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.
Wherefore, having put off falsehood, speak truth every one with his neighbour, because we are members one of another.
Ephesians 4 turns from teaching to daily life. The first thing it deals with is how Christians speak to one another. The command not to lie is old. The reason given here is new: believers belong to one body.
The word translated "lying" reaches further than spoken untruths. One writer ties it to the new self, quoting an older translation of the verse just before:
In verse 23 the apostle speaks of the new man these believers had put on. He tells us that "after God" it was "created in righteousness and true holiness," or, literally, holiness of the truth. So all falsehood is shut out. It can have no part in this new creation of God… "lying," or "falsehood," means everything that has the character and nature of falsehood. It is abstract: what has this quality, not just the act of lying. We should keep this in mind, because it may search many of us who would never be caught telling outright untruths. A look, a gesture, our manner, unclear speech, evasion, compliments and many other things can fall under this sense of lying.
One writer traces lying to both our nature and its first author.
Lying is natural to us all. Men are said to go astray from the womb, speaking lies (Ps. 58:3). And even believers are ready to forget, when they twist the truth, that they are only following the devil, who did not stand in the truth and who became the originator of falsehood (John 8:44). We should not lie to anyone. But when we are all members of one body, how horrible it is to bring in deception, and so bring corruption into the body of Christ.
Another writer adds what lying reveals about the person telling it:
Lying is both an instrument of selfishness and a confession of personal wretchedness. No happy spirit can ever be a false one. It is the instinctive refuge of a guilty conscience. So it should have no place in a heart that the precious blood of Jesus has cleansed from an evil conscience. Falsehood and faith stand in essential opposition. Faith feeds on truth, because it trusts in God; while it is the absence of that trust that gives a lie its power over the human soul.
Most people can give reasons for honesty. The reason given here is not one of them.
We are too apt to treat falsehood on the human basis of honour. Many a man would not lie on moral grounds. Another would be too proud to tell a lie. A godly man, with a certain fear of God before his eyes, would not lie, because it is a practical denial of God. It is as good as saying that God does not hear… But this is not enough for a Christian. It matters greatly for our souls that we walk well and righteously. But the motive, character and extent must be according to God too.
Another writer sets this reason against the reasoning of moral philosophy:
Moral philosophy never gave a reason anything like the one given here… Who can imagine falsehood from the lips of Him whose words were the words of God, and whose truth was the truth of God? One who walked in His spirit and showed His life could no more speak falsehood.
The final clause supplies the logic. Deceiving another believer turns out to be self-injury.
Nothing could be more horrible than one member of the body trying to deceive the others. No one could be guilty of such wickedness if he had any real sense of the oneness of that spiritual body… But who ever saw the parts of a man's body fighting each other in bitterness and anger? If I deceive the members of the body, I deceive myself. If I quarrel with them, I quarrel with myself. For though we are many members, the body is one, and we are all one body in Christ.
The verse does not only forbid. It says what to speak instead.
If we speak truth, we speak what is helpful, what builds up, refreshes and encourages, and what is good in the sight of God… We should speak truth at all times because we have put off the old man. But there is one more reason for it here: the close and living links that bind us to all the saints.
One writer points out where this command stands in the letter.
Have you noticed, in the letter that reveals the church more than any other, which is the first command? … And read carefully every word that follows to the end of the chapter. If all believers walked according to these commands, division would be impossible.
- Put off — falsehood belongs to the old self, now laid aside. It is our inborn habit, and it comes from the devil, the first liar.
- Put on — truth is the voice of the new self, created after God in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
- Wider than words — a look, a gesture, evasion or a hollow compliment can all carry the character of falsehood.
- Higher motive — honour, morals, even the fear of God: none of these is the reason given here. Membership in one body is.
- Body logic — deceive a fellow member and you deceive yourself. Speak the truth, and division becomes impossible.
Be angry, and do not sin; let not the sun set upon your wrath,
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
neither give room for the devil.
Paul has just told believers that anger itself is not always sin, but that it must not be carried into the night. This next line closes the door that anger leaves open, because the devil takes any room the flesh gives him.
One writer traces this command back to the first murder, then widens it far past temper:
This instruction follows naturally from the one before. An angry man is only a tool of Satan. Cain, who killed his brother in his anger, belonged to that wicked one. But in a far wider sense the devil is behind all that stirs up the evil feelings and passions of the old nature.
The devil asks for little at first. One writer shows where that small yielding ends:
Many have agreed to go a mile with Satan who never intended to go two. So Satan leads poor creatures down into the depths of sin by a winding staircase. They never see the bottom they are heading for. First he presents something that stirs a few thoughts. These thoughts set the affections on fire. The heated affections cloud the understanding. Now Satan dares to show himself a little more, and boldly urges the person to do what he would once have refused outright. Give no place to Satan! Not an inch, not in his first suggestions. A beggar who is modest outside the door will command the house once he is let in.
So what opens the door? One writer answers by naming what Satan can reach in us and what he cannot:
This verse shows us that we ought not to open the door to Satan. If it is the flesh that is acting, then the wicked one can touch us; but he cannot touch the new man, he cannot entice it (1 John 5:18). If I give way to a thought which is not of God, then I give place to Satan; if I give way to anger, the enemy is there. We are then hindered in service, troubled in prayer; and that is no surprise.
Anger is the example here, but it is not the only door. One writer points to a disciple who fell through another one:
We are warned that by acting in the flesh, whether in anger or in any other way, we open the door for the devil. Peter, by his self-confidence, made room for the devil to lead him into a denial of the Lord.
There is no neutral option. Either we hand the matter over to God and stay quiet, or the enemy takes what we keep holding:
The Lord says, "Vengeance is mine." Rather leave room for the wrath of God (Romans 12), and "give no opportunity to the devil" (Ephesians 4). But if you do not leave room for God's wrath, you will give room to the devil. Shall we lose anything by being quiet and taking things patiently?
(Older translations use one phrase, "give place," in both verses. That is the wordplay here.)
Resistance has a named means. The same writer points to where the victory comes from:
The Christian should keep this truth always in mind, and here he is encouraged to resist the devil. We overcome him by standing firm in the faith (1 Peter 5:9). He works most powerfully as the accuser of God's people, after first leading them into sin. But by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony they will certainly prevail (Revelation 12:10-11).
The guard is to let nothing carry over to the next day. One writer tells of a long life lived under attack:
The Christian ends his day with a mind free from irritation. I once asked an aged Christian how he had been able to live so long, having been so often unjustly attacked. He replied that for forty-five years he had been able to leave everything with the Lord each day, in deep rest of mind. He did this despite the indignation often stirred in him by so much wickedness. This takes the opportunity away from the enemy, who has often taken advantage of an irritated spirit.
- The door. Anger held past sunset is the opening. The devil is behind all that stirs the passions of the old nature, and an angry man becomes his tool.
- The inch. He asks small and takes large. Let the beggar in and he commands the house, then leads you down a stair whose bottom you never see.
- The room. He cannot touch the new man. He works only where the flesh acts — through anger, or through self-confidence, as with Peter.
- The cost. Give him room and he hinders your service and troubles your prayer. The loss shows at once in daily Christian life.
- The remedy. Stand firm in the faith, and leave the matter with God each day. A mind at rest before nightfall takes the enemy's opportunity away.
Let the stealer steal no more, but rather let him toil, working what is honest with [his] hands, that he may have to distribute to him that has need.
One line about theft sits in a letter written to a thriving church, and it does more than tell a man to stop taking what is not his. It replaces the old habit with honest work, and gives that work a purpose the thief never had.
The ESV says "thief," but the term used covers more than that, and the warning went to a church that was doing well.
The word is not exactly "him who stole," but "the stealer." "Thief" would be too strong, and "he who stole" is too weak. The apostle was led to choose a term wide enough to take in every shade of such dishonesty. Do you think the caution needless? Beware, or your self-confidence and your slighting of any word God has written will trap you. The Spirit who inspired the letter clearly judged this warning necessary for all believers, not only for the Ephesians. Yet nowhere do we find a church more happy, flourishing, and blessed of God than the church in Ephesus.
The first readers came out of a world where taking was normal, and the command reaches further than burglary.
Remember that the early churches were made up of people just brought out of paganism, with all its horrors. Some of them were slaves, an oppressed and degraded class, and among them theft was common, with no guilt or shame attached to it. The exhortation also goes beyond open theft. In principle it condemns every kind of unfair advantage — the sort that even the fuller morality of our own day often condemns only weakly.
That principle lands on the ordinary workplace, where small dishonesty passes unnoticed.
For an employee to take small things from where he works is no less than stealing. Many do this without thinking, but a believer must take care never to take anything that does not belong to him.
Stopping is only half of it. The hands that once took must now work, and work at something honest.
Idleness is neither right nor safe. So the Spirit cheers and directs the man whose hands were once used in unworthy ways. So He opens a happy path where grace can prove its power, despite a dishonest nature and habit. Only the work must be good and honest. It is no use pleading that money gained dishonestly went to a kind or religious purpose! No job that goes against God's will is good for a Christian; he should give it up at once.
The verse names the goal of the work, and it is not survival. Kelly puts the contrast plainly in the same passage: the worldly man works in order to live; the Christian works in order to give.
People have often pointed to verse 28 as a display of the true energy of Christianity. The thief becomes a giver — and not only a giver out of his plenty, but one who works to earn the means of giving to others. What a wonderful transformation! Paul needed spiritual energy to stay up making tents for his own needs and for the needs of others — and he had not been a thief before his conversion. Only the Holy Spirit can produce active virtues and true devotion, the very opposite of what came before.
Commentators repeatedly note that the old rule against stealing would have been satisfied long before this verse is.
The thief is to become a worker and even a giver, for grace transforms. The law required the thief to pay back what he took, but grace makes him actively generous.
The same article puts the two principles side by side.
Law forbids evil; grace delights in doing good. Law is what God demands from man; grace is what God is in Himself.
The change asked for here mirrors what Christ Himself did, so the man once despised is handed the most honourable of errands.
That a man who once robbed others should become the willing and hardworking servant who hands out Christ's gifts to the needy — that would beautifully adorn the grace that saved him.
- Stop. The term covers every shade of dishonesty, and it went to a thriving church, so no believer is past needing it.
- Work. Idleness is neither right nor safe. The hands that once took must work, and work at something honest, because no kind use of the money excuses how it was gained.
- Give. Earning has a new aim. The world works to live; the Christian works to have something to hand to someone in need.
- Beyond. The law made a thief pay back what he took. Grace makes him generous, because law forbids evil while grace delights in doing good.
- Christ. The man who once robbed people now hands out Christ's gifts to the needy, and that is what grace looks like when it has done its work.
Let no corrupt word go out of your mouth, but if [there be] any good one for needful edification, that it may give grace to those that hear [it].
This verse puts a test on everything we say. The question is not just whether a word is clean, but whether it builds someone up and leaves grace with the person who hears it.
William Kelly reads the verse as covering a whole class of talk that most people would call harmless:
Throw worthless language away as you would throw away spoiled fruit. If such a word is on your tongue, let it go no further. Unclean talk we will find named and forbidden in the next chapter. Here I think the circle is wider. Many people would never speak or listen to dirty talk. Yet they often have to grieve over talk that does no good, and over those who approve it. It is better to say nothing than to speak when there is nothing good to build others up.
Darby asks which of two natures is doing the talking:
Here we see the contrast between the old self and the new. One or the other speaks: either it complains, or it gives thanks. The mature Christian would only speak to build others up. The new self, moved by the Spirit, will only take part in what builds up.
"As fits the occasion" adds a second filter after "good." A word can pass the first test and still fail the second:
The point is not only that corrupt talk stops. Positive good comes out — words that build up according to the need. Not only good language, but good for the occasion, and this assumes the Holy Spirit's power. We have often said things that were good in themselves but not needed at the time. I once saw a man give away food and medicines. The gifts were excellent, but he paid no attention to what the people receiving them actually needed.
Kelly draws the practical rule from the same clause: "The need measures the service, and love builds up instead of puffing up as knowledge does."
A. Pridham gives a test for what we say, and warns that talk which does not build up does harm:
Christian conversation calls for a constant remembrance that God is present. That memory holds back the outbursts of our sinful nature. Nothing that we cannot say with confidence in that presence is fit for the ears of one another. We would do well to remember that if our words do not edify, they are harmful. Whatever does not have the flavour of Christ has the flavour of the world. Talk like that does not strengthen God's building; it pulls it down.
T. B. Baines points to Christ Himself as the pattern:
It is not enough for the believer to avoid corrupt talk. That kind of talk belongs to "the old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires." The believer has put on the new self, and Christ is its perfect pattern. Did Christ merely refrain from evil in His conversation? No; His words, like His life, gave grace to those who heard. And so will the words of one who is in communion with Christ.
W. T. P. Wolston shows what careless talk does to the Holy Spirit:
If we walk carelessly, letting corrupt talk come out of our mouth, we will by that very thing grieve the Holy Spirit. When that happens, in His infinite mercy He brings a cloud over us. He gives us a sense of our folly and sin, and our conscience gives us no rest. The normal work of the Spirit is to show us the beauty of Christ and fill our hearts with Him. But if we grieve Him, He must turn our attention to ourselves and our sin. That lasts until we confess and He restores us.
- Source. One of two natures does the talking. Old self or new self — the words show which is in charge at that moment.
- Supply. Grace to give out comes from grace taken in. Time with the Lord feeds the mouth that builds others up.
- Standard. Not just clean words, but good ones — and good for this need, this hearer, this moment. Silence beats a word that meets no need.
- Scope. Wider than dirty talk. The same net catches useless and unwholesome speech. Words that fail to build are pulling down.
- Sequel. Careless speech grieves the Spirit. He must then turn us to our own sin instead of the beauty of Christ, until we confess.
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which ye have been sealed for [the] day of redemption.
Paul gives this command among plain instructions about speech and temper. He bases it not on fear of loss but on the seal the Spirit has already set on us — which raises two questions: what grieves Him, and what changes when we do?
The command only makes sense if the Spirit is someone with feelings. One writer draws that conclusion directly from the wording:
A reference to Ephesians 4:30 may be helpful — "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption." The Holy Spirit is sometimes called the Third Person of the Trinity, but we must be careful to avoid any thought of inequality in the Godhead. The Holy Spirit is God — a blessed Person. We must not think of Him merely as an influence (great as His influence undoubtedly is) — one cannot grieve an influence!
The answer sits in the verses on either side. The list is unflattering, and much of it comes out of the mouth:
In what way can the Spirit be grieved? Every allowance of the flesh in the walk and ways of the believer grieves the Spirit. The verses around this passage show that we grieve the Spirit mostly through our tongues. The tongue lets out what is inside. So Scripture warns us against corrupt words from our mouths, and against bitterness, wrath, anger, shouting, evil speaking and malice. The believer must put these things far away. It is when we find the flesh in others that we so quickly find the flesh rising in ourselves.
Notice what Paul does not say. He never warns that grieving the Spirit could cost you your salvation. The seal is the reason for the warning, not the thing at risk:
Here we are exhorted on the settled ground of our being "sealed." He does not say, "Grieve not the Spirit, lest you be eternally lost." Such would not be in keeping with the true character of divine exhortation. We "are sealed," not as long as we behave ourselves, but "until the day of redemption." It is absolutely done, and this is the powerful reason why we are not to grieve the Holy Spirit.
(Mackintosh quotes an older Bible translation. The ESV reads "for the day of redemption.")
Redemption here still lies ahead. It is the day when Christ comes to set the body itself free. And the seal that reaches that day does not depend on us:
He comes to redeem the bodies of His saints, and redemption is never a question of human faithfulness, but of the power and grace of God. We have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of God "to the day of redemption" (Eph. 4:30). Every true believer is sealed with that great day in view. Our faithfulness, or lack of it, will greatly affect our place in the coming kingdom, but redemption lies on another plane altogether.
Grieving Him costs nothing eternal, but it costs something now. One writer turns the usual fear around: the misery of a believer out of fellowship proves the Spirit's loyalty, not His absence.
He will never withdraw Himself from the one sealed; that would be to falsify the whole truth of redemption. But when He is grieved, He does withdraw joy and power from the Christian's life. That lasts until the man confesses the fault and judges the state of mind that let the old nature act again. A Christian out of communion is wretched inside, even if he looks calm outside. The reason is not that the Spirit has abandoned him. It is that He will not abandon him, and so He must take away his happiness until the man returns to his Lord in broken confession.
Scripture has a second, similar-sounding command — "Do not quench the Spirit" (1 Thess. 5:19). The writers are careful to keep the two apart:
It is important to see that the exhortation does not refer to any conduct of the individual believer towards the Spirit who dwells in him; as, for instance, when it is said in Ephesians 4:30, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption." But it refers to anything that, whether by human arrangement or the like, would interfere with His operation in gift in the Church.
For the Christian, the test of conduct has shifted. It is no longer a law to break, but a Person to consider:
What answers to this glory of Christ is the presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and sealing us for the day of redemption, when we shall be like Him and bear His image. So grieving the Spirit, not breaking the law, becomes the other measure of right and wrong for us.
- A Person. You cannot grieve an influence. The One who seals you as God's own is God Himself, and your life touches Him.
- A Seal. It holds for the day of redemption, not for as long as you behave well. Your security is the reason for care, never the thing at risk.
- A Day. The seal reaches to the redemption of the body at Christ's coming, and rests on God's power, not on human faithfulness.
- The Grief. Bitterness, temper, shouting, cutting words — the tongue does most of the grieving.
- The Cost. When He is grieved, He withdraws joy and power, but never Himself. The misery proves He stays; confession brings the joy back.
Let all bitterness, and heat of passion, and wrath, and clamour, and injurious language, be removed from you, with all malice;
Paul has just told the Ephesians not to grieve the Holy Spirit. Now he names what grieves Him: six things that start in the heart and end on the tongue. The list runs from settled sourness to open abuse, and it closes with the root of them all — malice.
One writer traces how each item grows out of the one before it, from an inward mood to the words that carry it:
To take them one by one: "all bitterness," I think, means every form of the sharp, unsparing mood which drives souls away instead of winning them. It makes the most of the real or imagined faults of others. The "wrath and anger" that follow are the outburst of passion, and the more settled vindictive resentment, which indulged sourness gives rise to. "Clamour and evil speaking" are their matching counterparts in words. All of them flow from the deep-seated fountain of "all malice," which the verse condemns last.
The word behind "evil speaking" — the ESV renders it "slander" — is the same one used for speaking against God:
In Scripture this does not always refer to speaking evil of God, though today the word is used only in that sense. The same Greek word is translated 'railing' in 1 Timothy 6:4 and Jude 9, and 'evil speaking' in Ephesians 4:31. It could well be translated that way in other places too.
Verse 31 belongs with verse 30. These tempers wound the very Spirit who marks believers out as God's own:
In the first part of the chapter the call to a worthy walk flows from a great truth: believers together are the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. Here we are reminded that each of us is sealed by the Spirit. God has marked us out as His own in view of the day of redemption by giving us the Spirit. We are to beware of grieving the Holy Spirit by allowing bitterness, the heat of passion, wrath and noisy clamour, injurious language and malice.
A short temper is often explained away as weakness. One writer refuses that excuse:
Verse 31 speaks of the things that result from nursing bad feeling in the heart — bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking, together with malice. These sinful attitudes and practices are to be judged without sparing, and firmly put away. There is no place for them among the saints of God. We must not allow ourselves the slightest excuse for such things breaking out. They come from sin, not from weakness.
The damage does not stop with the person who holds them:
Where such things as these are allowed — and to some extent they are found everywhere among saints — how can the comfort of the Spirit be known? Allowing such things paralyses all spiritual perception. We no longer see how serious it is to have given the flesh such a loose rein, and discord and division take the place of harmony.
One writer shows what each of these cannot survive beside, and then answers the question of method:
No one whose heart is fed on the love of Christ can think or speak with bitterness. Nor can we noisily seek our own if we stay mindful of the kind of calling we have. Malice dies out when faith is strong. Who can be malicious if he remembers how it was that, when we were enemies, God reconciled us to Himself? Still, all these things are contrary to the new man, and our conscience condemns them without hesitation. Even so, we do not escape them without effort. We are told to put them away. And if it is asked how we may best do this — the answer is, by practising the opposite virtues in the energy of the Spirit.
The verse does not stand alone. It leads directly into kindness and forgiveness, and the standard for both is how God has already dealt with the reader:
As brought to God, I have learned what God is in His ways of grace... Did God come and clamour against you in justice? He sent His Son to give Himself for you, and has forgiven you. There is a man who wronged me. I am going to forgive him, as God forgave me — and, if I am near enough to God to do it, to show out what we have been learning as the joy of our souls.
- Root — Malice is the fountain. Inside it becomes bitterness, wrath and anger; out loud it becomes clamour and slander.
- Grief — These tempers wound the Spirit who sealed believers for the day of redemption. Verse 31 spells out verse 30.
- No excuse — They come from sin, not weakness. Judge them without sparing instead of explaining them away.
- Cost — Tolerated, they dull spiritual perception and turn harmony into discord and division.
- Cure — Effort is needed. Put them away by practising the opposite virtues, and forgive as God forgave you.
and be to one another kind, compassionate, forgiving one another, so as God also in Christ has forgiven you.
Paul has just told believers to stop the workings of the flesh. This verse names what should take their place — and the question it forces is not "how much should I forgive?" but "whose forgiveness am I copying?"
Dropping bad behaviour is only half of what this passage asks. Something positive has to take its place, and it comes from a source outside ourselves.
As with the earlier verses, it is not enough just to hold back the mind and workings of the flesh. There is the activity of good in Christ, and the Spirit both produces this in the Christian and calls for it. So the apostle adds, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Clearly, then, it is a question of showing grace; and the pattern of it all is God in Christ, not the law — holy, just and good though the commandment is.
Elsewhere in Scripture our forgiving is what we ask God to match. Here the comparison runs the opposite way, and one writer names the change.
"Forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." This is a change from the Lord's Prayer — the prayer Jesus taught. There God measures Himself by you: "forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." Here it is quite the reverse; I am to measure myself by God: "forgiving, as God has forgiven you."
Older English Bibles read "for Christ's sake". The ESV reads "as God in Christ forgave you". Commentators say this wording keeps the move on God's side. It does not make Christ someone who talks a reluctant God into forgiving.
The verse does not say, as the older translation does, "as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you." It says, "as God in Christ." Here the apostle presents God in the riches of His grace. God acts from no motive outside Himself, so nothing has to talk Him into forgiving. He acts from His own heart. What He does simply shows what He is, as we see it in redemption. But he presents Him this way as our standard, and so he says, "Be imitators of God as beloved children."
Another writer adds why God forgives at all:
God has not forgiven us only because Christ pleads for us. God Himself is the blessed Author of the forgiving grace shown to us in the person of the Lord Jesus and in His unmatched sacrifice of love. God delights to forgive, as seen in the sending of His beloved Son.
A practical difficulty follows: what if the person who wronged me has not admitted anything? One writer separates the heart's attitude from the spoken word of pardon.
This does not mean we must always say out loud that we forgive those who have sinned against us. But in our own hearts we are always to be in a state of forgiveness. We are never to hold on inside to the sin of a brother. No matter how badly someone sins against us, before God we are to forgive at once. Then, when the one who did the wrong comes and says, "I repent" (Luke 17), we are to grant him forgiveness.
Forgiveness means giving up a claim. One writer says the argument does not stop there.
To forgive another's wrongs is not enough for a Christian. No doubt it is a giving up of self, and so the fruit of divine grace. But in Ephesians God wants us to imitate His own ways as they have shone out in Christ… What has God done? He has forgiven you in Christ; and you are called to do the same. But was that all? Was there not positive love, far beyond forgiveness? And what is the display of love? Not the law, but Christ.
- Received first. God forgave you in Christ before He asked anything of you. Every command here rests on something already done.
- Measured by Him. You are not setting the standard and asking God to meet it — He set it, and you copy it.
- Sourced in Himself. His forgiveness needed no persuading; it came from His own heart, shown in the gift of His Son.
- Held in the heart. Forgive in your heart at once, even if the wrong is never admitted. Speak the pardon when repentance comes.
- Carried further. Forgiving is where imitating God starts, not where it stops. The next step is love — the love Christ showed by giving Himself.