What Does Ephesians 2:1 Mean?

(1) **And you hath he quickened.**—*And you also.* St. Paul here begins the particular application to the Ephesians, which is the main subject of this chapter, broken off in Ephesians 2:3-10, and resumed in Ephesians 2:11. The words “hath He quickened” (or, properly, *did He quicken*) are supplied here from Ephesians 2:5—rightly, as expressing the true sense and tending to greater clearness, but perhaps not necessarily. **Trespasses and sins.**—These two words, more often used separately, are here brought together, to form a climax. The word rendered “trespass” signifies a “swerving aside and falling”; the word rendered “sins” is generally used by St. Paul in the singular to denote “sin” in the abstract, and signifies an entire “missing of the mark” of life. Hence, even in the plural, it denotes universal and positive principles of evil doing, while “trespass” rather points to failure in visible and special acts of those not necessarily out of the right way.