5-23 The Prince Of The Air
Ephesians 2: 1-3: “And you hath he quickened, who were dead
in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power
of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Among whom we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts
of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind;
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others”.
Popular Interpretation
The prince of the power of the air is said to be the Devil, who
is a spirit making people disobedient to God.
Comments
1. The words “Satan” and “Devil” do not occur here.
2. “Walking”, v. 2, (i.e. living) according to the prince of the power
of the air, is defined in v. 3 as living according to the lust of our
fleshly mind. The “lusts of our flesh” come from within us (Mk. 7: 21-23;
James 1:14) not from anything outside of us.
3. “The power of the air” is clearly a figurative expression - “the prince”
probably is also.
4. “The prince” is “the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience”.
The spirit frequently refers to an attitude of mind (e.g. Deut: 2:30;
Prov. 25:28; Is. 54:6; 61: 3; Ez. 18:31; Mk.14:38; Lk. 2:40; 2 Cor. 2:13;
12:18; Eph. 4:23). This is confirmed by v. 3 - such people’s lives are
controlled by “fulfilling the lusts of our flesh (which come from our
heart- James 1:14), fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind”.
Fleshly people do not allow their lives to be controlled by a physical
“prince” outside of them, but by following their fleshly desires which
are in their minds. A physical being cannot exist as a “spirit” in the
sense of an intangible essence. A spirit does not have flesh and bones,
i.e. a physical body (Lk. 24:39); therefore because “the prince” is a
“spirit”, this must be a figurative expression not a physical being. The
“spirit” or attitude of mind is a figurative prince, as sin is a figurative
paymaster (Rom. 6: 23).
5. This passage (and v. 11) speaks of their former Gentile lives. 1 Pet.
4:3 speaks of life before conversion as: “In the time past
we wrought the will of the Gentiles…we walked in lusts”.
Their own flesh was their “prince”. Thus walking according to the
prince of the air (v.2) is parallel with walking in the flesh (v.
11). The more common antithesis to walking in spirit is walking
after the flesh- here termed “the course of this
world”.
6. George Lamsa, a native speaker of Aramaic, understands "the
prince of the power of the air" to be the dynamic equivalent
of the Arabic / Aramaic resh shultana, which he claims
would've been understood as meaning simply 'the head of the government',
with no intended reference to the literal air (1).
7. Athanasius argued that the death of Jesus cleansed the air where
the demons / fallen angels now live, and therefore physically opened
up a way for [supposed] immortal souls to find a way into Heaven
(2). Not only was all this unBiblical, it reflects a literalism
which reduces God to a being hopelessly bound by physicality. In
short, this kind of thinking arose from a basic lack of faith in
God as the Almighty, who doesn't need to build bridges over problems
which men have created for Him in their own minds. It should be
noted that the idea of saying "Bless you!" when someone
sneezes derives from Athanasius' idea that demons can become so
small that they enter a person from the literal air. This is what
happens if we insist that the Devil was thrown out of heaven and
some of his angels are still in the literal air- it's literalism
gone wrong.
Suggested Explanations
1. Verse 1 says that “you” - the faithful at Ephesus - were dead in sins.
Verses 2 and 3 then express the reason for this in four interchangeable
ways:
(a) “...ye walked according to the course of this world”
(b) “...according to the prince of the power of the air”
(c) “...the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience”
and
(d) “...were by nature the children of wrath”.
The “whole world lieth in wickedness (1 Jn. 5:19) because by nature we
all have a fleshly mind or spirit. “The children of disobedience” show
this by their lives “fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind”
(v. 1 & 3). Thus “the prince of the power of the air” is our evil,
fleshly mind, i.e. the real Devil.
2. There are many links between Ephesians and Colossians. One of the
clearest is between these verses and Colossians 3: 3-7. Colossians 3:3
speaks of us having died to sin as Ephesians 2:1 does. Verses 5-7 amplify
what are “the lusts of the flesh” which “the children of disobedience”
fulfil:
“Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness,
which is idolatry: For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the
children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, when
ye walked in them”. These things of v. 5 are “the works of the flesh”
mentioned in Galatians 5:19. These things come from within us, not from
anything outside (Mk. 7:21-23). Therefore the prince of the power of the
air, which causes these things, is again defined as our evil desires.
3. “The air” normally refers to the literal air around
us which we breathe. It is a different word to that translated “air’
in the sense of the heavens, e.g. “the birds of the air”
(Lk. 9: 58). The seven angels of Revelation 16 pour out their vials
on people in various parts of the earth in preparation for the establishment
of God’s Kingdom. “The seventh angel poured out his
vial into the air” (Rev. 16:17) because his work affected
the whole of the earth; it is as a result of this vial that the
Kingdom of God is established on the earth and the kingdoms of men
are ended. Thus the “power of the air” is a phrase which
figuratively refers to a power which has influence over the people
of the whole earth - and the power of sin, the fleshly mind, is
worldwide.
Notes
(1) George Lamsa, New Testament Light (San Francisco Harper
& Row) p. 248.
(2) See Nathan K. Ng, The Spirituality of Athanasius (Bern:
Lang, 2001).
