How does the Bible describe our unsaved past?
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” ( Ephesians 2:1 ) Three concise descriptions are given in Scripture of how God sees all sinners prior to the creation of the second birth in us. We were dead in trespasses (activities) and sins (character, attitude, condition). The result was that we were unable to understand or seek God on our own ( Romans 3:10-11 ). Nor are we able to know the things of God by our own intellectual prowess ( 1 Corinthians 2:14 ). We “walked according to the course of this world” ( Ephesians 2:2 ), in bondage to the world ( Galatians 4:3 ) and blinded by Satan ( 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 ). We are by “nature the children of wrath” ( Ephesians 2:3 ). Both our natural desires ( Ephesians 5:5-6 ) and our willing unbelief ( John 3:36 ) put us under an ever-increasi...