
1. Unactiveness, stiffness; so when the Spirit of God is severed from the soul it is
cold, and unactive, and stiff. Therefore those that find no life to that that is good, no,
nor no power nor strength, it is a sign that they have not yet felt the power of the
quickening Spirit; when they hear coldly and receive the sacrament coldly, as if it
were a dead piece of work and business; when they do anything that is spiritually
good coldly and forced, not from an inward principle of love to God, that might heat
and warm their hearts, but they go about it as a thing that must be done, and think
to satisfy God with an outward dead action.
2. Again, death makes the body unlovely.
3. Loathsomeness.
4. We sever dead persons from the rest.
5. Death deprives of the use of the senses. He that is spiritually dead can speak
nothing that is good of spiritual things. And as he is speechless, so he hath no

13. spiritual eyes to see God in His works. There is nothing that we see with our bodily
eyes, but our souls should have an eye to see somewhat of God in it, His mercy and
goodness and power, etc. And so he hath no relish to taste of God in His creatures
and mercies. When a man tastes of the creatures, he should have a spiritual taste of
God and of the mercy in him. Oh, how sweet is God! A wicked man hath no taste of
God. And he cannot hear what the Spirit saith in the Word. He hears the voice of
man, but not of the Spirit when the trumpet of the Word sounds never so loud in his
ears.
6. As there is no sense nor moving to outward things, so no outward thing can move
a dead body. Offer him colours to the eye, food to the taste, or anything to the
feeling, nothing moves him. So a dead soul, as it cannot move to good, so it is moved
with nothing. That affects a child of God and makes him tremble and quake, it
affects not a carnal man at all.
7. And as in bodily death, the longer it is dead, the more noisome and offensive it is
every day more than other, so sin makes the soul more loathsome and noisome daily,
till they have filled up the measure of their sins, till the earth can bear them no
longer. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
On spiritual death
I. To what sins this representation is to be applied, and to what description of
persons it belongs.
1. The apostle expressly includes himself among those whose former state he had
been considering.
2. The same expression is applied generally to those who never were heathens (Mat_
8:22).
3. It is the declared intention of Jesus Christ, by His appearance in our world, to
give life to the world by exhibiting Himself as the Bread of Life. “I am come that
they might have life.”
4. True Christians, without any exception, are described as persons who have
“passed from death unto life.”
II. Explain the import of this representation.
1. It implies a privation, or withdrawment, of a principle, which properly belongs,

14. and once did belong, to the subject of which it is affirmed. The withdrawment of
God is, with respect to the soul, what the withdrawment of the soul is in relation to
the body. In each case the necessary effect is death; and as that which occasioned
that withdrawment is sin, it is very properly denominated a “death in trespasses and
sins.” ow this view of the subject ought surely to fill us with the deepest concern.
Had man never possessed a principle of Divine life, there would have been less to
lament in his condition. We are less affected at the consideration of what we never
had, than by the loss of advantages which we once possessed. We look at a stone, or
a piece of earth, without the least emotion, because, though it be destitute of life, we
are conscious it was never possessed. But, when we look upon a corpse, it excites an
awful feeling.
2. To be dead in trespasses and sins, intimates the total, the universal prevalence of
corruption. Life admits of innumerable degrees and kinds. There is one sort of
vegetative life, as in plants, another subsists in animals, and in man a rational,
which is still a superior principle of life. Where life is of the same sort it is
susceptible of different degrees. It is much more perfect in the larger sorts of
animals than in reptiles. The vital principle in different men exists with various
degrees of vigour, so that some are far more animated, alert, and vigorous than
others. But there are no degrees in death. All things, of which it can be truly said
that they are dead, are equally dead. (R. Hall, M. A.)
Standing, yet dead
Whilst visiting the beautiful island of Tasmania our attention was often called, nay,
arrested, to huge trees which appear as “bleached ghosts of a dead forest.” They
stand out in the brilliant moonlight with a weirdness that is surprising and
magnificent. The reason for their condition is as follows: On account of their great
size and the heavy cost of what is called “grubbing up,” the settler leaves them in the
ground, but proceeds to cut them round the trunk at a height of about four feet. The
axe cuts through the bark and about an inch into the tree. The effect is that when
the next early spring comes all the sap exudes from the “gashed wounds,” and the
monster of the forest dies. The great branches wither, the leaves fall off, the bark
strips, and a year or two suffices to join the army of the upright dead. The farmer
can now plough the ground between, sow his corn, and reap the harvest in the huge
mausoleum of the forest. o sheltering foliage hinders the sun’s rays and the wheat
plant thrives and ripens amidst hundreds of towering trees whose only voice is the
silence of the dead. As we looked upon these dead ones we were reminded of an
experience which comes to many men who are dead also even while they too are in
posture, at least, upright. Hewed round in the trunk of their robust life, the axe of
“the adversary,” hews and cuts until the sap, the rising, spreading, and expanding
life, is drained. The spring time in these goodly trees of promise is followed by the
bleach and ghostly death which comes of the exuding of conscience, honour,
strength, and life. Alas, alas! this living human mausoleum knows no wheat growth
or harvest at its base. The malaria of death is there, and the spreading corruption

15. infects other trees also, and the forest of the dead extends. Welt does the apostle say
of such, “They wax wanton and are dead while they live.” (Henry Varley.)
Partially quickened
I desire, brethren, for myself and you, that we may be alive all over, for some
professors appear to be more dead than alive; life has only reached a fraction of
their manhood. Life is in their hearts, blessed be God for that; but is only partially
in their heads, for they do not study the gospel nor use their brains to understand its
truths. Life has not touched their silent tongues, nor their idle hands, nor their frost-
bitten pockets. Their house is on fire, but it is only at one corner, and the devil is
doing his best to put out the flame. They remind me of a picture I once saw, in
which the artist had laboured to depict Ezekiel’s vision, and the dead bodies in
course of resurrection. The bones were coming together, and flesh gradually
clothing them, and he represents one body in which the head is perfectly formed,
but the body is a skeleton, while in another place the body is well covered, but the
arms and legs remain bare bones. Some Christians, I say, are much in the same
state. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ quickens the morally dead
I remember once conversing with a celebrated sculptor, who had been hewing out a
block of marble to represent one of our great patriots--Lord Chatham. “There,”
said he, “is not that a fine form?” “ ow, sir,” said I, “can you put life into it: Else,
with all its beauty, it is still but a block of marble.” Christ, by His Spirit, puts life
into a beauteous image, and enables the man He forms to live to His praise and
glory. (Rowland Hill, M. A.)
The nature and universality of spiritual death
To explain the context and show you the connection, I shall make two short
remarks. The one is, That the apostle had observed in the nineteenth and twentieth
verses of the foregoing chapter that the same almighty power of God, which raised
Christ from the dead, is exerted to enable a sinner to believe. The same exertion of
the same power is necessary in the one case and the other; because, as the body of
Christ was dead, and had no principle of life in it, so, says He, ye were dead in
trespasses and sins; and therefore could no more quicken yourselves than a dead
body can restore itself to life. Death is a state of insensibility and inactivity, and a
dead man is incapable of restoring himself to life; therefore the condition of an
unconverted sinner must have some resemblance to such a state, in order to support
the bold metaphor here used by the apostle. To understand it aright we must take

16. care, on the one hand that we do not explain it away in flattery to ourselves, or in
compliment to the pride of human nature; and, on the other hand, that we do not
carry the similitude too far, so, as to lead into absurdities, and contradict matter of
fact. A sinner dead in trespasses and sins may be a living treasury of knowledge, an
universal scholar, a profound philosopher, and even a great divine, as far as mere
speculative knowledge can render him such; nay, he is capable of many sensations
and impressions from religious objects, and of performing all the external duties of
religion. Trespasses and sins are the grave, the corrupt effluvia, the malignant
damps, the rottenness of a dead soul: it lies dead, senseless, inactive, buried in
trespasses and sins. Trespasses and sins render it ghastly, odious, abominable, a
noisome putrefaction before a holy God, like a rotten carcase, or a mere mass of
corruption: the Vilest lusts, like worms, riot upon and devour it, but it feels them
not, nor can it lift a hand to drive the venom off. You have seen that the
metaphorical expression in my text is intended to represent the stupidity, inactivity,
and impotence of unregenerate sinners about divine things. This truth I might
confirm by argument and Scripture authority; but I think it may be a better method
for popular conviction to prove and illustrate it from plain instances of the temper
and conduct of sinners about the concerns of religion, as this may force the
conviction upon them from undoubted matters of fact and their own experience.
I. Consider the excellency of the Divine Being, the sum total, the great Original of all
perfections. How infinitely worthy is He of the adoration of all His creatures! how
deserving of their most intense thoughts and most ardent affections! Yet how
insensible are we and all men to His perfections and majesty. The sun, moon, and
stars have bad more worshippers than the uncreated Fountain of Light from which
they derive their lustre. Kings and ministers of state have more punctual homage
and more frequent applications made to them than the King of kings and Lord of
lords. Created enjoyments are more eagerly pursued than the Supreme Good.
Search all the world over, and you will find but very little motions of heart towards
God; little love, little desire, little searching after Him. The reason is, men are dead
in trespasses and sins.
II. The august and endearing relations the great and blessed God sustains to us, and
the many ways He has taken to make dutiful and grateful impressions upon our
hearts. What tender endearments are there contained in the relation of a Father!
ow the name of a father is wont to carry some endearment and authority.
Children, especially in their young and helpless years, are fond of their father; their
little hearts beat with a thousand grateful passions towards him; and they fly to him
upon every appearance of danger: but if God be a father, where is His honour?
here, alas! the filial passions are senseless and immoveable. And is not a state of
death a very proper representation of such sullen, incorrigible stupidity? Living
souls have very tender sensations; one touch of their heavenly Father’s hand makes
deep impressions upon them. Concluding reflections:

17. 1. What a strange, affecting view does this subject give us of this assembly!
2. Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, that Christ may give thee light.
The principle of reason is still alive in you; you are also sensible of your own
interest, and feel the workings of self-love. It is God alone that can quicken you, but
He effects this by a power that does not exclude, but attends rational instructions
and persuasions to your understanding.
3. Let the children of God be sensible of their great happiness in being made
spiritually alive. Life is a principle, a capacity necessary for enjoyments of any kind.
4. Let us all be sensible of this important truth, that it is entirely by grace we are
saved. If we were once dead in sin, certainly it is owing to the freest grace that we
have been quickened; therefore, when we survey the change, let us cry, “Grace,
grace unto it.” (President Davies, M. A.)
Dead
The epithet implies--
1. Previous life. Death is but the cessation of life. The spirit of life fled from Adam’s
disobedient heart, and it died, for it was severed from God.
2. It implies insensibility. The dead, which are as insusceptible as their kindred clay,
can be neither wooed nor won back to existence. The beauties of holiness do not
attract man in his spiritual insensibility, nor do the miseries of hell deter him.
3. It implies inability. The corpse cannot raise itself from the tomb and come back to
the scenes and society of the living world. The peal of the last trump alone can start
it from its dark and dreamless sleep. Inability characterizes fallen man. And this is
not natural but moral inability, such inability as not only is no palliation, but oven
forms the very aggravation of his crime. It is inability not of mind but of will. He
cannot, simply because he will not, and therefore he is justly responsible. (J. Eadie,
D. D.)
Quickening grace
Hence learn--
1. It is not sufficient that the servants of Jesus Christ do only preach privileges, and
hold forth unto believers that happy estate unto which they are lifted up through
Christ; it is necessary also that jointly herewith they be calling them to mind their

18. woeful, miserable, and lost estate by nature: for the apostle, in the preceding
chapter, having spoken much of those high privileges unto which the Ephesians
were advanced by Christ, he doth here mind them of that miserable state wherein
God found them; “And you who were dead in trespasses and sins.”
2. There is nothing contributeth more to commend the doctrine of free grace to
people’s consciences, and so to commend it as to make them closely adhere unto it,
both in possession and practice, than the serious perpending of man’s woeful and
altogether hopeless estate by nature: this alone would do much to scatter all that
mist whereby human reason doth obscure the beauty of this truth, by extolling
man’s free will as a co-worker with grace (Rom_3:19-20).
3. Believers in Jesus Christ are not to look upon their lost and miserable estate by
nature separately, and apart from, but jointly with God’s free grace and mercy,
which hath delivered them from that misery; for otherwise the thoughts of sin and
misery may, if God should give way, swallow them up (Mat_27:4-5). Hence is it the
apostle hath so contrived his discourse here, that all along, while he speaketh of
their misery in the first three verses, the mind of the reader is kept in suspense
without coming to the perfect close of a sentence, until God’s mercy in their delivery
from this misery be mentioned (verse 5); for the original hath not these words, “He
hath quickened,” in this verse: but the translators have taken them from verse 5, to
make up the sense, without suspending the reader so long until he should find them
in their own proper place, “And you who were dead,” etc.
4. Every man by nature, and before conversion, is dead, not to sin (for that is proper
to the regenerate only; see Rom_6:2, where the grammatical construction is the
same in the original with that which is here; only the sense is much different), but in
sin, whereby he is wholly deprived of all ability and power to convert himself (Rom_
9:16), or to do anything which is spiritually good (Rom_8:7). (James Fergusson.)
Dead souls
When there is an estrangement of the soul from the Spirit of God and Christ,
sanctifying, and comforting, and cheering it, then there is a death of the soul. The
soul can no more act anything that is savingly and holily good, than the body can be
without the soul. And as the body without the soul is a noisome, odious carcass,
offensive in the eyes of its dearest friends, so the soul, without the Spirit of Christ
quickening and seasoning it, and putting a comeliness and beauty upon it, is odious.
All the clothes and flowers you put on a dead body cannot make it but a stinking
carcass; so all the moral virtues, and all the honours in this world, put upon a man
out of Christ, it makes him not a spiritual living soul; he is but a loathsome carrion,
a dead carcass, in the sight of God and of all that have the Spirit of God. For he is
under death. He is stark and stiff, unable to stir or move to any duty whatsoever. He
has no sense nor motion. Though such men live a common natural civil life, and
walk up and down, yet they are dead men to God and to a better life. The world is

19. full el dead men, that are dead while they are alive, as St. Paul speaks of the “widow
that lives in pleasures” (1Ti_5:6). A fearful estate, if we had spiritual eyes to see it
and think of it. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
Sin is the death of the soul
Sin disengages the love of God to the creature, because it renders the creature
useless as to the end for which it was designed. Things, whose essence and being
stand in relation to such an end, have their virtue and value from their fitness to
attain it. Everything is ennobled from its use, and debased as far as it is useless. As
long as a man continues an instrument of God’s glory, so long his title to life and
happiness stands sure, and no longer. But now, sin in Scripture, and in God’s
account, is the death of the soul. “We were dead in trespasses and sins.” ow death
makes a thing utterly useless, because it renders it totally inactive; and in things that
are naturally active, that which deprives them of their action bereaves them of their
use. The soul, by reason of sin, is unable to act spiritually; for sin has disordered the
soul, and turned the force and edge of all its operations against God; so that now it
can bring no glory to God by doing, but only by suffering, and being made
miserable. It is now unfit to obey His commands, and fit only to endure His strokes.
It is incapable by any active communion or converse with Him to enjoy His love,
and a proper object only to bear His anger and revenge. We may take the case in
this similitude. A physician has a servant; while this servant lives honestly with him,
he is fit to be used and to be employed in his occasions; but if this servant should
commit a felony, and for that be condemned, he can then be actively serviceable to
him no longer; he is fit only for him to dissect, and make an object upon which to
show the experiments of his skill. So while man was yet innocent he was fit to be
used by God in a way of active obedience; but now having sinned, and being
sentenced by the law to death as a malefactor, he is a fit matter only for God to
torment and show the wonders of His vindictive justice. (R. South, D. D.)
Spiritual insensibility
Announce to a man who believes himself possessed of an enormous capital that
bankruptcy and beggary await him; tell a prisoner who hopes for certain
deliverance that the sentence of death is passed on him, and he may expect the
summons of the executioner; inform a man who thinks he has got but a slight
disease, that it is the symptom of a fatal plague, and advise him to prepare for
death; thunder at a man’s door, and shout that the house is on fire, and bid him
escape for his life--and surely nothing but that men had sunk in death before these
tidings reached their ears, could prevent their being suitably affected by them. But
men can hear of the judgments and the wrath of God as though they heard them
not; such announcements are like those of the destruction of Sodom by Lot, “He
seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law,” or like the language of

20. unbelieving Israel to the prophet, when he proclaimed the fearful judgments to
come, “Ah, Lord God! they say of me, doth he not speak parables?” (R. J. McGhee,
M. A.)
The solemnity of death
What a solemn sight is presented to us by a dead body! When last evening trying to
realize the thought, it utterly overcame me. The thought is overwhelming, that soon
this body of mine must be a carnival for worms; that in and out of these places,
where my eyes are glistening, foul things, the offspring of loathsomeness, shall
crawl; that this body must be stretched in still, cold, abject, passive death, must then
become a noxious, nauseous thing, cast out even by those that loved me, who will
say, “Bury my dead out of my sight.” Perhaps you can scarcely, in the moment I can
afford you, appropriate the idea to yourselves. Does it not seem a strange thing, that
you, who have walked to this place this morning, shall be carried to your graves;
that the eyes with which you now behold me shall soon be glazed in everlasting
darkness; that the tongues, which just now moved in song, shall soon be silent,
lumps of clay; and that your strong and stalwart frame, now standing in this place,
will soon be unable to move a muscle, and become a loathsome thing, the brother of
the worm and the sister of corruption? You can scarcely get hold of the idea; death
doth such awful work with us, it is such a Vandal with this mortal fabric, it so
rendeth to pieces this fair thing that God hath builded up, that we can scarcely bear
to contemplate his works of ruin. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
All are dead by nature
ow, endeavour, as well as you can, to get the idea of a dead corpse, and when you
have so done, please to understand that that is the metaphor employed in my text to
set forth the condition of your soul by nature. Just as the body is dead, incapable,
unable, unfeeling, and soon about to become corrupt and putrid; so are we, if we be
unquickened by Divine grace, dead in trespasses and sins, having within us death,
which is capable of developing itself in worse and worse stages of sin and
wickedness, until all of us here, left by God’s grace, should become loathsome
beings: loathsome through sin and wickedness, even as the corpse through natural
decay. Understand, that the doctrine of the Holy Scripture is, that man by nature,
since the Fall, is dead; he is a corrupt and ruined thing; in a spiritual sense, utterly
and entirely dead. And if any of us shall come to spiritual life, it must be by the
quickening of God’s Spirit, vouchsafed to us sovereignly through the goodwill of
God the Father, not for any merits of our own, but entirely of His own abounding
and infinite grace. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

21. Man dead in trespasses and sins
One Sunday Father Taylor preached upon the Atonement. His text was, “Dead in
trespasses and sins.” “Dead!” he exclaimed; “not only dead, but buried; and you
can’t get out! A big boulder lays on the main hatch, keeping it down over your
heads. You may go to work with all your purchases--bars, handspikes, winch, and
double tackles; but you can’t make it budge an inch. But hark! who is it that has the
watch on deck! Jesus Christ. ow, sing out to Him, and Sing out loud. Ah! He hears
you; and He claps His shoulder against this rock of sin, cants it off the hatch, the
bars fly open, and out you come.”
Image of the unregenerate
The unregenerate man may be said to be made up of two parts--a living body and a
dead soul. In states of disease and injury we sometimes find something analogous, in
one part of the body being full of life, and another part of it palsied and dead. I have
seen a person after injury of the lower part of the neck surviving for a time; the
head perfectly alive and well, but the body and limbs perfectly motionless. In the
last fatal duel fought near Edinburgh a bullet struck the spine of the challenger. I
have often heard this unhappy man’s physician tell that when he first visited him,
some hours afterwards, and asked him how he felt, “I feel,” he replied, “exactly
what I am--a man with a living head and a dead body mysteriously joined together.”
Every unbelieving man consists of a dead soul mysteriously joined to a living body.
(Sir James Simpson.)
A dead soul
As a dead man cannot inherit an estate, no more can a dead soul inherit the
kingdom of God. (H. G. Salter.)
Care for souls
When on a visit to a city in the neighbourhood of Ephesus, St. John commended to
the care of the bishop a young man of fine stature, graceful countenance, and ardent
mind, as suited to the work of the ministry. The bishop neglected his charge. The
young man became idle and dissolute, and was at length prevailed on to join a band
of robbers, such as commonly had their strongholds in the neighborhood of ancient
Greek cities. He soon became their captain, and attained to notoriety in crime. Long
after St. John entered the city again, and inquired for the young man. “He is dead,”
said the bishop, “dead to God.” Having ascertained the particulars, the apostle
exclaimed, “I left a fine keeper of a brother’s soul!” then, mounting a horse, he rode
into the country, and was taken prisoner. He attempted not to flee, but said, “For
this purpose am I come, conduct me to your captain.” He entered the presence of the

22. armed bandit, who, recognizing the apostle, attempted to escape. “Why dost thou
flee, my son,” said he, “from thy father--thy defenceless, aged father? Fear not, thou
still hast hopes of life. I will pray to Christ for thee. I will suffer death for thee. I will
give my life for thine. Believe that Christ hath sent me.” The young man was
subdued, fell into the apostle’s arms, prayed with many tears, became perfectly
reformed, and returned to the communion of the Church. (Legend of St. John.)
Spiritual death and life
I. The original condition of the Ephesians. They were deaden trespasses and sins.
The two words, “trespasses and sins,” have almost the same meaning. They imply
the breaking, not keeping, or offending against the moral law of God. The negative
symptoms of spiritual death are--
1. The want of spiritual perception. As a dead body has not the five bodily senses, so
a dead soul has not the spiritual senses. It neither sees nor hears, nor tastes, nor
perceives the perfume, nor feels the reality of the spiritual world. The glory of God
shineth forth in the gospel of Christ, but dead souls are blind and cannot see it
(2Co_4:3-4). God speaketh by His providence and by His inspired word in loudest
tones of reproof, admonition, invitation, and love, warning, and terror; but the dead
soul is deaf, like the adder that heareth not the voice of the charmer, charm he never
so sweetly. The dead soul cannot taste and see that God is gracious.
2. o spiritual understanding. “There is none that understandeth.” “The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him;
neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned” (Rom_3:2).
3. Want of spiritual desires. “Depart from us, we desire not knowledge of Thy
ways.” “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.”
4. The dead soul has no spiritual strength. The natural man is, in spiritual exertion,
absolutely helpless and powerless.
5. The dead soul has no capacity of spiritual enjoyment. Dead in trespasses and sins,
it can have no true or permanent happiness.
Having thus enumerated five qualities in which the spiritually dead soul is deficient,
we may now mention those which such a soul has.
1. It has entire corruption and depravity.
2. From entire depravity proceeds the second positive quality in the dead soul--it is
constantly committing actual sin.

23. 3. A third property of a spiritually dead soul is, that it is under the wrath and curse
of God (Gal_3:8).
4. The fourth and last property which we shall mention is, that the soul in this state
is deserving of and prepared for eternal death. “The soul that sinneth shall die” is
the unchangeable word of the inflexibly just God. “The wages of sin is death.”
II. The change which the Ephesians underwent, so as to bring them into the state in
which they were when the apostle transmitted to their Church this epistle--“You
hath He quickened.” Under this head we might direct your attention to the five
following particulars: The nature, author, qualities, effects, and subjects of this
change.
1. As to the nature of this change. It was to the souls of the Ephesians what the
resurrection of Lazarus was to his body, the actual communication of life to what
was previously dead.
2. Who was the author of this mighty transformation? ot the apostle; he utterly
disclaims the power, as well as the honour, of effecting it (1Co_3:5-6). ot the
Ephesians themselves. Can the dead quicken the dead? “You hath He quickened.”
3. As to the qualities of this change. If our time permitted, we might describe it as
being supernatural in its origin, nature, and effects; immediate, abiding (1Jn_2:19),
saving, transforming, and a most glorious and happy change, giving glory to God,
and conferring happiness on men.
4. The effects of this change of being quickened from spiritual death were two-fold--
inestimable privilege and holy fruit.
5. The subjects of this change. “You hath He quickened, who were dead in
trespasses and sins.”
III. Let us now endeavour to apply to our own use what we have learned respecting
the Ephesians. Should anyone be saying, “I greatly fear that I am dead, but oh that I
knew how I may be quickened!” Be of good courage, my brother, and despair not,
for the mercy of God is unsearchable, and may reach even to you. If anyone in this
assembly be quickened from his death in sins, to him I would say, You have been
quickened in order that God in Christ may be glorified in you and by you. You are a
monument of the marvellous grace of God, therefore glorify the grace of God by
ascribing your salvation to sovereign grace as its origin, depending on efficacious
grace as its means, and living to the praise of redeeming grace as its end. (W.
Mackenzie,)

24. I. In the first three verses the state and character of the Ephesians before their
conversion is described. As to their state, they “were dead in trespasses and sins.”
This death may be viewed as two-fold, namely, legal and spiritual. The former
consisted in the condemning sentence of the Divine law, under which they lay, as its
transgressors; the latter consisted in the moral pollution of their natures, in
consequence of which they were utterly incapable of any holy obedience to God. As
to their character, or external deportment, the Ephesians are described in verses
second and third, They “walked in sins.” The term “walk” is expressive of a regular
habitual course. Their whole life was sin. The sinful life which the Ephesians led was
more particularly distinguished by conformity to the world, and compliance with
the devil. They walked in sins “according to the course of this world,” “according to
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience.”
II. We come, secondly, to consider the great change which had taken place in the
wretched condition of the Ephesians through Divine grace.
1. This blessed change is explained in verses 1, 4, 5, and 6. In verse 1 we are
informed in what the change consisted “You hath He quickened.” To quicken is to
implant holy principles in the soul, so that it becomes alive to God and
righteousness.
2. We have next the author of this gracious change, in verses 4 and 5--“But God,
who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved).” To
quicken dead souls is a Divine work, as much so as is the resuscitation of a dead
body to life. The new birth is as far above the effort of nature as the rearing of a
world.
3. We have next the formal or meritorious cause of this change--“He hath quickened
us together with Christ” (verse 4). Christ was quickened by the mighty power of
God when He rose from the dead; end His resurrection was the Father’s testimony
to the perfection and acceptance of that glorious work, which is the foundation of all
the grace which flows from heaven to poor sinners.
4. “And hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Jesus not only
rose from the dead, to which His people are conformed in regeneration, but also
ascended into heaven, and “sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”; and
this He did as the Head, so that in Him His people sat down in heavenly places; and
His exaltation there is the assurance that they shall personally appear in heaven,

25. and share in the glory the Father hath bestowed on Him.
5. We have, finally, the moving cause of the grace shown to the Ephesians, in verse
4--“But God, who is rich in mercy,” etc. The cause of the grace manifested to Jews
and Gentiles lay in God alone, not in any measure in them. It was love residing in
the bosom of the Eternal Himself which moved Him to quicken these wretched
sinners.
III. We come, thirdly and lastly, to the ultimate object of God’s grace to sinners of
the Jews and Gentiles. It is mentioned in the seventh verse--“that in the ages to come
He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through
Christ Jesus.” This was a noble end, in all respects worthy of our gracious God.
These poor idolaters, quickened to a heavenly and endless life, are patterns of
Divine grace to every age, and to every sinner of every age, till time has run its
course. Let me shortly improve this subject by urging on you the lessons it
inculcates. Learn, first, from this subject, the guilt and wretchedness of our spiritual
condition by nature. We learn, secondly, from this subject, how great is the grace of
God in Christ Jesus. (M. Grigor.)
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.
BAR ES, "Wherein - In which sins, or in the practice of which transgressions.
Ye walked - You lived, life being often compared to a journey or a race. note, Rom_
6:4.
According to the course of this world - In conformity with the customs and
manners of the world at large. The word rendered here as “world” - αᅶων aiōn - means

26. properly “age,” but is often used to denote the present world, with its cares, temptations,
and desires; and here denotes particularly the people of this world. The meaning is, that
they had lived formerly as other people lived, and the idea is strongly conveyed that the
course of the people of this world is to walk in trespasses and sins. The sense is, that
there was by nature no difference between them and others, and that all the difference
which now existed had been made by grace.
According to the prince of the power of the air - see Eph_6:12; compare the
notes at 2Co_4:4. There can be no doubt that Satan is here intended, and that Paul
means to say that they were under his control as their leader and prince. The phrase,
“the prince of the power,” may mean either “the powerful prince,” or it may mean that
this prince had power over the air, and lived and reigned there particularly. The word
“prince” - ᅎρχοντα archonta - “Archon,” means one first in authority and power, and is
then applied to anyone who has the pre-eminence or rule. It is applied to Satan, or the
chief of the fallen angels, as where he is called “the prince - ᅎρχων archōn - of the devils,”
Mat_9:34; Mat_12:24; Mar_3:22; Luk_11:15; “the prince of this world,” Joh_12:31;
Joh_14:30; Joh_16:11. But “why” he is here called the prince having power “over the
air,” it is not easy to determine.
Robinson (Lexicon) supposes it to be because he is lord of the powers of the air; that
is, of the demons who dwell and rule in the atmosphere. So Doddridge supposes that it
means that he controls the fallen spirits who are permitted to range the regions of the
atmosphere. It is generally admitted that the apostle here refers to the prevailing
opinions both among the Jews and pagan, that the air was thickly populated with spirits
or demons. That this was a current opinion, may be seen fully proved in Wetstein;
compare Bloomfield, Grotius, and particularly Koppe. Why the region of the air was
supposed to be the dwelling-place of such spirits, is now unknown. The opinion may
have been either that such spirits “dwelt” in the air, or that they had control over it,
according to the later Jewish belief. Cocceius and some others explain the word “air”
here as meaning the same as “darkness,” as in profane writers. It is evident to my mind
that Paul does not speak of this as a mere tradition, opinion, or vagary of the fancy, or as
a superstitious belief: but that he refers to it as a thing which he regarded as true. In this
opinion I see no absurdity that should make it impossible to believe it. For:
(1) The Scriptures abundantly teach that there are fallen, wicked spirits; and the
existence of fallen angels is no more improbable than the existence of fallen people.
(2) The Bible teaches that they have much to do with this world. They tempted man;
they inflicted disease in the time of the Saviour; they are represented as alluring and
deceiving the race.
(3) They must have “some” locality - some part of the universe where they dwell. That
they were not confined down to hell in the time of the Redeemer, is clear from the New
Testament; for they are often represented as having afflicted and tortured people.
(4) Why is there any improbability in the belief that their residence should have been
in the regions of the air? That while they were suffered to be on earth to tempt and afflict
people, they should have been permitted especially to occupy these! regions? Who can
tell what may be in the invisible world, and what spirits may be permitted to fill up the
vast space that now composes the universe? And who can tell what control may have
been given to such fallen spirits over the regions of the atmosphere - over clouds, and
storms, and pestilential air? People have control over the earth, and pervert and abuse
the powers of nature to their own ruin and the ruin of each other. The elements they
employ for the purposes of ruin and of temptation. Fruit and grain they convert to
poison; minerals, to the destruction caused by war. In itself considered, there is nothing

27. more improbable that spirits of darkness may have had control over the regions of the
air, than that fallen man has over the earth; and no more improbability that that power
has been abused to ruin people, than that the power of people is abused to destroy each
other. No one can “prove” that the sentiment here referred to by Paul is “not” true; and
no one can show how the doctrine that fallen spirits may do mischief in any part of the
works of God, is anymore improbable than that wicked “men” should do the same thing.
The word “power” here - “power of the air” - I regard as synonymous with “dominion or
rule;” “a prince having dominion or rule over the air.”
The spirit that now worketh - That still lives, and whose energy for evil is still seen
and felt among the wicked. Paul here means undoubtedly to teach that there was such a
spirit, and that he was still active in controlling people.
The children of disobedience - The wicked; Col_3:6.
CLARKE, "Wherein in time past ye walked - There is much force in these
expressions; the Ephesians had not sinned casually, or now and then, but continually; it
was their continual employment; they walked in trespasses and sins: and this was not a
solitary case, all the nations of the earth acted in the same way; it was the course of this
world, κατα τον αιωνα του κοσµου τουτου, according to the life, mode of living, or
successive ages of this world. The word αιων, the literal meaning of which is constant
duration, is often applied to things which have a complete course, as the Jewish
dispensation, a particular government, and the term of human life; so, here, the whole of
life is a tissue of sin, from the cradle to the grave; every human soul, unsaved by Jesus
Christ, continues to transgress. And the nominally Christian world is in the same state to
the present day. Age after age passes on in this way and the living lay it not to heart!
The prince of the power of the air - As the former clause may have particular
respect to the Jewish people, who are frequently denominated ‫הזה‬ ‫עולם‬ olam hazzeh, this
world, this latter clause may especially refer to the Gentiles, who were most manifestly
under the power of the devil, as almost every object of their worship was a demon, to
whom the worst of passions and practices were attributed, and whose conduct his
votaries took care to copy.
Satan is termed prince of the power of the air, because the air is supposed to be a
region in which malicious spirits dwell, all of whom are under the direction and
influence of Satan, their chief.
The spirit that now worketh - Του νυν ενεργουντος The operations of the prince of
the aerial powers are not confined to that region; he has another sphere of action, viz.
the wicked heart of man, and in this he works with energy. He seldom inspires
indifference to religion; the subjects in whom he works are either determinate opposers
of true religion, or they are systematic and energetic transgressors of God’s laws.
Children of disobedience - Perhaps a Hebraism for disobedient children; but,
taken as it stands here, it is a strong expression, in which disobedience, ᅧ απειθεια,
appears to be personified, and wicked men exhibited as her children; the prince of the
power of the air being their father, while disobedience is their mother. Thus they are
emphatically, what our Lord calls them, Mat_13:38, children of the wicked one; for they
show themselves to be of their father the devil, because they will do his works, Joh_
8:44. Some think that by children of disobedience the apostle means particularly the

28. disobedient, unbelieving, refractory, and persecuting Jews; but I rather think he speaks
this generally, and refers to the Jews in the following verse.
GILL, "Wherein in time past ye walked,.... Sins and transgressions are a road or
path, in which all unconverted sinners walk; and this path is a dark, crooked, and broad
one, which leads to destruction and death, and yet is their own way, which they choose,
approve of, and delight to walk in; and walking in it denotes a continued series of
sinning, an obstinate persisting in it, a progress in iniquity, and pleasure therein: and the
time of walking in this path, being said to be in time past, shows that the elect of. God
before conversion, walk in the same road that others do; and that conversion is a turning
out of this way; and that when persons are converted, the course of their walking is
altered, which before was
according to the course of this world meaning this world, in distinction from the
world to come, or the present age, in which the apostle lived, and designs the men of it;
and the course of it is their custom, manner, and way of life; to which God's elect, during
their state of unregeneracy, conform, both with respect to conversation and religious
worship: great is the force that prevailing customs have over men; it is one branch of
redemption by Christ, to deliver men from this present evil world, and to free them from
a vain conversation in it; and it is only the grace of God that effectually teaches to deny
the lusts of it; and it is only owing to the prevalent intercession and power of Christ, that
even converted persons are kept from the evil of it:
according to the prince of the power of the air: which is not to be understood of
any supposed power the devil has over the air, by divine permission, to raise winds, but
of a posse, or body of devils, who have their residence in the air; for it was not only the
notion of the Jews (m), that there are noxious and accusing spirits, who fly about ‫,באויר‬
"in the air", and that there is no space between the earth and the firmament free, and
that the whole is full of a multitude of them; but also it was the opinion of the Chaldeans
(n), and of Pythagoras (o), and Plato (p), that the air is full of demons: now there is a
prince who is at the head of these, called Beelzebub, the prince of devils, or the lord of a
fly, for the devils under him are as so many flies in the air, Mat_12:24 and by the Jews
called (q), ‫דרוחיא‬ ‫,רבהון‬ "the prince of spirits"; and is here styled, the Spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience; by which spirit is meant, not the lesser devils
that are under the prince, nor the spirit of the world which comes from him, and is not
of God; but Satan himself, who is a spirit, and an evil, and an unclean one; and who
operates powerfully in unbelievers, for they are meant by children of disobedience, or
unbelief; just as ‫מהימנותא‬ ‫,בני‬ "children of faith" (r), in the Jewish dialect, designs
believers; and over these Satan has great influence, especially the reprobate part of
them; whose minds he blinds, and whose hearts he fills, and puts it into them to do the
worst of crimes; and indeed, he has great power over the elect themselves, while in
unbelief, and leads them captive at his will; and these may be said in their unregeneracy
to walk after him, when they imitate him, and do his lusts, and comply with what he
suggests, dictates to them, or tempts them to.
JAMISO , "the course of this world — the career (literally, “the age,” compare
Gal_1:4), or present system of this world (1Co_2:6, 1Co_2:12; 1Co_3:18, 1Co_3:19, as

29. opposed to “the world to come”): alien from God, and lying in the wicked one (1Jo_
5:19). “The age” (which is something more external and ethical) regulates “the world”
(which is something more external).
the prince of the power of the air — the unseen God who lies underneath guiding
“the course of this world” (2Co_4:4); ranging through the air around us: compare Mar_
4:4, “fowls of the air” (Greek, “heaven”) that is, (Eph_2:15), “Satan” and his demons.
Compare Eph_6:12; Joh_12:31. Christ’s ascension seems to have cast Satan out of
heaven (Rev_12:5, Rev_12:9, Rev_12:10, Rev_12:12, Rev_12:13), where he had been
heretofore the accuser of the brethren (Job_1:6-11). No longer able to accuse in heaven
those justified by Christ, the ascended Savior (Rom_8:33, Rom_8:34), he assails them
on earth with all trials and temptations; and “we live in an atmosphere poisonous and
impregnated with deadly elements. But a mighty purification of the air will be effected
by Christ’s coming” [Auberlen], for Satan shall be bound (Rev_12:12, Rev_12:13, Rev_
12:15, Rev_12:17; Rev_20:2, Rev_20:3). “The power” is here used collectively for the
“powers of the air”; in apposition with which “powers” stand the “spirits,”
comprehended in the singular, “the spirit,” taken also collectively: the aggregate of the
“seducing spirits” (1Ti_4:1) which “work now (still; not merely, as in your case, ‘in time
past’) in the sons of disobedience” (a Hebraism: men who are not merely by accident
disobedient, but who are essentially sons of disobedience itself: compare Mat_3:7), and
of which Satan is here declared to be “the prince.” The Greek does not allow “the spirit”
to refer to Satan, “the prince” himself, but to “the powers of the air” of which he is
prince. The powers of the air are the embodiment of that evil “spirit” which is the ruling
principle of unbelievers, especially the heathen (Act_26:18), as opposed to the spirit of
the children of God (Luk_4:33). The potency of that “spirit” is shown in the
“disobedience” of the former. Compare Deu_32:20, “children in whom is no faith” (Isa_
30:9; Isa_57:4). They disobey the Gospel both in faith and practice (2Th_1:8; 2Co_
2:12).
RWP, "According to the course of this world (kata ton aiōna tou kosmou
toutou). Curious combinations of aiōn (a period of time), kosmos (the world in that
period). See note on 1Co_1:20 for “this age” and 1Co_3:9 for “this world.”
The prince of the power of the air (ton archonta tēs exousias tou aeros). Aēr was
used by the ancients for the lower and denser atmosphere and aithēr for the higher and
rarer. Satan is here pictured as ruler of the demons and other agencies of evil. Jesus
called him “the prince of this world” (ho archōn tou kosmou toutou, Joh_16:11).
That now worketh (tou nun energountos). Those who deny the existence of a
personal devil cannot successfully deny the vicious tendencies, the crime waves, in
modern men. The power of the devil in the lives of men does explain the evil at work “in
the sons of disobedience” (en tois huiois tēs apethias). In Eph_5:6 also. A Hebrew idiom
found in the papyri like “sons of light” (1Th_5:5).
CALVI , "2.In which for some time ye walked. From the effects or fruits, he draws
a proof that sin formerly reigned in them; for, until sin displays itself in outward
acts, men are not sufficiently aware of its power. When he adds, according to the
course of this world, (120) he intimates that the death which he had mentioned rages
in the nature of man, and is a universal disease. He does not mean that course of the

30. world which God has ordained, nor the elements, such as the heaven, and earth, and
air, — but the depravity with which we are all infected; so that sin is not peculiar to
a few, but pervades the whole world.
According to the prince of the power of the air. He now proceeds farther, and
explains the cause of our corruption to be the dominion which the devil exercises
over us. A more severe condemnation of mankind could not have been pronounced.
What does he leave to us, when he declares us to be the slaves of Satan, and subject
to his will, so long as we live out of the kingdom of Christ? Our condition, therefore,
though many treat it with ridicule, or, at least, with little disapprobation, may well
excite our horror. Where is now the free-will, the guidance of reason, the moral
virtue, about which Papists babble to much? What will they find that is pure or holy
under the tyranny of the devil? On this subject, indeed, they are extremely cautious,
and denounce this doctrine of Paul as a grievous heresy. I maintain, on the contrary,
that there is no obscurity in the apostle’ language; and that all men who live
according to the world, that is, according to the inclinations of their flesh, are here
declared to fight under the reign of Satan.
In accordance with the practice of the inspired writers, the Devil is mentioned in the
singular number. As the children of God have one head, so have the wicked; for
each of the classes forms a distinct body. By assigning to him the dominion over all
wicked beings, ungodliness is represented as an unbroken mass. As to his
attributing to the devil power over the air, that will be considered when we come to
the sixth chapter. At present, we shall merely advert to the strange absurdity of the
Manicheans, in endeavoring to prove from this passage the existence of two
principles, as if Satan could do anything without the Divine permission. Paul does
not allow him the highest authority, which belongs to the will of God alone, but
merely a tyranny which God permits him to exercise. What is Satan but God’
executioner to punish man’ ingratitude? This is implied in Paul’ language, when he
represents the success of Satan as confined to unbelievers; for the children of God
are thus exempted from his power. If this be true, it follows that Satan does nothing
but under the control of a superior: and that he is not ( αὐτοκράτωρ) an unlimited
monarch.
There are two ages and we are already in the age to come. We are beings of the
future for the future is already upon us.
Professor Sorokin of Harvard in The Crisis Of Our Age writes, "For the past 400
years the Western world has been descending from a civilization spiritually centered
to one wholly sensate in which everything is judged by the senses and that we have
now arrived at a stage of utter rottenness, reflected in art, music, literature, law, and
morals." That was in 1945.
The world is the human society as organized for its own purpose and pleasure and
profit without thought or concern for God and His will.

31. Ruler of the kingdom of air-Eph. 6:12, II Cor. 4:4, John 12:31, 16:11. Air refers to
the lower atmosphere. The atmosphere of this age is evil. Satan is the author of the
spirit of the age that keeps men in bondage.
BURKITT, "Our apostle having in the former verse described the Ephesians by
their natural state and inward condition, as dead in trespasses and sins, doth in this
verse set forth their misery in respect of their outward conversation; they walked in
and made a constant trade of sin. Wherein in time past ye walked according to the
course of this world, & c.
Here note, 1. Their constant and continued course of life, set forth by walking; a
metaphor frequently used in scripture, to set forth the tenor of a person's
conversation; wherein, that is, in which sins in time past ye walked.
ote 2. The path in which they walked, in sins and trepasses; this denotes the
abundance of sin that was in them, and committed by them with facility and ease,
with satisfaction and delight. Walking is a motion, a voluntary motion, a progressive
motion, a pleasant and delightful motion: it is natural to men, whilst unregenerate,
to walk in sin with some sort of delight and pleasure; but alas! it is the pleasure of
the beast, and not of the man, a sensual, and not a rational satisfaction.
ote, 3. The guides which they are said here to follow: the world and Satan.
1. The world; that is, the corrupt course and sinful customs of the men of the world,
according to the time and place in which they live; for though the world alters in the
course and fashion of it, from time to time, yet it is, and ever will be, the world still;
and the unregenerate part of mankind will always walk according to the course of
this world.
The second guide which the Ephesians followed, was Satan, styled here a prince, in
regard of that mighty power which he has in and over the men of the world; and the
prince of the power of the air, because he exercises his power (by God's permission)
in the lower regions of the air. All the elements and meteors stoop to his direction;
when God gives him leave he can command the fire, the water, the winds, the
thunders; all these powers that are in the air he can command, and therefore he is
called their prince; yet here is a matter of comfort to us, Satan is the prince of the
air only; if so, when the air shall cease, his kingdom shall cease; when the world is
ended his dominion and power is ended.
Again, there is farther comfort in this, Satan is prince of the air, but Christ is prince
of heaven and earth , and the air too: both our prayers whilst we live, and our souls
when we die, pass through the air, but Satan can neither intercept the one, nor stop
the other, in their passage thither. Christ, when he ascended into heaven, went
through the air, this kingdom of devils, and spoiled their principalities and powers;
he entered heaven in the sight of them all, and led them all captives in triumph at his

32. chariot, so that they shall never hurt the souls of his people, not ever keep them
from heaven.
Again, the devil is here described by the influence he has upon the minds of sinners:
he works in the children of disobedience. Satan's way of working in and upon
obstinate and impenitent sinners, is very powerful and efficacious.
Hence it is said here, 1. That they are led by Satan, they walk according to the
prince of the power of the air; that is, according to his guidance, according to his
mind and will. He has them at his beck; he says to one sinner, Go, and he goeth; and
to another, Come, and he cometh.
2. They are excited and assisted by Satan: he works in them, and suggests evil
thoughts to them; he filled the heart of Ananias and Sapphira to lie unto the Holy
Ghost; he put a lie first into their hearts, and then into their mouths.
ow from hence we may infer, that the Holy Spirit of God doth always inwardly
work in pious persons, enabling them to will and to do according to his own good
pleasure. For it is unreasonable to conceive that the evil spirit should have more
power over the children of disobedience, in whom he dwells, than the good Spirit
has in those pious persons in whose hearts he is said to dwell. Surely the Spirit of
God doth more to the saving of souls, than the devil can do to the damning of them.
.
BI, "Wherein in times past ye walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience.
The life of the unregenerate
1. The life of the unregenerate is a walk in transgression. Whatever they occupy
themselves in, it is all sin.
2. The corrupt example of such encourages others to sin. Even as damps put out a
light, so this fog of sin suffocates and smothers the lightsome blaze of saving graces
in the godly, though it cannot altogether quench them.
3. The unregenerate are under the power of the devil. He works effectually in their
hearts, and turns them in whatever direction he pleases.
(1) How woeful is our estate, under Satan’s thrall, until by Christ we are delivered.
Men think the devil not half so fearful as he is, and so they smart by him before they
discern their danger. Be wise in time, and prevent so great mischief of a subtle,

33. malicious, and implacable enemy.
(2) o power, but the power of God, can set us free. (Paul Bayne.)
Satanic influences
I. Their variety. They operate--
1. Through fashion and custom. “The course of this world.”
2. By continual suggestion of evil. “The power of the air.”
3. Through impulse. “The spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience.” The
nature being corrupted, its instincts are perverted and its tendencies evil.
II. The advantage they possess.
1. Illusion. They falsify the vision of the soul, distort the perspective of experience,
and clothe themselves with the garb of utility, reasonableness, etc. In this way they
present their suggestions as--
(1) Supreme wisdom. The collective authority of the past, and the universal opinion
of the present.
(2) Free and spontaneous impulses. Deluded by them the sinner says, “I am free. I
am my own master.”
2. Proximity.
(1) Locally--the whisper of Satan.
(2) Temporally--“first thoughts.”
3. Intangibleness. Like the pressure of the atmosphere, so universally distributed as
scarcely to be felt. The first origins of evil may be apparently neutral, or even
laudable.
III. Their overthrow. “I am come,” says Christ, “to destroy the works of the devil.”
How? By the introduction of light, to expose the works of darkness; of life, by which

34. their spell is broken, and they are overcome. (A. F. Muir, M. A.)
Subtlety of evil spirits
Without any perceptible noise or effort, you breathe the air and live thereby; but
more noiselessly, and without awaking the slightest suspicion of their presence,
designing spirits enter your souls, kindle desire, and lead forth thought, “according
to their will.” The secret evil which is done by them every day is beyond all power of
calculation. “The spider puts forth from herself a gossamer thread, which floats in
the air and catches hold of something where she is not; but no sooner does she find
the farther end of her thread fastened, than she goes forth upon it, strengthening it
and making it her highway. She thus opens and establishes communication over a
gulf, which, but for her airy bridge, she could not cross. Having suspended her
bridge, she lets down pendants, and weaves between them an all but invisible gauze,
in which her prey are to be taken before they suspect their danger.” The crafty
spider would be still more Satan-like, if she could prevail upon the flies to weave the
web, in which she meant to take them. “The prince of the power of the air” is master
enough of his art to do this. He persuades the souls of men, by a projection of their
thoughts and desires, to weave themselves into connection with himself. And the
more logical and conclusive their thought system can be made to appear, so much
the stronger is the connecting web between them and his kingdom. By this web he
holds them, and over it he travels to poison and destroy them. It would be beyond
his power to hold, or to poison any single soul, unless he first obtained the
cooperation of that soul. He is, therefore, unsparing in the use of flattery. He
compliments the human intellect on its system of thought. He persuades strong-
minded men that the Christian faith is a weakness, but that their scientific method,
being based on actual facts, is unanswerable. Honeyed poison. “The depth of
Satan.” He leads men to make a joke of his very existence, and at the same time,
gives direction to their thoughts and imaginations, that they may weave themselves
into his power. (John Pulsford.)
The prince of the power of the air
The connection of the “world” with the Evil One as its “prince” is not uncommon in
Holy Scripture (see Joh_12:31; Joh_14:30; Joh_16:11); and the power of this
passage is exactly that which Satan claims as “committed” to him in Luk_4:32. But
the phrase “the power of the air” is unique and difficult. We note
(1) that this phrase signifies not “a power over the air,” but “a power dwelling in the
region of the air.” ow, the word “power,” both in the singular and the plural, is
used in this Epistle, almost technically, of superhuman power. Here, therefore, the
Evil One is described as “the prince,” or ruler, of such superhuman power--
considered here collectively as a single power, prevailing over the world, and

35. working in the children of disobedience--in the same sense in which he is called the
“prince of the devils,” the individual spirits of wickedness (Mat_9:34; Mat_12:24).
ext
(2), Why is this spoken of as ruling “in the air”? There may possibly be allusion (as
has been supposed) to the speculation of Jewish or Gentile philosophy; but it seems
far more probable that the “air” is here meant simply to describe a sphere, and
therefore a power, below the heaven and yet above the earth. The “air” is always
opposed to the bright “ether,” or to the spiritual “heaven”; the word and its
derivatives carry with them the ideas of cloudiness, mist, and even darkness. Hence
it is naturally used to suggest the conception of the evil power, as allowed invisibly
to encompass and move about this world, yet overruled by the power of the true
heaven, which it vainly strives to overcloud and hide from earth. In Eph_6:12 the
powers of evil are described with less precision of imagery, as dwelling “in heavenly
places,” the opposition being there only between what is human and superhuman;
yet even there the “darkness” of this world is referred to, corresponding to the
conception of cloudiness and dimness always attaching to “the air.” (A. Barry, D.
D.)
Ruin by worldliness
When Henry the Fourth of France asked the Duke of Alva’s opinion respecting
some of the astronomical mysteries of heaven, he said, “Sire, I have so much to do
on earth that I have no leisure to think of heaven.” Such a conviction would be ruin
to us: we must think of heaven, if we would be prepared for heaven; we must think
of heaven, if we would rightly do our work on earth. (Charles Stanford, D. D.)
Sinners are captives
In my childhood I sometimes saw rabbits that had damaged a cornfield, caught in
snares. My first experience of the process melted me, and the scene is not effaced
from my memory yet. The creature was caught by the foot. It was a captive, but
living; oh, the agonized look it cast on us when we approached it. As a child I could
not conceive of any more touching, thrilling appeal than the soft rolling eye of that
dumb captive. After I began to go my rounds as a watchman on my allotted field, I
fell upon a youth who but lately was bounding hopefully along, bidding fair for the
better land, caught by the foot in a snare I went up to him, surprised to find him
halting so; but ah! the look, the glare from his eyes; soon told that the immortal was
fast in the devil’s toils. He lived, but he was held. The chains have sunk into his
flesh. O wretched man, who shall deliver him? Only one word can we utter in the
presence of such a case--“ othing is impossible with God.” Having uttered it, we
pass on with a sigh. (W. Arnot, D. D.)

36. The corrupting power of sin
Observations--
I. The course of this world is a walking forward in trespasses and sins (Psa_14:1,
etc.; Rom_3:1, etc.). Evidenced in--The man of pleasure. The covetous. The
ambitious.
II. Before regeneration, God’s people walk in the same way, and under the same
spirit, as others. Two thieves. Saul (1Co_1:6-11).
III. There is a government observed by infernal spirits under Satan as prince (Eph_
6:12; Mat_12:24-26; Mat_25:41; Mar_5:9).
IV. While men go on in sins, it is under the influence of the devil, etc. Eve. Judas.
Ananias.
V. Conformity to the world fatal, and a certain evidence of spiritual death.
Inferences:
1. How awfully has sin corrupted angels and men!
2. The generality of mankind are going to destruction.
3. Scripture and experience harmonize in the account of fallen man. (H. Foster, M.
A.)
With or against the course of this world
“I have come along so pleasantly with the stream,” said a chip, just stopped by a tuft
of grass, to a minnow which was making its way against it. “I much wonder you do
not choose the easier method, and swim down with, instead of going against, the
stream.” “ ay,” replied the little fish, “I would much rather to stem the stream,

37. proving I have a will of mine own, than to be borne away whither it wills, which
would prove me only and wholly under its power. And so, to be plain with you, your
being carried along as you describe convinces me you are not your own master; and
as to pleasure, if you can find it in a wandering downward course, it is more surely
found in approaching toward the source of the stream, which is my present happy
object and effort”;--at which moment, the minnow, by a lively motion of its body,
caused a little ripple in the water, which clearing the chip from its obstruction, it
was again floated along, whilst the minnow with joyful feelings pursued its course,
as before against the stream.
Given up to sin
How often does it happen in the history of these wilful sinners of the flesh, that,
after a while, all things seem to smile upon them and prosper them according to
their hearts’ desires. Are they mad for gold?--gold seems to roll in upon them. Are
they mad for pleasure?--their seductive arts are successful, and victims come readily
to their lure. Are they mad for drink?--those around them, kindred, friends, cease to
strive with them, and give it up as hopeless. Shame, too, abandons them; they may
wallow in beer or gin, nobody cares. It is very wonderful to see how often, if a man
is bent on an end which is not God’s end, God gives it him, and it becomes his curse.
God does not curse us. He leaves us to ourselves, to follow our own bent and
inclination, that is curse enough;. and from that curse what arm can salve us? We
will have it, and we shall have it. We leap through all the barriers which He has
raised around us to limit us;, yea, though they be rings of blazing fire, we will go
through them, and indulge our passions; and, in a moment, He sweeps them all out
of our path; perhaps even roses spring to beguile, where flames so lately burnt to
warn. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Hatred of sin
I preach and think that it is more bitter to sin against Christ, than to suffer the
torments of hell. (St. Chrysostom.)
If hell were on one side and sin on the other, I would rather leap into hell than
willingly sin against my God. (St. Anselm.)
Satanic agency
In the first place we have to consider the very singular title given to Satan, “the
prince of the power of the air”; and, in the second place, the agency ascribed to
Him, as “the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” ow, we