By Rev. Peter J. Haugen
St Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church
“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course 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” (Ephesians 2:1-2). “We … all formerly lived in the lusts of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Ephesians 2:3). We were “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3).
There is much here. We were dead, and a dead individual can do … well, nothing at all. He has no brainwaves, heartbeat, breath. All he can do is lie on a slab in the morgue and decay. He can’t “decide for Jesus” or gin up faith within himself or do anything else.
And yet, even while we were dead, we walked around in our trespasses and sins, and in complete accord with the evils of the world around us and with the evils of “the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience,” of Satan himself. We were dead, able to do nothing, but we masked our death with a grotesque illusion of life. This illusion continues to tempt us, to lull us into a spiritual coma, to lure us into an apathy that would have us despise the Sabbath, that would have us neglect the gathering of the saints, that would have us despise the Word of God — often through neglect rather than active hatred — and so enter eternity damned.
We were dead, able to do nothing. And it is precisely our lack of any ability to do anything to effect our own salvation, it is our complete dependence upon our Lord working a resurrection upon us, that gives to us Christians the assurance of our salvation. Yes, you were — notice that word: Were. Not are. Were — you were dead in your trespasses and sins. But you have been “made … alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5). You have been saved “by grace … through faith; and [even] that” — the faith — is “not of yourselves, it” — the faith itself that seizes hold of our Lord’s saving grace — “is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
That, finally, is the point: Our Lord Himself, Who is the God of steadfast love and mercy, comes to you, pronouncing you righteous for the sake of Christ, joining you to His family in the waters of Holy Baptism, forgiving your sins and cleansing you from all unrighteousness in His Holy Meal, strengthening you to go out again into the battle of this present darkness, already victorious, able to strive again in love for the good of your brothers and sisters and neighbours.
May our God and Father keep us ever mindful of our need, of our dependence upon Him. May He keep us ever faithful, steadfast in the one true faith until such time as He calls us Home to Himself. Amen.
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