|
The second
chapter of the great Rabbi’s letter to the
congregation at Ephesus is very important. It
contains some foundational doctrines: the doctrine
of the Total Depravity of man; the doctrine of
salvation by grace alone; the relationship between
Messianic Jews and Messianic Gentiles. May the
Lord help each one of us to understand and embrace
and apply these important truths!
Many people
will tell you that humanity is OK. We might have
a few problems, but we are basically pretty good.
In contrast to that is the inspired rabbi’s
understanding of human nature - which is also
the Lord’s understanding - and the truth.
And
you were dead in your trespasses and sins:
The doctrine of Total Depravity doesn’t
mean that each individual is totally depraved
- that they are as bad as they can possibly get.
It means that sin has affected every human being,
and sin has touched every aspect of humanity -
body, soul, mind, spirit, will, your relationship
to God, your relationship to life, your relationship
to salvation.
Notice
that little phrase, “in your trespasses
and sins”, that this master teacher of Messiah’s
New Covenant Community uses. Just as believers
are “in Messiah”, so those who are
out outside of Messiah, those who are unbelievers
are “in something” - not in Messiah,
but in their trespasses and sins. Our first parents,
Adam and Eve, trespassed, and by doing so, they
joined us to sin.
Now, don’t
be too harsh with them. They opened the door to
sin, but each one of us willingly walked through
that door on our own. They did not remain within
the proper boundaries, but neither did their descendants.
We are in our own trespasses and sins. All of
us have sinned. And, there are terrible consequences
that come from being in our trespasses and in
our sins.
Because
of the Fall of Man that took place in the Garden
of Eden, which was a real fall that took place
in a real place by real people, resulting in real
consequences; because Adam and Eve crossed moral
and spiritual boundaries that should not have
been crossed, humanity died.
When we
are in our trespasses and sins; when we cross
boundaries that the King of the universe has commanded
not to be crossed; when we miss the mark and fail
to do what is right and fall short of doing what
the Lord God requires of us, the result is awful.
We certainly are not OK. We most certainly are
not good. We assuredly are not acceptable to,
and will not be welcomed by an infinitely holy
and pure God. In fact, we are not even alive!
Humanity - we are dead!
Something
essential about us has died. Our sins and trespasses
don’t just hurt us a little bit. Our sins
and trespasses don’t merely injure us. We
are not merely wounded with a slight wound from
which we can recover. We have been killed! We
are dead!
Human
beings may walk and talk and think and eat, enjoy
art and science and literature; we may marry,
and enjoy the pleasures of marriage, and have
children; we may be religious and pray, but something
critical, something crucial, something essential
about us is dead! We are no longer alive the way
we need to be. We are headed for the First Death
- Physical Death, which will be followed by the
Second Death, which is destruction of body and
soul in Hell! This is the human situation. This
is reality. Human beings are come into this world
dead - mere flesh. They are missing something
essential of the Spirit and of life.
And it
gets worse! Not only is humanity dead, killed
by our trespasses and sins, but our fallen human
nature is satanically allied and diabolically
empowered! And you were dead in your trespasses
and sins in which you formerly walked. To
walk means to live, to do. So, they lived badly.
They did many wrong things. They used to live
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.
This world,
and “the world” here means humanity
that is in rebellion against God, has a course.
It has it own ways, ways that are in opposition
to the ways of God. The Lord has His ways, and
humanity has its ways. Strive to be first. Look
to you own interests. Take care of number one
- yourself. Do what is best for you. Make yourself
appear to be wise. Seek power. Lord it over others.
Crush your enemies. Revenge yourself on those
who hurt you. Cover up your mistakes. If necessary,
shift blame to others. Don’t apologize.
Don’t take God too seriously. You are in
charge. You call the shots. Ignore God’s
Word if you don’t like it. Crucify the Son
of God if He gets in the way! "Let us break
their chains," they say, "and throw
off their fetters."
The people
of Ephesus lived the way the rest of fallen humanity
lived, opposing the good Lord and His good ways.
And, the people in Ephesus also lived according
to, in agreement with, following the ways of the
prince of the power of the air. This is the evil
spirit being who wields power and authority over
the air - the region between Earth and Heaven.
The Enemy of our souls does not rule in the Highest
Heavens, where the Triune God reigns supreme,
but the Devil rules over the lower heavens - this
world, this realm. He is the god of this world,
having authority over the things under the sky.
Satan,
the Adversary, is real. You don’t believe
it? You contradict the Word of God? You are very
foolish. By denying the Devil you follow the way
of the Devil himself, who corrupted Adam and Eve
by causing them to question the truthfulness of
the Word of God. It was he who caused Eve to question
the Word of God. “Has God said?” Yes,
God has said! The Word of God tells us that Satan
is real! Deny this at your peril. You don’t
believe in the enemy? You don’t know who
you are fighting? Then, you almost certainly will
lose the struggle. We are fighting a real battle
against real rulers, real powers, real world forces
of this darkness, against real spiritual forces
of wickedness in the heavenly places).
Not only
is humanity dead in our trespasses and sins, but
human nature has been corrupted so that we are
comfortable with the demonic. We are uncomfortable
with the holy God, and run away from Him, and
try to hide from Him in the trees; but we are
comfortable with the ways of the prince of the
power of the air. We are naturally inclined toward
the Adversary and his ways and methods and values
and priorities.
Not only
is fallen, sinful humanity living according to,
in agreement with Satan and his demonic allies,
but these real and evil spirit beings are actively
working in the sons of disobedience! Satan and
his fallen angels not only are at work on us,
they are at work in us! They have some degree
of access to, and influence over, the minds and
hearts and souls of human beings. The whole world
lies under the power of the Evil One. We are under
their dark influence. How frightening! How horrifying!
Sons of
disobedience - what an interesting term Paul uses
to describe fallen humanity. Disobedient children.
The Lord has a right to give commands, issue orders,
and we are obligated to obey, but humanity is
disobedient. We don’t obey the way that
we should. Because of our fallen, sinful nature,
because we are in our trespasses and sins, because
we are far from God, because evil spirit beings
are working on us and in us, humanity consistently
disobeys, and rebels against the will of the Supreme
Monarch, and breaks the Lord’s good commands.
You’ve
heard people say, “we are all the children
of God. We are all sons of God, no matter who
we are or what we believe or what we do. We are
brothers and sisters.” That is true - to
some degree. Human beings are the sons and daughters
of God, made in His image, with tremendous value
and potential. But, not all the children of God
the Father are good sons and daughters. Many,
most of the children are wicked, disobedient children.
It is
only those human beings who are joined to Messiah,
and who are indwelt by the promised Holy Spirit,
and who show that they are in Messiah by turning
away from their sins, and their evil ways, who
are the sons and daughters of God who are acceptable
to Him, and who will be welcome in the Father’s
eternal home. Which kind of child are you? A son
of disobedience, or a child of God who has received
divine sonship because of coming to know the unique
Son of God, Messiah Yeshua, and have placed your
faith in Him, and are following Him?
This disobedience
particularly affects the following two areas:
Among them we too all formerly lived in the
lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the
flesh and of the mind.The lusts of the flesh
are those desires and cravings connected to the
physical: giving into and overdoing good sensual
desires that promise pleasure, or yielding into
bad sensual desires; in appropriate sexual activity,
drinking too much, drugs, overeating, and the
list goes on.
The desires
of the mind have to do with mental sins: embracing
false ideologies and philosophies and religions;
not staying within proper theological and doctrinal
boundaries, ignoring the truth and substituting
lies; embracing wrong thinking; cultivating thoughts
that seem right, that are pleasing to your mind,
but are false and contradict the Word of God and
a Biblical world-view.
This disobedience,
this willingness to yield to the lusts and desires
of the flesh and the mind results in very bad
consequences. And were by nature children
of wrath, even as the rest. Children of wrath
are human beings who were made in the image of
God, but who have become worthy of the extreme
displeasure, the great indignation, and the wrath
of a perfectly righteous and infinitely holy and
pure God, who loathes sin with an intense hatred,
who abominates evil, and who is a consuming fire.
God is
angry with disobedient, sinful, rebellious, trespassing,
demonically dominated, corrupt human beings. Not
just a little angry, but a lot angry. Yes, God
so loves the world, but He is also is so very
angry at the world. Can you love someone, and
be disappointed at them for repeated failures,
stupidities, rebellions and crimes so that you
are also angry at them? Yes, you can.
And, what
does the Torah teach us is to be done to wicked,
disobedient, incorrigible children, who refuse
to change their evil ways, who will continue to
do more harm, and wreak more damage to more people?
If they refuse to repent, wicked disobedient children
are to be executed. And, that same end will happen
to all the disobedient, wicked children of the
world, who are headed to the Second Death.
Don’t
think that because you are part of the chosen
nation, chosen to accomplish the Lord’s
purposes, that you are exempt from the corruption
of human nature. This spiritual disaster that
has devastated humanity applies not to Gentiles,
but to Jews as well. The history of Israel shows
this so clearly. The history of the Jewish people
is a history of some successes, but also one failure
after another. Stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in heart; always resisting the Holy Spirit; receiving
the Torah, yet not following it; sins abounding;
golden calves worshiped; idols embraced; children
sacrificed; adulteries committed; the Lord denied;
the poor oppressed; prophets being sent to correct
us; prophets scorned; prophets rejected; prophets
murdered; resulting in divine punishments and
disciplines and judgments, droughts, famines,
plagues, war, cities destroyed; the Temple destroyed
not once but twice; exiles; and the worst of all
- the King Messiah of Israel, the holy Son of
God, sent by God the Father, Himself willingly
volunteering to humble Himself, come to Earth,
become a man, and live among us as a weak human
being, all done to help us, to love us, to teach
us, to save us - His teachings scorned, He Himself
mocked and rejected, despised, insulted, humiliated,
spit on, beaten, whipped and crucified. Then,
His emissaries and followers, rejected - and we
continue to be despised and rejected.
Jews,
Gentiles, all of humanity has been corrupted.
We are sinful, antagonistic toward God, ruined,
dominated by the devil, encompassed by evil spirits.
We are not saved. We are lost. We are not headed
to life. We are dead, and we are headed to the
First Death and the Second Death. We are headed
to Hell, and there is nothing we can do about
it. We are dead in our trespasses and sins, and
the dead are powerless. They can’t help
themselves! On our own, regarding the need for
salvation, we can’t do even a little. We
are totally hopeless. That is the reality of the
human situation. That is the human dilemma.
But due
to our supremely merciful Creator, we were not
left in that horrible situation. But God,
being rich in mercy, because of His great love
with which He loved us, even when we were dead
in our transgressions, made us alive together
with Messiah (by grace you have been saved), and
raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him
in the heavenly places in Messiah Yeshua.
Not only did our kind Maker grant us mercy; not
only did He abundantly forgive and pardon all
of our transgressions and sins; not only did He
love us, not only did He save us, not only did
He give us new life, a new quality of life that
is in tune with God’s life, eternal life,
but He highly exalted us. He raised us up from
our extremely low condition, not just a little
- not just raising us up back to life on Earth,
but He raised us up higher, much much higher,
all the way past this Earth, past the air and
the lower heavens and all the up to Heaven and
the Highest Heavens. There, in the Highest Heavens
He didn’t put us off to one side (that would
be good enough for us) but in the Highest Heavens
God the Father caused us to be seated with the
Son of God in the place of highest honest, next
to the very throne of God the Father! That is
where those are in Messiah will most certainly
wind up!
So, from
a starting point, a beginning condition of being
dead in trespasses and sins, enemies of God, disobedient
children, yielding to sinful lusts of body and
mind, abominable to a holy God, children worthy
of the righteous indignation and wrath of God
Almighty, we have been forgiven; we have been
saved; we have been enlivened, we have been raised
up, we have exalted, we have been empowered and
we have been eternally enriched!
Why? Why
would the Supreme Being do all this? What motivated
this great activity on the part of the Infinite
One? The Creator was motivated by His mercy, by
His desire to not give to His sinful, erring sons
and daughters what we deserve, to punish us the
way we merit, but because He is rich in mercy
- not stingy with His mercy, but rich in mercy
like the man who is forgiven a huge debt that
he could never pay off; rich in mercy like the
man who embezzle from his employer and gets caught
and is facing years in jail and the destruction
of his life is forgiven; and also motivated by
His love for us - not just a little love for us,
but great affection for us; a huge desire to do
exceedingly much good for us, to restore us, and
elevate us and bless us, the Lord intervened to
save us. He worked so as to give us life, new
life, the kind of life we need - real life, Messiah’s
life, God’s life, eternal life, life with
Messiah, life with God!
The Lord
also did all these wonderful things for us for
another reason. So that in the ages to come
He might show the surpassing riches of His grace
in kindness toward us in Messiah Yeshua.
Those who are in Messiah, those who have been
joined to the Son of God, will, from age to age
to age to age, ages stretching on throughout eternity,
be a demonstration of the amazing grace and the
exceedingly great kindness of this wonderful God.
Think
about this: It is the Master of the Universe’s
intention that we be an eternal display of the
kindness that He has extended to us, and His grace
- His unmerited favor, His unearned goodness.
And, that we show forth not just a little bit
the grace He gives to us, but the riches of His
grace. And not just the riches of His grace, but
the surpassing riches, the overabundant, the superlative,
the exceedingly generous, the way beyond nature
of His grace toward those of us who are in Messiah
Yeshua.
And, if
you are not in Messiah Yeshua? Then you are still
a disobedient child, dead in your trespasses and
sin, and you can expect the wrath of God, who
is a consuming fire, to come your way! Take my
advice. Make sure that you are in Messiah Yeshua!
And, if
you are in Messiah, won’t you muster the
courage to tell those outside of Messiah that
they must get in Messiah? And, out of gratitude
for all that God has done for you, and will do
for you, and because of His great love for you,
and the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness
given to you, won’t you live an obedient
life that pleases this gracious and loving God?
Shalom,
Rabbi Loren
|
