You … who were dead in trespasses and sins… But God … even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).
Ephesians 2:1.4.5.
Many people whose vitality leads us to consider them very much alive are, from God’s point of view, morally dead “in trespasses and sins”, as today’s verse states. It cannot be otherwise. What is God to do with people who do not care about Him and totally ignore Him? What use has He for people who basically deny His existence or live either secretly or openly in rebellion against Him? Even so-called good people often neglect to ask after His will, which is also sin, even if they are unaware of it.
Since everyone has countless trespasses and sins against God on his list, even the very best are sinners and therefore dead and useless for God. We may not like this diagnosis, and happily it is not the final thing the Bible has to say on this subject.
Even if people in this sense are dead for God, it does not mean that they are unimportant as far as He is concerned. They may not find it easy to understand. One of the mysteries about God is that He is concerned about us. He seeks the lost and those who are dead in this sense to make them alive again, so that they can have untroubled fellowship with Him as His children. God alone is able to perform this miracle of producing life, eternal life, from death: He does it through the Saviour Jesus Christ even today.
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