III. As an important means of this, let us study the gospel, and endeavour to gain a deeper and more extensive acquaintance with the word of truth.* XII. ON SPIRITUAL DEATH. EPH. i. 1.—And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. THE power of God was most illustriously displayed in raising Christ from the dead; but there is another operation of divine power which bears a great resemblance to this, of which every individual believer is the subject. It is the prayer of the apostle, in the latter part of the preceding chapter, that the Ephesians might have an increasing experience of the effects of that power which is exerted towards "them that believe, according to the working of his mighty power;" and what particular effect of divine [power] he had in immediate contemplation, he informs us in the first part of the ensuing chapter: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." He had not merely raised Christ from the dead, but he had wrought a similar deliverance for the Ephesians, by imparting spiritual life to those who had been dead in trespasses and sins. * Preached 7th of March, 1811, at the Wednesday evening lecture. In treating of these words, I shall first inquire to what extent this representation of a death in trespasses and sins is to be applied, and to what description of persons it belongs. Secondly, I shall endeavour to shew its import:-and, thirdly, make a few remarks on the wretched state of those who may justly be affirmed to be dead in trespasses and sins. May the Lord the Spirit apply the awful truths we shall have occasion to unfold, with power to the conscience! I. Are those expressions, "dead in trespasses and sins," to be understood as applicable only, or chiefly, to heathens? or to such in christian countries as have run very remarkable lengths in wickedness? or are they applicable to the state of the unconverted universally? The heathen, say some, were exceedingly corrupt and wicked, totally enslaved to idols, "without hope and without God in the world." It was in consideration of this their remarkable alienation from God, and extreme corruption of manners, the apostle was led to employ such phrases; which are by no means to be applied to men educated in the light of christianity, although they may not yet be in a state of salvation. Whether the representation applies to heathens only, or to those in a christian country, who for their enormous sins may be justly compared to heathens; or whether they are to be applied to unconverted sinners universally, will perhaps sufficiently appear from the following considerations. 1. The apostle expressly includes himself among those whose former state he had been considering.* To the same purpose the apostle includes himself in the following description. "For we ourselves were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another."+ 2. The same expression is applied generally to those who never were heathens. "And another of his disciples said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said, Let the dead bury their dead," the meaning of which is obvious. Let those who are spiritually dead, who are therefore totally unqualified to serve me in the gospel, perform such offices as those, to which they are fully equal; but for thee, thou art fitted for a higher and nobler employment-go thou and preach the gospel. 3. It is the declared intention of Jesus Christ, by his appearance in our world, to give life to the world by exhibiting himself as the bread of life. "I am come that they might have life."§ Here we have the affirmation of him that cannot lie; that those, whosoever they be that are destitute of saving faith, are also destitute of spiritual life. They have no life in them;" || which can surely be understood in no other sense than what is equivalent to the passage before us. 66 * Eph. ii. 3, 4. † Tit. iii. 3 Matt. viii. 22. 4. True christians, without any exception, are described as persons who have "passed from death unto life."* "He that heareth my words, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but hath passed from death unto life." "Hereby we know we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren; he that loveth not his brother abideth in death." Here the moral state of the world is supposed to be separated by an invisible boundary into two regions, a region of life and a region of death; and it is implied, that none come into the former, that is, that of life, but by passing into it from the latter. They were not natives of this blessed region, but migrated or travelled to it from an opposite one. And who are those remaining in a state of death? "He who loveth not his brother," that is, who loveth not christians as christians, which is certainly the character of all the unrenewed and unregenerate. We are justified, then, in applying this description-" dead in trespasses and sins," to every person who has not been renewed by the grace of God. It is time to proceed, in the next place, to explain the import of this representation, or to unfold some of the leading particulars included in a state of spiritual death. 1. It implies a privation, or withdrawment, of a principle, which properly belongs, and once did * John v. 24. + Ibid. 1 John ii. 14. belong, to the subject of which it is affirmed. It would be quite improper to speak of any thing as dead which was never endued with a living principle. We never speak of the inanimate parts of creation, such as earth and stones, as dead, because they are as they ever were; no living powers are extinguished in them. But from whatever once had life, when that life is withdrawn which it formerly possessed, we affirm that it is dead. Thus we speak of plants, of animals and men, when bereft of the vital principle, as dead. The death that overspreads the souls of the unregenerate consists in privations, in the withdrawment of what originally belonged to the soul of man, that gracious communication from God which is life. As the life of the body is derived from its union with the immortal spirit, and continues no longer than while that union subsists, so the life of the soul is derived from its union with God. Sin dissolved that union. In consequence of sin the blessed [God] withdrew from the soul, and the effect of that is, that though it is not deprived of its natural powers, as the body, even after death, still continues to subsist as matter; its life and happiness are gone. The withdrawment of God is, with respect to the soul, what the withdrawment of the soul is, in relation to the body. In each case the necessary effect is death; and as that which occasioned that withdrawment is sin, it is very properly denominated a "death in trespasses and sins." Now this |
