[For the first pass at this weekend's lesson, see here.]
Verse-by-verse comments:
1You were dead through the trespasses and sins
(1) Many explanations are offered of the uses of we and you in this section. Some claim to see a distinction being drawn between Jewish and Gentile Christians. I frankly don't see it. Clearly, when the term we is used, it's referring to all believers in Christ, irrespective of their ethnic or religious backgrounds.
(2) As in verse 5 or in Colossians 2:13, the writer has in mind the state of alienation from God that predates a relationship with Christ.
(3) The connection between sin and death in vv. 1-3 is typical of Paul (check out Romans 5:12-21; First Corinthians 15:56; Colossians 2:13).
(4) NIB points out that the assertion in vv. 1-3 that the power of sin is the evil set loose in the universe. This argues in favor of Paul's authorship, reflecting as it does his cosmology.
2in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.
(1) The air was the place that Paul often located the demonic.
(2) See Ephesians 6:11-12 and Colossians 1:13.
3All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.
(1) "passions of the flesh" doesn't mean sexual desire. It has to do with the sinful impulse to live for the self or for instant, personal gratification. It can refer to such things as that second piece of cake after dinner, fishing for a compliment, or pretending to be asleep when someone calls for our help. Living for the flesh is the opposite of the Christian's call to live in love for God and neighbor, or in subordination to God's will for optimal personal living. It also means, as one commentator has said, living "apart from God's redemptive power."
(2) "wrath" refers not so much to the enacted anger of God (though God can and does get angry), but to the consequences of living outside the bounds of good living as established by God.
(3) "children of wrath" refers to our inborn circumstances, inherited from Adam. (Check out Psalm 51)
4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
(1) God refuses to give up on us, even in our fallenness.
(2) NIB points out that if Ephesians 1:15-23 describes God's power, this section of Ephesians describes God's love.
(3) By His enthronement, all who believe in Him are raised up and enthroned with Him.
(4) The three with statements are interrupted by the phrase, by grace you have been saved. We are with Christ through the power of God's grace.
(5) Grace translates the New Testament Greek word of charitas (transliterated into English as charity). This is the undeserved merit and favor of God, displayed in Christ toward those who, on their own, are hopelessly dead in our trespasses and sins. (That's all of us, folks.)
8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
(1) God's grace, which is accessed by faith in Jesus Christ, is a gift we cannot earn. It comes from the God Who made us to live in a community of love for God and others, expressed in a lifestyle of servanthood which God prepared for us before we were born.
[Among the commentaries I've consulted this week are two by Chris Haslam here and here.]
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