This I say therefore, and testify in [the] Lord, that ye should no longer walk as [the rest of] the nations walk in [the] vanity of their mind,
Paul has spent the earlier chapters describing what God has made believers in Christ. Now he turns to daily life, starting with a warning about the way the nations around them lived — and why that way must stop.
Everything from here on rests on the truth already taught. One writer marks the change and explains the word behind "futility":
Verse 17 begins a distinct new division in the letter to the Ephesians. This section stresses personal responsibility, resting on the solid, precious truth we have already considered. Paul urged the Ephesians to no longer walk as the unsaved masses of Gentiles walked. Their new Christian condition and position stood in contrast to that of the nations, and their conduct should stand in contrast too. He describes the condition and walk of the ungodly to show that it is the complete opposite of the walk of faith. The unsaved are turned only toward vanity — emptiness or futility — which comes to nothing of any value.
Paul does not simply advise here. He says and testifies:
In verse 17 the practical exhortations take a different shape. In verses 1-16 the instruction concerns mainly our shared walk as one body; here it is individual. He presses a fitting and separate walk. The apostle puts it solemnly: "Now this I say and testify in the Lord." He knows the dangers the believers faced everywhere, and that the Lord's honour was bound up with them. That is why his tone is so striking.
You might expect the cure for a pagan past to be a set of rules. It is not:
The apostle has shown how a believer can walk worthy of the calling he has received in the church. He now shows how the believer should carry out the same principle towards other people, whether believers or unbelievers. He does not put Gentile converts under law. He does not bring them onto Jewish ground, yet he does remove them from Gentile ground.
Paul does not start with pagan behaviour. He starts with the mind:
Here he begins with what is inside. Our tendency is to busy ourselves and others with something outward. But the apostle goes to the root of the evil walk of the Gentiles. Their minds were vain and empty. So is every mind that does not keep God clearly, firmly and knowingly in view, whatever it is dealing with. These Gentiles had God before them in nothing; they were "without God in the world." So there was nothing left but the empty, boasting mind and mouth of man, imagining one thing and saying another.
One writer traces how a life empties out, step by step:
So we learn that the evil lives men live harden the heart. The hardened heart darkens the understanding. The darkened understanding leaves men a prey to every vanity.
What guides a life like that? Another writer points to the hardened heart that darkens the understanding, leaving people led only by "the vain, sinful desires and feelings of the natural heart" (The Christian's Friend).
It would be easy to file this description under the pagan world of Paul's day. One writer will not leave it there:
At this point the exhortations to walk in separation begin. Here we are shown once more what Gentiles are in their natural condition, and how solemn that description is! The grace of God takes the believer out of these conditions and gives us power to "no longer walk as the Gentiles do." And we must not overlook this: beneath the thin veneer of the civilization we boast in, which rejects Christ and the gospel, there is the same darkened understanding, the same alienation from God, the same blindness and uncleanness that these words describe.
- Foundation — a new section starts here. Conduct grows out of the truth already taught, and rests on what God has made the believer.
- Testify — Paul's words are weighty on purpose. The Lord's honour is bound up with how His people live.
- Vanity — the word means emptiness and futility. Such a life comes to nothing of value, because God is nowhere in its thoughts.
- Root — Paul starts with the mind, not the behaviour; the outward walk is fruit, and the empty mind is the root.
- Freedom — the answer is not law but separation. Grace lifts the believer out of that old condition and gives power for a new walk.
being darkened in understanding, estranged from the life of God by reason of the ignorance which is in them, by reason of the hardness of their hearts,
Paul has just told believers not to live like the world around them. Here he names what lies underneath that way of living: a darkened understanding, a life cut off from God, ignorance, and a hard heart.
Paul does not start with what the Gentiles — the non-Jewish world — do. He starts with what they are.
Here he begins with the inner thing. We tend to busy ourselves and others with something outward. But the apostle goes to the root of the evil walk of the Gentiles. Their minds were empty. That must be true of anyone who does not have God clearly, firmly and knowingly before them in anything at all... These are various descriptions, not of the outward walk, but of the root of all the evil fruit they bore. God was not in all their thoughts.
Where the ESV says "hardness," older versions say "blindness." The word never pointed to eyesight.
"Blindness" is a very strong word. It means being hardened like a stone. The noun in Romans 11:25 is a medical term, "callus" — the hardening of skin. This is the moral state of God's earthly people. And it is not limited to Israel. Ephesians 4:18 uses the same word for the condition of the Gentiles.
The "ignorance that is in them" is not innocent lack of information. It is a refusal. The same minds are sharp enough everywhere else.
It is terrible ignorance, certainly, but it is the result of the hardness of their own hearts. Ignorance is not just a lack of knowledge; it is ignoring facts that can be known. For example, people will work out their tax returns carefully to their own advantage. They will plan their business affairs to get the most out of them... Yet at the same time they tell us that the marvellous organization of the whole universe required no mind at all — it just happened to come together!
The verse ties ignorance to hardness of heart. One writer traces the chain back a step further, to the way people live.
So we learn that the evil lives men live harden the heart. The hardened heart darkens the understanding. And the darkened understanding leaves men easy prey to every empty thing.
This phrase goes deepest of all. The rest of the verse gathers around it.
We get right to the bottom of things when we find that we have been "alienated from the life of God." Tied to this alienation are things like emptiness, darkness, ignorance, blindness, sensuality and impurity. That is no surprise, for the life of God is the exact opposite of all of them. Sin has alienated us from God, and so has cut us off from everything that makes up life according to Him.
This alienation is not a neutral distance. Where the life of God shows itself, it meets hostility. Religion is no shelter.
If he is a religious man he may pride himself on not being an unbeliever. But his heart is as dark as the heart of the worst unbeliever could be. The life of God, where he sees it in the children of God, is hateful to him... He may do his best to hide his disgust at it, but the hostility is there, though covered up.
The phrase describes man in his natural state. Christians stand on the other side of it, and that sets the standard for how they live.
It is a remarkable expression for the state of man in nature: "alienated from the life of God"... Someone will say, "You do not mean that I am to walk down here as having the life of God?" Yes. "God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." From that time they were called to walk, not as good men, but as having the life of God... I have taken off the uniform of Satan and put on the uniform of Christ.
- Root — Paul starts inside, not with conduct. The empty way of living grows out of a mind with God nowhere in it.
- Hardness — the heart hardens like a callus. The same word describes Israel.
- Ignorance — not missing facts, but ignoring facts anyone can know; it comes from a hard heart.
- Alienation — cut off from the life of God: this is the bottom of the ruin. Emptiness, darkness and impurity are its signs.
- Reversal — God gives that life in His Son, so a Christian starts from a life the world does not have.
who having cast off all feeling, have given themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greedy unsatisfied lust.
Paul is describing life outside Christ, and this verse is the bottom of it — not a few extreme people, but what human nature does when it shuts God out. Commentators trace a chain here: the way a person lives hardens the heart, the hardened heart darkens the mind, and then nothing is left to hold a person back.
The verse is the end of a sequence, not the start of one. One writer sets out the order, and it runs opposite to how most people picture moral decline.
They do not know God because the evil lives they live have hardened their hearts, for such people have given themselves over to sensuality. So we learn this: the evil lives men live harden the heart; the hardened heart darkens the understanding; and the darkened understanding leaves men easy prey to every empty thing.
Older translations read "past feeling." What has gone silent is the conscience.
"Past feeling" (v. 19) means a seared and hardened conscience, with no sense of their own sensuality.
That deadness is itself something a person has done to himself, by repetition. The habits come first; the numbness follows.
Corrupt appetites, followed without restraint, soon deaden the conscience and poison the affections, so that every right natural feeling dies... They are "past feeling." Conscience no longer restrains them, and neither does decency... So it was with the world before the flood, when corruption and violence filled the whole earth. So it was with the cities of the plain, until God rained fire and burning sulphur on them from heaven.
Nobody forced this handover. And it does not always look ugly — the same surrender can wear a respectable face.
In such a state people cast off all feeling. Things that ought to move them no longer touch them. Instead they give in to the pull of bodily desire, with its moral uncleanness and greed. Sometimes this surrender looks plainly disgusting. Sometimes it hides under a thin coat of refinement and apparent dignity, and then it has simply added deceit to everything else.
The Greek word behind "greedy" is not mainly about money. It means wanting more than you need, and it covers bodily appetite too.
The word pleonexia (from pleon, "more," and echo, "to have") is not limited to money, and it often goes with open wickedness. Its force is "desiring more than is necessary," and so "an over-reaching to get." It is therefore applied to the lusts of the flesh, Rom. 1:29; Eph. 4:19, where it is translated "greediness"; Eph. 5:3; and so on. It is declared to be idolatry, Col. 3:5.
This explains why the pursuit never ends in satisfaction. Unsatisfied desire only drives it harder, and one writer sets it against a life of a different order.
Grossness and hardness of heart lead them to cast off every refined and even proper natural feeling. As a result they give themselves up to sensuality, while unsatisfied lust drives them all the more eagerly to work every kind of uncleanness and greed. They still share the life of the old self, which corrupts itself through deceitful desires. Those who share in the mystery have put off the old self and put on the new, and the new is created in "true righteousness and holiness."
It would be easy to read this as a picture of ancient pagans only. One writer closes that door.
This is the truth about man, whoever he is and wherever he lives. The light of Christianity may hold him back, so that he shows his true character only in secret. But everything said here about the Gentiles is true of the whole Christless world, whatever people profess.
- Practice hardens. The evil life comes first. The hardened heart follows. Then the understanding goes dark. Decline runs from conduct inward, not from ideas outward.
- Hardening numbs. A callous conscience is seared. It no longer registers its own wrongdoing, and even ordinary decency loses its hold.
- Numbness surrenders. No one is dragged. People hand themselves over to bodily desire. Sometimes it is open, sometimes it hides under a polish of refinement — which only adds deceit.
- Surrender grows greedy. The word means wanting more than is necessary, an over-reaching to get. Unsatisfied desire drives the pursuit harder, and Scripture calls this greed idolatry.
- Only new creation reverses it. The cure is not better habits but a new life: the old self put off, the new self put on, created in true righteousness and holiness. And the diagnosis fits the whole Christless world, whatever people profess.
But *ye* have not thus learnt the Christ,
Paul has just described how people live when they do not know God — heart, mind and conduct all wrong (vv. 17–19). Then, in one short sentence, he sets against that whole way of life not a rule but a Person.
The Gentiles — the nations outside Israel — went wrong for one reason: they did not know God. The cure has to match that root.
All the practical evil of the Gentiles came from their ignorance of God. Heart, mind and walk were all wrong, and getting worse. So now God's deliverance from all evil — root, branch and fruit — is Christ. Christ is the way, as well as the truth. The one great means that fits every case, and gives the surest deliverance, is Christ Himself. Here Christ Himself is the One who deals directly with the soul. It is as if we listened to Christ ourselves.
The Ephesians did not swap the old way of life for a new set of rules. Their guide was neither of the two things a religious person would expect.
Grace had brought the Ephesians out of this state of things. They had another guide, as far from mere natural conscience on one side as from law on the other... These Ephesians had learned, not law, but Christ.
The same writer presses a distinction hidden in the wording. Paul does not say they learned about Christ. He says they learned Christ — and that changes who can do it.
The Ephesians had "learned Christ" in the only way in which He can be learned. The natural man may learn of Christ; the spiritual man alone can learn Him. For "the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14). There must be the hearing ear before Christ's words can be understood.
The two small words "not so" imply that there is a wrong way to learn Christ. One writer takes them as a quiet warning aimed at anyone content with the appearance of discipleship.
There is a real emphasis in this expression. It implies there is more than one way of learning Christ in name only. There are false disciples and false brothers, as well as true ones. There are some, again, who are always learning but who never come to a knowledge of the truth. There are also those who turn the grace of God into an excuse for sin, and so deny the One they claim in vain to know. There is, indeed, only one way of receiving Christ, and so of learning Him truly. It is by living faith in His Person.
Paul writes "Christ" here, then shifts to "Jesus" in the next verse. One writer reads the change as deliberate: each name gives what the other does not.
"Christ" is His official title (v. 20). As we learn more of Him exalted at God's right hand, we value and understand practical truth better, because we see it in the whole way He lived as a Man on earth. Learning Christ is learning Him as the Object of my adoration high above me. But "as the truth is in Jesus" is learning Him as my practical Example, come down to earth.
Paul's verb is past tense, yet the learning goes on. One writer turns it into a question about today.
Now we have to learn Christ. Has Christ had such a place in your hearts today that what comes from Christ has come out of you?... Are you learning Christ like this day by day?... There is for us this continual learning of Christ... It is not an effort to get more like Christ. It is that nothing in me should go against the knowledge of Him I have received.
Paul spells out the lesson in the verses that follow. So you can test the claim to have learned Christ.
To have learned Christ, then, is this: the old man is put off — corrupt through deceitful desires, our former way of life. The spirit of our mind is renewed. The new man is put on, created according to God in truthful righteousness and holiness... We never could have put him off ourselves; it would have been our own eternal condemnation.
- Root — The darkness of verses 17–19 grew from not knowing God. Verse 20 answers it with a Person, not with information.
- Subject — The lesson is Christ Himself. Anyone can learn of Him; only one taught by the Spirit learns Him.
- Standard — Not conscience, not law, but Christ. "Christ" is the exalted Object of worship; "Jesus" is the pattern lived out on earth.
- Test — Paul's wording allows for a false version. Learning in name only, endless learning, and grace twisted into an excuse for sin are all shut out.
- Proof — Having learned Christ shows itself as the old self put off and the new put on — a work no one could do for himself.
if ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as [the] truth is in Jesus;
Paul has just described the empty walk of those who do not know God, and then turns to what his readers have learned. Verse 21 gives the condition: they have heard Christ and been taught in Him. The standard they were taught by is a Person, not a set of rules.
The ESV reads "heard about him"; other translations read "heard him." Commentators press that difference, and see Christ dealing directly with the soul.
All the practical evil of the Gentiles came from their ignorance of God. The heart, the mind, the walk were all wrong, and grew worse. So now God's deliverance from all evil, root, branch and fruit, is Christ… The one great means that fits every case and gives the surest deliverance, is Christ Himself. "You have not so learned Christ." He makes Him, on purpose, the one who deals directly with the soul… It is as if we listened to Christ ourselves. "If indeed you have heard Him" — not about Him; they were taught in Him also, "as the truth is in Jesus."
So how can you tell the two apart?
The marks of a true disciple are now given: "if — or, since — you have heard Him, and have been taught in Him"… The gospel may be listened to, and yet Christ Himself not heard. But, for the believer, the Lord is in His word. Multitudes have heard the report of Him as doctrine, who never gave their hearts to Him in love.
The ESV reads "taught in him," not "taught by him." That preposition matters.
Now we have learned Christ. We have not only heard Him and believed in Him as a result. We have also been "taught by Him," or, as it can be read, "instructed in Him." He is not only our Teacher but our Lesson Book. He is not only our Lesson Book but our Example. The truth is in Jesus: that is, He Himself when here on earth was the perfect display of everything required of us.
The verse ends with the personal name, "Jesus." That name points to His life lived out among men.
The apostle brings in a verse: "as the truth is in Jesus" (Eph. 4:21). So far as I know, that is the only reference to the life of Jesus here on earth which we find in the Ephesian letter… The moral features of Christianity were seen in the Person of Christ here as Man.
That makes Him the test of every subject — man included.
Take any truth you like — for example, man. Where shall I learn the truth about man? Shall I look for it in Adam? He listened to his wife after she had listened to the devil. When God came down, he ran away from Him, and even dared to insult God by laying the blame on Him… It would all end there, but for the Second Adam. In every step He took, in every word He said, in everything that flowed from His heart and showed in His ways, I find One who never did His own will.
The Ephesians were not handed a code. They were given a Person.
They had another guide, as far removed from mere natural conscience on the one side as from law on the other… These Ephesians had learned, not law, but Christ. They had by faith heard Him, and been taught by — or rather in — Him. His own life as man had been the perfect and divine display of that truth. "The truth as it is in Jesus" does not mean the doctrinal truth of salvation, but the perfect, holy walk of truth, as shown in His person.
The sentence does not stop here. What follows spells out that truth, and the tenses matter.
"As the truth is in Jesus" — it is not doctrine, though doctrine is contained in it. The truth as it is in Jesus is the having put off the old man and put on the new, this having been done by faith. Then he adds, "and being renewed in the spirit of your mind." The putting off and the putting on are not in the present tense. Being renewed in the spirit of your mind is. The truth is that you have put off the old man, but you do need renewing… The renewing of the spirit of your mind is a thing that is always going on.
- Heard — the test is not hearing about Christ but hearing Him. Many know the report as doctrine who never gave Him their hearts.
- Taught — He is Teacher, lesson book and example at once. You are instructed in Him, not just by Him.
- In Jesus — the personal name points to His life on earth, the one place where the truth about man is seen whole.
- Put off, put on — the truth in Jesus is a change already made: the old man put off, the new put on. The renewing of the mind goes on now.
- Learned Christ — the Christian's guide is neither conscience nor law. It is a Person, and His walk is the pattern of ours.
[namely] your having put off according to the former conversation the old man which corrupts itself according to the deceitful lusts;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
and being renewed in the spirit of your mind;
Paul places this verse between two settled facts: the old self put off, the new self put on. In the middle stands one verb in the present tense — so what is still going on, and what part do we play?
Verses 22 to 24 form one statement about what we learned in Christ, and this verse is its middle clause.
The truth that we have been taught and learned in Him is that, in the cross, we have put off the old man and have put on the new. In the light of this great truth we are in our daily path, as a present thing, being renewed in the spirit of our minds. Instead of the mind of the flesh, which is hostile to God, we have a renewed mind marked by righteousness and holiness. It refuses evil and chooses good. The new man does not mean the old man changed, but an entirely new man; and the "renewing" refers to the daily life of the new man.
The tenses matter. One verb describes a process going on now; the other two describe an act done once.
Then comes the renewing of the spirit of the mind. We cannot have it unless we judge the old man. The wording hints that the renewal is a present process, going on step by step, as Christ fills the spirit of the mind. The putting off and putting on are not present things, but one act complete in itself, once for all.
One writer explains the word "new" with a picture from clothing.
We use the word "new" in English in two senses. We speak of a "new fashion," and of a "new coat." "Renewed in knowledge" in Colossians 3:10 is a completely new thing, like a new fashion. "Renewed in the spirit of your minds," in Ephesians 4:23, is like a new coat, constantly renewed by the grace and Spirit of God.
Commentators differ here. Some read this renewal as once-for-all and lasting, and place the daily renewal in other passages:
At the very start, God began His work in us — the work which He will carry on and complete. Then a renewing of an eternal character took place with us, done once and done for ever. Scripture names it in only one place, and there it happens in the spirit of the mind (Eph. 4:23). It uses a different word for renewing there, ananeō, for it is new in a lasting sense. In Romans 12:2 the word is anakainōsis, to be renewed in a fresh way.
The phrase points to what steers a person.
A man's mind leads him; and some ruling object governs his mind in its turn. Self is that object to the natural mind; to the renewed mind it is Christ. To live no longer to ourselves, but to Him who died for us and rose again, is the desire of the inner man. But direct exhortation helps this desire in its fight against the opposite pulls of the flesh. Obedient watchfulness on our part is to develop the mind of Christ within us.
The change goes deeper than behaviour:
He has been renewed in the spirit of his mind: the attitude of his mind has changed. Though the fleshly nature remains in him, this no longer dominates him. There is a new controlling factor.
Renewal has a practical side: we have to watch what fills our minds.
If we have put on the new man and are to show the features of Christ, we must guard our minds. What objects engage us? What things keep coming into our minds? Do we continue to think of the old path in which we walked before we believed the gospel? Do the interests of this world engage our thoughts, or do the interests of Christ engage them?
Paul describes this renewal in himself, and gives the reason it kept going.
"Though our outer self is wasting away," he writes, "our inner self is being renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16); and what he says right after gives us the secret of this: "We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." Those unseen things took up all his attention, for Christ is the Centre of them all.
There is also a relief in this. Renewal is not performance:
Let us not try to look new, or even to feel new, but let us be renewed in the spirit of our minds.
- Settled — The putting off and the putting on are done once for all. Only the renewing stands in the present tense.
- Steered — The mind is led by whatever object rules it: self for the natural mind, Christ for the renewed one.
- Supplied — This renewal is not self-improvement. It is like a new coat, kept new by the grace and Spirit of God.
- Selective — Guard what engages your thoughts. That is the daily work.
- Sustained — The inner self is renewed day by day as we look at what is unseen and eternal, with Christ at the centre.
and [your] having put on the new man, which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness.
The call in Ephesians 4 is not to improve the old life but to wear a new one, made by God and shaped like Him. Two questions follow. What is this "new man," which the ESV calls the "new self"? And why does the verse describe it in words that never fit Adam?
Everything turns on one word: "created."
Note the word "created"; God has caused to exist in me what was not there once. See Colossians 3:10: the new man is "renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him." The word suits Ephesians well, because this letter views man as dead… The new man loves righteousness and holiness of truth. He never wants to wallow in filth. The practical display of these features is the proof of life.
So reform is not what the verse means.
It is not just a change of practice. There is a thorough setting aside of the old corrupt man, a fresh spirit of the mind, and a putting on of the new man, created after God in righteousness and holiness of truth. It is not an improvement or "better ways," as people say, but a new creation; and we have taken this place.
A common assumption is that this verse describes what Adam was before he fell. Commentators reject that reading, and in doing so they define the words themselves.
There was neither holiness nor righteousness before the fall. The original state was something distinct from both. Adam was innocent, but not properly righteous or holy. God is holy. He sees what is bad and hates it. That is what holiness is, at least on its negative side. A righteous man judges what is contrary to justice, and hates it. An innocent man did not know good and evil as things in themselves. Of course, he knew it was his duty to obey God… He lost innocence, and we never get it back. But God renews us after the second Adam.
So the new creation is not a rewind.
There is no return to innocence — to the state in which Satan found man and deceived him. But God makes all things new… The new creation is the knowledge of good and evil, together with the life of God and His indwelling Spirit. As a result, we dwell in the light and love of God's nature.
Writers often quote this phrase as "righteousness and holiness of truth." One writer defines both words, and names what has not gone away.
The fleshly nature remains in him, but it no longer rules him. There is a new controlling factor: he has put on the new man, which is consistent with God's own nature. Righteousness is acting rightly in keeping with whatever relationship we may be in. Holiness is the love of what is good and the hatred of evil. But it is the truth of God that decides what is good and what is evil, not merely people's consciences or opinions.
"After God" is a statement about resemblance. It sets the standard for the new nature.
The new man is after God. That is, it is like God, and is "created in righteousness and true holiness."… The Christian, who has the truth as it is in Jesus, has put off the old man and put on the new man, which is after God. God Himself is the pattern, and it is in Christ that we learn what He is.
If God creates the new man, what is left for the believer to do? Writers answer: show what is already inside.
The putting off and the putting on are not a present process. They are the act in itself, once for all… They had the new man, of course. But this is putting on the new man in practice — the outward showing of the new man that was already inside them. It is well to bear in mind that this is "righteousness and holiness of truth." It is the truth here again that produces it.
That showing belongs in everyday life.
Then we have put on the new man. We now live according to the truth of new creation. There holiness and righteousness mark everything, and these features spring from the nature and character of God. What follows shows how practical the truth is. These great truths are to affect us in every relationship here, and in every detail of our lives.
- Created — God caused the new man to exist. It was not there before. This is not repaired behaviour or "better ways."
- Character — righteousness is acting rightly in every relationship. Holiness is loving good and hating evil. God's truth, not opinion, decides which is which.
- Contrast — Adam was innocent, not righteous or holy. We never get innocence back. The new creation joins the knowledge of good and evil to the life of God.
- Copy — "after God" means the pattern is God Himself, and it is in Christ that we learn what He is.
- Clothing — you already have the new man. The command is to wear it. What is inside then shows in every relationship and every detail of daily life.