THE SECRET TO KINGDOM UNDERSTANDING 

Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible…. 

Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV

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.  

The secret to kingdom understanding is there is no secret.  It is a matter of accepting Biblical description of radical depravity.  When radical depravity is accepted in the true sense of Scripture, man’s participation in his salvation at any level is nothing more than a fantasy. 

Paul writing to those who received this letter, and there is no certainty of its recipients, reminds them of their former state.  They were “dead in trespasses and sin.”  He conditions his statement by describing the deadness he intends.  It is “in trespasses and sin”. 

He then describes their life that was contemporaneous with the deadness in VSS 2-3.  This should alert any reader that he is concerned with man’s spiritual relationship with God.  It is either “in Him” which he stated plainly in chapter 1, or it is this deadness. 

Further Paul describes the deadness he means.  There are three primary undeniable characteristics given in verses that follow.

1.  VS 3  To be dead is to act according to the nature of mankind.  Mankind, as they are distinguished from believers, is under the wrath of God.  The Scriptures allow different habits, characters, personalities, and emotions.  But there are only two natures.  There is the nature mankind receives from Adam, which is under wrath, or it is the kingdom nature received at the new birth.  In VS 5 this is being made alive, “by grace you have been saved”. 

2.  There is again the extent of deadness.  It has only one cure.  That is grace, VS 9 ESV not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  The extent to which the writer goes to limit salvation to grace is plainly intentional and complete.  This grace is not left open to debate.  It is the grace which he began to praise in 1:3-10. ³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, ⁸ which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight ⁹ making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 

This is grace that will brook no human involvement.  It is “not of works”.  The ESV has made it even clearer, “not of your own doing”.  It is the hardest of all Bible truths for man to accept.  He cannot do anything for God to win His acceptance. 

3.  The third fact of this deadness is that there is alienation between man and God that has no human cure.  The death of Christ is no mere miscarriage of justice or tragic misapplication of man’s ire and jealousy.  It is the centerpiece of the ages.  All time revolves around that complex of events covered in three short days in Jerusalem.  The God-man was crucified for sin and the third day He arose from the grave.  This will not be forgotten and it ever remains as the centerpiece of the Gospel.

Paul in VSS 11-16 states the single condition for acceptance with God, “you have been brought near by the blood of Christ”.

¹¹ Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— ¹² remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility ¹⁵ by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.  This is the antithesis of “dead”.  It belongs to all and only those who have been “brought not of human endeavor”., because we are so prone to boast. 

You may ask “do you boast?”  Yes!  I am a boaster.  I am told in Jeremiah 9:24 I can boast.  “but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”  I have a great God in whom I can boast.  Paul in I Cor. 1:31 tells every saint in whom he may boast, the one who is made our “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption”.  It cannot be in the flesh for this cannot seek, accept, or find God.  He must find us.