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1.  Personally: From Death to Life (2:1-10).  In this section, Paul will now explain how the power of God’s grace was exerted in the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ for their personal salvation, from death to life.

1. And you were dead with reference to your failures and sins,  2. in which you once walked, according to the age of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, 3. among whom we all also conducted ourselves then in the desires of our flesh, doing the wants of flesh and mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest of mankind.  4. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5. even when we were dead with reference to our failures, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6. and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7. that in the coming ages He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8. For by grace you have been saved through faith;  and this is not of you, it is the gift of God;  9. not of works, lest any man should boast.  10. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

2:1. “And you were dead with reference to your failures and sins,” —

In the opening verse of this section, Paul focuses his readers on what they were before they were saved. Paul is reminding them of what they were saved from: death and sin. Paul is here referring to spiritual death rather than physical death. Spiritual death is the separation of a man’s spirit from God; it is the absence of fellowship and communion with God, of a personal relationship to God. Physical death is the separation of man’s spirit from his body when he dies physically. Both of these kinds of death came from Adam (Rom. 5:12, 14, 15, 17; I Cor. 15:21-22). All men are born spiritually dead and will die physically. Paul uses here two different words in the Greek for sin: paraptoma and hamartia. The Greek word, paraptoma, which is translated “failure,” means literally “a falling besides,” hence “a false step, a blunder, a misdeed.” It is not the usual Greek word for sin, hamartia, which means “a missing the mark” nor the Greek word for a transgression of the law, parabasis, which means “a going beside, an overstepping,” hence “transgression” of the law (Rom. 2:23). To translate paraptoma as “transgression,” as in most modern English translations, is to give the wrong meaning. From the time of Herodotus (c. 484-c.425 B.C.), it refers to an accidental and unintentional wrong act; it means an oversight, an error, an untentional mistake. This word paraptoma occurs 21 times in the NT and all but five occurences are in Paul’s writings. It seems to be equivalent to hamartia (Rom. 5:20).

The relation between death and sin in this verse is indicated by the dative case. The dative inflectional form of the noun in Greek language may express three different functions: the pure dative, the locative, and instrumental. The pure dative function expresses personal relation or reference. The personal relation does not seem appropriate, but the dative of reference may be applicable: “being dead with reference to your offenses and sins.” Death is related to sin, without specifying how. The locative dative function may express literal spatial or temporal location. These do not seem appropriate here, but there is a metaphorical use of the locative, which indicates logical limitations rather than spatial or temporal location, confining one idea within the bounds of another; it indicates the bounds within which the former idea, death, is applied: “being dead in your offenses and sins.” This seems to be the meaning adopted by most modern translations (KJV, RSV, NAS, NIV, etc.). (See Dana and Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 87-88). This is usually interpreted to mean that spiritual death is caused by their sins. But this interpretation is contrary to what Paul says elsewhere: “because of which [death] all sinned,” (Rom. 5:12d ERS), “the sting of death is sin” (I Cor. 15:56). For “in Adam all die” (I Cor. 15:22) and “sin came into the world through one man [Adam] and death through sin, and so death spread to all men” (Rom. 5:12). Since Paul does not contradict himself, this verse cannot mean that they are spiritually dead because of their sins. All men are spiritually dead, not because of their own sins, but because of Adam’s sin. Thus the dative here cannot be the instrumental of Means or of Cause; it cannot mean “being dead by your offenses and sins.” But using the dative of reference here, the meaning seems to be that spiritual death expresses itself and operates in the offenses and sins of those who are spiritually dead.

2:2. “in which you once walked,” —

In this verse, Paul describes the walk of his readers when they were spiritually dead. They walked in sins. The relative pronoun “which” in the phrase “in which”, refers to the sins in verse 1 as its antecedent. The Greek relative pronoun hais is feminine and plural, agreeing with “tais hamartiais” in verse 1, which is also feminine and plural. They previously walked in sins. The Greek word peripateo translated “walk” meanings literally “to walk about”, and metaphorically means “to live one’s life, to regulate one’s life, to conduct one’s self.” Their former walk was

(a) “according to the age of this world,” and

(b) “according to the prince of power of the air.”

(a) The first phrase refers to the pattern or form by which they regulated their lives. The Greek word aion, translated by most modern versions as “course” (KJV, RSV, NAS) or “way” (NIV), has the primary meaning of “a period or time, an age.” In this verse, it is used with the Greek word kosmos, translated “world,” which refers to the something that is ordered or arranged; this noun comes from the verb kosmeo, “to order, arrange”; hence “to adorn, furnish.” Thus the noun kosmos came to mean the world or the universe, as an ordered system (as in Plato’s writings). Later, it came to mean the earth, then to refer to the human inhabitants of the earth and to their affairs and possessions. In the New Testament, it is used to refer to the inhabitants of the earth as an organized society that is apart from God, hence, the ungodly. The phrase used in this verse, “the age of this world,” would seem to refer literally to the temporal aspect of the world or the universe, but in the context of this verse it probably refers to the temporal order or course or way that this society of human inhabitants of the earth are organized apart from God. Thus the former walk of Paul’s readers was according to the course of the world.

(b) But Paul also says that their walk was “according to the prince of power of the air.” This is clearly a reference to God’s great enemy, Satan, the Devil. Here he is referred to as “the prince of the power of the air.” The Greek word, aeros, translated here as “air”, was used in Homer and Hesiod to refer to the lower impure air which surrounds the earth, as opposed to the pure aither [aether] of the higher regions. Here Paul seems to be using it to refer not to the physical air but to the realm inhabited by demons, over which Satan is the prince or ruler. As a prince or ruler he has power or authority over that realm. It is according to this prince that Paul’s reader formerly walk, ordered their lives.

In the last phrase of this verse, “of the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,” Paul indicates who this “prince of the power of the air” is and that he is now working in the the sons of disobedience, that is, in those who have not obeyed God and acknowledged His Son, Jesus Christ. The prince of the power of the air is a spirit, an invisible being, who rules over the invisible realm, the air, and exerts his power energizing (energountos) the sons of disobedience.

2:3. “Among whom we all also conducted ourselves then in the desires of our flesh doing the wants of flesh and mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest of mankind.” —

Paul now includes himself along with his readers among the sons of disobedience. The relative pronoun in the Greek phrase en hois, translated “among whom,” refers back to the Greek word huiois, translated “sons”, in the previous clause in the previous verse. It is among the sons of disobedience that they once conducted themselves in desires of the flesh. Being spiritually dead they do not have the true God as the ultimate criterion of their decisions by which they conducted themselves; as a result the desires of the flesh or body become their ultimate criteron for their decisions. The “flesh” here in this verse is the body, which he contrasts with the mind; “doing the wishes of the flesh and of the mind.” The NIV totally mistranslates this phrase as “the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.” The RSV correctly translates it: “the desires of body and mind.” The word “flesh” does not mean sinful nature, but it is the body whose desires becomes the ultimate criterion of the decisions of the sons of disobedience. They are obeying the desires of their bodies intead of the true God. Then Paul adds, “and we were by nature children of wrath”, not “by nature sinners”. Paul is here not saying why men sin, but only that men are naturely objects of God’s wrath, since they haved sinned. The “sons of diobedience” are also “children of wrath”, because of their disobedience or sin brings the wrath of God. This is true, not just of Paul and his readers, but of “also the rest of mankind.”

2:4. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,” —

Such was the condition of mankind. “But God” intervened. God has done something about this condition. In contrast to the condition of mankind in death and sin, Paul sets forth what God has done about this condition. In the next verse, Paul will set forth what God has done; but before he states that, Paul must explain why God has done what He has done. It is out mercy, the riches of His mercy, that God has intervened. God has been merciful, when He should have been wrathful, if he is just God. But God is not a God of justice but a God of love. God is merciful because He is a God of “much love”. And this love of God is personal; God has acted “because of His great love with which He loved us”. His love is not just for mankind in general, but personally for each individual, you and me, “He loved us”.

2:5. “even when we were dead with reference to our failures, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),” —

But before Paul declares what God has done, he reminds us of what our condition was; it is “when we were dead with reference to failures” that God acted. We were spiritually dead and that death expressed itself in our failures. (see comment on verse 1). It is from death that God has made us alive. How? It is “with Christ” that we are made alive. It is with the resurrection of Christ we are made alive. His resurrection is our resurrection. And this is because His death was our death. Even though Paul does not say it here, it was because Christ entered into our death and died our death, we have been made alive with Christ in His resurrection. He did not die instead of us, but for us and on our behalf; His death was not a substitution, but a participation (I Cor. 5:14-15). Christ participated in our death that we might participate in His resurrection. We died “with Him” because He died “for us,” and we have been raised “with Him” because He was raised “for us.” It was not only from physical death that we were made alive with Him, but it was also from spiritual death that we were made alive with Him. In the future, we will be physically raised together with Him, if we die physically before He comes (I Thess. 4:14-17; I Cor. 15:51-53). But here, Paul is speaking of that which has already happened for him and his readers. They have already been made alive spiritually with Christ. This is salvation from spiritual death to spiritual life and it is by the grace of God. Grace is more than unmerited favor; the grace of God is God’s love acting for our salvation. “By grace you have been saved.” The parallelism between this phrase and the “great love” in the previous verse shows that the grace of God by which we are saved is God’s love acting to make us alive with Christ. And this salvation is salvation from death to life with Christ. Note that Paul here says nothing about salvation from sin; this has puzzeled many commentators because they view Christ death and resurrection dealing primarily with sin. This section of Paul’s letter makes clear that in Paul’s thought the primary reason for Christ’s death and resurrection was to save mankind from death to life, both spiritually and physically. And since all men have sinned because of death (Rom. 5:12d ERS; etc.), they are saved from sin to righteousness because they are saved from death to life. Thus implicit in Paul’s statements about being made alive with Christ is the salvation from sin, which sins and failures were described in verses 2 and 3.

2:6. “and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

In Eph. 1:20 Paul here speaks of how the surpassing power of God was displayed. God raised Christ from the dead and made Him to sit at God’s right hand in heavenly places. Here Paul reveals the further truth that God has also raised “us,” His people, along with Him (synegeiro) and made “us” to sit with Him (synkathizo) in heavenly places, in Christ. Here Paul goes farther than what was revealed in the previous verse, that we were made alive with Christ, saved from death to life. Believers are also seated with Christ, in the purpose and by the act of God. It is true that the believers are now still here on earth and in physical bodies subject to death. But “in Christ” they are seated with Christ where He is. And God sees them now “in Christ,” and as seated with Him in heavenly places. And in the future, this will literally happen. In the vision of Dan. 7, where “one like unto the Son of Man” receives an universal and everlasting kingdom (Dan. 7:13-14), in the interpretation of the vision “the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, for all ages to come.” (Dan. 7:18). This prophetic vision has been fulfilled “in Christ” and its interpretation is and will be literally fulfilled. Note that the verbs “made alive”, “raised”, and “made to sit” are in the Greek all aorist tense; they indicated what God has already done for the “saints”, the believers in Christ.

2:7. “that in the coming ages He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Here Paul states the purpose of these acts of God. The superlative term hyperballon, translated “exceeding” is used here to describe the riches of the grace of God, but was used by Paul in 1:19 to described the greateness of power of God. If raising Christ from the dead to sit at His own right hand is the supreme demonstration of God’s power, then the raising the people of God from spiritual death to share Christ’s place of exaltation is the supreme demonstration of God’s grace.

2:8. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of you, it is the gift of God;” —

In this verse, the exceeding riches of God’s grace mentioned in the previous verse is further explained. Back in verse 5, Paul parenthically says that “by grace you have been saved.” There is in that verse a parallelism between this phrase and “great love” with which God loved us in making us alive with Christ stated in verse 4; this parallelism shows that the grace of God by which we are saved is God’s love acting to make us alive with Christ. Grace is love in action. Now in verse 5, the word “grace” lacks the article in the Greek indicating that the quality or character of grace is there in the forefront of Paul’s mind. Here in this verse 8, the article is supplied, indicating that the specific act of grace, salvation, is in the forefront. The grace of God is God acting in love giving what man needs, salvation. This gift of God’s love is received “through faith.” Even though faith is our act, our decision to receive the gift, salvation is not accomplished by that human act of faith, “and this is not of you, it is the gift of God.” Faith is not the gift of God, because faith is “of you.” The demonstrative pronoun “this” here is neuter in Greek (touto), where as the word “faith” is a feminine noun (pistis), The domonstrative pronoun refers back to the verbal particple “are having been saved” (este sesosmenoi) which may be masculine or neuter. Salvation is the gift of God; it is not of ourselves. Even though faith is not the gift of God, faith is dependent upon the gift, because act of faith receives the gift. No gift, no faith. As Paul says elsewhere, “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes from a word of Christ.” (Rom. 10:17). This word of Christ is the offer of the gift of salvation in Christ.

2:9. “not of works, lest any man should boast.” —

In this verse, Paul continues his thought; salvation is the gift of God. If salvation is not ourselves, then it is “not of works.” By “works” Paul means human activity that earns salvation. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “Now to the one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due.” (Rom. 4:4) Salvation cannot be bought by our meritorious works; it is a gift to be received by faith. Faith is not a meritorious work. The exclusion of meritorious works from salvation does not exclude all human activity as some Calvinist teach. What is excluded from salvation is meritorious human activity that attempt to buy salvation by his meritorious human acts.

Now Paul goes on to give the reason salvation is not of works; “lest any man should boast.” Our boasting in ourselves of earning salvation is excluded, because salvation is not of ourselves, but is the act of God which He gives as a gift. As Paul quotes Jeremiah 9:23, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (I Cor. 1:31). Not all boasting is wrong, only boasting in ourselves of what is the accomplishement of God. Boasting in ourselves of earning salvation would be to rob God of His glory.

2:10. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” —

Even though we are not saved by our good works, we are saved for good works. We have been “created in Christ Jesus for good works.” We are His workmanship (Greek, poiema), His work of art, His masterpiece. We show that we are His workmanship by walking in good works. Those who continue to walk in failures and sins show that they are not His workmanship and are still spiritually dead and are not new creations in Christ. Those who walk in good works, which God had prepared beforehand, show that they have the new life in Christ in them. Those who attempt to earn salvation by their good works have made good works the grounds of salvation; this is not possible since good works are the fruit of salvation. As Romans 7 shows, salvation by the good works under the law is a failure (Rom. 7:18-19). The law cannot make alive (Gal. 3:21); only Christ can make alive and produce good works. In later chapters of this letter, Paul will specify in great detail those good works.