Men Made New, Eph 4:16-24

Men Made New

Eph 4:16-24

Flowing out of all the deep theology of chapters one through three and building on his application of it in the first half of chapter four, Paul turns to another important Christian truth--there are men and women who have been made new.

The believers have not been left unchanged. The gospel of grace by faith and all that was prepared in advance for them to do demonstrates clearly that there is something different about them. They have not been left to be like the world--they have been redeemed in order to be more and more like Christ. In verses 16-24 we have another wonderful summary of this gospel truth.

In our day, this doctrine has become unpopular. Many want the benefits they think the gospel can bring to them along the lines of their 'felt' needs. But, they don't like the ethical demands of the gospel. Those demands are the principles, teaching and commands of the Bible.

A few years ago, I worked with a man who had the foulest mouth I had ever heard. He used swear words as modifiers on as many occasions as he could. His words and thoughts were vulgar. Nobody had a good opinion of him. He was eventually fired for working for our competition while on our clock--he was double-dipping. When he heard I was a Christian, he sought me out. His reason was to tell me that he was as well. I couldn't believe it. He held to a kind of antinomianism that believed there are no ethical standards for the Christian life--at least none that can be binding. He kept telling me he was under grace and when challenged about his life, he would add, "No Law & no condemnation."

There are many varieties of Antinomians in our day, even some in Calvinistic circles--they don't see the epistles as binding principles for our day. They have become very Postmodern in their ethical or moral relativism--what might be true for you, might not be for me. They believe the Lord has different standards for different people.

There are many passages that refute that crass individualism--one of them is found here in Ephesians 4. Paul writes with his pastoral heart for the good of the saints who have suffered trouble under the hands of false brethren. Paul wants the true believers to be encouraged. So, he writes again of this deep work upon the souls of men and women--men and women made new, men and women made to be different by God Himself.

Let's look at the text:

Eph 4:17-24

1. The Solemn Charge

¹⁷ This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of^[d] the Gentiles walk,

2. The Selfish Problem Defined

17b in the futility of their mind, ¹⁸ having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God,

3. The Selfish Problem Delineated

18b because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; ¹⁹ who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

4. The Grand Difference

²⁰ But you have not so learned Christ, ²¹ if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus:

5. The Putting Off of the Old

 ²² that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,

6. The Putting On of the New

²³ and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, ²⁴ and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

Let's look at the test more thoroughly:

Eph 4:17-24

1. The Solemn Charge

¹⁷ This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord,

Not only is the apostle Paul drawing a conclusion--using the word therefore, but he gives them a solemn charge, a testimony. It is as if he is in God's court making a case for the Christian life and what it ought to look like. Since God is everywhere, this sort of spiritual charge can be made anywhere in word and in writing. Paul is making a charge to them of the most serious kind. This charge is an all-defining one. It touches on the essentials of being a believer or not.

Paul begins his words to the church by saying:

that you should no longer walk as the rest of^[d] the Gentiles walk,

This is the start of his solemn testimony. That there ought to be a difference between them and the pagan world in which they live. Faith in Christ changes the very way we live.

I like this metaphor of walking I the Bible and ancient literature. It is how most people traveled. If they had to go to register for a census, they walked. If they had to go for food or water, they walked. It is the main metaphor for living that is used. Life is a journey wherein we walk. The Christian walks by faith--as it says in another place.

What happens when you walk? It is usually with others and it affords opportunities for talk. When Jews went to Jesusalem for a feast, they walked together, chanted the Psalms of Assent as they went up to Jerusalem. It was a continual celebration of anticipation as they went along the way.

There are still cultures today who walk and talk a lot especially among Christians on the Lord's Day. This was the case in the mid 90s in Oxford. Many of the international students would meet mid-afternoon and walk to and in the University Parks (where Cromwell parked his cannons for the siege of the City).

What Paul is declaring to them as solemn testimony is negatively, that they don't conduct themselves as the pagans around them and as the pagans they once were. Positively, carry yourselves distinctively as Christians.

They have been called out of darkness, They have been delivered from sin. They have been raised from the dead. The rest of the Pagans have not experienced these spiritual benefits. They are still zombies--the walking dead in trespasses and sins. This is where all the previous theology comes rushing in. To have the Spirit call one to Christ is an amazing thing that comes with spiritual benefits and blessings--and an inheritance that is realized in some degree now, but with a future and fuller manifestation at a future time. We have been called out of darkness to walk on the straight and narrow path with God's Word as a light to our path. We have been and are being delivered from sin to walk with the Lord and his people. Believers uniquely have these experiences in the world.  This doesn't make us better in and of ourselves, but it does make us better off. It is because of Christ's work for us and his Spirit's work in us that we are made worthy of so great a salvation. Yet, we walk in a different manner--I'm not talking about a proud or pompous strutting, but a humble walking that seeks to glorify God in Christ walking differently than those around us.

A lot of the problem has to do first and foremost with the mind. Theologically, it is called the noetic effect of sin--the effect of sin on the nous, the Greek word for mind.

2. The Selfish Problem Defined

17b in the futility of their mind, ¹⁸ having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God,

That is how and where the Pagans walked. Paul could have said more. He gives a summary of three things:

1. in the futility of their mind,

2. having their understanding darkened,

3. being alienated from the life of God,

What is something that becomes futile? It is senseless, unreasonable, and expendable.

As a family, we enjoy watching episodes of Star Trek. One of the alien races encountered by the Federation were the Borg--sounds Swedish. The Borg are a collective. The individual is lost in a sea of half human/half machine cyborgs. They don't have names. They are identified by the pod they are a part of. 7 of 9 was a prominent one. They have no emotions. They don't have their own opinions and resistance to them and their power is said to be futile. If you have heard someone say, "Resistance is futile" in a robotic sort of voice, that is where it comes from. The Borg are out for cosmic control over all of the universe--one piece at a time. Any part is expendable for the common good. To work against them is useless, vain, unreasonable and fruitless.

This is a picture of the mind of a pagan. It is useless, past reason, it is senseless and something not to be considered. All Pagans are futile, some are more so than others. There minds have nothing of value to offer. They are corrupt.

Paul goes on:

2. having their understanding darkened,

When there is a well-informed and articulate person, we often call them bright. Well, the Pagan mind, from the perspective of the Spirit of God who inspired these words--is darkened. There is no brightness to their thoughts and ideas. They are dark futile thoughts at odds with God's Words and his ways. Remember these are universal statements.

Who darkens their understanding? It is God actively or passively. Passively, He withdraws himself from them leaving them to their own sin or there are others who God positively or actively darkens due to sin and unbelief. In Psalm 69, the Psalmist prays Vs:23 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see….

It is not a good thing when people are unable to understand the truth. In their ignorance they will twist and turn it to justify themselves in all sorts of ways. Have you ever wondered why people are unable to understand the truth of the gospel after hearing for many years? Their eyes have not been opened to perceive the truth. As we are told twice in John 3, they cannot see the kingdom of God because they have not been born again.

Paul then adds:

3. being alienated from the life of God,

To be alienated from something is to become a stranger to it. There are many kinds of spirituality in our day--as there were in the first century. People have merged together varying elements of pagan myths and Christendom to make their own hybrid religions. People are happy to hear about your faith tradition as long as you don't believe it in an absolute sort of way. Once you tell them Jesus is the only way, they call you intolerant…because of the ignorance that is in them and because even though outwardly spiritual, they are alienated from the life of God. When we saw this concept in an earlier chapter I noted that it was perhaps the worst thing said about those who believed in Ephesus. They came to know God through Christ in the most intimate of ways. But, the Pagans who refused to bow their knee to Christ in this life, and to Him alone, show they are alienated from the life of God.

To have the life of God is to walk in his ways, not to gain his favor, but because he has prepared works in advance for his children to do. It is to have his Spirit take up residence within the human heart and affect the totality of who we are.

The testimony or indictment before us is amazing, but it doesn't end here, Paul continues:

3. The Selfish Problem Delineated

18b because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; ¹⁹ who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

What a list! This is Paul delineation of the problem of Paganism. He starts with the ignorance that is in them.

There are two kinds of ignorance: vincible ignorance that can be overcome and invincible ignorance which won't be overcome.

Have you ever heard unbelievers say things that are just outright silly, if not stupid? That is because what is in them essentially is ignorance. Many who appear to be the brightest philosophers because of what they say, just prove how ignorant people can be when they refuse to be guided by the light of God's word. We live in an age of ignorance among ignorant people. Only God can lift the scales of blindness.

18b  because of the blindness of their heart;

They can't see, meaning, they lack understanding. To have a blind heart is to be beyond the ability to correctly perceive. It is another familiar biblical metaphor. This blindness could be a judgment of God-- Deuteronomy 28:28 The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart.

Have you ever watched a blind man trying to navigate a new place? It is very difficult ot impossible in our day. Imagine how hard it would have been in first century Ephesus among the pagans who believed your blindness was a judgment from one of the gods for something you or one of your relatives had done.

OF the Pagans, Paul continues:

 ¹⁹ who, being past feeling,

This may mean being beyond their senses or beyond sensuality--their ability to discern and make sense of natural phenomena with their God-given senses that are meant to be evidence of his image upon all humans. All of this shows how far mankind is fallen in their natural state and how they make their own state worse by the way they willingly or unwittingly live--like everyone around them--all the Pagans.

People argue like this: Every body is doing it, I am a body, therefore I can do it to. That's an argument that starts with the self and seeks sensuality. They judge ethics by the morality of the people around them. We see the effects of this in our generation. Sins that people surely committed a generation or two ago have become mainstream. Sins to which God has given people over. Paul continues….

 have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

I am still amazed at some sights my eyes see as I go about my business. There is a sense which we as a society have lost the idea of public decency and put public lewdness in its place.

Pagans back then are just like people are now. It's scary! This is that theological uniformitarianism when it comes to the nature and lives of humans. Throughout time, we are all basically the same. We are not more robust or better for being modern or living in this technological age. We have become more ignorant and hardened with more ideas to justify our ignorance and sin. We are just more sophisticated in the way we don't talk about what are really sins. We give it a new name and recategorise it as behavior.

Look around. What do you see? Is this passage not a description of the new sort of Paganism we experience today? It is creeping into the churches where it should not be.

And, if it hasn't crept directly into churches, the force of preaching against societal sins has been lost. Repentance is a lost note in gospel preaching and close behind it is the concepts of righteousness and holiness--which of you remember is where this passage ends. We live in a lawless age. And, that includes the use of God's Law in gospel preaching.

We have a new kind of Paganism around us. I fear much of it has crept into what people expect in relationships, especially marriage. Love and lust are two very different ideas. The typical Christian's understanding of marital love is taken from Paganisms emphasis on lewdness or lust and covetousness with greed. What's in it for me to experience? How can I act like a Pagan in the privacy of my own bedroom? People going beyond feeling, or mere sensuality seeking more experiences that can't be found to give them more and greater thrills. So, they branch out into other experiences to find a fulfillment they will never know. This is Paganism. In all of its manifestations it should be shunned. Because there is….

4. The Grand Difference

²⁰ But you have not so learned Christ,

Paganism and Christianity have nothing in common except for the space they take up upon this earth. How great is the difference? Read the first phrase in verse 20. But you have not so learned Christ.

The Ephesians didn't learn their former way of living from Jesus. They got it from somewhere else. Remember the words in Chapters one and two that address this? Though of Gentile stock, they are as much the people of God as the Jews. With God's household there are no second-class citizens. The implication is that this sinful way of life is from the devil and their own futile minds that are unable and unwilling to accept the truth of God on their own.

Learning of Christ has a very different result--to varying degree--all the time. Some hear and it has little effect beyond an intellectual curiosity. To really hear Him is to listen and take up his truth and his agenda.

 ²¹ if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus:

Have you ever heard your parents ask, "Did you hear me?" Meaning, did you really hear me and understand what I am saying? And, the implication is, "Are you going to act on it?"

Those who have learned of Christ and in reality have understood his message and what it means in accord with His Truth or the truth about Him. People know a lot of about Jesus, without knowing Him fully.

And, they think they have it right. All they have is false assurance on the way to Hell. They will be surprised when they hear, "Depart from me, I never knew you…" They will give their excuses like the man in Matthew 7:22, but that is all they will have is excuses without any faith.

People, whether steeped in Paganism or not, need to hear the truth about Jesus and be taught by Him. Where does that happened? Ordinarily, through the preaching of the Word where the church gathers.

What is that truth? Well, the effects of the gospel upon men and women is this….

5. The Putting Off of the Old

 ²² that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,

It is as if the way they once lived is a coat they are wearing. It is growing corrupt, perhaps the moths are eating at it in the closet having their effect. Perhaps it is fading in the sun or becoming threadbare from use. Their former conduct is to be put off. Take one arm off, slide out of the other and throw the old man away. The old is full of deceit lusts inconsistent with a Christian profession.

Were the Ephesians, or at least some of them going back to Pagan ways, or at least entertaining Pagan ideas? For Paul to have written this forcefully against these things, he had to have a purpose. He doesn't want them to be half-way Christians with false assurance. He wants them to have a settled faith knowing the profound effects of the grace of God that brings salvation.

The words echo Titus 2:11 and following where we read of the effects of Christ's coming and the work of grace that accompanies it.

Titus 2:11-14 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, (This is what that grace does--these are the tangible effects in all who are brought the grace of God) ¹² teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, ¹³ looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, ¹⁴ who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

These aren't for a special few who learn to consecrate their life to God as a second work of Grace. If you have learned Christ--this should describe you. There are no exceptions. DO you deny ungodliness when its temptations raise their ugly heads? DO you not even consider worldly lusts, but put them away as they are realized? And, they will be.

Has your heart and mind been so affected by grace that you desire to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age? These are descriptions given to the likes of us so we can see what the Christian life looks like. Amid all of its sins and temptations we have the reality of a full-orbed grace.

Titus wasn't supposed to hide these truths for an elite few. These were the very things he was to teach as he traveled around planting and confirming churches.

¹⁵ Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.

As you take off the old man, put something else in its place:

6. The Putting On of the New

²³ and be renewed in the spirit of your mind,

Note the primacy of the mind once again. As a man thinks in his heart, so he is. What you really think about will have an effect on you. Think of those things that will renew you. As we read these words Rom 12:1-2 should ring in the ears of those who have been around for any length of time.

 ²⁴ and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

There is a new man made by God to replace that old one. This new man will be put on by its recipients.

This new man is created in true righteousness and holiness.

There are a few kinds of righteousness. The most destructive is self-righteousness which is not righteousness at all. This is the kind the Pharisees had along with many modern people who define themselves by what they do rather than who they are by virtue of the grace of God. True righteousness is doing what is just and true because we have been given the righteousness of another to work in us--that is the righteousness of Christ.

The word holiness is sometimes taken to stand on its own. I believe there is subletly in the original that would use true as a modifier for holiness as well.

Holiness is merely being set aside for special purposes. That is how holiness in the Christian life has been undervalued in our antinomian age. What we are called to in this passage is a true holiness--the kind without which no man will see the father. It includes a large ethical component just like the word righteousness. How can this be? By the work of God in Christ for us and then in us and if need be against us for his own glory.

In a nutshell, this is what the Christian life looks like. It is a constant putting off of the old, in order to walk with Christ as men made new. It is the work of God by grace freely given to sinners like you and me.

²³ and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, ²⁴ and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.