Through the Bible with Les Feldick
LESSON 2 * PART 1 * BOOK
THE INVISIBLE MAKE-UP OF THE LOST
In our last lesson we finished chapter 1, so today we’ll start chapter 2. Personally the way I look at Ephesians chapter 2 is the same way I look at what chapter 8 is to the Book of Romans, and most people know what I’m talking about. Romans chapter 8 is just the highlight of almost all of Scripture, but especially of the Book of Romans. And here chapter 2 is also the highlight of this short little letter to the Ephesians. It’s a tremendous chapter, and if we get past the first 3 or 4 verses today I’ll be surprised because there is just so much in here that we can’t gloss over, and we’re going to take our time with it.
I’m constantly urged to repeat things as we study, and I was looking this morning at the verses we’ll probably cover today, and here again in just a few verses, the Holy Spirit repeats things two or three times. Well if the Holy Spirit, the author of the Book, uses repetition, then who am I to say, I can’t repeat something. So let’s just start with verse 1. And remember Paul always writes to believers, because you see the whole concept is if we know what we believe, then we can share it with those who are lost. God doesn’t expect the Church to save the lost, but rather the individual believer to do that, and then bring them into the fellowship of the Church. We’ve got to teach the believers of where we are positionally, and why we’re there so that we can be free to share it with those who are still out in darkness.
Ephesians 2:1
“And you (the believer) hath he quickened, (made alive) who were (past tense) dead in trespasses and sins;…”
Now as you know I always like to define words so that anybody can understand. What really is death? Well we normally think of when something dies, it’s dead! Well what happens when something dies. Let’s keep it in perspective by using the human race as an example. What happens when a person dies? Well their soul, the invisible part of them is separated from the physical body. Now that’s all death is. Now that’s probably over simplifying, but death is simply the separation of the invisible part of us, for believers it’s soul and spirit. For the unbeliever it’s only the soul, his spirit hasn’t become an entity.
Spiritual death is also a separation, but it’s a separation from God. So the person who is spiritually dead has been separated from the Creator God. And Paul is saying here, “This is where we were before salvation.” Let’s look at what he says.
Ephesians 2:1b
“…who were dead…”
You were separated from God. Now we’re going to go all the way back to Genesis chapter 2. As you know I’m always stressing Paul’s epistles for the basis for most of what we believe, but that doesn’t mean we don’t use the rest of Scriptures. Remember all Scripture is inspired of God, and is profitable. So when Paul says you were dead in trespasses and sins, what was he talking about, when did it happen? Well spiritual death or this separation from God was an event, it wasn’t a process, but rather an event.
We find that God has now created Adam, he’s still alone. Eve is still in Adam, but she hasn’t been brought out of him to be his help mete. And you pick it up in verse 16
Genesis 2:16-17
“And the LORD God (which was God the Son on this occasion) commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Or he would be separated from God. There will become a gulf between them. That’s what’s going to happen Adam if he eats of this one tree Now let’s go over to chapter 3 and see what happened. And again you all know this, but there’s some that don’t. Let’s jump in at verse 2. Now Eve is now on the scene.
Genesis 3:2a
“And the woman said unto the serpent,…”
Remember back there in verse 1 he was called the most subtle of all the creatures that God had created. If you ever wonder what that word means, look in the dictionary. It means to be sly, cunning, deceitful and so forth. So all these things were wrapped up in this creature that Satan is using. Let’s see what Eve says to the serpent.
Genesis 3:2b
“…We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:”
Now Eve wasn’t with Adam when he got his instructions from God back there in chapter 2. So where did she find out what God had said? From Adam. And I’m bringing that out to point out Adam’s headship. God told Adam, and that’s where He left it, and then it was Adam’s responsibility to instruct Eve, and he had. So she has the right answers.
Genesis 3:3
“But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”
I’ve had people ask me, “Well did they have a concept of death? Well it’s kind of hard to say yes or no, but I believe they did, or otherwise God would have just been speaking empty words. So they understood what He was talking about. They knew that if they disobeyed Him they’d be separated from Him. Now verse 4. Here comes the very first lie in Scripture. First turn quickly to John chapter 8 and verse 44.
John 8:44b
“…for he (Satan) is a liar, and the father of it.” Now let’s see what Satan says to the woman. Turn with me to Genesis 3 and verse 4 and following.
Genesis 3:4-5
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5. For God doth know (doesn’t that sound like the false teachers of today using the Scriptures? Oh they give credit to the Holy Spirit, and make it sounds so official, but it’s just as much the power of Satan as this was. So Satan can say) that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, (small “g” of course) knowing good and evil.” Now is that what God had said? Come back to chapter 2 again for a moment, we’ve got to compare Scripture with Scripture. God is speaking.
Genesis 2:17a
“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:…”
See that’s exactly what God called that tree. Do you see how meticulous Satan can be when he gets ready to deceive somebody? Oh he didn’t goof it up, but rather Satan said it to Eve just exactly the way God said it. Now coming back to chapter 3 and verse 5
Genesis 3:5-6
“For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. (this is why God had told Adam not to eat of the tree.) 6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, (remember knowledge leads to wisdom) she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”
OK the moment Adam ate, what happened? He died. Oh not physically, but spiritually, and he was separated from God. He could no longer expect Him to come and fellowship with him, and walk with him, because that had been totally destroyed, because of sin. Now remember sin in it’s simplest definition is what? “Disobeying the revealed Word of God.”That’s what sin is, and they disobeyed the will of God by eating. Now if you’ll just look at the end of verse 6 where it says, “and he did eat.” Immediately what happens in verse 7? Well the results of their sin.
Genesis 3:7a
“And the eyes of them both were opened,…”
That’s exactly what Satan said would happen. But not to have their eyes opened for a greater appreciation for their Creator, but rather to know good and evil. So immediately, the moment Adam sunk his teeth into that fruit, their spiritual eyes were opened to know good and evil, and their relationship with God was immediately broken. So spiritually they died. Now physically of course Adam lived 930 years, but when did the seeds of death begin? The moment he took part of that fruit. Now do you see all of that?
Now I had Mark Wood a young man in our audience who is an artist draw three circles on the chalk board before the class began. And now I would like to go back like we did when we were teaching the Book of Genesis, and I use these circles to just simply indicate the three parts of man. The outside circle represents the tent in which we live which is what we call the “body.” That’s just the simple exercise of the five senses. Now within this body, we also a smaller circle called the “soul,” and within the soul is a still smaller circle called the“spirit.”
Now when I was teaching Genesis I defined the “soul” as the “mind, the will, and emotions,” all of which are invisible. But these make up the personality, and it’s in the area of the“soul” that we were made in the likeness and image of God. Now I’m going to have you turn all the way up to the Book of I Thessalonians chapter 5, and then we’ll come back to Genesis. I think it’s interesting to note how much in Scripture is tied to the number three. Beginning with God Himself, a Trinity. Here Paul is signing off his letter to the Thessalonians, and let’s see what he says.
I Thessalonians 5:23
“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; (or completely) and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
So what are we? We are a three part being. Now I guess the theologians would call it a trichotomy, but that’s too big a word for me. We are just simply a three part being. We are body, soul, and spirit, and that’s the way Adam was created. He was created with that perfect body that could have lived forever. He was created with a personality, patterned after the personality of the three persons of the Trinity, a mind, a will and a set of emotions. But he also had the third part which is what we call the spirit. So this first circle completed with all three parts of body, soul, and spirit represents Adam as a perfect three part being.
Normally I like to put it this way. The spirit is the area where Adam had fellowship with his Creator God. The spirit was also intrinsically united with the soul, and we still look at it that way. So that Adam in his purity, in his original state, through his spirit fellowshipped with his Creator, and through that fellowship with his Creator, it had an effect upon his very personality, his mind, his will, and his emotion, and that in turned exercised the body. Now we don’t know how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden before they fell, but however long it was it was perfect. It was a glorious experience, and they could look forward to their Creator coming down, maybe once or twice a day to walk with them, and commune them.
Now naturally I’ve still got lots of questions about Adam and Eve for example, where did they sleep at night? Where did they experience their days of habitation? Did the Lord also have a beautiful home for them? I’d like to know that. I’m sure they didn’t wonder around in the Garden of Eden 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, what did they do to occupy their time.I’ve always told people that the Bible tells us everything we need to know, but it doesn’t tell us everything we’d like to know. This we do know though, Adam and Eve lived in perfect communion, and fellowship with their Creator. Sin hadn’t even showed it’s ugly head.
Now then, the next thing we know is that Adam sinned when he ate, and for that I want to move to the second set of circles. Remember over here in the first set of circles before Adam ate we have Adam complete. So in this next set of circles, again this outside ring represents the human body. Adam is still living just like he was in the first circle. He is still a body, he’s still has his soul, the mind, will, and emotion, none of that has changed since he ate, but the moment Adam ate of the fruit, he lost that third part, the spirit, and he becomes nothing now but a body, and a soul, and now the spirit is dead!
Now, from Adam and Eve on every person that is born, comes into the human experience with only a body and soul. That spirit part of each is dead. It has no fellowship with God, it has no communion with God. Also remember the moment Adam sinned the soul became a sin nature. So now Adam and Eve have become sin-natured creatures, and that’s the way each person is when they come into this world. That’s the best way I can explain it. They are now operating under a sin nature, and this sin nature is separated from God, and it’s going to influence the physical body, not for good, but rather for evil. That’s the whole concept of the spiritually dead individual.
Now this is exactly what Paul talks about when he says in Ephesians 2. Let’s look at that and start at verse 1.
Ephesians 2:1b
“…who were dead in trespasses and sins;”
We weren’t dead because of what we did, but rather we started there at birth. Every baby that is born is born in sin, dead in trespasses. Let’s go back to Romans chapter 5 for a moment and let me show you. Do you realize that all the way from Genesis chapter 3 to Romans chapter 5 there is not a word of Scripture that deals with Adam, with the exception of one or two places as a name in a genealogy. Not one word of Adam being the cause of sin and death. Not one word of how he at one time was a spiritual being in fellowship with God. We don’t find this until we get to the apostle Paul’s writings. Now in this chapter here it comes.
When you think about these things it is amazing that Jesus in His 3 years of earthly ministry never revealed this. Have you ever thought of that? Why didn’t Jesus take the time with the twelve or during His teaching, and say “Now look folks, the crux of your problem was Adam. And it was with Adam that sin and death came into the world.” But you see Christ never mentioned that. And the closest you can come to that in the Old Testament is found in Jeremiah. Let’s turn to Jeremiah 17 and start at verse 9.
Jeremiah 17:9a
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:…” But that as close as you can get to the problem, and you can’t build doctrine like Paul does on that one verse. Now let’s look at what Paul says in Romans chapter 5 and verse 12.
Romans 5:12a
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death (entered) by sin; and so death passed upon all men,…”
Death passed upon all men. And the reason is that every person that has ever been born, that spiritual part of them is dead. Death and sin are almost synonymous. If there never would have been sin, there never would have been death. So death and sin almost become partners. When Adam sinned that spirit died, his soul became a sin -natured thing that can think nothing but evil, and it was contrary to the will of God, and the reason is because the spirit is dead. So this is where the human race is as Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1.
Ephesians 2:1b
“… (you) who were dead in trespasses and sins.”
Even good people are walking around spiritually dead. They have no connection with God whatsoever. They can’t have because they are spiritually dead. Now reading the last part of Romans 5:12
Romans 5:12b
“…and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:” And you come on down to verse 14.
Romans 5:14a
“Nevertheless death reigned from Adam (do you see how Paul puts the finger on it? Death didn’t come in some place along the line, but rather it came in when Adam ate from that forbidden tree) to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression,…”
Now let’s turn over to I Corinthians chapter 15 where again Paul brings out this same problem. Paul lays it right out here just what the crux of our problem is, and how we can overcome it one day. My goodness, it looks like our time is gone already for this lesson, and we won’t have time to read all the Scripture I had intended.
I Corinthians 15:45
“And so it is written, The first man Adam was made (or created) a living soul: (that was back here in this first set of circles when Adam was complete) the last Adam (speaking of Christ) was made a quickening spirit:”
And how does man become complete? Believe Paul’s Gospel found in I Corinthians 15:1-4.