Dead then alive

 

Ephesians 2:1-9 gives a wonderfully detailed account of salvation in regards to the practical ramifications. You see we are born into this life without spiritual life. We were as the Inspired writer puts its dead. We have all had some experience with death, and we know what it means. That is why Paul uses this simple language. It is simply dead, not almost dead, or nearly dead, or mostly dead (which as we know is entirely different than complete dead). Dead is  dead, and it means everything we would assume.

The dead do not nothing. They do not move of their own accord. The dead undertake no action by themselves. And so, it was with us, we were driven by base appetites of body and mind. We were seeking after a life we did not have, and could not find. In all of this we served the Devil who convinced us in the Garden of Eden that death was preferable to life, by promising that we could attain to godlike existence. In essence we killed ourselves by trying to transcend our nature, it is much like someone trying to live in a vacuum. That vacuum exists within us and needs to be filled in order for us to have anything resembling a true life.

Dead people have no rights, or privileges, or property. They have no way of using any of these things. If we think about it, we will soon discover that every right and privilege we afford our dead, and everything we might place with them is really for the benefit of the living. The dead cannot even appreciate the signs of respect we show their corpses. Say the dead could have something, what would they do with it? Nothing, as we established, they cannot do anything by themselves.

The dead are senseless, by which we mean that they have no active senses. They do not see the faces peering down at their somber countenance during visitation, nor do they hear the weeping of the bereaved. They do not feel anything, or smell anything, or taste anything. All the wonderous sensation the creation has to offer are utterly lost on the dead.

Because we recall walking about, and doing things before our conversion we do not appreciate our former state of death as we ought. However, when we really consider our former existence, we must conclude it was vapid and empty in the most meaningful sense.

So, when God gave us life it ought ot have been, and continue to be, overwhelming. For we who did nothing now have things to do, and power to do them. We had nothing to our names now have rights and privileges, and a place to belong. We who were senseless now have perception of all kind. Psaul closes this passage by pointing out the wonderful gift of purpose and direction which comes with this graciously given life God gives us in Christ.