Death is understood in two ways. The first is the familiar definition—when the soul is separated from the body at the end of life. The second is that, while abiding in that same body, the soul pursues the desires of the flesh and lives in sin.

There is a distinction between the death of the body and the death of the soul. There is no reproach in the death of the body as such and hence no moral danger since there is no reproach. The body’s death is merely a matter of nature, not of choice. This death had its origin in the transgression of the first human being, and thereafter it has had its subsequent effect on nature. Its re-lease will be swift. But the death of the soul is the result of free choice. Hence it entails re-proach, from which there is no easy release. It is a much weightier task to heal a deadened soul than to raise a dead body, as Paul has already shown. Yet this is what has now happened, incredible as it may be.

[The Greeks] speak of trespass as the first step toward sin. It is when a secret thought steals in, and, though we offer a measure of collusion, it does not yet drive us on to ruin. . . . But sin is something else. It is when the collusion is actually completed and reaches its goal.

Once you followed the course of this world. World here is completely distinguishable from God. For the creature is unlike the Creator, the artifact unlike its Maker, the world unlike God. Similarly when Paul speaks of those who follow the prince of the power of the air he is referring not to the one God who holds sway over all the ages. For the one who presides over higher authorities is never classified by reference to one lower.

He indicates that the prince of power, that is, the devil, has corrupted the understanding of the world to make it depart from the one God and conceive a belief in many gods. In this way the devil made them associates in his own conspiracy, seeing that they were found to exhibit the same impiety in their denial of the one God.

Do you see Paul’s gentleness, how he everywhere soothes his hearer and avoids burdening him? For having said that they had arrived at the extreme consequence of evil (for what else does being dead mean?) . . . he provides them with a collaborator, so that they themselves will not be held accountable alone for their plight but share responsibility with a powerful accomplice, the devil.

Why does he call the devil the ruler of this world? Because virtually the whole of humanity surrendered to him. All are his voluntary and willing slaves. Few pay any heed to Christ, who promises unnumbered blessings. Rather they follow after the devil, who promises nothing but leads them all to hell. He rules in this age, where he has . . . more subjects than God, more who obey him rather than God. All but a few are in his grasp on account of their laxity.

Light and dark are two things, as are truth and falsehood, goodness and wickedness. But they are not to be imagined as equal, for it is not pious to compare anything to God, even by contraries. So we are to understand that there are two spirits, one of faith and one of disobedience. Satan and his devils have their substance from air, that is, from material reality. They derive their power in that same way, over those who think materially. The prince of that power which is in the air works through matter. He is therefore that spirit now at work through material means among the children of disobedience. He possesses their minds and has dominion over them. Therefore the one who lives according to the course of this world lives according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit who is now at work in the children of disobedience.

Long ago, before the Fall, a certain authority was primordially entrusted to the devil. But falling from this through wickedness he became a teacher of impiety and wickedness. Yet he does not have power over all but only over those who do not receive divine revelation. These Paul calls sons of disobedience.

He is speaking of a great deception when he brings to mind the passions of the flesh. For the pleasure of the flesh means being delighted by the visible, so that it gives the name of gods to the elements that God appointed as his means of ordering the world. But this name [God] belongs rightly to the one and only God, from whom everything derives. . . . If anyone imagines that the passions of the flesh mean anything else, let him reflect on how the apostle led a pure life. He lived without blemish according to the righteousness of the law. But because he had persecuted the church he includes himself in the we—we lived in the passions of our flesh. For every sin, according to Paul, has something to do with the deception associated with living according to the flesh, which is the mother of all corruption.

Paul encourages them by including himself with them. Among these, he says, we all once lived. All are included. It is not possible to say that anyone is exempted.

So that he would not appear to have exempted himself through pride when he said your sins in which you walked, he now adds in which we also lived. However, the one who says he has lived confesses past, not present, transgressions.

There is a difference between sin of the flesh and sin of the mind. The sin of the flesh is indecency and profligacy and whatever might act as instrument to its lusts. The transgression of the mind pertains to doctrine contrary to truth and to the baseness of heretics.

As a Jew Paul had been one of the children of unbelief in whom the devil was at work, especially when he persecuted the church and the Christ of the Creator. On this account he says, We were by nature children of wrath. But he says by nature so that a heretic could not argue that it was the Lord who created evil. We create the grounds for the Creator’s wrath ourselves.^[1]

Undoubtedly the will passes for nature—for it is from their will, not their nature, that people are judged. Similarly all the martyrs and the justified are upright not because they were born faithful but because they were reborn so.

When [Scripture] speaks of sons of men or sons of rams, it indicates an essential relation between the one begotten and the source of his begetting. But when it speaks of sons of power [as at 1 Sam 14:52] or children of wrath, it asserts a connection made by choice.

We speak of nature in two ways. When we are speaking strictly of nature itself, we mean the nature in which humanity was originally created—after God’s own image and without fault. The other way we speak of nature refers to that fallen sin nature, in which we are self-deceived and subject to the flesh as the penalty for our condemnation. The apostle adopts this way of speaking when he says for we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.

What then is meant by this wickedness of the natural man and of those who . . . by nature are children of wrath? Could this possibly be the nature created in Adam? That created nature was debased in him. It has run and is running its course now through everyone by nature, so that nothing frees us from condemnation except the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

These are the true riches of God’s mercy, that even when we did not seek it mercy was made known through his own initiative. . . . This is God’s love to us, that having made us he did not want us to perish. His reason for making us was that he might love what he had made, seeing that no one hates his own workmanship.

God made us in Christ. So it is through Christ once again that he has formed us anew. We are his members; he our Head.

Since he rose, we hope that we too shall rise. He himself [by his rising] has paid our debt. Then Paul explains more plainly how great the gift is: You are saved by grace. For it is not because of the excellence of our lives that we have been called but because of the love of our Savior.

The sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that will be revealed in us.^[1] If so, we are saved by grace rather than works, for we can give God nothing in return for what he has bestowed on us.

What Paul is saying then is: If you believe that Christ is risen from the dead, believe also that you too have risen with him. If you believe that he sits at the Father’s right hand in heaven, believe that your place too is amid not earthly but heavenly things.

Above he said that God raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand. . . . Some may ask how God who has saved us and raised us with him has also made us sit with Christ. A simple response would be indeed that, in the light of God’s foreknowledge, Paul is speaking of what is to come as though it had already been done. . . . One who understands the resurrection and the kingdom of Christ spiritually does not scruple to say that the saints already sit and reign with Christ! Just as a person may become truly holy even in the flesh, when he lives in the flesh and has his conversation in heaven, when he walks on earth and, ceasing to be flesh, is wholly converted into spirit, so he also is seated in heaven with Christ. For indeed the kingdom of God is within us.^[1]

IF Christ the Lord did not share our human nature, he would have been falsely called our firstfruits. If so, his bodily nature was not raised from the dead and did not receive its seat at the right hand in heaven. And if none of this occurred how can it be said that God has raised us and seated us with Christ, that is, if we have nothing by nature that belongs to him?

He did not make us deserving, since we did not receive these things by our own merit but by the grace and goodness of God. . . . But all this, as he often asserts and I insist, is in Christ. For in him is the whole mystery of the resurrection, both ours and of all others.

How abundant is his grace and how multi-faceted is the glory in which God has caused us to be seated and reign with Christ, after freeing us from the tribulations of the age! This is shown above all by the fact that in the ages to come he will shed his glory upon us in the sight not of some but of all rational creatures. . . . But an attentive reader might inquire: Are you saying then that the human arena is greater than the angels and all the heavenly powers? No. . . . Some might conceivably argue that he made us sit with him in heavenly places refers not to the good angels but to the bad angels, the banished angels and the prince of this world, and Lucifer who rises in the morning, over whom the saints will be enthroned with Christ. . . . But a better argument will translate [the reference to Christ’s grace] as meaning that we are saved not by our own merit but by his grace and that it is a proof of greater goodness to die for sinners rather than for the just.

Do not be disbelieving. You have received a proof from former events, from the head^[1] and from his desire to manifest his goodness. For how otherwise could there be a revelation to us if this does not happen? This will be demonstrated in the ages to come. What now seems nonsense to unbelievers then will appear as fully sensible to everyone. . . . We will sit with him. Nothing is more trustworthy and worthy of praise than this revelation.

Do not rely on your own efforts but on the grace of Christ. You are, says the apostle, saved by grace. Therefore it is not a matter of arrogance here but faith when we celebrate: We are accepted! This is not pride but devotion.

Paul says this in case the secret thought should steal upon us that if we are not saved by our own works, at least we are saved by our own faith, and so in another way our salvation is of ourselves. Thus he added the statement that faith too is not in our own will but in God’s gift. Not that he means to take away free choice from humanity . . . but that even this very freedom of choice has God as its author, and all things are to be referred to his generosity, in that he has even allowed us to will the good.

The blessed Paul argues that we are saved by faith, which he declares to be not from us but a gift from God. Thus there cannot possibly be true salvation where there is no true faith, and, since this faith is divinely enabled, it is without doubt bestowed by his free generosity. Where there is true belief through true faith, true salvation certainly accompanies it. Anyone who departs from true faith will not possess the grace of true salvation.

So that you may not be elated by the magnitude of these benefits, see how Paul puts you in your place. For by grace you are saved, he says, through faith. Then, so as to do no injury to free will, he allots a role to us, then takes it away again, saying and this not of ourselves. Even faith, he says, is not from us. For if the Lord had not come, if he had not called us, how should we have been able to believe? For how, he says, shall they believe if they have not heard?^[1] So even the act of faith is not self-initiated. It is, he says, the gift of God.

The fact that you Ephesians are saved is not something that comes from yourselves. It is the gift of God. It is not from your works, but it is God’s grace as God’s gift, not from anything you have deserved. Our works are one thing, what we deserve another. Hence he distinguishes the two phrases not from yourselves and not from works. Remember that there are faithful works that ought to be displayed daily in services to the poor and other good deeds.

God’s mission was not to save people in order that they may remain barren or inert. For Scripture says that faith has saved us. Put better: Since God willed it, faith has saved us. Now in what case, tell me, does faith save without itself doing anything at all? Faith’s workings themselves are a gift of God, lest anyone should boast. What then is Paul saying? Not that God has forbidden works but that he has forbidden us to be justified by works. No one, Paul says, is justified by works, precisely in order that the grace and benevolence of God may become apparent!

All thanksgiving for our salvation is to be given only to God. He extends his mercy to us so as to recall us to life precisely while we are straying, without looking for the right road. And thus we are not to glory in ourselves but in God, who has regenerated us by a heavenly birth through faith in Christ.

We are his creation. This means that it is from him that we live, breathe, understand and are able to believe, because he is the One who made us. And note carefully that he did not say we are his fashioning and molding but we are his creation. Molding starts with the mud of the earth, but creation from the outset is according to the image and likeness of God.^[1]

Here he is speaking not of the first but of the second creation, wherein we are re-created by the resurrection. Completely unable as we are to mend our ways by our own decision on account of the natural weakness that opposes us, we are made able to come newly alive without pain and with great ease by the grace of the One who re-creates us for this purpose.

Human beings choose their own way of life and are entrusted with the reins of their own intelligence, so as to follow whatever course they wish, either toward the good or toward the contrary. But our [original, created] nature has implanted in it a zealous desire for whatever is good and the will to concern itself with goodness and righteousness. For this is what we mean by saying that humanity is in the image and likeness of God,^[1] that the creature is naturally disposed to what is good and right.

Does Paul mean good works in the future tense or those which we now perform? Taken either way they are good for us to walk in. They are witnesses to Christ’s working in us.

He does not say so that we might begin but so that we should walk—all the way. For walking is a metaphor that suggests continuance, extending to the end of our lives. Suppose we had to walk a road that leads to a royal city, but after having gone almost all the way we grow faint almost at the end and stop. We would then have no profit. Instead Paul says we are created for good works.^[1]

Many are the evidences of God’s love of humanity. God has saved us through himself, and through himself in such a special way, remembering what we were when he saved us and to what point he has now brought us. For each of these stages in itself is a great proof of his benevolence. Paul now reviews at each stage what he writes. He has already said that God has saved us when we were dead in sins and children of wrath. Now Paul shows to what extent God has raised us.

The phrase Gentiles in the flesh contrasts types of realities. The type in the flesh was awaiting the time of the spirit. The less perfect fulfillment of the circumcision is expressed in relation to its more perfect fulfillment.

By calling the Ephesians Gentiles in the flesh, he shows that in the spirit they are not Gentiles, just as conversely the Jews are Gentiles in spirit and Israelites in the flesh. Therefore the Jews and Gentiles are subject to a fourfold division: Some are circumcised in spirit and flesh, as were Moses and Aaron. . . . Some have been circumcised neither in spirit nor in flesh, as were Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh. . . . A third group are circumcised only in the flesh. . . . Lastly come those of whom he now speaks, . . . believers such as today we see in the whole host of believing Gentiles around the world.

He wants to show that Christ is the provider of all goods for them. For previously, he says, you were destitute of the knowledge of God and did not enjoy the goods promised beforehand to Israel.

The true way of Israel consists in living according to the Spirit, thinking according to the Spirit and being circumcised from unworthy desires.

When he says having no hope, without God in the world, he does not deny that the Ephesians had many gods before they believed in Christ. His point is that one who is without the true God has no god worthy of the name. And the next phrase, without God in the world, is significant: The Gentiles in a sense already had God indeed in the form of anticipation, because God knew beforehand that he would have them. In God’s foreknowledge they were never without God. But enmeshed in the world they were without God.^[1]

They were once far off from the Christ of the Creator, from the way of the Israelites, from the covenants, from the hope of the promise, from God himself. Once far off, the Gentiles now come close in Christ to the things that were once far off.

Paul is responding to those who think that believers in Christ may enter into the commonwealth of Israel but that it is some entirely different one that has nothing in common with the history of Israel. . . . It is those who know the spiritual law and live in accordance with it who are made dwellers in the commonwealth of Israel, more so than those who are Israelites in the body only.

God in his entirety is everywhere. Who can be separated from him when all things are in him? . . . He is, however, said to be far away from the unrighteous, according to Proverbs [15:29]. . . . Just as far as the unrighteous are away from him, so close is he to the saints. Just when God seemed to be furthest from the Ephesians, he was coming close to them by the blood of Jesus.

He reminds us that we were brought close to God by the blood of Christ in order to show how great is God’s affection toward us, since he allowed his own Son to die. We too, enduring in faith, should not yield to despair in any of the agonies inflicted on us for his sake, knowing that what he deserves from us exceeds all that our enemies can bring upon us.

Christ, he says, is our peace. Elsewhere Paul calls him mediator. He interposed himself of his own accord between divided realms. Souls born of God’s fountain of goodness were being detained in the world. There was a wall in their midst, a sort of fence, a partition made by the deceits of the flesh and worldly lusts. Christ by his own mystery, his cross, his passion and his way of life destroyed this wall. He overcame sin and taught that it could be overcome. He destroyed the lusts of the world and taught that they ought to be destroyed. He took away the wall in the midst. It was in his own flesh that he overcame the enmity. The work is not ours. We are not called to set ourselves free. Faith in Christ is our only salvation.

Christ, conferring immortality on us through his resurrection, has put an end to this division [between Jew and Gentile], for there can be no circumcision of an immortal nature.

The passion of the Savior made peace between the circumcision and the uncircumcision. For the enmity, which was between them like a wall and divided the circumcision from the uncircumcision and the uncircumcision from the circumcision, was abolished by the Savior. His command is that the Jew should not so presume on his circumcision as to reproach the Gentile, nor should the Gentile trust in his uncircumcision, that is, his paganism, so as to abhor the Jew. Both, made new, should maintain in Christ their faith in the one God.

Some say that the wall between them is that of the Jews against the Greeks, because it does not allow them to mix. I do not think so. Rather I think that the wall between them is common within both. It is the hostility proceeding within the flesh. This was the midwall cutting them off, as the prophet says, Do not your sins stand in the midst between you and me?^[1] The midwall was the enmity that God had both toward Jews and toward Greeks. But when the law came this enmity was not dissolved; rather it increased. For the law, he says, works wrath.^[2]

The law was a fence, but this was made for our security. This is why it was called a fence, so that it might fence us in. . . . Now he has abolished the law of commandments through his teaching. Oh, what love of humanity! He gave us a law that we might keep it, but when we failed to keep it and deserved punishment he dissolved the law.

The law that he abolished was that which had been given to the Jews concerning circumcision and new moons and food and sacrifices and the sabbath. He ordered it to cease because it was a burden. In this way he made peace.

Christ dispelled the enmity between us and God. He gave his own flesh as a ransom for us. Once this was done, he put an end to the things that separated you and them.^[1] For this is what he means by the law of ordinances. He has not annulled the Decalogue. . . . For Christ the Lord himself held these up to the one who wanted to know the way to eternal life.^[2] But by doctrines he meant the gospel teaching, since the realizing of full maturity lies in the responsive choices^[3] of the will. . . . Yet these gospel teachings are not laid down as laws. They are a matter of free choice. What he does lay down as law is what he inscribed on nature when he created it in the beginning.

He was born in a singular way from a virgin by the Spirit of God. He was born to reconcile both Gentile and Jew to God, both of whom had offended God. He reconciled them into one body through the cross. The enmity was in this way slain. This reconciliation took place in his flesh through his body as he suffered on the cross.

Their souls have thus been reconciled to the eternal and the spiritual, to all things above. The Savior, through the Spirit, indeed the Holy Spirit, descended into souls. He thereby joined what had been separated, spiritual things and souls, so as to make the souls themselves spiritual. He has established them in himself, as he says, in a new person. What is this new person? The spiritual person, as distinguished from the old person, who was soul struggling against flesh.

Don’t you see? The Greek does not have to become a Jew. Rather both enter into a new condition. His aim is not to bring Greek believers into being as different kinds of Jews but rather to create both anew. Rightly he uses the term create rather than change to point out the great effect of what God has done. Even though the creation is invisible, it is no less a creation of its Creator.

He has reconciled both, that is, those from Gentile and from Jewish backgrounds, in the one body that was offered on behalf of all, so that they may at last be made one body. And he has called all believers a single man because Christ our Lord is the one head, and those who have been favored with salvation fill the role of members.

He did not pass the task of reconciliation on to another. He made himself the means of combining one with the other. This produced one wonderful result. He himself was the first instance of this reconcilation, a result greater than all the previous creation. For that is what in himself means: Having assumed dominion over the Jew and then of the Greek, he himself became their mediator. He brought them together, doing away with all that estranged them. Now he has fashioned them anew through fire and water—no longer water and earth but water and fire.^[1] He became a Jew when he was circumcised. Then, being cursed, he became a Greek outside the law and one more excellent than either Greek or Jew.

Making peace may mean their peace with God or with one another. . . . The focus is primarily on peace with God, as is made clear by what follows. What does he say? He has fully reconciled both to God in one body through the cross. He did not say to some degree reconciled but fully reconciled. Even before this human nature was in principle reconcilable,^[1] as we see in the righteous and before the law.

Taking up the enmity that had come between us and God on account of sins, slaying it in himself, as the apostle says (and sin is enmity), and becoming what we are, he joined the human to God again through himself.

No expression could be more authoritative or more emphatic. His death, he says, killed the enmity, wounded and destroyed it. He did not give the task to another. And he not only did the work but suffered for it. He did not say that he dissolved it; he did not say that he put an end to it, but he used the much more forceful expression: He killed! This shows that it need not ever rise again.^[1] How then does it rise again? From our great wickedness. So long as we remain in the body of Christ, so long as we are one with him it does not rise again but lies dead.