Solomon Says

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 1:1 ESV

Paul often addresses Christians as saints in all his letters, but the theology of Ephesians is especially relevant to why he does so. Saint means holy one. It is related to the verb “sanctify,” make holy.

• Ephesians 1:3 is about praising God for the resurrection/ ascension/ enthronement of Jesus. Jesus was raised to God’s right hand and given the promised Holy Spirit to share with the Church.
• The election (1:4) and predestination (1:5) of Paul’s readers is not merely that which is true of all believers in all history before and after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Rather, it is the election and predestination of that generation to see God keep his promises in Christ.
• The phrase in 1:6, “to the praise of his glorious grace,” is a mistranslation. Paul really writes “to the praise of his gracious glory” (i.e. graciously given). Paul himself abbreviates the phrase twice, and drops out grace, not glory (1:12, 14).
• God’s raising up Jesus did not simply prove the greatness of His “power toward us” (1:19). Rather, God’s raising up Jesus was the definitive exercise of his power toward us. In other words, God raised up Jesus as an act to rescue us from death and bring us into new life, not as proof that he was capable of rescuing people.
• Ephesians 2:1ff is not an account of what happened to anyone when he or she was converted. It is an account of the history of humanity, when Jesus was raised by God and brought up to Him in a new life.
• Ephesians 2:11ff explicitly references “we” Jews and “you” Gentiles. Since, he discusses the union of Jew and Gentile in the second half of chapter 2, and the nature of the Gospel as the message of the union of Jew and Gentile in chapter 3, this seems to be an important topic to Paul. It looks like the conclusion of an argument or the climax that he has been working toward. So it seems probable (at least) that “the Gospel of your salvation” (1:13) is elaborated in 3:6 “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”
• One could easily assume from 2:1ff that Paul thinks no one before his generation was saved, or from 2:11ff that no Gentiles were saved. But since that cannot possibly be true, what does Paul mean?

Lynn H. Cohick writes on Ephesians in the NICNT series (page 143) on Chapter 2, verses 1-3:

Paul begins a new topic in Eph 2, though one that is tightly related to his previous declaration of Christ’s complete sovereignty over all powers and authorities… Paul sets before the Ephesians two sharply contrasted visions: that of the victorious and risen Christ, head of his body, the church, (1:22-23), and themselves as morally bankrupt and spiritually dead…

The New International Commentary on the New Testament

This is not how I would express it.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 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, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:1-7 ESV

This is not about being regenerated.

Abraham, Moses, Daniel, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna, and Cornelius were all dead this way. None of them were unregenerate by the modern Evangelical use of the term “regeneration.”

I am thinking of writing a commentary on Ephesians. Thus, I have been looking at other commentaries, both popular and scholarly, to see what is already available.

That has led me to type this short rant:

The first thing any and every commentator on Ephesians 2:1 should note is the cleanliness code dealing with corpses in the Pentateuch.