The Plight of Man

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. EPHESIANS 2:1

On Sunday mornings through much of the 1950s and into the 1960s, Lloyd-Jones preached his way through the Epistle to the Ephesians. When he came to the second chapter he lingered over its first three verses for a long time, and the sermons were afterwards published in the volume God’s Way of Reconciliation. One of them, on the wrath of God, can be read on Ochorus. They are among the most searching things he ever preached, and they give his doctrine of man in its fullest form. If the previous chapter showed the doctor’s method, this one shows his diagnosis.

Dead, not ill

Paul’s first word about man without Christ is not that he is sick but that he is dead. Lloyd-Jones pressed the point hard. Much modern preaching, he argued in effect, treats the unbeliever as a man who is ailing but able to help himself: he needs only encouragement, information, a good example, a little assistance. But a dead man cannot be encouraged. He cannot be helped to walk. He must be raised.

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses. COLOSSIANS 2:13

Spiritual death, as he expounded it, does not mean that the unbeliever is incapable of thought or morality or kindness. It means that he is dead towards God. He has no spiritual life, no true knowledge of God, no love for Him, no capacity of his own to respond to Him. He may be learned, cultured, respectable and religious, and still be dead in this sense. That was the point Lloyd-Jones was most anxious his congregation should grasp, for many of them were learned, cultured, respectable and religious.

Walking according to the course of this world

Paul goes on to describe how such a man lives. He walks according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. EPHESIANS 2:2

Lloyd-Jones saw in this a devastating account of what men call freedom. The unbeliever thinks of himself as independent, thinking his own thoughts, living his own life. In fact, he lives exactly as the world around him lives; his opinions are the opinions of his age; his desires are directed by forces he does not see. He is not free. He is a prisoner who has never noticed the walls. And behind the course of this world stands a personal power of evil, the devil, whose work the Bible takes with complete seriousness even when modern men do not.

Notice too that Paul includes the desires of the mind as well as of the flesh. Sin is not only a matter of the body’s appetites. The proud intellect that sets itself above God is as much in bondage as the drunkard, and perhaps more, because it does not know it.

By nature the children of wrath

Then comes the phrase that most offends the modern ear.

Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. EPHESIANS 2:3

Lloyd-Jones did not soften it. In the sermon on the wrath of God he gives several reasons for facing it squarely. It is in Scripture, and we may not pick and choose. It is a matter of fact, not theory; if it is true, it is the most important fact about every one of us. And, above all, we cannot understand the love of God without it. Why did the Son of God have to come into the world? Why did He have to die? No one, he argued, can answer those questions adequately without the doctrine of the wrath of God. Take away the wrath and the cross becomes an unexplained tragedy, or a mere example.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. ROMANS 1:18

He was careful to say what wrath is not. It is not a loss of temper, not a sudden outburst of irritation, not the capricious anger of a pagan deity. It is the settled, holy, righteous opposition of God to all that is evil — the reaction of perfect holiness to sin. A God who was not angry with evil would not be good.

And note the words even as others. Paul, the converted Pharisee, includes himself. There is no class of person exempt. The religious and the irreligious, the moral and the immoral, the Jew and the Gentile, all alike are by nature under the wrath of God. This is what the Bible means by the universality of sin, and it is the great leveller of human pride.

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. ROMANS 3:23

Why begin here

A reader may ask why a preacher would spend so long on such dark matters. Lloyd-Jones’s answer was always the same, and it was the answer of a physician. You do not understand the cure until you understand the disease. The man who thinks he is only slightly unwell will not value the surgeon. The man who knows he is dying will value him above everything.

This is why he was so critical of any presentation of the gospel that began with man’s happiness, or his needs, or his potential, rather than with his condition before God. Such preaching, he believed, produced shallow conversions, because it offered Christ as an addition to a life that was basically sound, rather than as the only hope of a life that was lost.

And then the great But

Yet his exposition never ended in darkness, and it would be a serious misreading of him to think it did. The whole purpose of Ephesians 2:1–3 is to prepare for verse four. The sermon on the wrath of God closes by turning, with evident joy, to the glorious But that follows.

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) EPHESIANS 2:4–5

Lloyd-Jones loved those two words, But God. They were, for him, the whole gospel in miniature. Man’s condition is hopeless — but God. Man is dead — but God has made alive. Man is under wrath — but God is rich in mercy. The darkness of the diagnosis is there to make the light of the remedy visible. Only the man who has seen the depth of the pit can sing properly of the hand that lifted him out of it.

Where care is needed

This doctrine can be preached badly. It can be used to crush rather than to lead to Christ, or preached with a coldness that suggests the preacher is not himself one of the others. Lloyd-Jones knew this danger, and his own practice was to hold the wrath and the mercy of God together, never one without the other. The reader who takes this chapter to heart should do the same: see your condition truly, and then look immediately and long at the mercy of God in Christ.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read Ephesians 2:1–10 aloud. Mark where the description of man ends and the action of God begins.

2. Ask where you have thought of yourself, or others, as merely ill rather than dead towards God. How would the difference change your prayers for unbelieving friends?

3. Consider whether your opinions and desires are truly your own, or simply the course of this world. Name one area where you have followed the age without thinking.

4. If the doctrine of the wrath of God troubles you, write down what you think the cross means without it. Then read Romans 3:23–26.

5. Spend five minutes thanking God for the words But God, applying them to your own story.

A PRAYER

Holy God, I confess that by nature I was dead towards You, walking in the way of this world, and a child of wrath even as others.

I do not deserve Your mercy, and I do not ask for it as a right. I cast myself upon it.

Thank You that You are rich in mercy, and that You loved me when I was dead, and made me alive together with Christ.

Let the memory of what I was keep me humble, and the knowledge of what You have done keep me glad. Amen.