David R.
Anderson, a critic of Calvinism, wrote the following about the common Reformed
appeal to the metaphor of unregenerated man being “dead” in Eph 2:1 as “proof”
of Total Depravity, the T of TULIP, in particular, James White’s use of this in
a debate with Dave Hunt:
White is using "dead" here in the
sense of "inactive" like a dead church or youth group. This
completely overlooks the word "in." We are in a book about Position (Ephesians 1-3) and Condition (Ephesians 4-6). Chapter one
begins with all the spiritual blessings we have "in Christ" in
heavenly places. But chapter two begins with our Position before we were
baptized by the Holy Spirit into Christ. We were dead in sin. This kind
of death is not talking about a spiritual corpse but rather a spiritual
separation. Our human spirits were separated from God. Physical death is a
separation--the material part of man from the immaterial. Spiritual death is
also separation--the spirit of man from god. Physical life comes when God
breathes the breath of the spirit of life into the material part of man. And
spiritual life (post-Pentecost) comes when the Holy Spirit units our human
spirit.
Life is union; death is separation.
It is easy to show that the human spirit of
an unbeliever is quite active and functional even though it is separated from
God. In Genesis 41:8 we are told that Pharaoh's spirit was troubled within him.
In 1 Kings 21:5 we are told that Ahab's spirit was sullen. In 1 Chronicles 5:26
it says God stirred up the spirit of Tiglath-Pileser. In 2 Chronicles 36:22 God
stirred up the spirit of Cyrus the Persian to free the Jews. In Daniel 2 it
says Nebuchadnezzar's spirit was troubled and anxious and in 5:20 was hardened
with pride. Surely we would argue that none of these mentioned was a believer.
But their spirits were not corpses. They were quite active. They were separated
from God, but they were capable of a number of activities.
Zechariah 12:1 says the Lord forms the spirit
of man within him. To what purpose? To be a corpse? No the spirit of the
unbeliever has many functions, as we have seen. I would even argue that our
conscience is a function of our human spirit, and this is precisely where the
Holy Spirit convicts the unbelievers of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
In 1 Corinthians 2:11 we read, "For what
man knows the things of man except the spirit of the man which is in him?"
The context calls for a non-Christian in this verse, but the spirit within him
knows the man. If this man's spirit is dead like a corpse and cannot breathe,
eat, think, or believe, how is it that this spirit in the unbeliever can
"know" the things of the man?
In Luke 16:19ff Jesus tells the story of the
rich man and Lazarus. The rich man dies. His body is buried. His spirit goes to
hell. While in hell, the spirit of the rich man can see, feel, talk, and think.
Does this sound like a spiritual corpse to you? Not exactly. The only possible
response to this is to say the spirit of the unbeliever is a corpse while his
body is alive on earth, but then is regenerated when sent to hell so it can function
as observed. Wait a minute. You've got a regenerated spirit in hell? Not
likely.
To conclude, "dead in trespasses and
sins" is a statement of spiritual separation (death) from God, the
spiritual state of an unbeliever. It does not mean dead like an inactive
volcano. It means separated from God, but alive and kicking. (David R.
Anderson, "The Nature of Death--Ephesians 2:1," in Fred Chay, ed. A Defense of Free Grace Theology: With
Respect to Saving Faith, Perseverance, and Assurance [Grace Theology Press,
2017], 568-69, emphasis in original)
While one
disagrees with the assumption of eternal security in the above, it does show
that the Reformed appeal to the metaphor
of “dead” in Eph 2:1 is eisegesis.
For more on
Total Depravity and the other errors of Calvinism, see: