God’s eternal plan of salvation was devised already in eternity, but it was carried out in time. To that aspect of the triune God’s gracious dealing with us, Paul turns next.
Both Jews and Gentiles are saved by grace
It is important to keep in mind that the congregation in Ephesus was a mixed congregation made up of both Jews and Gentiles. How that came about becomes more apparent when we understand Paul’s missionary methodology. In the book of Acts, Luke tells us that whenever Paul came to a new area, he went first to the Jewish synagogue. There he proclaimed Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the fulfillment of God’s Old Testament prophecies that promised the Jews a Savior.
Invariably this proclamation of Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah drew a mixed reaction. A minority of Jews believed Paul’s message and accepted Jesus as their Savior. The majority, however, refused Paul’s message and forced Paul and his Christian converts to find a different place of worship. Thus a new Christian congregation formed with a nucleus of Jewish believers well versed in God’s Word (that is, the Old Testament).
Numerical growth in the new congregations, however, came primarily from the gentile neighbors and townspeople with whom the Jewish Christians shared their newfound Savior. These congregations soon became predominantly Gentile, but they retained strong leadership from the smaller group of Jews who were well versed in Old Testament Scripture. This leadership proved to be particularly valuable when Paul moved on—often quite soon—to other areas of mission endeavor and left the new congregations on their own.
The point to be noted is that while the larger segment of the Ephesian congregation was probably of gentile background, it also had a significant Jewish element. Paul addresses both Jews and Gentiles in his letter.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 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.
When Paul says, “As for you,” he is talking to the Ephesians of gentile background. Their Jewish counterparts will be addressed later. For now Paul is speaking to Gentiles, and he has some very damaging things to say.
Although physically they were very much alive and active, Paul tells the Ephesians that spiritually they had been dead. Corpses can’t move. Dead people can’t do anything; they are totally unable to help themselves. Such was the spiritual plight in which the gentile Ephesians had found themselves. If any were inclined to question Paul’s diagnosis regarding their spiritual bankruptcy, he urged them to take a look at their lives and actions. That they had been dead in transgressions and sins is evident from the kind of lives they used to live when they “followed the ways of this world.”
Like their friends and neighbors, the Ephesians had shown the common weaknesses and shortcomings of gentile society. They had been godless and immoral, loveless, lazy, and disobedient. Society is that way, according to Paul, because it follows “the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”
That “ruler,” of course, is Satan (John 12:31; 14:30). He is a powerful and dangerous foe. Like a roaring lion, he stalks about, seeking victims to devour (1 Peter 5:8). And the Ephesian Gentiles had been easy prey.
Paul’s analysis did not apply only to them, though. Despite the Jews’ considerable advantages in being God’s chosen people, in their natural condition they were no better off than the Gentiles.
3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
When Paul says, “We also lived among them,” he includes himself and his fellow Jews with the disobedient Gentiles. True, Paul and the Jews may have disobeyed in a little different way, but in the final analysis they were just as guilty as the Gentiles. Paul had charged the Ephesian Gentiles with coarse and sinful actions. For himself and his fellow Jews, Paul now admits to sinful thoughts and desires.
God’s law, given to Israel on Mount Sinai, guided and regulated nearly every phase of Jewish life. As such, the law held in check among the Jews many of the coarse outbreaks of sin that were scandalously common among the Gentiles. But even this outward Jewish decency wasn’t the full and complete obedience that a holy God rightly expects and deserves. The Jews’ very nature—hearts, minds, and attitudes—was tainted to the core. That showed itself in their “gratifying the cravings of [their] sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.” Like the Gentiles, Paul and his fellow Jews were by nature spiritually dead.
Whether they are open or secret, blatant or subtle, sinful actions and thoughts infect every man, woman, and child since the fall into sin. Sin is an inherited condition. We bring it with us from birth. And it rightly earns us the anger of a holy and just God. With Paul we too need to say, “Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.”
Paul paints a grim picture. All people are by nature spiritually dead, totally unable to change their condition. Not only are they unable to improve their lot, but they are the objects of an offended God’s wrath. They can expect nothing but the harshest of punishment—and that for all eternity.