A dead body doesn’t feel anything. It’s wrapped in darkness, and separated from light and life. It rots away, like a desert parched from a lack of any nourishing flow. Silent. Numb to goodness, and knowing not that it is dead. Recovered alcoholics and drug addicts know what it is like to be dead. They can remember how their senses were dulled to everything that is light and good, and how they didn’t even realize that they had a problem, or how they wandered through life like zombies, looking for the next hit, or the next shot. Their world was one of oblivion. Those who truly escape that oblivion will do whatever it takes to keep from falling back into its darkness. They strive to stay alive. They orient themselves toward light, survival, and purpose. They never forget their cold, gloomy, lifeless coffins. They have a hatred for them so strong that they are often inspired throughout the rest of their lives to rescue others from the same abyss.
This is no different than the experience of someone who is weighted down by sin, and blinded to God. They often do not know that they are dead to true life. They are comfortable in their sin, not knowing the actual weight they carry. They are numb to life. They lack a nourishing flow. There is no real warmth, and it is often difficult to give, receive, or appropriately experience love.
This is the very picture that Paul is painting for the followers at Ephesus when he reminds them that they were once dead in their sins and following satanic spirits (Ephesians 2:1-3). He is giving them a dark reminder of the tombs in which they had been living before God raised them from the dead when he resurrected Christ (Ephesians 2:4-7).
When you submit to God, you are raised from the dead, and quickened. You recognize the life around you. You orient yourself toward the light. The tomb becomes an enemy to which you never wish to return, and for which you aim to defeat. You become inspired to rescue others from such tombs, and in so doing glorify God the father, and walk in a divine destiny of good works, emulating your greatest example, Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:10).
Kommentare