All men outside of Christ are dead in trespasses and sins. Dead (nekros) has no other meaning than to be devoid of life – a corpse. Yet Paul describes these dead men as walking in sin, following after their own lusts and desires. How to dead men walk? Are they zombies? Well not exactly, but dead means dead; so how dead were we? Spiritually, all people apart from Christ are dead. Scripture tells us that the dead man’s understanding is darkened (Eph 4:18); a veil lies over his heart (2 Cor 3:15) so he cannot discern spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14); he lives a world of false ideologies (2 Th 2:9-11), that is under the sway of the wicked one (1 Jn 5:19), where the truth of God is ridiculed (2 Pet 3:4), and he believes the philosophers of this world in their denial of Scripture (1 Co 1:18). Ironically, such dead men are proud; they glory in their human intellect (Ro 1:22), but God’s assessment of him is that his foolish heart is hardened (1 Cor 3:18-20), and desperately wicked and deceitful above all things (Jer 17:9). He loves darkness (Jn 3:19), delights in his sin (Is 22:13) and the sin of others (Ro 1:32). Devoid of life, the man who is apart from Christ, hates God (Ro 1:30) and hates Christ (Jn 7:7) – he is God’s enemy (Ps 7:11) – a child of wrath (Eph 2:3).
In light of this, can anyone say that believing the Gospel is so easy that anyone who decides to, may do so? If today you have an interest in the things of God; if you understand the Word of God; if there is a desire love Christ – it is by the grace of God (and that alone) that is at work in you. As Jesus Christ was dead, but God raised and exalted Him, so you also were dead, and God raised and exalted you!
