Ephesians 2:1 And you has he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; When there is an estrangement of the soul from the Spirit of God and Christ, sanctifying, and comforting, and cheering it, then there is a death of the soul. The soul can no more act anything that is savingly and holily good, than the body can be without the soul. And as the body without the soul is a noisome, odious carcass, offensive in the eyes of its dearest friends, so the soul, without the Spirit of Christ quickening and seasoning it, and putting a comeliness and beauty upon it, is odious. All the clothes and flowers you put on a dead body cannot make it but a stinking carcass; so all the moral virtues, and all the honours in this world, put upon a man out of Christ, it makes him not a spiritual living soul; he is but a loathsome carrion, a dead carcass, in the sight of God and of all that have the Spirit of God. For he is under death. He is stark and stiff, unable to stir or move to any duty whatsoever. He has no sense nor motion. Though such men live a common natural civil life, and walk up and down, yet they are dead men to God and to a better life. The world is full el dead men, that are dead while they are alive, as St. Paul speaks of the "widow that lives in pleasures" (1 Timothy 5:6). A fearful estate, if we had spiritual eyes to see it and think of it. (R. Sibbes, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;WEB: You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins, |
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