ACC ~ Ephesians 2 v1 - 3

OVERVIEW:

The body’s faults alone cannot kill, as if without a soul or will (CHRYSOSTOM). Death has two meanings: the soul’s separation from the body and the soul’s pursuit of sin (MARIUS VICTORINUS). The world as created is not evil (TERTULLIAN). The devil has corrupted the world in his desire to have accomplices (AMBROSIASTER). Human nature has become voluntarily subject to his sway (CHRYSOSTOM). The children of disobedience are subject to the devil by choice, however, and not by their created nature (MARIUS VICTORINUS). Christians are given grace to resist him (THEODORET). Paul confesses his past transgressions (JEROME). Admonishing both immorality and heresy, Paul describes the voluntary disobedience of sinners as their sin nature (PSEUDO-AUGUSTINE), relying on scriptural precedent (GREGORY OF NYSSA) and implying that our first nature has been corrupted (AUGUSTINE), according to Scripture (GREGORY OF NYSSA).

2:1 | Dead in Trespasses and Sins

DEAD IN SIN. MARIUS VICTORINUS: Death is understood in two ways. The first is the familiar definition—when the soul is separated from the body at the end of life. The second is that, while abiding in that same body, the soul pursues the desires of the flesh and lives in sin. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.2.1-2.

THE SOUL SINS FROM CHOICE, NOT NATURE. CHRYSOSTOM: There is a distinction between the death of the body and the death of the soul. There is no reproach in the death of the body as such and hence no moral danger since there is no reproach. The body’s death is merely a matter of nature, not of choice. This death had its origin in the transgression of the first human being, and thereafter it has had its subsequent effect on nature. Its re-lease will be swift. But the death of the soul is the result of free choice. Hence it entails re-proach, from which there is no easy release. It is a much weightier task to heal a deadened soul than to raise a dead body, as Paul has already shown. Yet this is what has now happened, incredible as it may be. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 4.2.1-3.

TRESPASS DISTINGUISHED FROM SIN. JEROME: [The Greeks] speak of trespass as the first step toward sin. It is when a secret thought steals in, and, though we offer a measure of collusion, it does not yet drive us on to ruin. … But sin is something else. It is when the collusion is actually completed and reaches its goal. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.2.1 SEQ.

2:2a | Walking in Sin, Following the Course of This World

THE COURSE OF THIS WORLD. TERTULLIAN: “Once you followed the course of this world.” World here is completely distinguishable from God. For the creature is unlike the Creator, the artifact unlike its Maker, the world unlike God. Similarly when Paul speaks of those who “follow the prince of the power of the air” he is referring not to the one God who holds sway over all the ages. For the one who presides over higher authorities is never classified by reference to one lower. AGAINST MARCION 5.17.7-8.

2:2b | Following the Prince of the Power of the Air

HOW THE DEVIL CORRUPTED THE WORLD. AMBROSIASTER: He indicates that the prince of power, that is, the devil, has corrupted the understanding of the world to make it depart from the one God and conceive a belief in many gods. In this way the devil made them associates in his own conspiracy, seeing that they were found to exhibit the same impiety in their denial of the one God. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.2.1-3.

THE DEVIL AS COLLABORATOR. CHRYSOSTOM: Do you see Paul’s gentleness, how he everywhere soothes his hearer and avoids burdening him? For having said that they had arrived at the extreme consequence of evil (for what else does “being dead” mean?) … he provides them with a collaborator, so that they themselves will not be held accountable alone for their plight but share responsibility with a powerful accomplice, the devil. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 4.2.1-3.

THE POWERS OF THE DEVIL. CHRYSOSTOM: Why does he call the devil the ruler of this world? Because virtually the whole of humanity surrendered to him. All are his voluntary and willing slaves. Few pay any heed to Christ, who promises unnumbered blessings. Rather they follow after the devil, who promises nothing but leads them all to hell. He rules in this age, where he has … more subjects than God, more who obey him rather than God. All but a few are in his grasp on account of their laxity. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 4.2.1-3.

2:2c | The Spirit at Work in the Children of Disobedience

HOW THE SATANIC SPIRIT WORKS. MARIUS VICTORINUS: Light and dark are two things, as are truth and falsehood, goodness and wickedness. But they are not to be imagined as equal, for it is not pious to compare anything to God, even by contraries. So we are to understand that there are two spirits, one of faith and one of disobedience. Satan and his devils have their substance from air, that is, from material reality. They derive their power in that same way, over those who think materially. The prince of that power which is in the air works through matter. He is therefore that spirit now at work through material means among the children of disobedience. He possesses their minds and has dominion over them. Therefore the one who lives “according to the course of this world lives according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit who is now at work in the children of disobedience.” EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.2.1-2.

THE CHILDREN OF DISOBEDIENCE. THEODORET: Long ago, before the Fall, a certain authority was primordially entrusted to the devil. But falling from this through wickedness he became a teacher of impiety and wickedness. Yet he does not have power over all but only over those who do not receive divine revelation. These Paul calls “sons of disobedience.” EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.1-2.

2:3a | Living in the Passions of Our Flesh

THE IDOLATRY-PRONE PLEASURES OF THE FLESH. AMBROSIASTER: He is speaking of a great deception when he brings to mind the “passions of the flesh.” For the pleasure of the flesh means being delighted by the visible, so that it gives the name of gods to the elements that God appointed as his means of ordering the world. But this name [God] belongs rightly to the one and only God, from whom everything derives. … If anyone imagines that the “passions of the flesh” mean anything else, let him reflect on how the apostle led a pure life. He lived without blemish according to the righteousness of the law. But because he had persecuted the church he includes himself in the “we”—“we lived in the passions of our flesh.” For every sin, according to Paul, has something to do with the deception associated with living according to the flesh, which is the mother of all corruption. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.3.1-3.

PAUL INCLUDES HIMSELF. CHRYSOSTOM: Paul encourages them by including himself with them. “Among these,” he says, “we all once lived.” All are included. It is not possible to say that anyone is exempted. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 2.3.

THE SINS IN WHICH WE ALL ONCE LIVED. JEROME: So that he would not appear to have exempted himself through pride when he said “your sins in which you walked,” he now adds “in which we also lived.” However, the one who says he has lived confesses past, not present, transgressions. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.2.1 SEQ.

2:3b | Following the Desires of Body and Mind

DISTINGUISHING SIN OF THE FLESH AND OF THE MIND. JEROME: There is a difference between sin of the flesh and sin of the mind. The sin of the flesh is indecency and profligacy and whatever might act as instrument to its lusts. The transgression of the mind pertains to doctrine contrary to truth and to the baseness of heretics. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.2.1 SEQ.

2:3c | By Nature Children of Wrath

THE LORD DOES NOT DIRECTLY WILL WRATH APART FROM HUMAN CHOICE. TERTULLIAN: As a Jew Paul had been one of the “children of unbelief” in whom “the devil was at work,” especially when he persecuted the church and the Christ of the Creator. On this account he says, “We were by nature children of wrath.” But he says “by nature” so that a heretic could not argue that it was the Lord who created evil. We create the grounds for the Creator’s wrath ourselves. AGAINST MARCION 5.17.9-10.

“BY NATURE” DEFINED AS HUMAN WILLING. PSEUDO-AUGUSTINE: Undoubtedly the will passes for nature—for it is from their will, not their nature, that people are judged. Similarly all the martyrs and the justified are upright not because they were born faithful but because they were reborn so. QUESTIONS ON THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS 115.11.

“BY WRATH” IMPLIES BY CHOICE. GREGORY OF NYSSA: When [Scripture] speaks of “sons of men” or “sons of rams,” it indicates an essential relation between the one begotten and the source of his begetting. But when it speaks of “sons of power” [as at 1 Sam 14:52] or “children of wrath,” it asserts a connection made by choice. AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3.1.116.

WHETHER SIN IS RIGHTLY SPOKEN OF AS NATURAL. AUGUSTINE: We speak of “nature” in two ways. When we are speaking strictly of nature itself, we mean the nature in which humanity was originally created—after God’s own image and without fault. The other way we speak of nature refers to that fallen sin nature, in which we are self-deceived and subject to the flesh as the penalty for our condemnation. The apostle adopts this way of speaking when he says “for we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.” ON NATURE AND GRACE 81.

HOW THE CORRUPTION OF OUR NATURE IS STILL RUNNING ITS COURSE. AUGUSTINE: What then is meant by this wickedness of the natural man and of those who … “by nature” are children of wrath? Could this possibly be the nature created in Adam? That created nature was debased in him. It has run and is running its course now through everyone by nature, so that nothing frees us from condemnation except the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. ON MARRIAGE AND CONCUPISCENCE 2.20.