The Walking Dead, Part 2, Eph, 2:1-3 & Col, 1:21

Good morning. We'll be looking this morning at the passage that Mike read for us here in Ephesians 2, 1-3 and Colossians 1.21.

Words to this are also on the first slide on your handout. And last week, remember, we called this the Walking Dead, Part 1, as we were looking at this passage. And as you recall, as we looked at the passage, we brought up the point that this word formerly comes up. Repeatedly twice there in the Ephesians passage and then again in Colossians the formerly and but now Contrast he's writing to believers and so he's saying your former state was like this your but now state is like this Because you were formerly of that that condition there the Ephesians 2 1 through 3 describes the formerly as well as that first part of Colossians 121 And then the next section in Ephesians 4-10 covers the but now. Here is the condition you're in now.

You remember that we pointed out that death is separation. We went into quite a bit of detail on that. Passages right here as well as further passages that we'll be looking at in Ephesians continually and consistently lay out that death means separation. Separation from the life of God is one of the key points there.

One of the things I think to keep in mind as we look at this passage is that if you were new to what Paul was teaching, what he was just saying in these verses would be rather shocking news. If you were somebody who was living in Ephesus, imagine you're living in this bustling city.

It's a center of activity. People and goods are moving in and out. You've got main Roman roads coming in from land. You've got shipments coming in as far away as China. You've got shipments going out and you're carrying goods off over to Rome and you're taking goods from the European mainland all the way back to China. So there's a center of bustling commercial activity.

It boasted one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Temple of Artemis. Why, we've got this great temple. I mean, a phenomenal thing. You've got to see it, right? You can imagine the people looking at that. Something else that most folks pass on, there was a tree of life in the middle of the marketplace there at Ephesus, a fake one. You couldn't get anything from it, but it was called that anyway. The Ephesians had every reason to believe, based on what they saw and lived, that this was a lively bunch of folks. For them to have Paul write and say, and you were dead, if that was the first time you've heard of it, would be just shocking, startling things to hear.

The other thing that you recall we talked about, Paul introduced here in Ephesians 2.2 this term walk, not as put one foot in front of the other, but as a manner of speaking, this is our daily life, this is our personal living, our lifestyle. And he introduces the word here, we've seen it in Colossians, and we're going to see it again in both books. This is this Greek word parapateo, to walk about.

And the key thing that he's pointing out here is the unbelievers are walking about from one source, the flesh. You remember there was this point that we made. Both believers and unbelievers are walking. The difference comes in what they are walking and where they're walking. The unbeliever is walking in trespasses and sins and in lusts of the flesh. The believer is in Christ positionally. A sharp distinction that he makes here Where are you walking? Both are walking, but where they're walking. Key distinction.

We also pointed out the trespasses and sins that he spells out here right in the very first verse. Trespasses are falling off the path that God has designed and designated by both nature and actions. This is not just standing off to the side of the path while somebody walks by. This is a path just like you see in the picture. You step off the path and it's a long way down.

We pointed out that sins were a missing of the mark, not just so inconsequential as just not hitting the bullseye, but a serious missing of the mark. It's a serious moral and spiritual failure to be consistent with the glory of God and His character. In each case, trespasses and sins, God's character is the standard, not human beings.

Now we look at The Walking Dead Part 2. We're looking at the other aspect of this passage here in front of us, and the other aspect we're looking at is the Terminal Trio, we called them last week. Now remember, the Terminal Trio is not Brian and Julia and Ella, okay? That's not the Terminal Trio, and the reason we don't call them the Terminal Trios, we still have Josiah and Annemarie and Scott and Amy Jenkins to follow up here. So, they're not the Terminal Trio. The Terminal Trios, we pointed out, is the world, the flesh, and the devil, okay? Don't equate Brian and Julia and Ella with that.

Okay, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Now, we saw that everyone before Christ who is in Adam, okay, is spiritually dead, separated from the life of God, okay? Now, every person that has a genealogical connection to Adam is entirely controlled by, that is, walking in the flesh, walking in the sinful nature.

He spells that out here. You see, people who walk the flesh, by the flesh here on planet Earth, don't do so in a vacuum, do they? They don't do so in such a nice place. There's plenty of company. We have two cooperative environments that this passage spells out, and that is the world and the devil's hierarchy, okay?

And so let's take a look at that. The world, he just calls out specifically here. This world, this one, okay? even spelling it out a little bit further, among them, right in the middle of them, amongst them, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. That word for lived we pointed out last week means personal interaction kind of living. Personal interaction.

Can you do this? It's like that. Now, according to the Prince of the Power of the Air, Now, here's where he spells out, those who are doing this walking in the world are doing it according to, and it's according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the sons of disobedience.

Let's take a look at this. So our walking and living were, both the personal walking, that's that word perpeteo, walk, and the interactive living. are said to have been according to. And the word we pointed out before here, the Greek word is kata. You got to pronounce it kata. Can you do that? Kata. Can you say it? Kata. There, I knew you could do it. It's not cat A as in cat A and cat B. None of that. It's kata. All right. Now, kata in this context means consistent with or measured as a standard by.

That's the idea here. All of this personal walking, each individual walking, and all the interactive walking, all of that are consistent with the world's influence and the devil's involvement. They're all happy, sort of. Now, he says, walked according to, that's consistent with, the course of this world. And what I have in the graphic here is a bunch of robots. and that's intentional. The personal walk of everyone who is a descendant of Adam is in total lockstep with the course of this world, completely in sync.

The world's doing that? Oh, so am I. Complete cooperation with the world's influence. What does the world have in mind to do? That's what we'll do. So this word course, that's aion, We have our words like eon that comes from that. It is both a principle of characteristic and a time limitation allowed for the time of this world. It infers time. It's also a principle that is characteristic of this world.

The course, as a matter of fact, we could give it a nickname, the rut. If you've ever been driving down any sort of, especially a dirt road or something of that sort, you notice they get these ruts and the wheels just sort of naturally slop into the rut. And if the road's wet or muddy or something like that, it's even worse. That's what this word is like. It's the rut of this world. The wheel just drops right into it. Feels real comfortable. That word world is cosmos.

I hate to tell you, but that's the... but it's the total oppressive system of interaction of the descendants of Adam. By the way, I'm not opposing cosmetics. But it's that interactive system of oppression that says, that's what they're doing, I'm doing it too.

This is what they consider valuable, that's what I consider valuable too. This is their perspective on things, That's what I consider to be a good perspective too. Everybody goes along with it because it's groupthink. We all think that way. We all like that.

Then notice the next phrase that's according to. The prince of the power of the air. Let's take a look at that word. This word is a specific and particular description of Satan. It's a unique one. It doesn't occur anywhere else in scripture. But if we take its parts, it's most definitely Satan. Here's why. This word is archon. It's translated here, prince. And it basically means a ruler.

And you notice the other passages where it shows up to identify Satan are all in the Gospels. Every one of the four Gospels uses that same word to identify Satan. at least once, if not multiple times. John connects it up together with the similar words, he says, the archon of this world. That's the way he puts it together, okay? The archon of this world. Satan and his evil hierarchy have power, exousia, okay? That's the way it's spelled out.

In Acts 26.18, and also we'll see farther on, Ephesians 6.12. Now, what about this word, air? Lo and behold, it looks similar to the Greek word, air. Not like Texas, air, but air.

Now, some cultural insights we want to bring out here. In both the Greek and the Jewish cultures, evil spirits were thought of dwelling in the air. And there's a Greek magical papyrus, remember we pointed out in Acts how there was a burning of all these different magical documents that people had spent lots of money buying. And here's an example of one that came out of those Greek magical documents. You have a copy of it in your handout. It says, protect me from every demon in the air. They anticipated these demons were inhabiting the air.

One of the things we find though in the first century Jewish document, a very similar perspective This document reads, for the person who fears God and loves his neighbor cannot be plagued by the aerial spirit of Beliar. One of the things you will notice, you say Beliar, where does that come from? Beliar, or you may have heard Belial, or Beelzebub, A great many of the New Testament words or words during that era that were for Satan start with B-E-L, and the reason is it means that's the pagan name for Lord. The pagan name for Lord.

And so that is reflected in the Jewish understanding as well. Both the Greeks and the Jews had an understanding that the air was the habitation of these places, and Paul confirms that. A great many of the Jews during this New Testament era, they looked at the whole world as being ruled by Satan except for Israel. How about that? It's like if you come to Israel, you get off from underneath this thing. So that was their viewpoint. It's kind of amazing to think about. Paul's statements agree with that view except for one thing. You notice them here?

No exception for Israel. They don't get any exception just because they're Israel. which is all the more reason why Jesus would stand, or sit, or whatever he was doing, with Nicodemus, and say, here's a guy who is in Israel, they're talking in Israel, Nicodemus is a master of the law, he is a descendant undoubtedly of Abraham, and Jesus comes to him and says, you must be born again. Why? You don't get exempted just because you're in Israel. That's the perspective this scripture brings across. It was that first note there was a kind of a Jewish myth. And the New Testament doesn't accept it, it corrects it. All right.

One of the other things we brought up in times past, and this is a good place to bring it up again, is scripture carries along the idea that the heavens, and you notice there's this plural use, the heavens actually consists of three levels of heaven, not the Islamic idea of seven heavens. But three levels, the first is the Earth's atmosphere, the second, the solar system in outer space, and finally, the heaven where God dwells. Those are the three heavens.

Ephesians 1.10 and Colossians 1.20 both contain that idea of the plural heavens. And what we find Paul is referring to the air as this lower level, the Earth's atmosphere, the prince of the power of this lower level.

Now, something else to keep in mind is the folks are in Ephesus, They're living in this place that's just full of all kinds of thoughts of spirits and demons and gods and things of that sort. And remember, the seven wonders of the ancient world included a temple to Artemis. That was the magnificent temple that all the Ephesians were so proud of. Artemis was the queen deity of Ephesus and she had a zodiac garland around her neck. So the people there in Ephesus were dreading the control of the spirits in the air and the influence of the stars from outer space. Above them they saw multiple threats with which they hoped to have some control, some influence, because none of these beings and influences loved them. None of them loved them. Okay, look. Now he says, "...of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience." Very interesting. Working is fine.

I know some of us spend some time doing that every week, but this word is particular here. We've looked at that before, and it's a word that we'll examine here shortly. When we're studying a Bible passage, one of the things we've got to keep in mind is that chapter and verse breakdowns, as helpful as they are, they were added later. The original authors, Paul didn't get down and he'd finish up chapter 1 and he says, I think I'll write another chapter and I'll call it chapter 2 and I'll start with verse 1. He didn't do that. That was added later. If you saw some of the earliest English translations, they wouldn't have the breakdowns for verses.

If you went to somebody and said, hey, quote me John 3.16, he wouldn't know what you're talking about.

Now, why do I bring that up? It's because we've got to... Go ahead and take advantage of these numbers and chapters in terms of where things are, but also keep in mind what's the continual flow of thought, what's the usage of words. Here's why I bring that up. If we look at the end of chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2, we find that here's this break, and we're beginning at verse 1 of chapter 2, and we find these words working and brought about. are bridging the chapters. Now, I'm going to kind of select portions from these, 19 and 20, and then starting in chapter 2, verse 1. What we want to bring forward is this.

We already looked at that verse 19 of chapter 1 says, the surpassing greatness of the power toward, and that means into us who believe, These are in accordance with, remember this according to or according with is consistent with, the working, that's energeia, the noun form, of the strength of his might, which he brought about, energeo, the verb form, in Christ when he raised him from the dead.

The power that is working in you, energeo, that power, is God's power, the same kind of power. He says, you want to know what it's like? It's the power that raised Christ from the dead. That's the consistent with. That's what it's consistent with. The power that raised Christ from the dead.

Now He uses the same word, and what does He do? The spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Ah, God's working in you. But, sorry, these folks here are still under this influence of Satan. He is working in them. If you want to use the word here to kind of bring it forward, energizing. God is energizing you, but He is also energizing the sons of disobedience. See the contrast and the commonality? He's making a broad distinction here.

Think of it this way. the stadium there at Ephesus, and as they're sitting there watching the Ephesian Rockies play, as they're sitting next to people, the people in the stadium seat next to them are being energized differently. As the people are focusing on Artemis, the people that are right next to each other, the people that are right next to the believers.

He's saying, you are among them, just like you see things in the checkout stand with the horoscopes, right? In the marketplace there, that's the marketplace, by the way, where they bought all those magical documents and where they bought all sorts of statues of Artemis and all the other 50 gods and goddesses that they worshipped. That's the marketplace, and as people bump shoulders, the Christians with the un-Christians, it looks like they're in the same marketplace, but what's energizing them is different.

Same thing with you, as you walk down the aisles of the market. The people walking one way are being energized by a different person than you. Same aisle, entirely different energizing. Walking down the street, the people would walk the streets of Ephesus, and what Paul's telling them as you're walking down the street, and right here as you're seeing people pass you by, they're being energized by a different spiritual force than you.

Recognize the difference. It's, I think, potent to see what Paul's spelling out to them. He says, here you are, right next to these people, you're walking by them, you're working with them, you're sitting next to them at the stoplight. Those people, are being energized by an entirely different spiritual force than you. Entirely different spiritual personality than you. Paul is explaining here a real sharp contrast.

We, our believers, we're energized by God with the same power, that's why he says according to, okay, that's the standard, the measure it's consistent with, according to that power that raised Christ from the dead. God's power, as he says in chapter 1, is into us who believe. God isn't just sprinkling some sort of spiritual dust over us. Instead, it is into us. That's ice. Into us.

That power is specifically into you, the believer. Those who are unbelievers are energized by the Prince of the Power of the Air, the Spirit now energizing the sons of disobedience. Those believers were in the same boat. They were sitting in the same stadium seats. They were walking down the same aisles of the marketplace. They were sitting next to the people at the desk.

Now, there's a phrase that came out of our prior study in verse 21 of chapter 1 of Ephesians, not only in this age but also the one to come. Remember that that had a particular meaning The present evil age is a passage pattern that we see throughout the New Testament, describing the time from the fall up until the time of the coming of Christ to reign during the millennium. So from the fall up until that coming of Christ is the present evil age, and then the age to come, the time for a thousand years, Revelation chapter 20, when Christ reigns. That's the age to come. We saw that comparison.

Hebrews 2.8 is the time now when we don't yet see all things subjected to Him. That time will change. All enemies will be put under His feet, culminating in when death is abolished. Everything here on planet Earth will be dealt with, if not completely corrected.

Now, if we look at this passage, He is continuing the thought. That's why I pointed out the continuity. He is continuing the thought, because think about this, what's happening is the flesh came about in human beings, every single son of Adam, every daughter of Adam, the flesh came about in human beings because of the initial disobedience that we share with Adam at what we call the Fall, Genesis chapter 3. That flesh will continue in human beings through the end of the Lord's reign during the millennium.

Not so the devil in the world. The devil had an influence at the fall and obviously continues to have an influence now as the prince of the power of the air, the one who is energizing the sons of disobedience, but his power will come to an end at the time he is bound during the Lord's reign in what we call the millennium.

How about the world? The world is groupthink because human beings are able to simply operate with the flesh and in cooperation with Satan as an environment. That will come to an end when the Lord reigns on planet Earth. So it's interesting. He is describing a situation that is true from the fall up until the time the Lord comes to reign on planet Earth. The devil and the world will come to an end.

There will still be the flesh during the millennium, which would be one more proof. We can't blame it on the world. We can't say the devil made me do it. Not sufficient excuse. Now, here's a word that shows up here, mind. This word mind crops up both in the Ephesians passage and in the Colossians passage. Turns out, we look at the word, it's the same word, and the word mind is dhenoya, okay?

And I want you just to get it really crystal clear. It has nothing to do with these things that annoy you, okay? No flies, gnats, anything like that, okay? Not those. This word dhenoya is a compound word, okay? It means through the mind, okay? It's actually the activated mind. It means acting and deciding and planning according to the nature of the mind.

Now, Ephesians 2.3 uses this dionoyan plural. All these people have this mind.

Colossians 1.21 actually uses it as a singular. They all think that way, as if a singular mind.

In contrast, we are told in 2 Corinthians 2.16 that we as believers have the mind of Christ. And he uses a part of that very compound word to say that we have the mind of Christ.

Now, that's awful good to know, especially when I can't remember some things, right? But, key point, here's a contrast. There is a mind that is consistent with this world. There is a mind that's consistent with the flesh. And then, in stark contrast to that, there is the mind of Christ that believers have positionally. We have, positionally, the mind of Christ. It's not the same. It's a very different mind. I want to draw our focus here in the modern application with a modern analogy. This looks like a pretty cruddy place to be, right?

You see a city just filled with dark brown smog. And imagine, if you will, if this were not a physical smog, but a spiritual smog. What Paul is describing, if we were to take the modern analogy forward, this is the terminal trio. You've got the flesh in all the human beings in this smoggy city. Here is this smoggy city that also has the influence of the world. It's a choking, spiritually stifling smog.

Gagging, gasping. But that's not all. It's ruled by someone who loves the smog. ruled by someone who delights in everyone gagging on this deep, thick smog that sits like a heavy blanket over the city. This is, in modern analogy, the picture that Paul paints.

He says, you were stuck there in this place with this choking, stifling, thick, heavy smog. After all, you didn't trust air you couldn't see, right? And so what he's saying is, you were there. You were there. What is marvelous as we think of that, none of us like the idea of sitting in the middle of this stuff, right?

He describes something that's the spiritual equivalent of that. And he says instead, no, you've been brought out of that. And that's what we'll be looking at next time we take a look at this in the next verses. We have been brought out of this as believers. We've been taken out of this stifling, choking, spiritual smog. And we've been identified with Christ, and the Lord took us out of there and seated us with Him.

We're talking an eternal breath of fresh air, out of the stifling smog, out of the choking, gagging air that you can see. And what a marvelous thing the Lord has done here. Paul has painted this dismal picture, not because he wants us to be depressed, not because he wants us to panic. And if any of you struggle from severe allergies or asthma, you'll get the idea what the spiritual smog symbolizes.

But he's done so because he wants us to see what a marvelous thing the Lord has done and how different a place We have, next to Christ, seated with Him in the heavenly realms and out of this horrible stench of this smog. And what a marvelous thing the Lord has done to kind of bring the idea forward, even though I'm realizing we'll see it more next time. I wanted to bring up a song here that Winnie had put some music to. We'll see if we can pull this off. In Christ crucified, I'm freed from sin. By grace no longer need sin reign within. Buried with Christ, the old man reckoned dead. Though I have died, He now lives instead.

In Christ I am eternally blessed, By faith in God's work I daily can rest. In Christ alive, By death's broken cord raised to new life Our work of the Lord is life. We depart, great message we tell Ascended with Him in heaven we dwell In Christ I am eternally blessed By faith in God's work I daily can rest. I'm seated with Christ in heavenly place, glorious His life, unending His grace. We praise You, O Lord, for Your precious Son, and thank You, our Father, For the work you have done in Christ I am eternally blessed. By faith in God's work I daily can rest.

Let's pray. Lord, how marvelous. What a wonderful thing you've done. Lord, instead of that stench, that stifling, gagging smog, that we would have been doomed to breathe and to live in. Instead of that, Lord, You have indeed brought us to be seated with You. And Lord, we praise You for that. It's beyond our comprehension. It's beyond our understanding. But Lord, how wondrous it is, and we will indeed spend eternity seeing how marvelous and how gracious you have been in your love towards us. We give you thanks for that in Jesus' name. Amen.