Ephesians 4:20–21

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.

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 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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

"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.