Ephesians 2:2

2. Wherein, according to the Greek, properly refers to sins, implying an habitual course of trespasses. Walked, together with had conversation and fulfilling, in Ephesians 2:3, shows that Paul is not describing the congenital depravity of the Ephesians as a state, but their course of practical adult depraved conduct. This is specially important to note, in order to a true understanding of the last half of Ephesians 2:3.

The course of this world The aeon of this cosmos. Both aeon and cosmos are often translated world.

But the latter more usually signifies the world-frame, the physical creation, the former the world-period, and the spirit of that period. This world is terrene in opposition to the heavenly. The aeon is the temper of the age.

The prince of the power of the air Dr. Eadie well says: “The prince of darkness is not only prince, but god of this world, (2 Corinthians 4:4,) and his power is mentioned, Acts 26:18. Again, he is styled prince of this world, John 12:31; John 14:30; John 16:11. His principality is spoiled, Colossians 2:15, and Jesus came to destroy his works, 1 John 3:8.

Believers are freed from his power, 1 John 5:18; Colossians 1:13.” Power is used, as above in Ephesians 1:21, to signify the body of powerful beings the hierarchy, or rather demonarchy, collectively embodied. Of the air, signifies the place in which the demonarchy exist and hold empire. So when we speak of throwing a stone into the air, we refer not to the element, but to the space. So Acts 22:23: “They threw dust into the air.” And 1 Thessalonians 4:17: “To meet the Lord in the air.” In both places the reference is not to the aerial matter, but to the visible vicinity, the region over the earth’s surface. This is in entire accordance with the uniform view, both scriptural and popular, that spirits of both good and evil belong to our terrene sphere. A spirit region overlies the earth’s surface, like a stratum of atmosphere.

“Millions of spirits walk the earth unseen,

Both when we sleep and when we wake.”

Milton.

So in Job 1:7, Satan describes himself as “going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it.” Our Lord beheld Satan as falling from heaven toward earth. Luke 10:18. So demons, as from the aerial space, possess demoniacs. These views were held by the Jewish doctors, and by the later Greek philosophers and theosophists. Plutarch says, The “air below the pure ether, and below the pure heaven, is full of gods and demons.” “Nay,” says Dr. Eadie, “Augustine held that the demons were penally confined to the air” as to a prison. If (see note on Ephesians 4:9) hades or the infernum is at the subterranean centre, it would seem by this to extend its domain into the atmospheric heaven. Or, reversely, the seat of the demonarchy may be in the aerial, extending to the earth’s centre.

The spirit This word is not, as the English reader would naturally suppose, in apposition with prince, but with power. This power, the collective body of the demonarchy, is in thought and words concentrated into a spirit, identified with a controlling influence in wicked men. From the spirit region over earth, where they dwell, they settle down like a malaria into the souls of the depraved.

Worketh in Operating like a poison in their hearts; deranging their intellects and inflaming their passions.

Children of disobedience Literal Greek, sons of disobedience; but in the next verse, not in the Greek sons, but children, of wrath. In accordance with a well-known Hebrew idiom the term son, or child, is often figuratively used to signify any quality for which a person is or was distinguished. The Greeks could say, “sons of the Greeks,” as we can say, “sons of America.” But the Hebrews could call the morning star “son of the morning.” They could call an unspiritual interpreter a “son of the letter.” So, Mark 3:17, “sons of thunder.” Luke 10:6, literal Greek, “a son of peace.” Similarly, according to the Greek, 1 Thessalonians 5:5, “sons of the day.” John 12:36, “sons of light.” Luke 16:8, “sons of this age.” Luke 20:36, “sons of the resurrection.” In such use of the words son and child, no idea of being born of the quality or circumstance is retained, as a survey of the instances will amply show.

Disobedience To the moral law, as shown in both heart and life.