“Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.” Ephesians 2:1-3 NLT
The Apostle Paul gets gritty as he describes to the Ephesians what is really going on in us, around us, and specifically above us. He writes, “once you were,” and “we used to” obey the “archón,” the ruler/prince, the “exousia,” the authority of the air. This “pneuma,” spirit is working in the sons of “apeitheia,” disobedience – the willful refusal to be convinced by God’s voice. Wow! That’s a lot more going on than I ever understood. Paul bluntly writes, we were “walking in the ways of the world!” What? What way is that? It’s an order of disorder, a pattern, a flow. We THINK, actually we delude ourselves into believing that we are autonomously, independently following our true self – our will, our way. But Paul says, that is not TRUE. When we believe we are self-driven, we are really falling in line with a ruler, with an authority that lives in the unseen cosmos, an other worldly realm.
This entity is “energeó,” energized and working in the sons of disobedient. Who are these sons? This isn’t a demon-class of fallen angels, nor the ever mysterious “sons of God,” some sort of half-breed angel/human hybrids. No, these are people, just regular old human beings with one massive bent – they are people whose identity and conduct are shaped by disobedience. In other words, they are the true nature of the “worldly culture.” Their vibe, their end goal isn’t about freedom or some “true to thyself,” ideology. It’s much simpler, but darker – it’s just pure disobedience to God’s order. Their own personal “stick-it-to-the-man” isn’t a sixties mantra, it’s an all out flipping off God by purposely challenging Him on who He is and His will and ways. It’s choosing to be God’s enemy. Everything that God is, they are against!
And yes, they are being led by the “ruler” in authority over the air, but they do so in preference to rebellion, not naivety. Paul says “all of us” used to live this way – following our own “theléma,” things willed of the flesh. The disordered desires of our own heart and soul. The desires that may start off as real needs, neutral and harmless, but turn quickly to grasp what we want immediately and untimely, or obsess with something not good for us. That’s why Paul says we were “by nature deserving of wrath.” Not necessarily because of the desire or urge, but the actual follow through of rebellious disobedience. We know it’s bad, but choose it anyways – making us enemies of God and literally ourselves.
Thankfully, Paul writes that this “used to be us,” and we “were” under God’s wrath! For “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us!” (Romans 5:8). While we rebelled, and grasped for disordered desires and joined with the ruler of the air and the disobedience of the world culture – Jesus died to set us free from the deceiver and our mis-driven desires.
Prayer
Dad,
I always bristled against doing whatever my friends did. I wasn’t a good follower of culture, even though I was often persuaded into doing some very foolish things. I had a conscience, but ignored it way too often to do my “own thing.” I wouldn’t have understood that as rebellion against you, nor complicity with the deceiver or my own desires at the time. It wasn’t clear until I saw my life following the disastrous pattern or my parents – that scared me! That’s what it took to see you as my only way out, my hope for a different future. You not only fathered me, you lovingly disciplined me and showed me how to live the life you always intended for me. Thank you for saving and transforming my life!