SUNDAY: Bible Study - 9:00 AM | Worship - 10:00 AM | PM Worship - 6:00 PM WEDNESDAY: Bible Class - 7:00 PM ~ 8110 Signal Hill Road Manassas, Virginia | Office Phone: 703.368.2622

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ…..Ephesians 2.4-5

            We were dead in our transgressions, Paul argues, and then God made us alive together with Christ.  It is a theme he has explored so many times. In Romans 6 he talks about sin and salvation in terms of death and life.  When we are baptized we die to sin and are raised to walk in “newness of life” (v.4). Before we respond to the gospel we are dead, after we respond we are alive.

            But how is it we are able to respond if we are dead? How do the spiritually dead connect with the message at all if that part that can respond, the spiritual sensibility, is dead?

            There are two main denominational answers to this question that are really the same answer. Catholicism posits the doctrine of prevenient grace. Prevenient grace is just a little bit of grace, an infusion of a little life into a dead soul which allows that soul to respond. Many protestant denominations have some version of the doctrine of a call.  God decides to make clear his intention that we be saved – this can come in any variety of ways – an inner voice, a bolt of lightning, a message in a fortune cookie.

            Both answers demand a preliminary action on God’s part before we can even consider His invitation. Both ideas assume that “dead” means without any life at all – that our spiritual self, given to us when we are formed by God (Ecclesiastes 12.7, Jeremiah 1.4-5) is without any pulse – a cold corpse. But is that our experience? Are the unbaptized without any impulse for good? Are their lives completely dominated by evil? Are the unbaptized incapable of loving their children, helping the elderly, supporting a worthy cause, sending an encouraging note, baking a batch of cookies for a shut in, shoveling a neighbor’s driveway?  If the answer is no, then where does the impulse for good originate?

            What if by “dead” we mean “under penalty of death.” Doesn’t that fit more nicely into Paul’s categories in Romans 6? The “wages” of sin is death – it is the recompense, the reward.  He says we should consider ourselves “dead to sin” (v.11) How can he say we are “dead to sin” if we still sin? He must mean something other than that the impulse for sin is a cold corpse. We know that the impulse for sin is alive and well and still living inside us. In fact what he does mean is that we are no longer “enslaved” to sin (v.6).  “Dead” then doesn’t mean “lifeless” but “under the sway of death.”

            If the spirit of God in us is still alive, though under penalty of death because of sin; isn’t it the most natural thing in the world to accept the Gospel?  Don’t we see the yearning, living, frantic search for something meaningful and transcendent in every poet, athlete, junkie, crusader, addict, romantic, ideologue, and sentimentalist? Don’t we see the search for God in every human quest?

            I believe we do.  I believe the spirit in each of us is alive and longs to be right with its source – the One, true God.  How else do we even know to ask “What must I do?”  Most of us are under penalty of death, and will remain so (Matthew 7.13-14) – but that is a choice, not a curse.  Humans have souls that desire oneness with God. Otherwise God’s invitation is meaningless. We are not dependent on a special “call”. The call has already been made, and we already have that in us which yearns to respond.

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