The first three chapters of Ephesians were totally dedicated to telling the people of God in Ephesus who they ARE as God’s people.  What an encouragement it is to know who you are when who you are is a blood-bought, eternally adopted, Spirit-filled, fully favored child of God with God as your Father, Jesus as your High Priest and brother, and the Holy Spirit as your Comforter and Helper!  As a child of God, it’s hard to feel lost and alone if you know who you are; it’s hard to feel depressed, anxious, hopeless, envious, bitter, worried, desperate, or afraid if you truly BELIEVE yourself to be who you ARE as His people!

But, knowing who we are is also the opportunity to not only feel differently about ourselves and our circumstances but also to act differently; not as an attempt to be somebody we are not, but as the opportunity to no longer act like somebody we used to be and now live and act like who we actually are!

There is nothing more powerful to living, than correctly knowing who you are.  Likewise, there is nothing more detrimental to living than being fooled about who you are.  It’s why the Apostle Paul spent the first three chapters of this letter doing what he does in most of his letters, telling them who they are as God’s children, then, as he does in many of his letters, it leads to a very practical presentation of what that means in our day-to-day living—to be who we are now!

Since making the transition from who we are to how we act, Paul has talked about the implications of who we are as God’s people in the context of how we strive together to faithfully and successfully labor in the mission of Christ as His Church!  It’s not that every attitude and action of our life doesn’t impact the effort of us faithfully being the body of Christ, His Church here on earth, but rather, the immediate context for the first implication of who we are as God’s people that Paul wanted us to understand, was what we should be doing together as a local church to accomplish the mission Christ gave His church.  We need to be using our gifts and talents to help each other grow and mature in the faith so that we can effectively stay on target with what Christ has left us here to do—engage those far from God with the Gospel of Jesus Christ to join us in the powerful privilege of knowing and following Him!

But, after talking about the implications of who we are in the context of how we act in the context of being His church in a general sense, Paul is now going to talk about it on a more granular level, as in right down to the nitty-gritty of how it impacts what we say and do in very specific ways. Sproul notes,

“In verse 17, Paul shifts from this theology of the unity and diversity of the mystical body of Christ to spell out behavioral patterns that he expects to see in the church and in the lives of the saints.”¹Sproul, R. C. (1994). The Purpose of God: Ephesians (p. 112). Christian Focus Publications.

But to do this, he’s going to make sure we understand that the implications of who we are, are necessarily seen in how we live as who we are now, rather than who we were.  As such, today’s passage serves as the launching pad for all the very specific ways God’s people should and shouldn’t act that he discusses in the rest of the letter, which even includes marriage and parenting.

Now, for clarity, nothing of what we are saying today, or for the rest of our time in our study, is a method to become a child of God, but rather what it means to live as the child of God you’ve been made to be.  This isn’t a call to religious performance, but a call to be who you are!  It’s not an effort to get a tiny electric car meant for easily getting around in a bustling, crowded, inner city, to be the vehicle you use to go off-roading in the mountains.  This is an effort to remind you of the kind of vehicle you are, that is truly unlike anything the world can produce!  Paul writes,

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. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!--21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:17-24)

In Ephesians 4:17-24, Paul contrasts life before receiving Christ with life after.

 Paul begins by describing life without Christ.

 Life without Christ is ignorantly UNCONCERNED with His moral character. 

 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.

 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.

“… you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do.”

First, it needs to be remembered that there were certainly plenty of Jewish converts in the church in Ephesus, but most of the believers were Gentiles, which is why Paul spent so much time in chapters two and three on how, in Christ, both Jews and Gentiles have been made God’s people. He certainly wanted the Jews in the church to understand it, but the primary audience Paul was trying to convince of this truth were the Gentiles.  He was trying to inoculate them against the inevitable teaching of the Judaizers that would show up and try to convince them that they had to become Jewish and practice some form of Christianized Judaism to truly experience being God’s people.

Now, why is that important? Because their identity as God’s people isn’t in being Jewish, they have no reason at all to live like Jews.  But their identity is also no longer in being a Gentile, and as such, they shouldn’t be living like that either! Therefore, Paul writes, “you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do.”

Now that they are in and with Christ, they are no longer Gentiles and thus no longer those who “walk … in the futility of their minds.”

Of “futility,” the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament states, “This rare word is used in Greek for human nothingness.”^[2] It’s also translated as vanity, but in this sentence, it means total ignorance, that is, not only the lack of knowledge, but the total unawareness of the lack of knowledge.

What’s the difference? Well, I’m fully aware that I don’t know how microchips process electronic impulses and spit out what we see on screens.  But, I’m fully aware that microchips are what make my iPhone, laptop, TV, watch, and basically every electronic device in my life, including LED light bulbs, work!  So, I know they exist in a very specific and accurate way, but I have no ability at all to explain how they accomplish what they accomplish.  My ignorance isn’t that I don’t know microchips make all this stuff work; it’s in how they do what they do.  This is not what the word translated as “futility” means.

The word translated as “futility” means total unawareness, as if I had no concept at all of a thing called a microchip that was inside my watch, iPad, etc. It means that if there is a conclusion about something like a microchip existing, it is so far from the truth that it is worthless.  This was the condition of the Gentiles in relation to God.

It’s important to know that Paul was by no means suggesting Gentiles did not know anything at all about the existence of divinity. They had all kinds of knowledge of the existence of divinity.  As early as 600 years before Christ’s birth, Greek philosophers began to question their culture's polytheistic beliefs.  As Romans 1:19-20 makes clear, the attributes of God are evident in creation, so as they studied creation, they began to see the testimony of the existence of a singular deity who was in charge of everything.  But because their conclusions lacked any direct revelation from God, they never understood God to be who He is and, as such, continued to believe in the existence of many other gods whom they assumed were far less superior and at the mercy and will of a supreme god.   Thus, when the Gospel arrived in Ephesus, it did so in a city with a temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis.  It was such a magnificent temple that it was one of the seven wonders of the world, and people traveled from all over the world to see it and worship Artemis.

Therefore, Paul’s point was not that as Gentiles they were atheists with no concept of divinity, but that what they had concluded was so far removed from the truth that it was “nothingness.” There was nothing correct in it, and as such, their lives, morality, religious practices, pursuits, etc., all came out of this nothingness, which is why Paul emphatically says you must not go back to that!

Furthermore, as Gentiles, they were not only completely ignorant of the fact that they were ignorant, but the truth, even if it was heard, could not penetrate their hearts.Paul writes,

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.

 When the Bible refers to our “heart,” it’s referring to the core of who we are. It’s why Jesus said that all we see and hear from a person is a product of the heart (Luke 6:45).

 It’s why religion is worthless and even dangerous. Religion hides the condition of our hearts from others, and it can even hide it from ourselves.People who are really good at religion can develop a life that’s truly confident in their own lie, that is, until the inevitable nature of their hearts finally bursts through like a giant lake bursting through a dam!

The hardness of the human heart towards God is also why even the best religion can never change it (Hebrews 9). We, in and of ourselves, before Christ, are not simply ignorant of the life of God; we are incapable of it!  We, at the core of who we are, are not open to the idea of living in true surrendered submission to God rather than ourselves, and that’s why we are entirely dependent on God to save us!  We would never choose God because we aren’t even capable of it.  Sounds hopeless, right?  But this is why God saves us rather than expecting us to save ourselves!  Speaking of the Gospel and the promise of the New Covenant to rescue us from ourselves, Ezekiel prophesied,

 Note: 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

 But, unless God softens our hearts and turns them to Him, we live in a cycle of ignorance that says no to any resemblance of submission to God and yes to ourselves.It’s a cycle that grows less and less interested in anything other than the desires of the flesh.  Paul explains it this way in verse 19,

19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

 The heart hard to God, that has no desire to even know anything other than the desires of the flesh, is a heart that will move further away from its inability to be penetrated by the knowledge of God.The word translated as “callous” is a Greek word meaning the loss of the ability to feel pain and, in the context of morality and ethics, the loss of the ability to feel any guilt or shame for immoral or unethical behavior.

So, putting this together with the previous verses, when a person continues to say no to the testimony of God, they grow more resistant to the knowledge of God’s love, power, and holiness, and it doesn’t lead to a place of neutrality, but rather to a place of greater allegiance to self. Saying “no” to God is saying “yes” to self. An emotional “freedom” is created that has zero inhibitions in the pursuit and enjoyment of pleasure (most frequently sexual), money, or power.  Hendriksen and Kistemaker wrote,

“By constantly arguing with conscience, stifling its warnings and muffling its bell, they had at last reached the point where conscience could no longer bother them. It was seared.”²Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of Ephesians (Vol. 7, p. 211). Baker Book House.

In this case, their callous, seared hearts were now unimpeded in their surrender to sensuality and impurity. Speaking of the culture Paul was writing to, Hendriksen and Kistemaker noted,

Note: “The literature of the day was deeply immoral. So corrupt had the Roman world become that somewhat later Origen states that when the people of his day committed adultery and whoredom they did not regard themselves as violating good manners. It has been remarked that it was not lava but lewdness that buried Herculaneum. And the frescoes found amid the ruins of nearby Pompeii show that this city was not any better.”³Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of Ephesians (Vol. 7, p. 211). Baker Book House.

“given themselves up to sensuality,”

So, given what we know about first-century Roman culture, Paul probably had the rampant sexual immorality of their day in mind, but the word isn’t limited to sexual immorality.

“Sensuality” is a broader term that means “behavior completely lacking in moral restraint.”⁴Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). In Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 770). United Bible Societies.

It’s also translated as licentious, which essentially means a license to do whatever you want!

In other words, saying no to the knowledge of God and the morality and ethics He created us to live in, eventually leads to the place where you have no qualms about saying no to God and yes to yourself, because at the end of the day, you couldn’t care less about God.

And this is where it really gets crazy.Paul expands on what he means by giving themselves to sensuality with an even greater depiction of their debauchery.  He says the gentile culture of his day was “greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”

Impurity is anything that lacks purity; that lacks any level of morality and ethics. Again, it's most frequently used in reference to sexual immorality, but it's not limited to it.  However, the emphasis of the phrase is not what impurity he is or isn’t referring to, but that a callous heart to God becomes GREEDY to PRACTICE anything and everything that lacks purity.

To be greedy for something is to never be satisfied with what you have, so much so that you’re driven to attain more of it at any cost. In this case, Paul says a heart hard to God, that is totally unconcerned with its lack of knowledge of God, both intellectually and more importantly, relationally, is a heart that grows so callous that it enters the most obviously foolish and destructive life one could ever live, a life devoted to the PRACTICE of EVERY kind of impurity.  Again, the word translated as “impurity” most often implies sexual impurity, but it ultimately refers to everything opposite of the holiness and love of God.

A heart that is ignorant of God, to the point there is no concern for that level of ignorance, is one that will grow totally callous to the common sense morality and ethics that even basic common sense can deduce as self-destructive, and eventually become a heart that is literally GREEDY to PRACTICE that which ultimately destroys life.Without Christ, we can become so callous towards God that our lives can literally end up PRACTICING everything opposite of life!  We end up PRACTICING death!  Think about how crazy that is!  Why would you intentionally and repetitiously do something to make your life worse?

Paul then contrasts life without Christ to life with Him!

 Life in Christ is enlightened and DRIVEN to embody His moral character.  

20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!--21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

“20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!—” First, if you are a believer, as we stated before, you are one because God broke down the walls of your hard heart of stone towards Him and gave you a heart of flesh, a soft heart that no longer shook your fist and snubbed your nose at the power and authority of God but instead gladly surrendered and submitted to Him for who He is—God! That decision to surrender to Him took place because your heart was finally open to learn the information that leaves us with no other logical conclusion than the fact that God is worthy of totally surrendering our lives to—the Gospel!

 Note:  16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, (Romans 1:16)

 Paul makes it clear that they are NO LONGER IGNORANT like they were when they were Gentiles, that is, before they became God’s people.Now, they not only have the right information about God, but more importantly, they have CHRIST abiding in them!  So Paul is essentially saying, “Before you were taught the gospel and experienced a relationship with God, you were ignorant of the values and character of Christ and as such, were unconcerned with them.  But now you are different, not simply because of what you know, but because of what happened to you when you heard and received it!  Notice that yet again we have an “em dash” in one of Paul’s sentences, which, like the others, tells us he’s going to drill into what he just said.  Paul writes,

 “21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,”

 It seems most scholars believe that “truth” here refers to the truth about the love and holiness of God, which serves as the standard by which God made us to live.

To be taught in Christ is to learn the truth of who Christ is and thus who we have been made to be as His brothers and sisters.To learn the truth about Christ is to learn the truth about the character and nature of God that is now our character and nature because we have been made God’s people, not just with an edict, but also with the literal regeneration of our souls.

 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; (1 Peter 1:23)

 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:8-10)

 The truth in Jesus is that as children of God, we are totally different than who we used to be, and in being made different, we now have a heart that longs to obey God rather than sin.It’s not that we never rebel, but rather, as children of God, the practice of our life becomes the natural effort of living in and out of His love and holiness rather than sensuality and impurity!  Therefore, Paul writes that the truth we learned in Christ is,

 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

 “Renewed” is ananeoō (ἀνανεοω), “to be renewed, to be renovated by inward reformation.” … The word “spirit” refers to the individual’s human spirit, that part of him which gives him God-consciousness, that makes him a moral agent. … The renewal takes place, not in the mind, but in the spirit of it. ‘The change is not in the mind psychologically, either in its essence or in its operation; and neither is it in the mind as if it were a superficial change of opinion on points of doctrine or practice: but it is in the spirit of the mind; in that which gives mind both its bent and its material of thought. It is not simply in the spirit as if it lay there in dim and mystic quietude; but it is in the spirit of the mind; in the power which, when changed itself, radically alters the entire sphere and business of the inner mechanism’ (Eadie).”⁵Wuest, K. S. (1997). Wuest’s word studies from the Greek New Testament: for the English reader (Vol. 4, pp. 109–111). Eerdmans. 

“That, therefore, which needs to be renewed, is not merely outward habits or modes of life; not merely transient tempers or dispositions, but the interior principle of life which lies back of all that is outward, phenomenal, or transient.”⁶Hodge, C. (1858). A commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians (p. 264). Robert Carter and Brothers.

 What we can learn about God in the Bible as we submit ourselves to the leadership of the Holy Spirit, as we learn to say yes to GOD instead of yes to our fleshly desires, and as such walk in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26), doesn’t just inform us with new information; we are literally transformed.We literally begin to think and see the world differently, life differently, morality and ethics differently, and love differently!  Everything begins to change as we stop acting like who we used to be, people ignorant and unconcerned with God and His life, and start living out of who we are, people who have God and His life!  It literally renovates our mind and conscience so that those who used to care less are now DRIVEN to live in the righteousness and holiness of God.  Paul states,

 “24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

 As our spirit is renovated, we long to never again put on who we used to be and instead long to put on who we have now been made to be, because who we have now been made to be is made in the LIKENESS of GOD!

Specifically, we have been made in true righteousness, which is literally HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS.The righteousness of God is the rightness of God that we fall short of without Christ.  It is the right or worthiness to be one of His children and carry His name, something again that we can’t achieve, but that He gives us as a gift!  We are made righteous by Him and done so justly because Jesus paid the price and earned us the right!  We have the right to be His children not only by a legal declaration but because He has made and is making us one, and as such, we have the right to stand with Him and abide with Him as His kids!

He has also made us HOLY, specifically, we have been made in true HOLINESS, which is literally HIS HOLINESS. The moral and ethical purity that is perfect love, the morally and ethically perfect love that is holiness.  Everything about God that causes the angels to cry out “holy, holy, holy” is literally who He has made and is making us to be, and will finish it at the return of Christ!

 These characteristics are not entitlements to pride, arrogance, and debauchery because they are the opposite of it!If you claim knowing who you are in Christ entitles you to sin, then you, at best, don’t know who you are in Christ and, at worst, are not in Christ!  God has made and is making you into His image, and as you put on who He has made you to be and stop putting on who you once were, the actions, attitudes, and words of who you are become your genuine natural testimony rather than who you used to be!  We are not just given the RIGHT to stand with God, we are also being made into the HOLINESS of the one we stand with!

 “Since the old man refers to the unsaved person dominated by the totally depraved nature, the new man refers to the saved person dominated by the divine nature. This new man, “after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”⁷Wuest, K. S. (1997). Wuest’s word studies from the Greek New Testament: for the English reader (Vol. 4, pp. 109–111). Eerdmans.

 “But righteousness never walks alone. It is always accompanied by holiness, so that the regenerated and converted person performs his duties with reference to God Cf. Luke 1:75; 1 Thess. 2:10; Titus 1:8. Moreover, the righteousness and holiness which God bestows are true, not deceptive, as are the lusts spawned by the old nature. They bring life to its true, predestined fulfilment. They satisfy.”⁸Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of Ephesians (Vol. 7, pp. 214–215). Baker Book House.

Challenge

Which SELF are you putting your effort into living, the old one that died with Christ, or the new one He made alive with Him?

In April, our Life Groups will once again talk about what it means to GROW as a fruit-bearing Christian and how they can help each other do so.  In essence, they will be talking about how to help each other be renewed in the spirit of their mind and put on the new self, created in the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness! Nobody is meant to walk this journey alone. The church, specifically a local church, is where we are supposed to connect with other believers and help each other grow up in the fullness of Christ, which, in this passage, we see is who He has made us to be if we are in Him.

Discussion Guide 

Are there any scenarios where you live or function differently in one place than you do in another?

 In Ephesians 4:17-24, Paul contrasts life before receiving Christ with life after:

Life without Christ is ignorantly UNCONCERNED with His moral character. (4:17-19)

What might the “unsaved Gentile” have looked like or concerned himself with?

What would the “unsaved Jew” have been concerned with?

How would you define “Futile”?

How does Ephesians 4:18 describe “Futility”?

Try to relate to and describe your life before Christ based on Ephesians 4:18

Describe the 3 progressing stages of Ephesians 4:19 (maybe pick a topic, issue or sin, and describe its stages of progression in a life, to see how it grows and transforms you)

Life in Christ is enlightened and DRIVEN to embody His moral character. (4:20-24)

***Someone share their testimony in less than 60 seconds

What in “the way you learned Christ” drew you to understanding and wanting to receive Christ as your Savior?

Can you describe something God had to break down in your life before you would repent and believe in Him?

What was the process of overcoming something you’ve, now, defeated?

What is one thing that is completely different about you since coming to Christ?

What was the process of learning to “take on” something that reflects what God is changing you into?

How does “being renewed in the spirit of your minds (vs23)” relate to “being created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (vs24)”

What do you love most about how God is changing or has changed you?

Challenge:

Which SELF are you putting your effort into living, the old one that died with Christ, or the new one He made alive with Him?

 What are some steps you take to guard yourself/your mind?

 Other Passages Mentioned:  Ezekiel 36:26, Romans 1:16, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 Peter 1:23, 1 John 3:8-10