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-increasing wrathful judgment of God (Romans 2:5-9).
Whatever being twice-born may ultimately involve, it assures us of permanent status as the chosen, holy ones of God (Romans 8:29-39), “that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). HMM III