Did John Stott Understand What “a Figure of Speech” Is? Ephesians 2:1

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins…

The Apostle Paul (ESV)

The death to which Paul refers is not a figure of speech, as in the parable of the Prodigal Son, “This my son was dead”; it is a factual statement of everyone’s spiritual condition outside Christ.

John Stott, The Message of Ephesians, The Bible Speaks Today (IVP) [Originally published as God’s New Society, 1979]

On the contrary, when the Apostle Paul writes “you were dead” in Ephesians 2:1, he is definitely using a figure of speech. Of course, it is also a “factual statement” because people use figures of speech to make claims that are (or are purported to be) factual. The father of the Prodigal was stating a fact about his younger son’s status and/or condition by speaking figuratively. The proper alternative to a figure of speech is a literal statement, not a factual statement.

And the Apostle Paul was obviously using figurative language when he wrote, “you were dead.” His readers had been born, their hearts were beating, they breathed and ate. They were alive.

Paul wrote of literal death earlier in his letter:

…what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his [God’s] great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead…

Ephesians 1:19-20 ESV

Jesus was literally dead. The Ephesians were not. And Jesus’ words about the Prodigal Son were not an ad hoc figure of speech. As N. T. Wright reminded us some time ago, the Prodigal went to and returned from “a far country” (Luke 15:13). So the claim that the son, on returning, was back from the dead has Biblical precedent. The Prodigal is Israel.

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.

Ezekiel 37:1–5 ESV

And what did this prophetic vision mean? God spoke to Ezekiel more “literally” about it:

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.”

Ezekiel 37:11–14 ESV

And this was not an ad hoc figure either. Ultimately it goes back to God’s command and warning to Adam:

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Genesis 2:15–17 ESV

So what happened the same day that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit? They were were driven out of the Garden and barred from the Tree of Life. They were exiled. That was their “death.”

Note that, being given new life, for Paul in Ephesians, means being enthroned in God’s presence in the heavens.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—-by grace you have been saved—-and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…

Ephesians 2:4–6 ESV

The salvation we have in Christ is the ultimate return from exile into God’s presence and a reversal of the death humanity suffered as a consequence of the Fall. Thus, Christ’s literal resurrection and ascension is our ultimate resurrection (even now, long before our personal and literal resurrections from our graves).

By the way, the vision of the valley of dry bones becoming a living army in Ezekiel 37:1-14 in followed by a prophecy that, at the return from exile, all the tribes will be united on one single kingdom:

The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, and the people of Israel associated with him’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with him.’ And join them one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand. And when your people say to you, ‘Will you not tell us what you mean by these?’ say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph (that is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him. And I will join with it the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, that they may be one in my hand. When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, then say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.”

Ezekiel 37:15-28 ESV

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians follows the same path, only to a much grander destination. Instead of the resurrection from exile leading to the reunion of the tribes of Israel under one Davidic king gathered around one sanctuary, Christ’s death and resurrection leads to much more for all the Gentiles with Israel:

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—-remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Ephesians 2:11–22 ESV

In writing Ephesians 2:1, Paul is invoking a deep Scriptural legacy of figurative language. We are not justified in dispensing with it as “a figure of speech” that Paul supposedly abandons in favor of some kind of “factual statement.”