Ephesians - Lesson 24

In chapter 4, verses 17 through 32, Paul says, don't walk as the Gentiles walked. Basically, he is doing what he did in the previous verses. He's commanding them to obey the gospel, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which they've been called.

And now he's going to give them some specific instructions as to how to do that by contrasting their previous manner of life as Gentiles. So he says in verse 17, now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer, here's our verb again, walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. Now, there's much more he says here, which goes into verse 18, but I'll pause here and do some explaining of a few of these words.

So he wants them to no longer walk. Again, there's that verb to walk, a way of life. But what does he mean by as the Gentiles do? As I've said before, in Paul's sociology, when you become a Christian, you don't stop becoming the ethnic group that you, the ethnicity that you experienced or participated in prior to your faith in Jesus.

But instead, ethnic identity is transformed, but not erased. So then the question becomes, what does he mean by not walking as the Gentiles? In other words, how does a Gentile not be a Gentile? Well, he's not talking about changing their ethnic identity, but he is talking about changing their pattern of living with respect to their morality or lack thereof. Now, just to be clear, Gentiles were not completely ungodly, lacking virtue, or immoral.

We have numerous examples in ancient sources. We think of, for example, Seneca, who was a philosopher, a Stoic philosopher who wrote a treatise on virtue. We have other folks in the Stoic tradition as well who cared about virtue.

And some of those virtues were parallel with some of the virtues we find in Paul's list regarding walking in the Spirit, or even here in Ephesians regarding walking in a certain way. And so it's true that there were what we could call virtuous Gentiles. But it's also true, generally speaking, that from a Jewish perspective, that Gentiles were those whose lives were contrary to living a life pleasing to God.

So to give you one example, if you think of the Jewish text known as the Book of Jubilees, which is a pseudographic text, Jubilees 22 is the chapter, around verses 16 and following, the author of that text exhorts these Jews to separate themselves from the Gentiles. And the reasons he gives is because the Gentiles were immoral, they were ungodly, they had no heart, they were evil, they were idolaters, so on and so forth. They worshiped trees and this, that and the other.

And also we know from a certain Gentile way of life and certain Gentile expressions of their worship, there was immorality attached to a pagan way of life as Gentiles. So you have temple prostitution taking place in certain Gentile religions. You had orgies, that's why Paul forbids orgies in Galatians chapter 5 when he's talking to those Gentile followers of Christ.

You had these banquets and feasts where all sorts of lewd behavior would happen and this behavior was also connected in certain expressions of Gentile religion with cultic expressions of worship. So when Paul says you must not walk any longer as Gentiles walk, he is not saying every Gentile throughout history at all times is ungodly and pagan. He is saying generally speaking Gentiles, at least these Gentiles, they were saved, excuse me, out of paganism and out of a way of life that was futile, verse 17.

A way of life that was contrary to the spirit, a way of life that was not holy and blameless. So he says you can't walk the same way as you formerly walked. So by way of application, I want to reiterate a point that I've made in previous lectures that in Christ Jesus, our ethnic identities are not eradicated or erased, but they're transformed.

But if there's anything from our old way of life that is connected to our ethnic identity that was contrary to the gospel, then we must no longer walk in accordance with that pattern. So that means if there were certain cultural experiences that we participated in that are connected to the ethnic heritage of which we're part, that means that we have to choose to walk in step with the spirit and avoid walking contrary to the flesh. In the case of these particular Gentiles, their Gentile identity had within it this practice of living in a way that was contrary to the pattern outlined by the spirit.

So he says you can't walk like that anymore in the futility of your mind. Notice again, he uses language regarding thinking. So he talks about the heart and the mind.

He uses the word mind earlier. It's the same word here in verse 18 that he used earlier regarding our minds being able to understand what we understand. Notice in verse 18, he talks about understanding again.

He says these Gentiles who are not believers, they are darkened in their understanding. So as I've said before, you don't need, you don't need certainly to be a scholar to live a Christian life that is pleasing to God. You don't need to be the most well-read person, of course, to live a life pleasing to God.

However, your thinking, your mind, your heart, your understanding need to be transformed by the power of the gospel and the power of the spirit. And he's wanting these Gentiles not to be a group who now lives contrary to the gospel because the gospel changed their minds, their understanding, their hearts, and they're no longer in the darkness. They're no longer walking, Ephesians chapter 2, in accordance with the principalities and powers of the air.

So we need, as followers of Jesus, to grow in our understanding of the gospel so that we will live a life pleasing to God. Again, notice the link between walking no longer as the Gentiles formerly walked with the mind being futile and the understanding being darkened. The truth of the gospel illuminates the heart and the mind, and it transforms us to live in a way pleasing to God.

And Gentiles, he says, he wants them not to walk like Gentiles. They were darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because, again, notice this, because of the ignorance that is in them, mind, ignorance, thinking. Why were the Gentiles ignorant? Think about this for a moment.

Why were they ignorant? They were ignorant because God gave the law of God to Israel from Sinai. He told Israel specifically how they could honor him, that they ought not to practice idolatry, that they should live in a way that shows their hearts are yielded to Yahweh and they're trusting in Yahweh. And within the sacrificial system in the law, he gives them an expression of repentance through offering sacrifices and so on and so forth, whereas these Gentiles did not have a revelation from God from Sinai.

They were ignorant. They did not know God. They were darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.

And notice this next metaphor, due to their hardness of heart, this is the lot, this is the plight of every single human being. But here, particularly every Gentile, Paul says, and this plight is our plight as Gentiles who did not know Jesus. And this plight, guess what? It's the plight, likewise, of Jews who don't know Jesus based on chapter 2, verses 1 through 10.

But he's pressing in once again to remind these Gentiles that they have been transformed as Gentiles, that they who were without God and without hope in the world because they were ignorant and their minds were darkened and they lived a futile lives, that their hearts have been changed. Therefore, they cannot walk the same way they formerly walked. So again, a practical word I want to say here is, is that it's important to realize that we come to Jesus as we are, but we do not stay as we are once we come.

We are transformed. We live a life pleasing to Him. We walk differently.

We live and move and have our being. Our hearts are no longer hardened. They're free in Christ.

And so he tells them, you can't walk the way you once walked. Verse 19, he's going to develop a bit more the way these Gentiles formerly lived. Verse 19, they have become, look at this language, callous and have given themselves up to sensuality or morally reckless living, greedy to every, to practice every kind of impurity.

So Paul says, you can't walk like this anymore. You can't lie, slander, practice sexual sin anymore. You can't commit idolatry anymore.

You can't have dysfunction anymore in your social relations with people. You can't have hate anymore. You must walk differently.

And so he tells them that in a positive way by reminding them about Christ, but that verse 20, but you yourselves did not learn Christ in this way. It's an important verse there in verse 20, the way you learn Christ, the way you learn the gospel was a way that taught you how to walk differently. So once you reflect upon that, because we, we had a conversation about preaching the gospel, believing the gospel and obeying the gospel.

When Paul taught the Ephesians the gospel, he taught them also how to live for Christ. Otherwise, why does he say in verse 20, you did not learn Christ in a way that is contrary to a pattern of living that is worthy of the calling with which you've been called. He wants them to understand that the Christian life is a way of life.

We think of the Christian life often, as I've said, as if it is simply a cognitive experience where we believe the right things, but similar to Judaism, which was a way of life. So also the Christian faith is a way of life. Yes.

Again, we must believe the right things about God. We must believe the right things about Jesus, but we learn those things for what purposes to be transformed. And that is the purpose in my view of biblical and theological training is for the purpose of transformation, transformation and conformity into the image of Jesus Christ.

Paul says you learn Christ in a way that promoted a way of living that was worthy of the calling with which you have been called. Now, verse 21, Paul has a lot of complicated syntactical constructions in Ephesians. And here's a section where he offers for us a series of technical syntactical constructions.

I'm going to follow the ESV here in my English translation and move to the Greek side where I see something that could be more helpful for me to illuminate. But you're going to talk about how they've heard about Christ. Verse 21, we're taught in him, verse 21, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus.

Now, what did they hear about Jesus? And what did they learn about Jesus? Well, of course, they learned that he died on the cross, that he resurrected from the dead. They heard that he's the Jewish Messiah and that he fulfilled God's promises. But you know what else they heard? They heard about the fact that they needed to put off the old humanity, verse 22.

To put off your old humanity. ESV says old self, but the word there is anthropon and it refers to the old humanity. The old Adam is a way of thinking about it, I think, because remember in Ephesians chapter two, Paul says God has made Jew and Gentile into one new humanity.

A new humanity. It's not the word Adam, but it does speak to the fact that we are in Christ and in Christ we are a new creation. And so Paul is exhorting us here in Ephesians chapter four, verse 21, to put off the old humanity.

Well, wait a second, Paul. I thought I put off the old humanity when I gave my life to Jesus. Because when I gave my life to Jesus, I turned from my sin.

Here's Paul's point. The moment of conversion is a moment, yes, practically, when we turn from death to life. That is true.

But there's also a personal responsibility that we have regularly to put on the new humanity. That is, this is the way he says it in chapter six, to put on the gospel, to put on the full armor of God. This is really the language here.

He uses the metaphor more robustly in chapter six, but here the idea is as they're putting on the gospel. So the gospel is not something we only affirm cognitively. It is something we clothe ourselves in on the regular.

And the gospel is something that also enables us to live a life pleasing to God. It transforms us. It saves us vertically, horizontally, and cosmically, and it enables us to live a life pleasing to God.

And we regularly strip off the old humanity, which belongs to, verse 22, our former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. And instead, verse 23, we are to be renewed in the, this is the ESV, in the spirit of your minds. Actually, I like to translate it this way, and to be renewed by means of the spirit in your mind.

So that if that reading is right, the way in which we are renewed is not in the spirit of our minds, like the minds being the spirit, but the spirit helps renew the mind. So a means by which the mind is renewed is by means of the spirit. And I think this reading is reasonable given the fact that he says we're sealed with the spirit in chapter one, and we have the promised Holy Spirit, and we are a part of one spirit, but as Jews and Gentiles in Christ, there's one spirit.

And so we have the spirit who is, let's put it this way, who is responsible for my moral transformation in Christ? Answer, God and humanity, me. In other words, my point is, is that the divine agent God by the power of the spirit transforms me so that I can be enabled by the spirit to live a life pleasing to God. And by the power of the spirit, I have the ability to strip off the old and to put on the new on the regular.

And the reason why I have the ability is because verse 23, the renewal takes place by means of the spirit. If I'm right by taking spirit here to refer to the Holy Spirit, God's sovereign divine action is the means by the spirit is the means by which my mind is being renewed. And by mind, he doesn't mean the brain.

He means the eyes are open, the heart is open, the emotions are open, the whole constitution of my human existence is being renewed by the spirit. And one way the spirit works is to transform, yes, our thinking. So going back to what we've said in previous lectures, the importance of teaching sound doctrine, receiving sound doctrine, growing in sound doctrine to help us fight off, verse 22, these deceitful desires, this corrupt life.

Verse 22 and verse 24, he basically repeats what he says in verse 22 by saying, put on the new self. But wait a second, Paul. I thought that already happened when I converted Ephesians 2. God has made us into one new humanity.

Yes, that is true. And we have a responsibility to put on the new humanity. What does that mean? This is what it means, a responsibility to walk in a manner worthy of our calling, because the new man, verse 24, was created after the likeness of God and true righteousness.

Look at this. I love this line, and holiness. If you think back to chapter one, remember God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world in love.

And Paul says he chose us for that purpose, to be holy and blameless in his presence. He did not save us simply to sit around and talk about how saved we are. He saved us holistically to set us apart, to live lives pleasing to him.

And by the power of the spirit and the work of the cross and the resurrection, we are able to put off the old man, to put on the new man, which was recreated in God's likeness and true righteousness and holiness. We are not only able, but we are commanded to pursue godliness, to pursue holiness as followers of Jesus. So practically speaking, how do you do this? When I read Paul, I wish he would give me a list of how to do things.

I'm the type of person I need you to give me a plan, give me a step-by-step process to follow. Well, he doesn't do that as clearly as we would perhaps like for him to do it. But I do think he does give us some instructions at some level, at least by inference as to how to do it.

So how do we put on the new man? Well, number one, I think we prioritize the importance of sound doctrine. He's just emphasized the importance of having teachers who equip the saints for the work of the ministry. I think another thing that we do is we prioritize the importance of gathering with the people of God, wherein we experience teaching and preaching.

Those are means by which we are able to put on the new man and strip off the old man. Another practical thing is we rely upon the Spirit. We trust the Spirit to help us, and we do that by praying.

He's prayed multiple times here. We pray, Holy Spirit, help us. Help us to put off the old man.

Help us to put on the new man. God, strengthen me by the power of the Spirit to walk in a manner worthy of my calling. Father, help me by the power of the Spirit to not live the way I formerly lived.

One helpful practical thing for us as believers to do is pray God's promises for our lives. We pray the Bible. It's not a magic pill, no, but God uses his word to motivate us and to change us so that we're conformed to what he desires of us.

So Paul says here, it's God's for us to live in true righteousness and holiness. So here's a means by which that can happen, is by you and by me praying that God would help us to live righteous and holy lives. Righteous and holy lives by how we speak about people or to people.

Righteous and holy lives by how we use our resources, time, our energy. Help us to be holy and how we use our thoughts. When we find our minds thinking about things or coveting, we say, Holy Spirit, help me not to covet.

I confess that I'm coveting, but forgive me for coveting. And we ask for forgiveness. This is one means by which what God has done in Christ is worked out in real time in real life.

And then he infers in verse 25, the same point he's previously made. He repeats himself in this section over and over and over again. This is his way to say, you really need to listen to what I'm saying.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. For we are members of one another. It seems to me in this particular command, he is talking, he's defining neighbor as one who is in the Christian community, I think, because he says we are members of one another.

He's already emphasized the fact that we are one new man in Christ. But of course, we love all of our neighbors, Christians or not. We should be truthful to all of our neighbors.

But here he's especially emphasizing truth within the Christian community, I think, because he's already exhorted them in chapter four, the first few verses to walk in a manner worthy of their calling by enduring one another in love, by being patient with one another, by being gentle with one another, humble with one another. And now he's saying that they need to speak the truth to each other. Don't lie to each other.

For we are members one of another. Practically speaking, when one person in the body of Christ hurts, in one sense, everybody hurts, lies, slanders, while they may be directed toward one person in the body, they wound the whole body because the individual or individuals being slandered are not able often to build up the body in a way that they would be able to otherwise because they are wounded by such speech. And when that slander takes place within the body from those within the body, the wounds cut even deeper.

So he exhorts them that each one of you speak the truth with one another. And of course, gospel truth. I mean, he's used truth in chapter one to talk about the truth, namely the gospel of your salvation.

So that's the fundamental truth. But he also talks about, I think, speaking truthfully with your neighbor because he contrasts that way of speaking with falsehood in verse 25, having put away all falsehood. And that falsehood is linked with, of course, false doctrine, no doubt, but also truth telling means you tell the truth about the gospel, but you also tell the truth.

You don't have speech that is contrary to the gospel about those who are the people of God, not anybody, but especially those who are the people of God, because we are members of one another. Verse 26, he assumes in verse 26, we're going to get angry, but he says, be angry and do not sin. I think the idea here is if you be angry, if you must, Jesus himself reveals, doesn't he, a righteous anger when he shows up at the temple and he has a thing or two to say to the money changers.

He's not happy. He's angry. So there is a kind of anger that is righteous and just.

We should be angry when we see injustice. It should anger us and move us perhaps to help alleviate that insofar as it's possible. But he follows that statement up by saying in verse 26, be angry if you must.

But do not sin. So sinning. Is not righteous anger.

I mean, I can be angry for unrighteous reasons, be jealous. Selfish because I had to give up something that I love and and that provokes me toward anger because I had to share that is that is not that is not a godly anger. So be angry and do not sin, don't don't sin and don't don't let the sun go down on your on your anger.

He says in verse 26, it's a proverbial statement. Another way to translate it is on your wrath. It seems to be making the point that it's good to deal with the anger.

In other words, it's not it's not it's not particularly enjoyable to be around people who are mad all the time, angry about everything. And I can find in my own thinking and my own life. Sometimes I find myself being just angry for no reason.

Like, why am I mad about this issue when there's no reason for which I should be should be mad so that not letting the sun go down on your anger. It's a proverbial statement promoting a way of life that's not filled with unrighteous anger, but love and joy and peace and patience and kindness, compassion and self-control. I know that's more Galatians, but I think it's relevant to what he's saying here.

Verse 27, and give no opportunity to the to the devil.