Ephesians 4:17-19 [17] Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. [18] They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. [19] They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. (ESV)
Although many clothing retailers have been hit hard during this pandemic time, there is still a worldwide fascination with fashion. Whether you travel to Chicago or London or Geneva or Beijing or Nairobi, you find fashion-conscious people making fashion statements. Much of this lure comes from fashion’s enticing promise of a “new you.” You have seen the ads — the before picture of a plain, unhappy-looking woman who lacks confidence, and then the photograph after she has come under the care of a salon and has a different hair color, cut, and eyebrows, a fresh paint job, and clothing to match. She is now a new person, brimming with confidence and appeal. The promise from the fashion world to men and women is new birth through clothing and it sells and sells and sells! The problem is, not only does clothing not make the man or woman — it covers up the real you. Clothing can polish the image but not the soul.
Ephesians 4 presents ... a divine wardrobe which will really change one’s life...a heavenly, eternal style which will never go out of date — a wardrobe which wears increasingly better with time. Paul tells us what we need to shed and what we need to put on to be properly dressed. If we take his recommendation to heart, we’ll be dressed for any occasion life may bring (Hughes, R. K. (1990). Ephesians: the mystery of the body of Christ (pp. 137–140). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.).
Showing first in verses 17–19 what believers must shed, or leave behind, Paul moves from the general to the specific, first giving four characteristics of the clothing of the old self specifying how the unredeemed in their natural state are spiritually. Before all of that, in the beginning of verse 14, Paul introduces the command:
Ephesians 4:17a [17] Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, (in the futility of their minds). (ESV)
Now/therefore refers back to what Paul has been saying about our high calling in Jesus Christ. Because we are called to salvation, unified in the Body of Christ, gifted by the Holy Spirit, and built up by the gifted men (vv. 1–16), we must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. We cannot accomplish the glorious work of Christ by continuing to live the way the world lives. Ethnos (Gentiles) is not in all of the ancient Greek texts, and may have been a later addition. But its presence here is perfectly consistent with its use elsewhere in the New Testament, including Paul’s other letters. The term basically refers to a multitude of people in general, and then to a group of people of a particular kind. It is this secondary meaning that we see in our derived English word ethnic. Jews used the term in two common ways, first to distinguish all other people from Jews and second to distinguish all religions from Judaism. Gentiles therefore referred racially and ethnically to all non–Jews and religiously to all pagans. Here Gentiles here represent all ungodly, unregenerate, pagan persons. (cf. 1 Thess. 4:5). This is relevant to the church at Ephesus because it was a small island of despised people in a giant cesspool of wickedness. Ephesus was a leading city of commerce and culture in the Roman Empire, the home of the pagan temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Worship of Diana involved the worst immorality of degraded pagan religion. ...Temple prostitution, graft, crime, immorality, idolatry, and every conceivable form of sin abounded. Many of the Christians in Ephesus came out of that kind of background. Most of the believers had themselves once been a part of that paganism. They frequently passed by places where they once caroused and ran into friends with whom they once indulged in debauchery. They faced continual temptations to revert to the old ways, and the apostle therefore admonished them to resist. (Anders, M. (1999). Galatians-Colossians (Vol. 8, p. 153). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.).
• Different people have different temptations based on their background. Only you will know your triggers to sin. Understanding these triggers and pre-emptively avoiding them, can help you avoid a slide into sin.
When Paul said: This I say … and testify/affirm in the Lord”, he was saying that the warning he gives did not originate from his own personal tastes or preferences. The matter of forsaking sin and following righteousness is not the whim of isolated, narrow–minded preachers and teachers. It is God’s own standard and His only standard for those who belong to Him. It is the very essence of the gospel and is set in bold contrast to the standards of the unredeemed. The first verb, ‘I say, tell’, is strengthened by means of the second, ‘I testify/affirm, declare’ (cf. 1 Thess. 2:12), which stresses its solemnity and significance, while the additional “in the Lord” points to the source of its authority. Paul does not simply urge his readers on his own initiative. He writes as one who is ‘a prisoner in the Lord’ (4:1) and whose admonition comes with the full weight of the Lord’s authority (cf. 1 Thess. 4:1). (O’Brien, P. T. (1999). The letter to the Ephesians (p. 319). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)
Paul now proceeds to give four specific characteristics of the ungodly, pagan life–style that believers are to forsake. The worldly life is 1) Intellectually futile (Ephesians 4:17), 2) Ignorant of God’s truth (Ephesians 4:18), 3) Spiritually and morally callused (Ephesians 4:19a), and 4) Depraved in mind (Ephesians 4:19b).
God expects believers to forsake the worldly life because it is:
1) Intellectually futile (Ephesians 4:17)
Ephesians 4:17 [17] (Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do), in the futility of their minds. (ESV)
The first characteristic of unregenerate people is that they live in the futility of their minds. It is significant that the basic issue of life–style centers in their minds. Paul continues to speak of understanding and ignorance (v.18), learning and teaching (vv. 20–21), and the mind and truth (vv. 23–24)—all of which are related to the intellect. Because unbelievers and Christians think differently they are therefore to act differently. As far as spiritual and moral issues are concerned, an unbeliever cannot think straight. Their rational processes in those areas are warped and inadequate (cf. Rom. 1:28; 8:7; 1 Cor. 2:14; Col. 2:18; Titus 1:15). People act as they think, and the reason they are constantly messing up is that they are vain in their thinking and darkened in their understanding as a consequence of being separated from God (Boice, J. M. (1988). Ephesians: an expositional commentary (p. 154). Grand Rapids, MI: Ministry Resources Library.). Our mindset determines our actions, so if our thinking is empty our lives will be as well (Osborne, G. R. (2017). Ephesians: Verse by Verse (p. 138). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.).
Please turn to Romans 1
Paul says that spiritually, the operation of the natural mind is futile and unproductive. Mataiotes (futility) refers to that which fails to produce the desired result, that which never succeeds. It was therefore used as a synonym for empty, because it amounts to nothing. The spiritual thinking and resulting life–style of the Gentiles—here representing all the ungodly—is inevitably empty, vain, and void of substance. The life of an unbeliever is bound up in thinking and acting in an arena of ultimate trivia. Such a person consumes themselves in the pursuit of goals that are purely selfish, in the accumulation of that which is temporary, and in looking for satisfaction in that which is intrinsically deceptive and disappointing. The “futility” of the pagan ... is the result of the idolatrous conditioning of that mind (...wrong lines of conduct follow from wrong ideas about God). Even in the ethical field, it is implied, the most strenuous efforts of pagans are vain, because they lack the inner power to enable them to live up to their highest ideals (Bruce, F. F. (1984). The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians (p. 355). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.).
The Apostle Paul now explains the precarious situation that the unredeemed of this world presently are in:
Romans 1:18-23 [18] For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. [19] For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. [20] For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So, they are without excuse. [21] For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. [22] Claiming to be wise, they became fools, [23]and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (ESV)
• No one should complain that God has left insufficient evidence of His existence and character; the fault is with those who reject the evidence Human beings are foolish, not in the sense that they are intellectually deficient but in their rejection of God’s lordship over their lives. Modern “idols” don’t look like ancient ones; images served today are often mental rather than metal. But people still devote their lives to, and trust in, many things other than God (Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (pp. 2158–2159). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.).
Quote: In their two–volume book The Criminal Personality, Samuel Yochelson and Stanton Samenow maintain that criminal behavior is the result of warped thinking. Three entire sections (pp. 251–457) are devoted to “The thinking errors of the criminal.” By studying what criminals think, rather than trying to probe their feelings and backgrounds, these researchers use these sections to share their conclusions. “It is remarkable,” they write, “the criminal’s thinking patterns operate everywhere; they are not restricted to crime.” That is a description of the depraved, reprobate mind. “Sociological explanations have been unsatisfactory,” the authors declare. “The idea that a man becomes a criminal because he is corrupted by his environment has proved to be too weak an explanation. We have indicated that criminals come from a broad spectrum of homes, both disadvantaged and privileged within the same neighborhood. Some are violators and most are not. It is not the environment that turns a man into a criminal, it is a series of choices that he makes starting at a very early age.” The researchers also conclude that the criminal mind eventually “will decide that everything is worthless.” “His thinking is illogical,” they affirm in summary.
God expects believers to forsake the worldly life because it is:
2) Ignorant of God’s Truth (Ephesians 4:18)
Ephesians 4:18 [18] They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. (ESV)
The second characteristic of ungodly persons is ignorance of God’s truth. Their thinking not only is futile but spiritually uninformed. The Greek word behind darkened is a perfect participle, indicating a continuing condition of spiritual darkness. This darkness implies both ignorance and immorality. And darkness in their understanding is coupled with exclusion from the life of God (cf. John 1:5). The cause of their darkness, ignorance, and separation from God is the hardness of heart, their willful determination to remain in sin. Just as a corpse cannot hear a conversation in the mortuary, the person who is spiritually “dead in [their] trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1) cannot hear or understand the things of God, no matter how loudly or clearly they may be declared or evidenced in their presence. Porosis (hardness) carries the idea of being rock–hard. It was used by physicians to describe the calcification that forms around broken bones and becomes harder than the bone itself. It was also used of the hard formations that sometimes occur in joints and cause them to become immobile. It could therefore connote the idea of paralysis as well as of hardness. Sin has a petrifying effect, and the heart of the person who continually chooses to sin becomes hardened and paralyzed to spiritual truth, utterly insensitive to the things of God. Therefore, it is their own hardness against God that perpetuates their alienation from God’s life (Liefeld, W. L. (1997). Ephesians (Vol. 10, Eph 4:17). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.).
Please turn to John 12
When People continually persist in following their own way, they will also eventually be confirmed in their choice by the God of heaven. The Jews who heard Jesus teach and preach had the great advantage of having had God’s Word given to them through Moses, the prophets, and other Old Testament writers. They had the even greater advantage of seeing and hearing God’s own incarnate Son.
Despite what Christ did and said to them, the Apostle John chronicled their tragic rejection:
John 12:37-40 [37]Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, [38]so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: "Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"[39]Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, [40]"He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them." (ESV)
• The culpability of people is indicated as those who had seen these miracles but still did not believe. The purpose of the miracles was to lead them to faith, and the miracles provided abundant proof of Jesus’ deity and messiahship, but people in their hardness of heart still rejected this evidence (Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (p. 2049). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.).
• How much more are people culpable today given the testimony of the completed scriptures, centuries of fulfilled prophesy, what greater things can be known from the scientific fields. etc. Yet people will choose to worship their own wisdom and intelligence, the creature rather than the creator.
• The warning from God is for you to not continue in your unbelief. If you choose to do so, eventually God will stop prodding you and give you over to your unbelief and the eternal consequences thereof.
Quote: Leroy Auden of the University of Chicago has written, “We hide a restless lion under a cardboard box, for while we may use other terms than guilt to describe this turbulence in our souls, the fact remains that all is not right within us.” By one way or another—by psychological game playing, rationalization, self–justification, transferring the blame, or by denying sin and eliminating morality—(people) try (in futility) to get rid of the lion of guilt. But it will not go away”.
God expects believers to forsake the worldly life because it is:
3) Spiritually and Morally Callused (Eph. 4:19a)
Ephesians 4:19a [19] They have become callous (and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity). (ESV)
The third characteristic of the unregenerate person is spiritual and moral callousness. When people continue in sin and turn themselves away from the life of God, they become apathetic and insensitive about moral and spiritual things. They reject all standards of righteousness and do not care about the consequences of their unrighteous thoughts and actions. Even conscience becomes scarred with tissue that is not sensitive to wrong (1 Tim. 4:2; Titus 1:15). To become callous has the idea of “hardening of their hearts” which carried on in the statement that they have “lost all moral sensitivity”—a classical term which means primarily that one’s skin has become callous and no longer feels pain (Heliodorus Eroticus 6.5 (3rd cent. A.D.).). This is expressed as a PERFECT ACTIVE PARTICIPLE. Fallen humanity has become, and remains, insensitive, or hardened beyond feeling, to both natural revelation (cf. Ps. 19:1–6; Rom. 1:18–2:16) and special revelation. of the Bible and the Son, the written word (cf. Ps. 19:7–12) and the living word (cf. John 1:1–14) (Utley, R. J. (1997). Paul Bound, the Gospel Unbound: Letters from Prison (Colossians, Ephesians and Philemon, then later, Philippians) (Vol. Volume 8, p. 113). Marshall, TX: Bible Lessons International.)
Please turn to Titus 1
People don’t often reject Christ on intellectual grounds; they reject him (or ignore him) because they don’t want to surrender their wills to His. If you are presenting Christ and you receive an objection to every statement or truth claim, step back and ask: Is this really an intellectual problem? Or is it just that this person does not want to submit to Christ? If it’s truly intellectual, try to answer the objection. If it’s more willful, recognize that and deal with it on the heart level. Pray that God will turn on the lights and illumine the darkened, hardened heart (Barton, B. B., & Comfort, P. W. (1996). Ephesians (p. 89). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.).
Often when there is a hard heart issue, it requires a different approach. Paul instructed Titus:
Titus 1:10-16 [10] For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. [11] They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. [12] One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." [13] This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, [14] not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. [15] To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. [16]They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. (ESV)
• Why is the moral callousness pursued? These false teachers are motivated by greed (cf. 1 Tim. 6:5, 9–10). Wisely, Paul does not criticize the decadence of Cretan society directly but quotes a Cretan author instead and then quickly agrees with him (this testimony is true). Of course, Paul means this as a generalization, not necessarily true of every single inhabitant of Crete. Despite false teaching even from denominations or prominent spiritual teachers, the works of the false teachers prove that they are unbelievers, even while they claim to know God (Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (p. 2349). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.).
Illustration: According to an ancient Greek story, a Spartan youth stole a fox but then inadvertently came upon the man from whom he had stolen it. To keep his theft from being discovered, the boy stuck the fox inside his clothes and stood without moving a muscle while the frightened fox tore out his vital organs. Even at the cost of his own painful death he would not own up to his wrong. Our wicked society is so determined not to be discovered for what it is that it stands unflinching as its very life and vitality is ripped apart by the sins and corruption it holds so dear. It has become callous both to the reality and to the consequences of sin, and will endure any agony rather than admit that its way of “living” is the way of death.
Finally, God expects believers to forsake the worldly life because it is:
4) Depraved in Mind (Eph. 4:19b)
Ephesians 4:19b [19] (They have become callous) and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. (ESV)
Futile, self–centered thinking, ignorance of the truth, spiritual and moral callousness lead inevitably to one to give themselves up to further degeneration. As a judgement, Romans 1:24–32 says God “gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts. This manifests itself in sensuality, and greedy to practice every kind of impurity. Notice that since they do not have God in their minds, then they do not have God in their actions. Because of the darkness of their minds and the hardness of their hearts, they have given themselves to a sensual lifestyle that rests on impurity and greed (Sproul, R. C. (1994). The Purpose of God: Ephesians (p. 112). Scotland: Christian Focus Publications.).
Please turn to 2 Peter 2
Aselgeia (sensuality) refers to total (debauchery), the absence of all moral restraint, especially in the area of sexual sins. The term relates to a disposition of the soul incapable of bearing the pain of discipline. The idea is that of unbridled self–indulgence and undisciplined obscenity. Sensuality characterizes the people. In a more general sense it can be expressed as “Debauchery” which is vice that throws off all restraint and flaunts itself, “unawed by shame or fear,” without regard for self-respect, for the rights and feelings of others, or for public decency (Bruce, F. F. (1984). The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians (p. 356). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.).
Peter describes it like this:
2 Peter 2:10-14 [10]and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, [11] whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. [12]But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, [13]suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. [14] They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! (ESV)
• The false teachers operate in irrational ways. They act like … animals, following neither reason nor truth but instinct, ignoring even the most basic of human values. Yet many can behave like this while posturing as Christians (Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (p. 2421). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.)
Ergasia (practice) can refer to a business enterprise, and that idea could apply here. The ungodly person often makes business out of every kind of impurity. Pornography, prostitution, X–rated films and TV programs, and every kind of impurity form perhaps the largest industry in North America. The vast majority of it is open, unashamed, and legally protected. Impurity is inseparable from being greedy. Pleonexia (greedy.) is unbounded covetousness, uninhibited lust for that which is wanted. Immorality has no part in love, and anything the sensual person does under the guise of caring and helpfulness is but a ruse for exploitation. The world of sensuality and impurity is the world of being greedy. The person given over to godlessness and immorality greedily takes whatever they can from those around them. Such a person evaluates life only in material terms (Luke 12:15), uses other people to their own advantage (1 Thess. 2:5; 2 Pet. 2:3), and turns their back on God in order to fulfill their own evil desires (Rom. 1:29). Being greedy is no less than idolatry (Col. 3:5). Although it is possible to understand ‘greed’ as a third vice, alongside sensuality/debauchery and impurity, the prepositional expression ‘every kind of /with covetousness’ suggests that the indecent conduct already described was practiced with a continual lust for more. The (old) way of life was characterized by an insatiable desire to participate in more and more forms of immorality. ‘Ultimately, it becomes a vicious circle because new perversions must be sought to replace the old’ (O’Brien, P. T. (1999). The letter to the Ephesians (p. 323). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.).
When a person determines to think their own way, do things their own way, and pursue their own destiny, they cut themselves off from God. When that happens, they cut themselves off from truth and become spiritually blind and without godly standards of morality. Without standards of morality, immorality becomes a shameless and callused way of life. When that is continued it destroys the mind’s ability to distinguish good from evil, truth from falsehood, and reality from unreality. The godless life becomes the mindless life. God's warning from this passage is to wake up, and repent of this sin, that leads to death. Embracing God and His way through faith, leads to life and the eternal fullness therein. Intellectually and theologically we know the truth of these words, but the apostle speaks graphically, and gives his commands strongly, to make us face the realities of our experience when we harden our hearts to the truth of these words. Remember it is to believers that the apostle gives these warnings. Why do Christians need these kinds of warnings? Whether the temptation is of gambling, pornography, or time waste, these, too, can seem “almost innocent.” “Nobody gets hurt,” “nobody need know” (employer or spouse), and “we can stop at any time,” we think. But what happens follows the biblical pathology of sin. The sin in which we indulge for a while hardens our hearts, darkens our minds to the evil of what we are doing, and ultimately makes us less sensitive to and less fulfilled by the profound satisfaction God provides by His blessings in our lives (Chapell, B. (2009). Ephesians. (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (p. 207). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.).
(Format note: Outline & some base commentary from MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1986). Ephesians (pp. 162–181). Chicago: Moody Press.)
