And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
To be dead in trespasses and sins is to be spiritually dead, cut off from the life of God and empty of His Spirit, unable by any human strength to live holy or to lift oneself out of that state. In time past that death showed itself in walking after the course of this world and after the prince of the power of the air, living in the lusts of the flesh and of the mind and standing by nature under wrath. But God, who is rich in mercy for His great love, even when sinners were dead quickens them together with Christ and raises them to sit with Him in heavenly places. This quickening is by grace through faith, not of selves but the gift of God, not of works, wrought by Christ who took humanity and paid sin's penalty by His death and blood and imparts life by the same power that raised Him, through the Holy Spirit and the Word. Those thus made alive are God's workmanship created in Christ unto good works, passing from death to life in thorough conversion with every faculty regenerated, turning from sin to obedient holiness and laboring to awaken and save souls still dead.
Meaning of Spiritual Death
To be dead in trespasses and sins is to be spiritually dead, severed and alienated from the life of God, destitute of spiritual life and of the Spirit of God, and in need of God to give life and quicken together with Christ. This deadness is marked by a life shaped by the world and by disobedience, following the course of the world and the desires of undisciplined hearts under Satan's influence. The Son took humanity so that fallen people made alive through Christ could receive the privileges of God's children, raised up with Him by mercy and great love, with salvation by grace through faith as God's gift and not of works, creating them anew for good works.
The dead are unaware of their danger, unconvicted and unready for death, unconcerned about eternal life, and in need of light to recognize their condition and the conflict against sin and the crucifixion that removes what separates them from Christ. They may think they are doing God's will while failing to show Christ's character, and must heed reproof, repent, and be converted before the Spirit no longer strives with them. Like the lost piece of silver they are estranged from God without knowing it, unconscious of their state as lost property, in constant danger and peril yet as unconcerned as an inanimate coin, still the Lord's property meant to bear His likeness in righteousness and true holiness and to be sought by close, earnest, persevering prayer and labor.
The dead are helpless to do good or reform character by reason, eloquence, philosophy, or any human ability, with human selfishness remaining in depravity. The sinner refusing God is controlled and enslaved by another power he does not recognize, with passion and impulse ruling, judgment blinded, reason weakened and overruled, affections and faculties corrupted and depraved, unable to realize spiritual things. Severed from the life of God the soul is utterly incapable of living a holy life of itself, striving vainly until in despair crying for deliverance, separated from the source of truth so that human nature opposes God's will, unable to see the beauty of truth, viewing truth as falsehood and falsehood as truth, and unable without change to live happily in holy heaven. Surrounded by a malarious, poisonous atmosphere corrupting body and soul, following imaginations of a corrupt mind, dishonoring God by wicked inventions, hating God and corrupting the way, whole families steeped in licentiousness cannot discern between pure affections God gave and destructive lusts, becoming as sinful as the world before the flood and Sodom and under threatened destruction for wicked works.
The dead are depraved, guilty, and suffering souls in wrongdoing and sin who need compassion and to know Bible truth. They are diseased in soul and body, palsied and wounded, enemies of God through wicked works, serving sinful desires and enslaved to sin and Satan, lost and strayed as strangers to God. They are often under severe temptation and stress while Satan struggles and wrestles to bring them down, so harsh unsympathetic words discourage them and leave them more vulnerable to his power, while God's justice is rightly represented only with His tenderness and great love.
Death came by disobeying God's commands, by which man fell under condemnation of the law, calling for grace to appear in behalf of sinners. This death belongs both to the poor outright sinner, sinful, unworthy, hopeless and helpless with heart darkened by sin, and to the professing Christian who has known Christ yet clings to sins and retains old habits and defects without thorough conversion and reformation. To remain dead is to remain unconverted and untransformed, unpurified and incomplete in Christ with spot and blemish still present, having lost all sense of how offensive sin is and sometimes mingling truth with error to confuse minds, shutting the person out of God's kingdom since Christ's blood cannot avail for one refusing to be converted and made complete in Him. It was seen in those who would not receive Christ even while looking on His evidences in curing disease, whose unbelief would not yield because yielding required confessing themselves sinners, but who held wicked purposes and said He worked through the devil, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost with no forgiveness in this world nor the world to come.
Former Life in Sin
In time past those dead in trespasses and sins walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air working in the children of disobedience. That prince is not Jesus but Satan, the enemy of God. This deadness was a former way of life shaped by the world, by Satan's influence, and by disobedience, a life from which God gives life together with Christ by grace. To walk thus is to be under Satan working with ingenious, masterly, deceiving power in mind and heart, and the following verses explain the change as being made alive with Christ and raised with Him from a life shaped by world and disobedience to life in Christ. Genuine conversion turns from that wrong course, bringing the mind under Christ's control to be refined, purified, and elevated by His grace.
That former life was lived in the lusts of the flesh and in the desires of the flesh and of the mind, fulfilling them. Those who so lived walked according to the world and under the power of the spirit working in the disobedient, following fleshly desires in conduct. By nature they were children of wrath and stood under wrath. Before quickening they followed the course of the world and the influence of the prince of the power of the air, living in the lusts of the flesh and by nature children of wrath. When the wicked forsake their way and thoughts and return to the Lord for abundant pardon, God quickens those who were dead in just this condition.
Satan's control in that state is ingenious, masterly, and deceiving, producing rebellion and disobedience, overthrowing restraint and parental control, misjudging and alienating hearts from those who should be one in mind and spirit and action, and ruining parents by a son's course. The world and churches in this death lie under a terrible spell, needing to be aroused, warned, converted, and educated. Those in sin are held under Satan's banner in a spell cast with fierce determination to retain and destroy every soul that has had light and evidence, their minds and hearts darkened because he eclipses with his hellish shadow every ray of light that would enter them, leaving them in torpor and eagerly keeping out merciful help. Fallen humanity lies in a death-like torpor, with insensibility and lethargy laid over them like a funeral pall by Satan, which must first be met and penetrated. To be dead is to be surrounded by a malarious, poisonous atmosphere that corrupts body and soul, following imaginations of a corrupt mind, dishonoring God by wicked inventions, hating God and corrupting the way before Him, until whole families are steeped in licentiousness and cannot discern between the pure affections God gave to human nature and destructive lusts indulged by wicked inventions, becoming as sinful as the world before the flood and the inhabitants of Sodom and bringing themselves under threatened destruction for wicked works. For the time the wretched victim who refuses to break with Satan is under the control of a demon, with mind controlled and actions directed by Satan, and therefore not to be dealt with as a sane man.
Those dead in trespasses and sins are subjects of worldly kingdoms who have wandered from allegiance to God and from obedience to the law of His kingdom, destitute of the Spirit of God which works in the children of obedience. They are dead to all aspirations in trespasses and sins. Being dead means being wholly absorbed in business, in pleasure at the gaming table, in indulgence of perverted appetite, and in frequenting the theater and ballroom, putting eternity out of reckoning, with the whole burden what to eat and drink and wear. They are not moving heavenward but are led by the great apostate, and if they continue they will be destroyed with him, perishing in sins and dying by thousands without God and without hope of eternal life. Their death in sin shows in wasting the inheritance God gave them, selling their birthright as Esau did for a mess of pottage and betraying sacred interests entrusted for the blessing of humanity, by indulging intemperate appetites and falling through greed for money into dishonest practices. Unlike worldly kingdoms, which find their subjects, Christ makes His subjects, bringing those who were dead under the bloodstained banner of Prince Emmanuel as subjects of a kingdom not recognized by worldly kingdoms.
God Gives New Life
God, rich in mercy for His great love, even when people were dead in sins quickens them together with Christ, raises them up together, and makes them sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Those so raised are not left as independent atoms but are made wholly one with Him, so identified with Christ as He was one with the Father. The Son took humanity so that fallen people could become children of God and receive the privileges of God's children. This making alive is salvation by grace through faith, not of selves but the gift of God, not of works lest any should boast, so thoughts of self-exaltation are not to be cherished and all good works are seen as dependent on a power outside ourselves.
New life comes because Christ as Substitute and Surety suffered sin's penalty, paid it by His death and blood and merits, and those who receive Him may be accepted before God through His merits and become new creatures with a new nature living a new life in Christ. He imparts life by the same resurrection and creative power that raised Jesus and that gives life to the body, and He continues as Restorer, Physician, and the light and life of men who can deliver souls dead in trespasses from the chains of sin. It is given through the vivifying influence of His Holy Spirit, without which a person will never see the kingdom of God, and through hearing the Word, with believing on Christ, receiving Him, and being renewed in mind joined to the new life. Acceptance does not continue alongside transgression but includes the obligation to obey God's law, and as the paralytic acted on Christ's word and received strength, sinners are to believe His word and choose to serve Him.
God quickens in order to show in the ages to come the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness through Christ Jesus. That oneness with Christ is the highest measure of character and the richest blessing any human can enjoy. His chain is long enough to reach the very lowest depths of human woe and misery, so no sinner needs to keep away from God. The quickening answers Satan's device of leading people into sin and then leaving them naked and trembling and afraid to come boldly to ask pardon, giving instead reason not to heed the tempter but to come for mercy and grace. Through Christ hope, faith, and peace are within reach with access by one Spirit to the Father, for the salvation is from sins, not in sins; God loved people while they were dead in trespasses and sins, and He continues to love them when they permit Him to take away their sins, cleanse, purify and sanctify them, impute to them Christ's righteousness, restore the moral image of God, and lift them into enjoyment of His love and grace.
To be quickened is to pass from death to life by thorough conversion and regeneration, feeling the offensive character of sin with hearty repentance and true faith and a broken and contrite heart, receiving God's promised forgiveness and the privileges and liberty of the sons of God. It is an inward, invisible, radical change of heart like leaven changing meal into bread, cleansing the heart from impurity and fitting it for service for God. No new faculties are supplied and identity is not lost, but every faculty is regenerated in its employment, natural inclinations are softened and subdued, divine grace subdues the sinful desires of the natural heart, and new thoughts, new feelings, and new motives are implanted and then revealed in the life with widened and altogether different thoughts. This quickening is the same formation of character as being born again, taught in parable by the washings and sprinklings enjoined in the ceremonial law, and it is a renewal and strengthening of mind and heart, a resurrection from spiritual death in which darkness gives way to light and love of sin to love of purity and holiness.
Marks of the Quickened
Those made alive are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works before ordained, and the new life is marked by good works and faithful service dedicating abilities to God's glory. This quickening puts the mind of Christ in all who stop relying on themselves and put trust in a power out of and above themselves, enabling them to become doers of Christ's words, to practice His lessons, and to work in harmony with God as laborers together with Christ. As branches drawing nourishment from Christ the living Vine they bear the same kind of fruit as the parent stock, instead of walking as before according to the course of this world and the prince of the power of the air.
Genuine conversion turns from wrong and escapes all sin, all defects of character, and every sinful propensity. Being made alive means passing from death to life through thorough conversion, feeling the offensive character of sin, experiencing hearty repentance and true faith with a broken and contrite heart, receiving God's promised forgiveness, and entering the privileges and liberty of the sons of God. It produces an evident change in disposition and character from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, by which a true child of God is distinguished from a presumptuous self-deceiver who remains in bondage, spiritually blind, grasping only the shadow of truth. The mind brought under Christ's control and shaped by His grace becomes refined, purified, and elevated, with new tastes and motives, meekness, gentleness, humility and humble holy joy that abases self. Learning what Christ is to those He has ransomed and believing on Him gives the privilege of partaking of the divine nature and escaping the corruption in the world through lust, because Christ is the Sin-bearer who takes away the sin of the world, and through the merits of His blood they may become new creatures with a new nature and live a new life in Christ. An unchanged life can bring harmful influence into Christian institutions, for those not made alive remain governed by the desires of the flesh and mind and belong to the condition described as children of wrath, and this evil spirit appears in their conduct.
The quickened are restored and accepted as laborers together with God to go work in His vineyard as God's husbandry and God's building, where Adam through believing Satan's misrepresentations and disobeying lost the privilege of working in Eden. The converted soul thus quickened has the same work to do with Christ for other souls still dead in trespasses and sins, bearing the burden for souls and making personal effort in the name of Jesus to bring them to a knowledge of the truth. Christians who have received divine grace are to help raise the dead to newness of life by sharing the blessing they received from Christ and pointing them to Him as their source of strength, as Christ worked. Every truly converted person firmly established in the truth is made alive as a light-bearer to the world through whom Christ shines in a world shrouded in moral darkness, and a few such truly converted souls are of infinitely more value than a large number who remain dead. Their conversion and new birth make their lives a testimony to the world that they have been born again, and as peacemakers they receive the blessing promised to peacemakers and are called the children of God.
Those made alive are to show the world what it means to sit together in heavenly places in Christ and to show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness through Christ Jesus, bringing that kindness into their dealings with one another. This calls for laying pride and dignity at the feet of Christ, leaving childish pettishness, envy, jealousy, evil surmisings, strife, malice and hatred, and cherishing unity and love for one another so that by unity and love and by good fruit as a tree known by its fruit all men understand they are Christians. Christ's death quickens people through faith in Him to become genuine Christians, sanctified through the truth and made one in Him through the righteousness of Christ. Those made alive are to bring the truth into all their works, to live separate from the world and distinguished from it by faith as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, and to show the dead world by holy living that they are a holy nation, a peculiar people, a chosen generation, zealous of good works. As Christ's witnesses bound by baptismal vow, they let their light shine through good works so the world may glorify the Father in heaven, belonging to God through lives sanctified by truth.
No sinner needs to keep away from God, for the quickening answers Satan's device of leading people into sin and then leaving them naked and trembling and afraid to come boldly to ask pardon, and God's promise gives reason not to heed the tempter but to come for mercy and grace with hope, faith, and peace within reach and access by one Spirit to the Father. His death pays sin's penalty, and those who receive Him as Saviour may be accepted before God through His merits, with new life joined to believing in Christ, receiving Him, and being renewed in mind, and acceptance not continuing alongside transgression but including the obligation to obey God's law. The blood of the Son of God redeems transgressors of God's law, and the sacrifice makes it possible for them to return to allegiance to God's commandments, as the sinner looks to Christ as the propitiation for sin, hates the sins that wounded Him, and keeps a contrite heart while regarding Him as a compassionate, tender High Priest. A person becomes holy and acceptable to God only when Christ's grace, received through faith and expressed in obedience to truth, cleanses the heart from within, for ceremonial washings taught inward regeneration and the Holy Spirit's sanctifying power, and religious services and association with God-fearing people cannot make a sinner righteous, nor do good works done while refusing God's way of salvation remove sin's defilement. He who knew no sin was made sin for them, bearing their iniquities, dying though He did nothing worthy of death, living as their Advocate, that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him, and though wholly without merit and having done nothing worthy of salvation, clothed with the spotless robe of Christ's righteousness the sinner is accepted by God, with the living way laid open and life and immortality purchased, finding pardon and peace through obedience to God's commands, for Christ's word comes as a cure giving life to those diseased in soul and body and every blessing comes from Him.
Every soul apart from Christ receives life only through vital connection with Christ, as the grafted branch grows fibre by fibre and vein by vein into the living vine-stock until the life of the vine becomes the life of the branch. The union is formed by faith in Him as a personal Saviour, in which the sinner unites weakness to Christ's strength, emptiness to Christ's fulness, and frailty to Christ's enduring might. Through that union Christ's humanity touches human humanity and human humanity touches Divinity, the believer receives the mind of Christ, and through the agency of the Holy Spirit becomes a partaker of the divine nature and is accepted in the Beloved. The vital power of the Holy Spirit raises them with the same active power that raised Jesus from the dead, and the Spirit alone can make and keep people pure by expelling corruption, establishing virtue, temperance, godliness, brotherly kindness and Christlike love, bringing life to the dead, freeing the soul from slavery to sin and from condemnation of the law, bringing salvation by grace to everyone who receives it, so the converted have peace and assurance, are made free, are brought into the liberty of obedient children, and delight in the law of God in the inward person. Through Christ the springs of life vitalize human nature, transform taste, and set affections flowing toward heaven, and through the union of divine nature with human nature in Himself, Christ enlightens the understanding and infuses His life-giving power into the dead soul to make it alive.
Dead Church and World
Ephesians 2:1 shows that many who have received great light and knowledge are themselves dead in trespasses and sins, marked by coldness, insensibility, waning piety, and routine religion without heart service. With many, spiritual life is not a living, active principle because they are not in communion with the living God, and what is needed is not increase of light but surrender of the soul so that light already given becomes a living principle of action. They hear solemn truths but do not practice them, grow less aware of their value, and remain unmoved by reproof, warning, and the message of justification by faith and Christ's righteousness, without love or gratitude. Their profession without godly power leaves them lukewarm, and if they persist God will reject them as unfit for His family; those who hear but do not apply the Word to themselves are worse than dead. God weighs characters, actions, and motives, reading every motive, purpose, and thought of the heart, and those who by unfair dealings, misappropriation of funds, investing money in worldly projects, and blocking the advancement of salvation hedge up the way are weighed and found wanting. Yet others are not dead, for new life and power from on high take possession of them as the Holy Spirit works in them, and the church must not remain dead but through faith be alive to God, with creative power from above giving life to those God would use to work with divine intelligences.
The Jewish nation after rejecting Christ and choosing Barabbas became dead in trespasses and sins like a severed, fruitless branch to be gathered and burned. Its representatives denied God as ruler by saying they had no king but Caesar, and because they did not use their opportunity to repent, Jerusalem was destroyed forty years afterward and a foreign power ruled over them, leaving them with no deliverer. Henceforth as a nation they are as a branch severed from the vine, scattered from land to land throughout the world from century to century without a Saviour.
The whole world is asleep and dead in trespasses and sins, without God and without hope, and this condition is the reason the warning message must be proclaimed. Thousands and thousands who do not know the truth are out of the fold, passing into the grave unwarned and unconverted by thousands unless rescued, and those who know the truth must go out to them, labor to save them, and will render an account for souls left uncared for. Every energy believers possess should now be used to arouse the dead because the last years of probation are passing into eternity and the great day of the Lord is right upon them, with free-will offerings from burdened hearts so souls shall not perish but have everlasting life. Satan plays for those souls by seeking to secure means and bind it from missionary enterprises and to stupefy senses, while great wicked cities like New York lie under a terrible spell in moral darkness. The plan of salvation wrought out by Christ was laid open by divine revelation that there is deliverance from that dead condition through the gospel, with life and power to reach forth unto holiness, and Paul was called of God to teach this deliverance to Jew and Gentile alike.
This death is seen in the wretched victim of intemperance who refuses to break with Satan, for to be dead means to be for the time under demonic control, with mind controlled and actions directed by Satan, therefore not to be dealt with as a sane man. It reaches men weakened in moral power and for the time unsound in mind by yielding to Satan through liquor drinking, tobacco using and fiery stimulants, ruining themselves with wife and children on the road to perdition and unable to recover themselves, broken, discouraged, spiritually numb, without hope or moral strength, and harmful in influence. Thousands upon thousands in the cities are sunk in stupid lethargy, asleep as deep as if under a powerful poisonous drug, while passions are stimulated to intense activity by games, horse racing, and intemperance of every description, with fever swelling every vein and heart throbbing with restless unhallowed emotion. Being dead means being surrounded by a malarious, poisonous atmosphere that corrupts body and soul, following imaginations of a corrupt mind, dishonoring God by wicked inventions, hating God, and corrupting the way, leaving whole families steeped in licentiousness as sinful as the world before the flood and as Sodom, planting and building as in the days of Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah under threatened destruction for wicked works. Their entire tendency is toward corruption and the end is moral prostration which means death to the soul, as palsy-stricken, sin-bruised souls helpless without strength of will to overcome appetites degraded by passion. Yet Jesus works miracles today by giving life to such dead, the hardened hear His voice and live in remarkable conversions, and they are awakened, restored to manhood, and forgiven when Christians do their God-given part rather than passing by, working with His mind to seek them, speak encouraging faith-strengthening words, support the weak, befriend them when sober, and uplift the discouraged and hopeless in union with Christ the great Physician. The Holy Spirit works upon minds and hearts bringing past actions to attention and awakening shame, gratitude, and response to hope and light, and practical care including food, cleanliness, and clothing, with prayer and earnest persevering labor and continued personal labor, prepares them to hear the Word and come to Jesus, restores God's image, and sets those once dead to labor for others high and low, rich and poor, which is true medical missionary work, reaching them only by the leaven of truth, the healing fountain and balm of a Saviour's love, and the mighty quickening, recuperative, transforming energies of the Holy Spirit.
Awakening the Spiritually Dead
Those who are dead in trespasses and sins must be aroused, alarmed, warned, convicted and converted, for the solemn naked truth presented as a warning can waken them from deathlike sleep and self-indulgence. Preaching Christ crucified with awakening power must arrest their attention, convict of the evil of sin, enlighten them concerning danger, and lead them in penitence to the Saviour through earnest appeals and prayer, and those thus drawn are to tell of His love and what His converting power has done. This work is not done by display, theatrical preaching or sensational devices, for stirring preaching convicts only so far, while plain solemn appeals cut to the heart as a sharp sword, as shown in the direct preaching of John the Baptist. Startling testing messages are borne by varied workers, each reaching a class that others cannot reach.
The dead are depraved, guilty and suffering souls, often under severe temptation while Satan struggles to bring them down, and they must be met with compassion and tender sympathy as the strongest bond of union with Christ. Harsh, unsympathetic words discourage them and leave them more vulnerable to fall prey to the tempter's power, for God's justice is rightly represented only with His tenderness and great love, not with sternness and severity, and inhumanity of man toward man is the greatest sin. Earnest practical Christian service makes an impression on them and helps bring them to saving truth, and when Bible truth awakens and converts them believers are to join practical acts of charity, with established churches doing missionary work for the helpless and suffering. Even those sunk in destructive habits and unable to restore themselves, including those of valuable abilities and unusual talents who have yielded to temptation, need to be sought out and labored for with patient loving help and Christ's invitation, with food, cleanliness, clothing, health restoration united with the gospel, and labor reaching the talented and the ignorant alike to prepare them to hear and come to Jesus.
Money entrusted by God is to be used to advance His kingdom by arousing the spiritually dead and telling them of the healing balm of the Saviour's love, bringing them to know God and Christ so souls are converted and give praise and thanks. When money is used for self-glorification instead, it eclipses the glory of God, obscures heaven from view, fills the world with evil practices, and closes the door of the mind against the Redeemer. Those who do not know the truth lie in a deathlike state with benumbed spiritual senses and must be awakened by laborers who come Bible in hand, upheld by prayer as sharp sickles, decided witness, and gifts and offerings to sustain workers and establish institutions that reveal heaven's principles. Christians should humble themselves, keep appointed seasons of daily prayer and plead every day for those who seem to have little spiritual life and hearts of stone, and in pleading for God to break hard hearts they themselves become more sensitive and quicker to see personal sin, while living and working as Christ did and letting light shine.
God works through faithful messengers to give life to the dead, empowering speakers moved by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to reach them with warnings, reproofs and appeals, so that the words uttered are God's words and bear His endorsement. The power belongs to God and not to the speaker, and heaven cooperates with earnest efforts, with angels spreading their shield of love and provision made for heaven's light to shine in clear distinct rays upon believers and be reflected to others. Only Christ convicts, turns from darkness to light, pardons and gives success, and this quickening is done by the power of the Holy Spirit and not by ordained ministers alone. The Spirit's operation is known by changed lives and by conviction unto conversion, whether conviction comes intensely or gently, as those who stir up the gift, receive sanctifying power and open the heart to heaven's light lay hold of perishing souls and draw them to Christ.
Those awakened are brought into fellowship with the saints and made to sit in heavenly places with Christ, placed on a sure foundation and enabled to reach a high standard of faith, even the loftiest heights, because Christians make straight paths for their feet. This quickening takes place by a reformation through present truth that gathers the needy, oppressed, suffering and destitute into the fold and makes them members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King. The change is associated with hearing and accepting the message of truth that purifies, accepting the Sabbath of creation as God's sign, uniting with the church by baptism, and learning by obedience to God's commandments that obedience means eternal life. Through connection with divine agencies human workers reveal to the dead world the power and sufficiency of Christ, presenting another world of higher holier laws than worldly wise men can invent and a purer happiness than earth can give, and receiving divine truth and looking to Christ brings change into His likeness as depositaries of truth separate in practice from popular churches and the world for the closing scenes.
A soul dead in trespasses and sins receives life through a look of faith to the Lamb of God, for as looking at the bronze serpent brought life to the dying, so beholding the crucified uplifted Redeemer brings life to the sinner. Jesus is the sinner's righteousness and sacrifice, and justification by faith through Him as personal Saviour brings peace with God. Christ came to save those dead in sin, and His work was marked by self-denial and self-sacrifice represented by the cross, giving His life and shedding His blood to ransom them from death, becoming poor to make them rich. Those thus ransomed are to serve as stewards of God's grace, putting temporal interest second, reaching the dead through personal appeals without despising them or pushing them onto Satan's battlefield, and laboring with Him to bring others back.
To be dead in trespasses and sins is to be spiritually dead, cut off from the life of God and empty of His Spirit, unable by any human strength to live holy or to lift oneself out of that state. In time past that death showed itself in walking after the course of this world and after the prince of the power of the air, living in the lusts of the flesh and of the mind and standing by nature under wrath. But God, who is rich in mercy for His great love, even when sinners were dead quickens them together with Christ and raises them to sit with Him in heavenly places. This quickening is by grace through faith, not of selves but the gift of God, not of works, wrought by Christ who took humanity and paid sin's penalty by His death and blood and imparts life by the same power that raised Him, through the Holy Spirit and the Word. Those thus made alive are God's workmanship created in Christ unto good works, passing from death to life in thorough conversion with every faculty regenerated, turning from sin to obedient holiness and laboring to awaken and save souls still dead.
Meaning of Spiritual Death
To be dead in trespasses and sins is to be spiritually dead, severed and alienated from the life of God, destitute of spiritual life and of the Spirit of God, and in need of God to give life and quicken together with Christ. This deadness is marked by a life shaped by the world and by disobedience, following the course of the world and the desires of undisciplined hearts under Satan's influence. The Son took humanity so that fallen people made alive through Christ could receive the privileges of God's children, raised up with Him by mercy and great love, with salvation by grace through faith as God's gift and not of works, creating them anew for good works.
The dead are unaware of their danger, unconvicted and unready for death, unconcerned about eternal life, and in need of light to recognize their condition and the conflict against sin and the crucifixion that removes what separates them from Christ. They may think they are doing God's will while failing to show Christ's character, and must heed reproof, repent, and be converted before the Spirit no longer strives with them. Like the lost piece of silver they are estranged from God without knowing it, unconscious of their state as lost property, in constant danger and peril yet as unconcerned as an inanimate coin, still the Lord's property meant to bear His likeness in righteousness and true holiness and to be sought by close, earnest, persevering prayer and labor.
The dead are helpless to do good or reform character by reason, eloquence, philosophy, or any human ability, with human selfishness remaining in depravity. The sinner refusing God is controlled and enslaved by another power he does not recognize, with passion and impulse ruling, judgment blinded, reason weakened and overruled, affections and faculties corrupted and depraved, unable to realize spiritual things. Severed from the life of God the soul is utterly incapable of living a holy life of itself, striving vainly until in despair crying for deliverance, separated from the source of truth so that human nature opposes God's will, unable to see the beauty of truth, viewing truth as falsehood and falsehood as truth, and unable without change to live happily in holy heaven. Surrounded by a malarious, poisonous atmosphere corrupting body and soul, following imaginations of a corrupt mind, dishonoring God by wicked inventions, hating God and corrupting the way, whole families steeped in licentiousness cannot discern between pure affections God gave and destructive lusts, becoming as sinful as the world before the flood and Sodom and under threatened destruction for wicked works.
The dead are depraved, guilty, and suffering souls in wrongdoing and sin who need compassion and to know Bible truth. They are diseased in soul and body, palsied and wounded, enemies of God through wicked works, serving sinful desires and enslaved to sin and Satan, lost and strayed as strangers to God. They are often under severe temptation and stress while Satan struggles and wrestles to bring them down, so harsh unsympathetic words discourage them and leave them more vulnerable to his power, while God's justice is rightly represented only with His tenderness and great love.
Death came by disobeying God's commands, by which man fell under condemnation of the law, calling for grace to appear in behalf of sinners. This death belongs both to the poor outright sinner, sinful, unworthy, hopeless and helpless with heart darkened by sin, and to the professing Christian who has known Christ yet clings to sins and retains old habits and defects without thorough conversion and reformation. To remain dead is to remain unconverted and untransformed, unpurified and incomplete in Christ with spot and blemish still present, having lost all sense of how offensive sin is and sometimes mingling truth with error to confuse minds, shutting the person out of God's kingdom since Christ's blood cannot avail for one refusing to be converted and made complete in Him. It was seen in those who would not receive Christ even while looking on His evidences in curing disease, whose unbelief would not yield because yielding required confessing themselves sinners, but who held wicked purposes and said He worked through the devil, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost with no forgiveness in this world nor the world to come.
Former Life in Sin
In time past those dead in trespasses and sins walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air working in the children of disobedience. That prince is not Jesus but Satan, the enemy of God. This deadness was a former way of life shaped by the world, by Satan's influence, and by disobedience, a life from which God gives life together with Christ by grace. To walk thus is to be under Satan working with ingenious, masterly, deceiving power in mind and heart, and the following verses explain the change as being made alive with Christ and raised with Him from a life shaped by world and disobedience to life in Christ. Genuine conversion turns from that wrong course, bringing the mind under Christ's control to be refined, purified, and elevated by His grace.
That former life was lived in the lusts of the flesh and in the desires of the flesh and of the mind, fulfilling them. Those who so lived walked according to the world and under the power of the spirit working in the disobedient, following fleshly desires in conduct. By nature they were children of wrath and stood under wrath. Before quickening they followed the course of the world and the influence of the prince of the power of the air, living in the lusts of the flesh and by nature children of wrath. When the wicked forsake their way and thoughts and return to the Lord for abundant pardon, God quickens those who were dead in just this condition.
Satan's control in that state is ingenious, masterly, and deceiving, producing rebellion and disobedience, overthrowing restraint and parental control, misjudging and alienating hearts from those who should be one in mind and spirit and action, and ruining parents by a son's course. The world and churches in this death lie under a terrible spell, needing to be aroused, warned, converted, and educated. Those in sin are held under Satan's banner in a spell cast with fierce determination to retain and destroy every soul that has had light and evidence, their minds and hearts darkened because he eclipses with his hellish shadow every ray of light that would enter them, leaving them in torpor and eagerly keeping out merciful help. Fallen humanity lies in a death-like torpor, with insensibility and lethargy laid over them like a funeral pall by Satan, which must first be met and penetrated. To be dead is to be surrounded by a malarious, poisonous atmosphere that corrupts body and soul, following imaginations of a corrupt mind, dishonoring God by wicked inventions, hating God and corrupting the way before Him, until whole families are steeped in licentiousness and cannot discern between the pure affections God gave to human nature and destructive lusts indulged by wicked inventions, becoming as sinful as the world before the flood and the inhabitants of Sodom and bringing themselves under threatened destruction for wicked works. For the time the wretched victim who refuses to break with Satan is under the control of a demon, with mind controlled and actions directed by Satan, and therefore not to be dealt with as a sane man.
Those dead in trespasses and sins are subjects of worldly kingdoms who have wandered from allegiance to God and from obedience to the law of His kingdom, destitute of the Spirit of God which works in the children of obedience. They are dead to all aspirations in trespasses and sins. Being dead means being wholly absorbed in business, in pleasure at the gaming table, in indulgence of perverted appetite, and in frequenting the theater and ballroom, putting eternity out of reckoning, with the whole burden what to eat and drink and wear. They are not moving heavenward but are led by the great apostate, and if they continue they will be destroyed with him, perishing in sins and dying by thousands without God and without hope of eternal life. Their death in sin shows in wasting the inheritance God gave them, selling their birthright as Esau did for a mess of pottage and betraying sacred interests entrusted for the blessing of humanity, by indulging intemperate appetites and falling through greed for money into dishonest practices. Unlike worldly kingdoms, which find their subjects, Christ makes His subjects, bringing those who were dead under the bloodstained banner of Prince Emmanuel as subjects of a kingdom not recognized by worldly kingdoms.
God Gives New Life
God, rich in mercy for His great love, even when people were dead in sins quickens them together with Christ, raises them up together, and makes them sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Those so raised are not left as independent atoms but are made wholly one with Him, so identified with Christ as He was one with the Father. The Son took humanity so that fallen people could become children of God and receive the privileges of God's children. This making alive is salvation by grace through faith, not of selves but the gift of God, not of works lest any should boast, so thoughts of self-exaltation are not to be cherished and all good works are seen as dependent on a power outside ourselves.
New life comes because Christ as Substitute and Surety suffered sin's penalty, paid it by His death and blood and merits, and those who receive Him may be accepted before God through His merits and become new creatures with a new nature living a new life in Christ. He imparts life by the same resurrection and creative power that raised Jesus and that gives life to the body, and He continues as Restorer, Physician, and the light and life of men who can deliver souls dead in trespasses from the chains of sin. It is given through the vivifying influence of His Holy Spirit, without which a person will never see the kingdom of God, and through hearing the Word, with believing on Christ, receiving Him, and being renewed in mind joined to the new life. Acceptance does not continue alongside transgression but includes the obligation to obey God's law, and as the paralytic acted on Christ's word and received strength, sinners are to believe His word and choose to serve Him.
God quickens in order to show in the ages to come the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness through Christ Jesus. That oneness with Christ is the highest measure of character and the richest blessing any human can enjoy. His chain is long enough to reach the very lowest depths of human woe and misery, so no sinner needs to keep away from God. The quickening answers Satan's device of leading people into sin and then leaving them naked and trembling and afraid to come boldly to ask pardon, giving instead reason not to heed the tempter but to come for mercy and grace. Through Christ hope, faith, and peace are within reach with access by one Spirit to the Father, for the salvation is from sins, not in sins; God loved people while they were dead in trespasses and sins, and He continues to love them when they permit Him to take away their sins, cleanse, purify and sanctify them, impute to them Christ's righteousness, restore the moral image of God, and lift them into enjoyment of His love and grace.
To be quickened is to pass from death to life by thorough conversion and regeneration, feeling the offensive character of sin with hearty repentance and true faith and a broken and contrite heart, receiving God's promised forgiveness and the privileges and liberty of the sons of God. It is an inward, invisible, radical change of heart like leaven changing meal into bread, cleansing the heart from impurity and fitting it for service for God. No new faculties are supplied and identity is not lost, but every faculty is regenerated in its employment, natural inclinations are softened and subdued, divine grace subdues the sinful desires of the natural heart, and new thoughts, new feelings, and new motives are implanted and then revealed in the life with widened and altogether different thoughts. This quickening is the same formation of character as being born again, taught in parable by the washings and sprinklings enjoined in the ceremonial law, and it is a renewal and strengthening of mind and heart, a resurrection from spiritual death in which darkness gives way to light and love of sin to love of purity and holiness.
Marks of the Quickened
Those made alive are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works before ordained, and the new life is marked by good works and faithful service dedicating abilities to God's glory. This quickening puts the mind of Christ in all who stop relying on themselves and put trust in a power out of and above themselves, enabling them to become doers of Christ's words, to practice His lessons, and to work in harmony with God as laborers together with Christ. As branches drawing nourishment from Christ the living Vine they bear the same kind of fruit as the parent stock, instead of walking as before according to the course of this world and the prince of the power of the air.
Genuine conversion turns from wrong and escapes all sin, all defects of character, and every sinful propensity. Being made alive means passing from death to life through thorough conversion, feeling the offensive character of sin, experiencing hearty repentance and true faith with a broken and contrite heart, receiving God's promised forgiveness, and entering the privileges and liberty of the sons of God. It produces an evident change in disposition and character from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, by which a true child of God is distinguished from a presumptuous self-deceiver who remains in bondage, spiritually blind, grasping only the shadow of truth. The mind brought under Christ's control and shaped by His grace becomes refined, purified, and elevated, with new tastes and motives, meekness, gentleness, humility and humble holy joy that abases self. Learning what Christ is to those He has ransomed and believing on Him gives the privilege of partaking of the divine nature and escaping the corruption in the world through lust, because Christ is the Sin-bearer who takes away the sin of the world, and through the merits of His blood they may become new creatures with a new nature and live a new life in Christ. An unchanged life can bring harmful influence into Christian institutions, for those not made alive remain governed by the desires of the flesh and mind and belong to the condition described as children of wrath, and this evil spirit appears in their conduct.
The quickened are restored and accepted as laborers together with God to go work in His vineyard as God's husbandry and God's building, where Adam through believing Satan's misrepresentations and disobeying lost the privilege of working in Eden. The converted soul thus quickened has the same work to do with Christ for other souls still dead in trespasses and sins, bearing the burden for souls and making personal effort in the name of Jesus to bring them to a knowledge of the truth. Christians who have received divine grace are to help raise the dead to newness of life by sharing the blessing they received from Christ and pointing them to Him as their source of strength, as Christ worked. Every truly converted person firmly established in the truth is made alive as a light-bearer to the world through whom Christ shines in a world shrouded in moral darkness, and a few such truly converted souls are of infinitely more value than a large number who remain dead. Their conversion and new birth make their lives a testimony to the world that they have been born again, and as peacemakers they receive the blessing promised to peacemakers and are called the children of God.
Those made alive are to show the world what it means to sit together in heavenly places in Christ and to show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness through Christ Jesus, bringing that kindness into their dealings with one another. This calls for laying pride and dignity at the feet of Christ, leaving childish pettishness, envy, jealousy, evil surmisings, strife, malice and hatred, and cherishing unity and love for one another so that by unity and love and by good fruit as a tree known by its fruit all men understand they are Christians. Christ's death quickens people through faith in Him to become genuine Christians, sanctified through the truth and made one in Him through the righteousness of Christ. Those made alive are to bring the truth into all their works, to live separate from the world and distinguished from it by faith as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, and to show the dead world by holy living that they are a holy nation, a peculiar people, a chosen generation, zealous of good works. As Christ's witnesses bound by baptismal vow, they let their light shine through good works so the world may glorify the Father in heaven, belonging to God through lives sanctified by truth.
No sinner needs to keep away from God, for the quickening answers Satan's device of leading people into sin and then leaving them naked and trembling and afraid to come boldly to ask pardon, and God's promise gives reason not to heed the tempter but to come for mercy and grace with hope, faith, and peace within reach and access by one Spirit to the Father. His death pays sin's penalty, and those who receive Him as Saviour may be accepted before God through His merits, with new life joined to believing in Christ, receiving Him, and being renewed in mind, and acceptance not continuing alongside transgression but including the obligation to obey God's law. The blood of the Son of God redeems transgressors of God's law, and the sacrifice makes it possible for them to return to allegiance to God's commandments, as the sinner looks to Christ as the propitiation for sin, hates the sins that wounded Him, and keeps a contrite heart while regarding Him as a compassionate, tender High Priest. A person becomes holy and acceptable to God only when Christ's grace, received through faith and expressed in obedience to truth, cleanses the heart from within, for ceremonial washings taught inward regeneration and the Holy Spirit's sanctifying power, and religious services and association with God-fearing people cannot make a sinner righteous, nor do good works done while refusing God's way of salvation remove sin's defilement. He who knew no sin was made sin for them, bearing their iniquities, dying though He did nothing worthy of death, living as their Advocate, that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him, and though wholly without merit and having done nothing worthy of salvation, clothed with the spotless robe of Christ's righteousness the sinner is accepted by God, with the living way laid open and life and immortality purchased, finding pardon and peace through obedience to God's commands, for Christ's word comes as a cure giving life to those diseased in soul and body and every blessing comes from Him.
Every soul apart from Christ receives life only through vital connection with Christ, as the grafted branch grows fibre by fibre and vein by vein into the living vine-stock until the life of the vine becomes the life of the branch. The union is formed by faith in Him as a personal Saviour, in which the sinner unites weakness to Christ's strength, emptiness to Christ's fulness, and frailty to Christ's enduring might. Through that union Christ's humanity touches human humanity and human humanity touches Divinity, the believer receives the mind of Christ, and through the agency of the Holy Spirit becomes a partaker of the divine nature and is accepted in the Beloved. The vital power of the Holy Spirit raises them with the same active power that raised Jesus from the dead, and the Spirit alone can make and keep people pure by expelling corruption, establishing virtue, temperance, godliness, brotherly kindness and Christlike love, bringing life to the dead, freeing the soul from slavery to sin and from condemnation of the law, bringing salvation by grace to everyone who receives it, so the converted have peace and assurance, are made free, are brought into the liberty of obedient children, and delight in the law of God in the inward person. Through Christ the springs of life vitalize human nature, transform taste, and set affections flowing toward heaven, and through the union of divine nature with human nature in Himself, Christ enlightens the understanding and infuses His life-giving power into the dead soul to make it alive.
Dead Church and World
Ephesians 2:1 shows that many who have received great light and knowledge are themselves dead in trespasses and sins, marked by coldness, insensibility, waning piety, and routine religion without heart service. With many, spiritual life is not a living, active principle because they are not in communion with the living God, and what is needed is not increase of light but surrender of the soul so that light already given becomes a living principle of action. They hear solemn truths but do not practice them, grow less aware of their value, and remain unmoved by reproof, warning, and the message of justification by faith and Christ's righteousness, without love or gratitude. Their profession without godly power leaves them lukewarm, and if they persist God will reject them as unfit for His family; those who hear but do not apply the Word to themselves are worse than dead. God weighs characters, actions, and motives, reading every motive, purpose, and thought of the heart, and those who by unfair dealings, misappropriation of funds, investing money in worldly projects, and blocking the advancement of salvation hedge up the way are weighed and found wanting. Yet others are not dead, for new life and power from on high take possession of them as the Holy Spirit works in them, and the church must not remain dead but through faith be alive to God, with creative power from above giving life to those God would use to work with divine intelligences.
The Jewish nation after rejecting Christ and choosing Barabbas became dead in trespasses and sins like a severed, fruitless branch to be gathered and burned. Its representatives denied God as ruler by saying they had no king but Caesar, and because they did not use their opportunity to repent, Jerusalem was destroyed forty years afterward and a foreign power ruled over them, leaving them with no deliverer. Henceforth as a nation they are as a branch severed from the vine, scattered from land to land throughout the world from century to century without a Saviour.
The whole world is asleep and dead in trespasses and sins, without God and without hope, and this condition is the reason the warning message must be proclaimed. Thousands and thousands who do not know the truth are out of the fold, passing into the grave unwarned and unconverted by thousands unless rescued, and those who know the truth must go out to them, labor to save them, and will render an account for souls left uncared for. Every energy believers possess should now be used to arouse the dead because the last years of probation are passing into eternity and the great day of the Lord is right upon them, with free-will offerings from burdened hearts so souls shall not perish but have everlasting life. Satan plays for those souls by seeking to secure means and bind it from missionary enterprises and to stupefy senses, while great wicked cities like New York lie under a terrible spell in moral darkness. The plan of salvation wrought out by Christ was laid open by divine revelation that there is deliverance from that dead condition through the gospel, with life and power to reach forth unto holiness, and Paul was called of God to teach this deliverance to Jew and Gentile alike.
This death is seen in the wretched victim of intemperance who refuses to break with Satan, for to be dead means to be for the time under demonic control, with mind controlled and actions directed by Satan, therefore not to be dealt with as a sane man. It reaches men weakened in moral power and for the time unsound in mind by yielding to Satan through liquor drinking, tobacco using and fiery stimulants, ruining themselves with wife and children on the road to perdition and unable to recover themselves, broken, discouraged, spiritually numb, without hope or moral strength, and harmful in influence. Thousands upon thousands in the cities are sunk in stupid lethargy, asleep as deep as if under a powerful poisonous drug, while passions are stimulated to intense activity by games, horse racing, and intemperance of every description, with fever swelling every vein and heart throbbing with restless unhallowed emotion. Being dead means being surrounded by a malarious, poisonous atmosphere that corrupts body and soul, following imaginations of a corrupt mind, dishonoring God by wicked inventions, hating God, and corrupting the way, leaving whole families steeped in licentiousness as sinful as the world before the flood and as Sodom, planting and building as in the days of Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah under threatened destruction for wicked works. Their entire tendency is toward corruption and the end is moral prostration which means death to the soul, as palsy-stricken, sin-bruised souls helpless without strength of will to overcome appetites degraded by passion. Yet Jesus works miracles today by giving life to such dead, the hardened hear His voice and live in remarkable conversions, and they are awakened, restored to manhood, and forgiven when Christians do their God-given part rather than passing by, working with His mind to seek them, speak encouraging faith-strengthening words, support the weak, befriend them when sober, and uplift the discouraged and hopeless in union with Christ the great Physician. The Holy Spirit works upon minds and hearts bringing past actions to attention and awakening shame, gratitude, and response to hope and light, and practical care including food, cleanliness, and clothing, with prayer and earnest persevering labor and continued personal labor, prepares them to hear the Word and come to Jesus, restores God's image, and sets those once dead to labor for others high and low, rich and poor, which is true medical missionary work, reaching them only by the leaven of truth, the healing fountain and balm of a Saviour's love, and the mighty quickening, recuperative, transforming energies of the Holy Spirit.
Awakening the Spiritually Dead
Those who are dead in trespasses and sins must be aroused, alarmed, warned, convicted and converted, for the solemn naked truth presented as a warning can waken them from deathlike sleep and self-indulgence. Preaching Christ crucified with awakening power must arrest their attention, convict of the evil of sin, enlighten them concerning danger, and lead them in penitence to the Saviour through earnest appeals and prayer, and those thus drawn are to tell of His love and what His converting power has done. This work is not done by display, theatrical preaching or sensational devices, for stirring preaching convicts only so far, while plain solemn appeals cut to the heart as a sharp sword, as shown in the direct preaching of John the Baptist. Startling testing messages are borne by varied workers, each reaching a class that others cannot reach.
The dead are depraved, guilty and suffering souls, often under severe temptation while Satan struggles to bring them down, and they must be met with compassion and tender sympathy as the strongest bond of union with Christ. Harsh, unsympathetic words discourage them and leave them more vulnerable to fall prey to the tempter's power, for God's justice is rightly represented only with His tenderness and great love, not with sternness and severity, and inhumanity of man toward man is the greatest sin. Earnest practical Christian service makes an impression on them and helps bring them to saving truth, and when Bible truth awakens and converts them believers are to join practical acts of charity, with established churches doing missionary work for the helpless and suffering. Even those sunk in destructive habits and unable to restore themselves, including those of valuable abilities and unusual talents who have yielded to temptation, need to be sought out and labored for with patient loving help and Christ's invitation, with food, cleanliness, clothing, health restoration united with the gospel, and labor reaching the talented and the ignorant alike to prepare them to hear and come to Jesus.
Money entrusted by God is to be used to advance His kingdom by arousing the spiritually dead and telling them of the healing balm of the Saviour's love, bringing them to know God and Christ so souls are converted and give praise and thanks. When money is used for self-glorification instead, it eclipses the glory of God, obscures heaven from view, fills the world with evil practices, and closes the door of the mind against the Redeemer. Those who do not know the truth lie in a deathlike state with benumbed spiritual senses and must be awakened by laborers who come Bible in hand, upheld by prayer as sharp sickles, decided witness, and gifts and offerings to sustain workers and establish institutions that reveal heaven's principles. Christians should humble themselves, keep appointed seasons of daily prayer and plead every day for those who seem to have little spiritual life and hearts of stone, and in pleading for God to break hard hearts they themselves become more sensitive and quicker to see personal sin, while living and working as Christ did and letting light shine.
God works through faithful messengers to give life to the dead, empowering speakers moved by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to reach them with warnings, reproofs and appeals, so that the words uttered are God's words and bear His endorsement. The power belongs to God and not to the speaker, and heaven cooperates with earnest efforts, with angels spreading their shield of love and provision made for heaven's light to shine in clear distinct rays upon believers and be reflected to others. Only Christ convicts, turns from darkness to light, pardons and gives success, and this quickening is done by the power of the Holy Spirit and not by ordained ministers alone. The Spirit's operation is known by changed lives and by conviction unto conversion, whether conviction comes intensely or gently, as those who stir up the gift, receive sanctifying power and open the heart to heaven's light lay hold of perishing souls and draw them to Christ.
Those awakened are brought into fellowship with the saints and made to sit in heavenly places with Christ, placed on a sure foundation and enabled to reach a high standard of faith, even the loftiest heights, because Christians make straight paths for their feet. This quickening takes place by a reformation through present truth that gathers the needy, oppressed, suffering and destitute into the fold and makes them members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King. The change is associated with hearing and accepting the message of truth that purifies, accepting the Sabbath of creation as God's sign, uniting with the church by baptism, and learning by obedience to God's commandments that obedience means eternal life. Through connection with divine agencies human workers reveal to the dead world the power and sufficiency of Christ, presenting another world of higher holier laws than worldly wise men can invent and a purer happiness than earth can give, and receiving divine truth and looking to Christ brings change into His likeness as depositaries of truth separate in practice from popular churches and the world for the closing scenes.
A soul dead in trespasses and sins receives life through a look of faith to the Lamb of God, for as looking at the bronze serpent brought life to the dying, so beholding the crucified uplifted Redeemer brings life to the sinner. Jesus is the sinner's righteousness and sacrifice, and justification by faith through Him as personal Saviour brings peace with God. Christ came to save those dead in sin, and His work was marked by self-denial and self-sacrifice represented by the cross, giving His life and shedding His blood to ransom them from death, becoming poor to make them rich. Those thus ransomed are to serve as stewards of God's grace, putting temporal interest second, reaching the dead through personal appeals without despising them or pushing them onto Satan's battlefield, and laboring with Him to bring others back.