Ephesians 2:1Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

On verses 1-6. Before discussing the meaning of the individual expressions, it seems necessary to us to restore the order of reading in this passage as follows: "And you, when you were dead in your trespasses and sins, God made alive with Christ. He, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in the trespasses in which we walked according to the age of this world, according to the will of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the sons of unbelief. Among whom we too once lived in the desires of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature children of corruption, made us alive with Christ." More simply, "and He made us alive with Christ" should be understood as repeated twice.

The causal conjunction where it says, "But God, being rich in mercy" (Eph 2:4), was in our view added either by unlearned copyists or even by Paul himself. He was unskilled in speech, though not in knowledge, which he had acquired abundantly (2 Cor 11:6).

It is plainly said that sin is the death of the soul, in the words: "And you, who were dead in your trespasses and sins" (Eph 2:5). This agrees with what is said in the prophet Ezekiel: "The soul that sins shall die" (Ezek 18:4).

Since trespasses are called paraptomata in Greek, and according to the derivation of that same language this is properly a Scriptural word, the question arises. What meaning do these actions have, or how do they differ from sins? That is, what is the distinction between trespasses, paraptomata, and sins, hamartiai?

Some say that trespasses are, as it were, the beginnings of sins, since thoughts silently, tacita, creep up on us. Yet while there is still some visible resistance on our part, they do not yet thrust us to ruin, ad ruinam. Therefore it is written in the eighteenth psalm: "Who understands trespasses," paraptomata? (Ps 18:13). For it is difficult to understand the roots and source of sins. Sin occurs when something has been expressed in action and has reached completion.

Let us also ask what this means: "in which you once walked, according to the course of this world" (Eph 2:2). Is there another age which does not belong to this world, but to other worlds? Clement also writes of this in his epistle: "The ocean and the worlds beyond it." Or is there only this one world, which unfolds and passes from the time of Adam to its end? Or perhaps the prince of this air, who now works in the sons of unbelief, is otherwise called the world.

It is written in the Epistle to the Galatians: "that He might deliver us from this present evil age" (Gal 1:4). Also in this same epistle: "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil" (Eph 5:16). Likewise, the days of Jacob are shown to be brief and very unfavorable (Gen 47). This is either because the time of this life, in which we are held imprisoned in this body, is heavy and filled with labors, or because Satan himself, as we said above, is called by the name of this world.

This is immediately stated in the following words: "according to the will of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the sons of unbelief" (Eph 2:2). By the spirit of authority, the prince of the air who is in this spirit, the devil is meant. He now works in the sons of unbelief, because he cannot work in those who believe in the Lord.

Then follow the words: "Among whom we also once lived in the desires of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts" (Eph 2:3). His words "among whom" must be referred to trespasses. Above, he placed two ideas side by side equally: "And you, who were dead in your trespasses and sins." To sins he referred the words, "in which you once walked." To trespasses, it seems, nothing had been added to complete the sense. Now he says: In these trespasses we all also lived. And he adds we all, so that he should not appear, through conceit, to exclude himself.

But one who says of himself that he lived in them confesses past trespasses, not present ones. He says, We once lived, not in one trespass, but in the trespasses of our flesh. For the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh (Gal 5:17). We fulfilled not one will of the flesh, but many desires. We fulfilled not only the desires of the flesh, but also of the mind, mentis, instead of which the Latin copies have the word thoughts, cogitationum.

In my opinion, there is this distinction between sin of the flesh and sin of thought. Sin of the flesh is shamelessness and incontinence, and whatever service is performed in passionate movements. Trespasses of thought belong to teachings contrary to the truth and to heretical corruption. Thus we may say that very many heretics, though rarely, fulfill the desires of the mind and not the lusts of the flesh. Conversely, many who belong to the Church fulfill the lusts of the flesh and not of the mind. There are also very many who fulfill the lusts both of the flesh and of the thoughts.

We have not said this as though heretics do not also fulfill the lusts of the flesh, for fleshly vices are found among them more than among our own. We have said it so that, through the example presented, what we wished to show might be understood more easily.

"And we were," he says, "by nature children of wrath, like the rest" (Eph 2:3). Let the heretics who assert that there are many natures answer how Paul, who was without doubt spiritual by nature, was a child of wrath like the rest, who until then were in error.

We affirm that originally, by nature, all men were children of wrath. This is either because of the lowly and mortal body, and the attachment of the human mind to evil (Gen 8:21), for which reason Solomon says that there is no righteous man on earth: "There is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin" (Eccl 8:21). Or it is because, in the course of time, after we have the capacity for knowledge of God and attain maturity, we sin either by word, deed, or thought.

Thus we were children of wrath, like the rest, as were all the saints who were redeemed from wrath by the blood of Christ. For if Paul, who lived blamelessly according to the requirements of the law, says that by nature he was a child of wrath, why should we fear to testify that those who later became saints were also children of wrath? Of all of them it may truly be said: "When the commandment came, sin came alive," and they themselves died.

Children of wrath must be understood as one understands a son of perdition, a son of lawlessness, and a son of death. This does not mean that in their nature there is some wrath, perdition, or lawlessness that has children. It means that they are called children of the quality that works in individual persons. In the same way, sons of Gehenna are those who are to be burned with the fire of Gehenna.

Another interpreter thinks that we are called children of wrath in the same way as children of the devil, because the devil is perdition, wrath, and death. "Mighty death has devoured" (Is 52 and following), and: "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Cor 15:26). With reference to the devil himself it is said: "Perdition was created" (Ezek 28 and following). It was created by its own will, not created so from the beginning.

Thus he is called death because, through his envy, death came into the earthly world, and through him all who formerly lived became dead. He is called perdition because he destroys those whom he deceived. So also he is called wrath because of the cruelty he displays toward men.

Now he adds: "For He also raised us up with Him and made us sit at His right hand in the heavenly places." Thus the question is asked: How did God, who saved us and raised us, at the same time make us sit with Christ? If anyone wants to give a simpler answer, he will affirm that, in view of God's foreknowledge, the Apostle spoke of what is to be as though it had already been accomplished. Scripture commonly represents the future through the past tense. Thus, concerning the Cross of the Lord: "They pierced My hands and My feet" (Ps 21:17). Elsewhere, concerning His Passion: "As a sheep He was led to slaughter" (Is 53:7). Again, concerning the suffering of scourging: "By His wound we were healed" (Is 53:5). And elsewhere: "For the iniquity of My people He was led to death" (Is 53:8).

Since the future is always uncertain to men, lest their hope waver and become unstable, what God knows will be is spoken of as already accomplished. For to Him nothing is uncertain. Thus those who hear it will regard what is to be accomplished as though it had already been accomplished. According to the teaching of the wise, what has already been cannot be counted as not having been accomplished.

Another interpreter, understanding the resurrection and kingdom of Christ in a spiritual sense, did not hesitate to affirm that the saints already sit and reign with Christ. For just as the saint is not in the flesh, though he lives in the flesh, but has his conduct in heaven while walking on earth, and, ceasing to be flesh, is wholly turned into spirit, so also he sits in the heavens with Christ. For the kingdom of Christ is within us (Lk 17:21), and where our treasure is, there our heart will be also (Mt 6:21). Being firm and unshaken, we sit with Christ, who is Wisdom, Righteousness, and Truth.

It may also be said that, just as we have received only the pledge of the Holy Spirit and have not yet received His fullness, so we sit and reign with Christ while not yet having received perfect dwelling in the heavens.

The Apostle called them "sons of disobedience." He reminds the Ephesians of God's benefaction, namely, that He deemed them worthy of salvation when they were still dead because of sin and under the devil's authority. Lest they take the reminder of their former life as an accusation, he counts himself among them, showing that this sickness was common to all.

Under the action of God's grace this seed develops and grows into a pure and holy life. But without the action of God's grace, these remnants of goodness wither, so that they cannot bring forth any fruit of life. This happens among pagans or among those who have rejected God's grace. Such people are already dead in themselves. Therefore the Apostle calls them dead through their own trespasses and sins.

Certainly not because air is his native element in the sense in which popular imagination assigns the watery realm as a dwelling for some spirits, forests for others, and so on. The spiritual nature of devils, as such, has no communion or essential connection with anything material. The holy Apostle uses the air, which surrounds and penetrates the earth inhabited by the human race from every side, only as a vivid image of the breadth and spread of the devil's power. As there is no place on the earth's surface where air does not penetrate, so there is no place where one can hide from the devil's influence while living on earth. There is no place to which the devil's power does not extend. Thus the Apostle calls the devil's domain aerial in the same sense in which, below, he calls the devils themselves spirits of wickedness under heaven. That is, they are scattered everywhere under heaven (Eph 6:12). Chrysostom says: "According to the prince of the authority of the air: the Apostle says this to show that the devil dwells under heaven."

In this brief but powerful depiction of the spiritual and moral transformation accomplished in Christians by Jesus Christ, commentators note above all the divine goodness. Thus Saint Damascene writes: "You Gentiles, says the Apostle, were held in death because of sin, in which you lived under the evil devil, who ruled over you through evil thoughts. God deemed you worthy of mercy and grace. He changed your deadness in sin into life through communion with Christ." "What a dark end belongs to the state of sin! The sinner is spiritually dead, stands under the devil's tyranny, is possessed by the spirit of the world, and is dragged without restraint by the movements of the flesh. He is enslaved to passions of the soul and tossed by sinful thoughts. For all this he is a son of sin and therefore a debtor to eternal punishment. How can those delivered from such misery fail to glorify the sovereign might of the Deliverer? By His grace He raises the sinner from the death of sin and brings him into the bright life of pleasing God and holiness" (Bishop Theophan). "All our deeds were worthy not of love, but of wrath and severe punishment. Therefore, if God loved us, it was solely according to His great mercy. Do you see the exceeding greatness of His power in us who believe? Do you see the hope of the calling: God raised us with Him and seated us with Him? Do you see the glory of His inheritance? Yes, you will say, it is clear that He raised us with Him. But how does the Apostle prove that He seated us with Him in the heavens in Christ Jesus? By the same means by which he proves that He raised us with Him. No one would ever have risen if He had not raised the Head. And when our Head rose, we too were raised. In exactly the same way He seated us with Him. When the Head sits, the body sits with Him. If we endure with Him, we shall also reign with Him (2 Tim 2:12). If we have died with Him to sin, we shall also live with Him. Truly, the gift of the Spirit and revelation is needed to understand the depth of these mysteries." "If we wish to know how He seated us with Him, listen to what Christ Himself says to the disciples: 'You will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel' (Mt 19:28). To sit at the right hand is an honor higher than every honor, beyond which there is no other distinction. To sit with Christ is truly ineffable riches. It is truly the exceeding greatness of His glory. Consider with whom you will sit. But who are you? Dead, by nature a child of wrath. What right thing have you done? Nothing. Now it is truly timely to cry out: 'O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!' (Rom 11:33)" (Chrysostom).

Yet to bring the soul to life is greater than to raise a dead man." By "you" he means the Gentiles, putting them first because sin raged in them without hindrance and revealed all its corruption. Then he joins himself, that is, the Jews, to the same category of the spiritually dead. Finally he unites both groups together: "even when we were dead, He made us alive together." "Dead in trespasses and sins." Although one may point out a distinction between trespasses and sins, this does not yield especially valuable concepts and is never free from arbitrariness. It is enough to know that both sin and trespass are every violation of God's will, whether spoken in conscience or depicted in the written law. Such violation produces spiritual death. "The wages of sin is death," says the same Apostle elsewhere (Rom 6:23). By this death the Apostle first names the Gentiles as dead. They were alive in body, and alive in soul they acted, reasoned, advanced in the arts and in the order of life and civic society. But they were dead in spirit, dead to God and to life pleasing to Him. Their sins separated them from God, and they became dead. As soon as sin becomes master over a man, it kills his spirit. Bodily death is the cessation of bodily life. So, when sin enters a man, the root of inner life is cut off, the life of the spirit that comes from God. In a sinner given over to sin, sensual inclinations and passions of the soul increasingly overcome the higher spiritual demands. They suppress them until the light of spiritual life is finally extinguished altogether. At the same time bodily life withers, because the integrity of human life is violated and its proper relations to the supreme source of being and life are cut off. From this come illnesses, sufferings, and early death. Thus sin kills not only spiritually but also bodily, and not only one person, but often an entire lineage, once it zealously serves sin. From this comes the cutting off of families. All this is more bitter because there is nothing by which to excuse oneself, especially for us now. Chrysostom writes: "There is bodily death, and there is spiritual death. To undergo the first is neither sinful nor fearful, because it is now natural. Bodily death appeared as a consequence of the fall and afterward became almost necessary for our nature, although it too will soon be abolished. The other death is death of the soul. Since it comes from our free choice, it makes us responsible and has no excuse."