Dead in Sin

What does it mean to be "dead in sin"?

What is the spiritual condition of someone dead in sin? Is man spiritually ruined and helpless? Or does man retain some kind of inherent spiritual ability? Setting apart our human ego, and looking to what Scripture says may be uncomfortable for most, but it is vital to have a good understanding of this, as this is the basis on which the ground motive of the Bible is built.

We will examine key Scriptures around the issue, and start and end with what the Bible says, not what our human pride wants us to believe, or without interjecting philosophy.

Eph 2:1-3
(1)  And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
(2)  in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience–
(3)  among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

From the passage above, it is quite clear what it means:

1. It is our state before being saved (in which you once walked)
2. It is following the world (following the course of this world)
3. It is following that which leads to evil (Prince of the power of the air, that spirit that leads to disobedience)
4. It is between those spirits or influences where we all, without exception, come from (among whom we all once lived)
5. It is those sins and trespasses which made us happy (in the passions of our flesh)
6. It is that which ruled our lives, both in body and in mind (carrying out the desires of the body and the mind)
7. It made us children of God's judgment to damnation by its very nature (and were by nature children of wrath)
8. It is true of all men, everywhere (like the rest of mankind)

This passage is written to the Christians in Ephesus, who are "faithful in Christ Jesus". The passage describes where they came from, and it is clear that they came from where "all mankind" is, i.e. all people are dead in trespasses and sins, prior to a spiritual event of some sort.

There are several places in the Bible where it is shown that there are no exceptions, all people everywhere are affected by this:

Psa 143:2  Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.

Rom 11:32  For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

Ch 6:36  "If they sin against you–for there is no one who does not sin–

Isa 53:6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way

Mic 7:2  The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net.
Mic 7:3  Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well; the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; thus they weave it together.
Mic 7:4  The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge.

Rom 3:9  What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,
Rom 3:10  as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one;
Rom 3:11  no one understands; no one seeks for God.
Rom 3:12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one."

1Jn 1:8  If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
1Jn 1:10  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

There are many more, but it is clear from the Bible that we are all indeed sinful, and so spiritually "ungood" that we are regarded as spiritually dead, and unable to seek God. But what about retaining some little part of goodness, deep down, that will enable us to reach out and seek God (even though Rom 3:11 above says that no-one can do that)? Again the Bible cannot be more clear:

Mar 7:20  And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him.
Mar 7:21  For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
Mar 7:22  coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
Mar 7:23  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

"From within" is that which comes from man's very nature, and it is a scary list of sin that comes from inside. But still, you may argue, that does not preclude some little part of goodness somewhere in those depths of depravity? Again the Bible is very clear…every faculty of man is corrupt:

Tit 1:15  To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.

Gen 6:5  The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Rom 7:17  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Rom 7:18  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.

It is clear that man in his natural state, as an unbeliever, has nothing pure in his heart, only evil. What then, is the consequence of this inherent evil? It is slavery to evil. Remember, slaves are not able to do what they want, they are captive to their master. In the case of the human spirit in it's natural state, that master is sin, and by implication, the evil one. Once again, we turn to Scripture to see what it says:

Joh 8:34  Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

Rom 6:16  Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Rom 6:17  But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
Rom 6:18  and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Again, it is clear that the human spirit is being held captive by sin. The assertion is often made that man can start the change in himself, or by his own will. We turn once again to what Scripture says:

Jer 13:23  Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.

1Sa 24:13  As the proverb of the ancients says, 'Out of the wicked comes wickedness.'

Rom 8:7  For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Rom 8:8  Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Psa 10:3  For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the LORD.
Psa 10:4  In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, "There is no God."

Joh 3:20  For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

By this time it should be clear that man in his natural state is indeed spiritually dead, seeks nothing but evil, and can do nothing to please God. Yet we still have those that maintain that man, being a spiritual being, can understand the gospel and come to a saving understanding of God. Even though that is absurd in light of what we have seen previously, we will look at what the Bible has to say on that issue:

1Co 2:14  The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Deu 29:4  But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.

So man cannot even accept that which comes from God, simply because in his natural state, he is utterly incapable of understanding it. But despite all of the preceding, some still assert that God has made it possible for every person on the planet to come to repentance and salvation, if only they, as natural men, will choose God, or allow Him into their lives. What does Scripture say?

Mat 11:27  All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Joh 3:27  John answered, "A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.

Joh 14:16  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
Joh 14:17  even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Joh 1:12  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
Joh 1:13  who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Joh 6:65  And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."

Rom 9:13  As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
Rom 9:14  What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means!
Rom 9:15  For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
Rom 9:16  So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

Php 2:12  Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
Php 2:13  for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Man is utterly powerless in his natural state to even seek God. He cannot, by his own natural will or corrupt nature reach out to God and understand what is put before him. It is only God that can make the change in man necessary to understand God:

Eze 36:26  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Eze 36:27  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

As we started with the letter to the Ephesians, describing their deadness in their sins, we will conclude with what caused them to become holy (saints), and faithful in Christ:

Eph 2:4  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
Eph 2:5  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved–
Eph 2:6  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Eph 2:7  so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Eph 2:8  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

Even though man is dead, God makes him alive. That is because of God's mercy and love alone, not some inherent or natural goodness in man, but purely because of God's mercy. He saves us from our sin every day, making us alive with and in Christ. Not only are we made alive, but we are raised to be with Christ in peace. Our salvation is not to show how good or great we are, but to demonstrate the greatness of Christ, the greatness of His love and mercy towards us, His children.

None of that is any of our doing. Not our reaching out, crying out or seeking God. Not some inherent faith or some wild happening of fate. It is purely because it is a loving and merciful gift from the almighty God.

To God be all the glory.

Scripture on Depravity

Gen 6:5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Gen 8:21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth…"

Psa 5:9 For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.

Psa 36:1 To the choirmaster. Of David, the servant of the LORD. Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.
Psa 36:2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.

Psa 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Psa 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

Pro 28:26 Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.

Pro 21:10 The soul of the wicked desires evil…

Pro 15:9 The way of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD

Pro 15:8 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD

Pro 28:9 If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.

Ecc 7:29 See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

Ecc 9:3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

Isa 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way

Isa 1:5 Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
Isa 1:6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds

Isa 64:7 There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you…

Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Jer 10:14 Every man is stupid and without knowledge…

Jer 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.

Mat 7:18  A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

Mar 10:18  And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

Mar 7:20  And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him.
Mar 7:21  For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
Mar 7:22  coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
Mar 7:23  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

Joh 8:34  Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

Joh 3:19  And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.
Joh 3:20  For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

Joh 14:16  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
Joh 14:17  even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Joh 6:44  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

Joh 3:6  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Joh 6:63  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

Rom 5:12  Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned–

Rom 5:19  For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

Rom 3:23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Rom 3:9  What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,
Rom 3:10  as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one;
Rom 3:11  no one understands; no one seeks for God.
Rom 3:12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one."

Rom 1:28  And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
Rom 1:29  They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
Rom 1:30  slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
Rom 1:31  foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Rom 6:6  We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

Rom 6:20  When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

Rom 7:14  For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

Rom 7:18  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
Rom 7:19  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Rom 1:18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Rom 1:21  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Rom 1:32  Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Rom 8:7  For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.

1Co 2:14  The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

1Co 1:18  For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

1Co 1:21  For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
1Co 1:22  For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,

2Co 4:3  And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing.
2Co 4:4  In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

1Co 12:3  Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says "Jesus is accursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit.

Eph 4:17  Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.
Eph 4:18  They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

Eph 2:2  in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience–
Eph 2:3  among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Eph 2:5  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved–

1Jo 1:8  If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
1Jo 1:9  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1Jo 1:10  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 

2Ti 3:2  For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
2Ti 3:3  heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,
2Ti 3:4  treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
This concludes the section on depravity. Clearly man is unable to do anything towards his own salvation, except by the power of the Spirit. Man is dead to God, except by grace.

Stay tuned, unconditional election is next.

Dead Man Walking

The sea became more stormy. The wind howled harder and louder, the waves grew bigger, the ship jumped up and down, even rising out of the water. "Man the lifeboats! Abandon ship!" came the call. People ran towards the lifeboats, slipping and sliding over the wet deck, struggling to keep their eyes open against the fierce wind-blown water pellets. They struggled into the lifeboats, wrestling with life jackets, scared, wet, cold. The final blow came just as they managed to push the lifeboat away from the ship…a huge wave rolled it over like a toy.

But then, further tragedy! A small girl slipped from the grasp of her mother and disappeared under the waves. The mother let out a scream of anguish, while others sobbed and yelled. "Look" shouted one passenger, "there!" A small hand was visible above the stormy water. It desperately looked for something to cling onto. The mother hurled a life preserver with a prayer in her heart. Success! The little girl gratefully grasped the life preserver and was hauled back into the waiting arms of her mother.

So many times we think of our salvation in those terms. We are near dead, we just have one hand waving for help above the stormy waves, and God throws us the life preserver. All we have to do is grab and hold on, and we are saved.

That sounds about right, doesn't it?

Wrong!

You see, to continue the analogy from above, we are not adrift in the sea. We are lying stone cold dead at the bottom of the sea. We are dead in our sins, and cannot even raise a hand. A dead person doesn't know that he is drowning.

And that is the T in TULIP, the Total Depravity of man. As a result of sin, apart from the grace of God, we cannot know what separates us from the majesty of God.
Eph 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
Eph 2:2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience–
Eph 2:3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

It is important to note that Total Depravity does not mean that we can do no good in society. Obviously we can. But our depravity is in relation to God, not society. All of mankind is fallen. That which we view as good in society is not pleasing to God unless it is according to His decree or instruction.

Rom 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Rom 8:8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

We stand condemned, yet so many don't know it. They happily exist in iniquity, and consider themselves able to pull the switch to jump start their own salvation, whenever it pleases them.

But unless one is acutely, painfully and insultingly made aware of just how far he is removed from God due to sin, he cannot ever realize his need for grace. He cannot lift a prayer, because he doesn't know that he needs to.

It is only when one realizes how desperately miserable his condition is that he can call out to God. And apart from the Spirit, no-one can realize that. There is nothing in natural man that can call him to repentance.

For additional study on this topic, I recommend The Total Depravity of Man
by A.W. Pink.

In closing, do we currently, in the contemporary Christian church and society, understand the nature and implications of sin and its consequence, depravity? I am deeply concerned that we don't. It's hard to find anything on sin in belief statements these days, and when we do, it's a sugarcoated or watered down description.

Unless we are deeply aware of our own inabilities we cannot know how big the grace of God is. We are, until such time as we receive the illumination of the Spirit from God, just dead men walking.

Ultimate Freedom

Independence is freedom. As we celebrate the freedom of the USA from the rule of the British, we give thanks to God for that freedom. It meant that those who lived in the USA could rule themselves. They were no longer under the restrictions imposed by the British. America became a place for Americans, not underlings or slaves of the King.

To achieve that freedom, blood was shed. People died. For those people, freedom was something worth fighting and dying for. They would never experience it for themselves, yet they did it for the sake of those who were to follow them, their children. More than 200 years later, we still enjoy that freedom.

It is noteworthy that freedom, even in this case, is freedom from something. Americans were not free until they fought for freedom from the British. Our freedom was from British rule.

So how does this relate to individuals? Are we free? Sure, we have freedom to make decisions. We can choose who we marry, where we live, what we eat etc. But are those decisions made freely? Not quite, those decisions are made in the context of who we are. Our character, our nature, our beliefs determine what we choose to do.

Human nature or character is not neutral or libertarian. Our inner self, our very essence, is ruled by what we are. For the materialist, human decisions are deterministically bound by the laws and uniformity of nature. For the religious, our decisions are made relationally to a soul, or some kind of extra-materialistic entity.

Christians understand this clearly from Scripture. Humans are not free. We are slaves:

Joh 8:32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Joh 8:33 They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?"
Joh 8:34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

Sin, in Greek, simply means "offense". It comes from a root that means "to miss the mark, trespass, err". Due to the corporate sin committed by the first humans, all of mankind have become slaves to sin. It is carried over from generation to generation: Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned–

Just like it was necessary that blood be shed to free America from British rule, blood had to be shed to free us from the rule of sin. The consequence of sin is death, eternal agony in separation from God. The blood shed by Christ on the cross sets us free from that slavery. No longer will we be ruled by sin, Christ has made us free from rule by sin. By virtue of the grace of God and our subsequent faith, our decisions are now made relative to our relationship with Christ, not subject to the flesh, and not subject to the evils of sin.

Joh 8:35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.
Joh 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Rom 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

So today, while we celebrate our freedom from British rule as a country, let us as a covenant people also remember our freedom from sin, by the blood of the Son of God.

And today, if you are still a slave to sin, know that you too can be free from that slavery by trusting in the grace and love of God. Turn from your sin, face God and ask for forgiveness. Believe that the blood of Jesus will set you free, just as the American forefathers believed that their blood will set America free from British rule. And His freedom is eternal, set in love and peace, free from evil.

Phil Johnson at Pyromaniacs has a great post in similar vein: Real Liberty