God's Secret Plan: File #9

In chapter 4, there is a definite sense of transition. In the first three chapters, Paul spoke of how God had brought the plan of salvation and all that was entailed in that, all that it had brought to man and, particularly, to the church at Ephesus. This climaxes in the first half of chapter 4, where he shows the church, formed of various people with various gifts, working together to grow up into the likeness of Christ. Here the harm inflicted by the fall begins to be undone and a new spiritual community is being built to replace the fallen human race.

Given that this is all true, then how should we live? Or, to put it another way, since we have all these blessings, sitting with Christ in heavenly places, how should that change the way we walk in this world? This is Paul's message for the second half of Ephesians.

Ephesians 4:17-24 can be seen as an introduction or summary of Paul will say in the next two chapters. Note that this section begins with the word 'therefore.' This may point back to the discussion immediately preceding it or perhaps to all of the epistle up to this point. In any case, the idea seems to be this--we, as the church, have received such blessings and such a calling, having been made part of God's secret plan, that it should, must make a difference in the way we live. In chapter 2, he reminded them that they were once dead in sin but now were alive in Christ. Now he reminds them that they must not live like sinners but live like Christ.

Note that this is not a suggestion. “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord.” This was not a personal idea of Paul's, but something that he was saying, on behalf of and in the name of the Lord.

Paul says that they must not walk as the other Gentiles walk, that is, as sinners walk. Everyone is walking. Everyone is going somewhere. Life can be compared to a path because it is always moving. Each step of our life carries us further away from the past and closer to some destination. Like a traveler on a path, we can choose which direction we take but we cannot choose where that direction will lead. Every course of life will lead to some destination. Paul here pictures the two paths we may walk.

First, we have the path of the other Gentiles, the lifestyle of sinners. It was a life of self-induced and willful ignorance, placing self-gratification over moral concerns leading therefore to the corruption of the whole being. The picture is of someone who has gone so deep into sin that they have lost their knowledge of what is right and wrong. In verse 17 Paul says that they walk in the vanity (emptiness, weakness, futility, depravity) of their minds. In verse 18 he says their understanding is darkened, that in them there is ignorance, and that their heart is blinded. The word translated 'blinded' is a medical word for something being calloused. (Robertson) A callous is “a thickening of the outward skin of any particular part, especially on the hands and feet, by repeated exercise or use, through which such parts are rendered insensible.” (Clarke) Just as a person's skin may become calloused and lose its feeling through time, so the heart of a sinner, because of their repeated sins, loses its feeling, its knowledge of God, of right and wrong, and of its own sin. Paul repeats this idea in verse 19 when says that they were “past feeling.” The word in Greek means past feeling pain. The picture is someone whose nerves are so deadened that nothing hurts them anymore, that nothing bothers them.

Because of their sin, they were darkened and did not understand the truth. And because they did not understand the truth, they sinned. This is a picture of a vicious circle. Verse 19 says that because of their callousness and ignorance they gave themselves over to lasciviousness, to working all uncleanness--not just every once and a while, but working at it industriously--with greediness, “an increasing desire for more and more.” (NET Bible footnote, Ephesians 4:19) Because of this greed, this desire, this path of sin has no natural end. In verse 22 Paul pictures the life of sin as being “corrupt according to the deceitful lusts” or desires. The Greek actually implies that this is an ongoing process.  The life of a sinner is continually being corrupted because of its deceitful desires.

All of this is a result of one thing--“being alienated from the life of God.” (v. 18) There was never supposed to be such a thing as purely human life. Man was always supposed to live by sharing in the life of God who is life essential. But because of sin, man became alienated from the life of God. The path of sin is the path of alienation from God which is why it is also a path of death and corruption--a path of corruption which would become worse and worse forever if God did not cut it off with death.

This is the path of sin. Obviously, not all sinners have traveled this far along it. This description would not be accurate in all particulars of every individual sinner in this world at any one given point in time. But the difference is in degree. However far a sinner has gone on this path, whether they are young or old and have lived a life of restraint or reckless abandon, they are on this path. They are alienated from the life of God and therefore this is the direction they are headed. A puppy is not the same in all particulars as a full-grown dog but it is still a dog and not a cat. A puppy will never, by natural growth, turn into anything except a dog. And a sinner will never, by natural growth, turn into anything but the kind of man Paul pictures in this passage.

This is the path of sin, the path of many people in this world, the path of the “other Gentiles.” “But ye have not so learned Christ.” (v. 20) You were once one with these sinful people, you were once walking on that path, but now you have found a new path, the path of Christ. You know the truth, the true path, because “ye have heard him, and have been taught by him.” (v. 21) (It is interesting that Paul does not say that they heard of Christ and His teaching, but that they had “heard him, and... been taught by him.” Even though, most likely, none of the Ephesians had physically met Jesus during His earthly ministry, through the preaching of the Gospel, they had heard Him and been taught by Him.)

This new path is a path of “righteousness and true holiness.” (v. 24) Righteousness and holiness both refer to rightness of character, to being like God, being what God desires us to be. While the sinner's essential point was that he was alienated from the life of God, the essential point of this path is that Christians are not alienated from the life of God but share in that life, becoming “partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4) That is why it is important to note that this is “true holiness” or, more literally, holiness of truth. Barnes points out that this in contrast to the deceitful lusts or lusts of deceit mentioned in verse 22. This is holiness which comes from and is formed by the truth. (NET Bible) The path of sin leads deeper and deeper into a mesh of vanity and darkness because it is based on emptiness and lies. The path of the Christian is different because it is based on truth, on reality, on God. It is like a bridge with solid foundations which can carry us safely over the swamp of life.

These are the two paths before us--the path of death and the path of life. As Christians, as those who had heard and been taught by Christ, the Ephesians had left the path of death and were on the path of life. They were sitting with Christ and were, therefore, walking with Christ.  In verses 22-24, Paul describes this change as the change of entire person. The person they used to be must be taken off so that a new person, a new creation, can be put on. In verse 24 Paul speaks of this new man, “which after God  (or, in the likeness of God) is created in righteousness and true holiness.”  This seems to be an allusion to the story of creation in Genesis, in which man was said to be created in the image of God. The change which happens in the life of a man who becomes the Christian amounts to a new creation. Paul also speaks of their mind or spirit being renewed. (v. 23)

In a sense, all this was true of the Ephesians as of all Christians. But that is not the whole thrust of Paul's exhortation. In so far as this had already happened in Chapter 2, there would be no reason to go into it here. But Paul had a serious concern. Note the command in verse 17: “that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk.” They were no longer like the other Gentiles, for they had left the path of sin--therefore they should no longer live in that way. They were no longer the same men they had once been--therefore there should be a change in the way they acted. Paul realized all too well that there was a danger--a danger that this change of heart would be allowed to remain merely a change of heart. For though in one sense they were brand new people, in another sense they were still the same people living in the same environment with the same pressures and expectations all around them. Paul knew how easy it would be for them to remain living in the same way as they once had and as the people around them did, despite the change that had occurred in them. It would be easy--and some suggest there were then (as there certainly have been since) some teachers who taught that this was perfectly acceptable. But Paul demanded that if they had been man new, were in a new path, they must walk according to that path. Paul will spend the rest of Ephesians dealing with the practical application of this.