Trespasses and Sins

by Mike Ratliff

1 Καὶ ὑμᾶς ὄντας νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασιν καὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν, 2 ἐν αἷς ποτε περιεπατήσατε κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, κατὰ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος, τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ νῦν ἐνεργοῦντος ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθείας· (Ephesians 2:1,2 NA28)

¹ And you were dead in your trespasses and sins  ² in which you once walked according the world system of this age, according to ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit now working in the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 2:1,2 translated from the NA28 Greek text)

I was requested recently for input into a discussion between professing Christians that had begun about what is proper worship and what is not using some of the presentations from the recent Strange Fire conference, but had taken a “strange turn” between a few attacking the theology of those who held to the Sovereignty of God in all things, especially salvation and those who were defending it. By the time I got to the discussion the “back and forth” and become quite terse and there was one very intense person insisting that “Sovereignty” was not a Biblical word, but a man-made, theological word since it was not found her King James Bible. She was refuted quite well by several people so I didn’t get involved in it. However, I did send my friend an exegetical analysis of Ephesians 2:1-9 showing that those who insist on Salvation according to Free Will must be inconsistent with Ephesians 2:8,9. It was from that “experience” that I decided we should take a closer look at two words found throughout the New Testament, “trespasses” and “sins.”