Cheryl Schatz

Gazza,
You said:

The Romans 6 passage dosn’t actually say anyone is dead now rather that the believers should “count themselves dead to sin” Paul then explains what being dead to sin would look like.

What does being dead to sin look like?

Romans 6:12–14 (NASB)
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,

It means that it has not right to reign in our lives. It also has no right to demand that it be obeyed.

13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

Dead to sin means that you do not give your body to sin to be used as an instrument. Instead, being alive from the dead means being alive to God to give Him our bodies to be used as instruments of righteous acts.

14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Being dead to sin means that sin cannot make us a slave since being dead to sin means that we are not under the law. We have been placed under grace.

Why did Paul say this?

Romans 6:10–11 (NASB)
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

It is because in Jesus’ death, He died to sin once for all and this has an effect on us. Because Jesus died once for all we are to understand that because of Him we are also to be dead to sin. It is a present action that carries makes us dead right now to sin.

Ephesians 2:1–2 (NASB)
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

The tense is also present in Ephesians 2. Are we dead to the sin in which we formerly walked? Are we dead to the course of this world and are we dead to the power of the prince that rules this world? We should be if we are in Christ.

Ephesians 2:3 (NASB)
3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

In verse 3 Paul talks about what we all were. This is not present tense. It is what was, in the past.

Ephesians 2:4–6 (NASB)
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, …

Here again the verb in verse 5 is present tense. And the word translated as “even” is a logical ascensive conjunction.

The word “ascensive” refers to “reaching a climax or crescendo.” Hence an ascensive conjunction is one that adds one last piece of information or comment to a grammatical element (i.e., word, phrase, or clause).
Heiser, M. S. (2005; 2005). Glossary of Morpho-Syntactic Database Terminology.

Ephesians 2:4–6 (NASB)
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

It is God’s riches in mercy that caused us to be (present tense) dead to our sins and alive with Christ. Made alive is indicative aorist.

In the indicative mood, the aorist usually denotes past time,
Heiser, M. S. (2005; 2005). Glossary of Morpho-Syntactic Database Terminology.

“dead to sin” is present tense and “made alive with Christ” is a past action already accomplished.

Is it God’s mercy that we are dead to sin and made alive with Christ? If not why is the verb “eimi” in the present tense while all the other verbs are indicative aorist?

If being dead in transgressions is current then how does that fit with the description “as you used to be” and “lived among them at one time”? It is clearly referring to the state in which they were in before they had faith in Christ. Are the believers still objects of wrath?

It appears to me to be “being dead” (present tense) to what you used to be alive to. The believers were children of wrath when they were alive to their sin nature – and being children of wrath is not present tense. In fact the only present tense is the verb “being” or “eimi” which has to do with being dead to sin.

How do you explain the present tense? In Romans 6:11 we are to count ourselves as dead to sin (present tense) and in Ephesians 2:1 Paul says you “eimi” or “being” (present tense) dead to sins.

You said:

The present tense is referring to the current nature of being dead in transgressions when we were made alive in Christ by God in His mercy.

How is this a “current nature” is it is what one was when they were in sin? “Current nature” and “present tense” are equivalent. It says this is what we are not what we were when we were lost.

This is also consistent with the juxtaposition of the life/death imagery. For if while alive in Christ we are still presently dead in our transgressions then it would be saying that Christs sacrifice in itself was not sufficient would it not?

No, for Christ Himself became dead to sin and in Him we would need to be dead to sin too.

Romans 6:10 (NASB)
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

Is this not what we are in Christ? Dead to sin AND made alive in Christ?

I am really stymied about how Calvinists can deal with the present tense in Ephesians 2:1. It just doesn’t fit the mold that has been painted.