Dead in Trespasses and Sins
“Dead in Trespasses and Sins.”—It is said by those who do not believe that death is death, that the above passage proves that death is only a figure of speech, and not literal cessation of life. But death is as literal here as it can be anywhere. God gives His life according to law. To the brute beast the life comes through the sunshine, food, drink, and air. The physical law of the species is the channel of its life. If that law be transgressed, perversion, sickness and death follow. Man has a higher nature than the brute, a moral nature, the channel of which is God's moral law. The transgression of that law is sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. He who yields himself to sin thereby closes the channel of spiritual life. He may have the physical life still, the life of the flesh, but he is dead, absolutely, literally dead, as regards the life of God. The only way he can recover that life is by being born again, created anew in Christ Jesus. And then he receives a new life literally, the life of God.