Jamieson, Fausset and Brown on Ephesians 2:1

CHAPTER 2

Ep 2:1-22. God's Love and Grace in Quickening Us, Once Dead, through Christ. His Purpose in Doing So: Exhortation Based on Our Privileges as Built Together, an Holy Temple, in Christ, through the Spirit.

1. And you--"You also," among those who have experienced His mighty power in enabling them to believe (Ep 1:19-23).

hath he quickened--supplied from the Greek (Ep 2:5).

dead--spiritually. (Col 2:13). A living corpse: without the gracious presence of God's Spirit in the soul, and so unable to think, will, or do aught that is holy.

in trespasses ... sins--in them, as the element in which the unbeliever is, and through which he is dead to the true life. Sin is the death of the soul. Is 9:2; Joh 5:25, "dead" (spiritually), 1Ti 5:6. "Alienated from the life of God" (Ep 4:18). Translate, as Greek, "in your trespasses," &c. "Trespass" in Greek, expresses a FALL or LAPSE, such as the transgression of Adam whereby he fell. "Sin." (Greek, "hamartia") implies innate corruption and ALIENATION from God (literally, erring of the mind from the rule of truth), exhibited in acts of sin (Greek, "hamartemata"). Bengel, refers "trespasses" to the Jews who had the law, and yet revolted from it; "sins," to the Gentiles who know not God.