Ephesians 4:17-32 – “The Gospel Brings New Life"
Last week we looked the unity of the new gospel community, this week the focus is purity.
1) The Old Life
- v.17 “this I testify in the Lord” => Paul speaks and issues commands in the name and authority of Jesus the King
- .17-19 => unbelievers have a hardness of heart due to their sin nature, which as they choose to ignore God and rebel against Him then they grow in darkness of their minds, ignorance, futility and are alienated from the life of God => this also hard heart and mind against God then translates into sinful acts of them choosing to give themselves over as slaves to all kinds of sin and impurity.
=> parallel text to see this development of hardness and rebellion in the old sinful nature self is Romans 1:18-28.
2) The New Life
-v.20 “BUT this is not the way you learned Christ!” => there has been a break with this former way of sin, ignorance, hardness of heart and impurity by Christ having liberated us from our slavery under the dominion of sin.
- v.21-24 the way that we have learned Christ in the past is altogether different (Paul is not telling non-believers these things, rather they are Christians who need a reminder and call to purity, so this applies to all of us today. Paul is calling the Christians to have behaviour consistent with the new life and identity they have Christ – he is not being moralistic, rather is calling us to live holy lives because we have been and are being made holy by God)
=> in contrast to the unbelievers futility of mind, Christians are renewed through their minds to see and know God and worship Him; our conduct then in daily life needs to be examined with this new mind from Christ so we live consistently with who we are
=> we are to be involved in co-operation with the Holy Spirit in “putting off” the old self and “putting on” the new self.
v.24 the new self is in true righteousness and holiness => so essentially the new life is not just about the things we do differently from when we were unsaved, the new life is about putting on Christ, abiding in Christ, growing in Christ, being made more like Christ through sanctification as He alone is true righteousness and holiness and He alone can bring that to be a reality in our lives. The fact He gives us this new life and all these new things in true righteousness and holiness is all of grace!
-v.25-32 Paul then goes from the lofty theology of how we have been made a new person in Christ to practically show us 5 examples of what that looks like (all of this is application of the theology – see next section).
- v.30 the Holy Spirit can be “grieved” – He is a person (not just a force, energy or thing) with emotions and a gentle character. He can be grieved by our sin and living inconsistently with our new life in Christ, as a Temple of the Holy Spirit (which means are lives are called to be set apart from sin and all that defiles that holy place).
=> remarked how when Jesus was baptised the Holy Spirit came and “rested upon Him” like a dove. The Spirit rested on Jesus who lived a perfect life, never grieving Him. However, we don’t! The Spirit is promised never to leave us, but we still can hinder His work and grieve Him.
3) Application
Based on our understanding of God has saved us through the Cross of Christ and the grace we have received, being made new people in His new holy community we are to live changed lives. We will never be able to perfectly achieve these things and this is not about us trying to live in such a way to impress God or make Him love us more (nor does He loves us less when we fail), because we live by grace and not by law – but that grace we have received and our new identity should spur us on to want to live pleasing obedient lives to His honour, praise and glory:
a) speak the truth (put on) and do not lie (put off)
Why don’t we tell the truth? Sometimes because we want to protect ourselves, sometimes to protect others…but the real heart of the matter is (as Tim Keller says) that we love something or ourselves more than we love Jesus! *Our new life in Jesus as His bride means we need to battle our tendency to spiritual adultery and loving other things more than we love Him! His grace for our evil idol-factory hearts is no license to continue with our sin!
b) be angry and do not sin
There are things which it is good to have righteous anger (false teaching, sin, injustice, etc.) but we are not to judge, for that alone is for God. Often our anger is sinful because we judge and condemn the person, forgetting that we ourselves are no better and are only recipients of God’s grace and have received pardon of our sins, which God offers for this life to that other person too. Sometimes we have totally selfish reasons for our anger (simply people have inconvenienced our agenda), which shows that something is not right with our anger.
c) no longer steal (put off), rather work to give (put on)
Our new life in Christ means we must have integrity in all parts of our lives and do honestly to receive earthly blessings, and the focus of those earthly blessings must always not be to accumulate treasures for ourselves, but to bless others and take care of the needy as part of the compassionate work of Christ.
d) no more evil talk (put off) only that which builds up and gives grace (put on)
This is a very hard and challenging calling, but if we are to be ambassadors of Christ and the reality of this transformed new life in the gospel, then it is crucial that we speak only in a way that reflects His perfections and beauty; rather than speaking sinfully and corruptly. Our tongues are dangerous, as James 3 warns us!
e) no more bitter and divisive attitudes (put off) but rather be kind and forgiving (put on)
Paul’s words cover a lot of attitudes here: quarrelling, sour spirit, passionate rage, speaking evil of people, and wishing ill on people. We need God’s help to deal with these wicked heart attitudes of the former self. But we are called to strive as much as we can to be kind (the Greek word is Chrestos, which is a worldplay on Christ – so we are to be kind like Christ was kind even to His enemies) and forgiving (literally in the Greek: giving grace to one another) since we have already been forgiven infinitely more by Christ in His giving grace to us!
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