What does it mean that we were spiritually dead? Ephesians 2:1

"And you were dead in your trespasses and sin..." Ephesians 2:1

This is one of the most troubling and difficult to understand passages in the New Testament for many Christians. Clearly this verse refers to our spiritual condition before we were saved through trust in Christ. But this verse still seems very foreign to the experience of many believers. How do we reconcile this verse with our pre-conversion experiences.

First of all, this verse is not saying that we were as spiritually bad as one could possibly be. Not all of us were murderers, thieves, racists, child abusers, etc. In other words, from a purely human perspective, a lot of us B.C. (before Christ) were pretty good people. But what this verse is telling us is that from God's perspective, we were completely incapable of doing anything good. As Romans 3:12 explicitly says, there is no one, not even one, who is good in God's eyes. Therefore, being "spiritually dead" means that we cannot do anything that commends us to God or makes us more acceptable to Him. Being spiritually dead does not mean that we are incapable of human good. But there is nothing, nada, that can do that would cause God to feel better about us, let alone save us eternally. So, being spiritually dead means that we were totally unworthy of being saved by God (see Romans 5:10). That was our condition before we put our trust in Christ. It ain't pretty, but it is true. And a lot of Christians didn't realize how bad our situation was before Christ.

There is another important truth in regard to our being spiritually dead B.C. That is that we were completely unable to respond to God spiritually-speaking. This does not mean that before Christ we were unable to pray, read God's Word or think about God intelligently. But in spite of our capacity for some level spiritual activity before Christ we did not have the capacity to respond to God sufficiently or appropriately. A corpse has no ability to respond to the living. A dead person is completely unconscious in regard to this world. In a similar way, someone who is spiritually dead is completely unable to respond to the spiritual world. We may look back at our experience and see ourselves reaching out to God and pursuing Him before we were saved. But God's Word makes it abundantly clear that no one ever seeks after God, not even one (Romans 3:11). We may think that we were seeking God, but actually He was seeking us. Not only were we not really seeking Him, but we were spiritually unable to connect with Him in any way acceptable to Him. We were spiritually dead. So, how can someone who is spiritually dead respond to God? The truly Reformed answer is that God saves and regenerates us so that we can then respond in belief. But the scripture clearly explains again and again that we must believe in Jesus and then we will be saved (see Acts 16:31 for just one example). But how then can a spiritual corpse respond to God? That answer is found a few verses later in Ephesians 2:5. Stay tuned.