What does it mean for someone to be dead in trespasses and sins?
Being dead in trespasses and sins means spiritual death, not physical death. The unsaved are alive physically but separated from God's eternal life, walking according to the world, Satan, and the desires of the flesh and mind. Trespasses and sins describe the resulting lifestyle of the old Adam nature.
Les explains that the unsaved world is not physically dead but spiritually dead—he calls it “a world full of dead people.” They are wrapped up in the spiderweb of Satan, walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, Satan, and the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. Ephesians 2:1 says we were dead in trespasses and sins, plural, which is the result of sin, singular, the old Adam. All believers came out of that lifestyle, having lived in the lusts or desires of the flesh and of the mind, by nature doing what comes naturally under the control of the old nature.
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
More Questions
Why are people dead in trespasses and sins?
Being dead in trespasses and sins (plural) is the result of sin (singular), that is, the old Adamic sin nature.