5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
God’s love (v. 4) did three things for the believer and did them while we were spiritually dead:
“Made us alive together with Christ,” v. 5
“Raised us up together,” v.6
“Made us sit together,” v. 6
5 even when we were dead in trespasses,
By the same power with which God raised Jesus from the dead (1:19-20), He raised the believer to a new status. He did this “even” at the point when we were degenerate, at the very time when we were dead spiritually or unregenerate. We can do nothing to save our souls. We cannot give birth to ourselves spiritually.
Non-Christians are dead spiritually toward God (v.1). They are hopelessly, helplessly dead. God’s act of love (v.4) toward us occurred when we were “dead in trespasses,” while we were dead to God. God did not do what He did when we were saints but when we were absorbed in sin, the very thing that God loathes. Notwithstanding who we were, God did what He was.
PRINCIPLE:
Non-Christians have no capacity whereby they can be right with God.
APPLICATION:
Living in the sphere of our trespasses as unbelievers, we were inert toward God like a corpse in the morgue. The dead body of a human smells worse than animals, worse than a dog. Non-Christians smell like a dead corpse to God. We need to get a clear picture of how God views the lost. He loves them but they still smell because they have not been cleansed by the blood of Christ. Sin is a serious thing to God.
Hi, can I therefore say that at the point where a Christian is born again he is in effect sharing in the resurrection of Jesus?
Then, I’m trying to make sense of a teaching I’ve heard that is saying that Jesus died spiritually on the cross, and was raised from spiritual death (born again) when He was resurrected. (Just as we are spiritually dead before we are born again to a new life).
Please help.
C, Jesus died both spiritually and physically. He rose from the dead physically.
Hi Grant, i can only find scripture that says that sin was dealt with in the physical body of Jesus.
Please show me where it says that He died spiritually.
I know there is a lot of critisism against Word of faith teachers who is saying that Jesus died spiritually. Are you agreeing with what they are teaching?
C, The definition of death is separation. Physical death is the separation of body from the soul and spirit. Spiritual death is separation from God. There are two kinds of spiritual death: 1) the eternal separation of the non-believer from God; 2) the temporal separation of the believer from God when he or she is out of fellowship (Eph 5:14). The context of Eph deals with the believer. The “second death” is the permanent separation of the non-believer from God.
C, Re Jesus’ spiritual death. When He cried “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” that was the separation of His fellowship with the Father.
Hi, so Jesus was not separated from God like an unbeliever is separated from God? He was only out of fellowship with the Father? This is then not the same as what is taught by Word of Faith?
C, when Jesus became a man He set aside the voluntary use of his incommunicable attributes (attributes that cannot be shared with man, such as omnipresence, omniscience, etc.). As a human being, He was truly man without mixture of His deity and humanity. As God, He never ceased to exist because eternity cannot die or stop in any sense. When Jesus died, it was His humanity that died. It is heresy to affirm that Christ was separated from God in His deity. The Father had to separate Himself from the humanity of Christ on the cross because that is where He bore sin for everyone. The Father separated Himself from what Christ had to bear alone.
Thank you Grant!