Ephesians 4:17–24 . . .

“Shedding the Old; Adorning the New”

We realized in our previous study that Apostle Paul had encouraged his readers to “create and sustain unity and maturity in the church body.” Now in 4:17–24, he’ll encourage them to do so in holiness. Before addressing the ethical behavior of a believer, he’ll remind his followers of Christ how they were living an old pagan life that caused them to become alienated from God, unable to make moral judgments or discriminate between good or evil (vv. 17–19). He’ll then remind them of their new standing in Christ.

Chapters 4 and 5 propose several principles regarding our present existence and lifestyles. Living righteously is founded on the fundamental truth that, in Christ, a believer must first put off the old self and put on the new self (2 Corinthians 5:17). After all, we’ve died with Christ and have risen with him, actively following Jesus through the Holy Spirit’s renewing power (vv. 20–24).

Herein, Paul describes three downward steps: ignorance (vv. 17–18), hardening (vv. 18–19), and sensuality (v. 19). Apart from Christ’s grace, each leads to the next inevitable step down.

How Not to Live (4:17–19)

Paul urged his readers (4:1) to “live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” Having discussed with them the concept of the church being made of one body with several diverse parts, he returns to their difficulty in complying with Christian behavior. Although his readers were once pagans, he insists they must no longer live and behave as such.

As we launch into this eight-verse passage, we need to remember what Paul has already said about the previous condition of unbelievers “who were dead in [our] trespasses and sins… we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh… (2:1–3). Here, Paul’s opening “So“ suggests to his readers the connections he’d already made, not only with the glorious spiritual privileges laid out in chapters 1 through 3, but also with his strong plea to join a unified, mature body of believers, as he’d described in 4:1–6. Incidentally, because we believers have also received this high calling, we’re also obliged to walk — “live” — differently from the way the world around us lives.

Paganism vs Christianity  Let me put these first three verses into context. The church in first-century Ephesus was encompassed by revolting paganism and immorality. Ephesus, a leading commercial and cultural city of the Roman empire, was the site of the pagan temple of Greek goddess Artemis, considered to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But the temple’s presence caused Ephesus to become a leading city in debauchery” and sexual immorality. Some historians list it as the most licentious city of Asia Minor. Like temples in most pagan religions, its rituals and practices were extensions of man’s vilest and most perverted sins. Paul, therefore, urged his readers in Ephesus to no longer walk as the pagan Gentiles walked.

Artemis was a sex goddess, served by thousands of temple prostitutes. Ephesus was like Sodom and Gomorrah. Is our culture today much different? Believers must not live as unbelievers live! We can be delivered from that only as a result of our death or the rapture. But while we wait for either event to happen, we must agree to live upright, godly lives in this wicked world. Verses 17–19 contain the first part of Paul’s instructions on how to walk in righteousness. We’ll soon see that the Ephesian church body successfully walked in purity; so can we. Paul provides the instructions in vv. 17–32.

Starting with verse 17, Paul contrasts the new life believers enjoy in Christ, as opposed to the “old self” of the world. He notes how directly and seriously these instructions are to be taken. The reference to speaking “in the Lord” makes his words stand out. Here, he claims that his words aren’t his alone but are the Lord’s instruction. Paul’s command is Christ’s command that all Christians must heed: “You must no longer live as the Gentiles do.” The phrase “no longer” uses the Greek adverb meketi, which implies that the Ephesians at one time walked as Gentiles but must now renounce and reject paganism. Paul exhorts them to cease living the way they used to live but live in a way that glorifies Yahweh.

The Gentile walk is characterized by “the futility of their thinking” (v. 17). When pagans don’t take God and eternity into consideration, can anything be gained? Their thinking is futile and their understanding becomes darkened because they’re “separated from the life of God.” They live for selfish gratification or fleeting pleasure, without regard to the consequences, whether in this life or in eternity.

Paul portrays in the text of his three opening verses the dimension of unbelievers being dead in their trespasses and sins, living apart from Christ. But note what Paul says about an unbeliever’s relationship to the world and the flesh — our sinful state. Unbelievers were (and certainly are today) pawns of Satan, carrying out his dictates under his dominion. They were unaware of this dire situation because Satan controlled people through the worldly influence of the flesh. Our walk once “followed the ways of this world” (2:2) and succumbed to “gratifying the cravings of our flesh” (2:3).

For us and the Gentiles in Ephesus, such ignorance and separation prevents the understanding of truth and ethics, naturally prompting evil living. This “ignorance that is in them” of the truth is intensified “due to the hardening of their hearts.” The word "hardening" is from the Greek word porosis, which means a stone harder than marble. The person who has a heart as hard as a stone ignores God and his commands, refusing to bow before the sovereign Lord. Hardness of heart is caused by not knowing God. That spiritual ignorance — sustained by sin — is why unbelievers get extracted from God’s life.

Verse 19 describes the final result of this downward spiral into sin. To lose sensitivity means to cease feeling pain; thus, spiritually, it’s to “lose the capacity to feel shame or embarrassment.”¹ Paul presents in v. 19a the concept of the “hardening of their hearts” (v. 18b), by rephrasing the element he posed in his first two verses: “Having lost all sensitivity.” Clearly, sensation loss makes physical and mental injury more likely. Pagans, therefore, tend to surrender themselves to the evil of “sensuality,” indulging in impurity, which the Bible often names “debauchery” — flaunting sexuality without shame or regret.

In v. 19b, Paul reminded his readers that the pagan Gentiles had “given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity.” Then in v. 19c, he tells them that it was done with the fullest extent of “greed” (Greek pleonexia). This refers to people willing to step on and sacrifice their neighbor or best friend to get what they want. It’s the irresistible desire to obtain what one has no right to possess.

Putting Off the Old Self, Putting On the New Self (4:20–24)

After rebuking the Ephesians for living like pagans, he personally instructs them on Christian living by telling them something like this: That’s no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you’ve paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth, precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we don’t have the excuse of ignorance. Everything — and I mean everything — connected with that old way of life must go; rotten through and through, get rid of it! Then put on an entirely new way of life, a God-fashioned life renewed from the inside, working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.

The "new self" (v. 24) is literally the person “created to be like God,” according to his image or likeness. Paul probably alludes to the way God originally made Adam and Eve in his image, then says that the new person whom a Christian has become is equipped with moral purity, because he or she is morally made like God. That said, one should live like it, acting blamelessly as Adam and Eve did before they disobeyed God’s rules. The verbs “clothing” and “unclothing” provide the natural image we see in the Old Testament and in Greek literature for “putting on” and “putting off” or “removing” some types of behavior (Job 29:14; Psalm 109:18; Romans 13:12).

Paul’s basis for renewal: the new kind of life available in Christ, a kind of life that most Jewish people expected only in the world to come (after the resurrection of the dead). Paul has already begun his transition from the Gentile’s mental decay to their moral decadence. He then shifts his attention from a Christian’s obligation to resist and reject the ungodly pressures of the world’s system. But, before he differentiates between “old self” and “new self,” he’ll remind his readers of what’s most significant: What he’s teaching them isn’t new at all; rather, it’s his restatement of what they’d already learned from him!

This has the same idea as putting off or putting on a set of clothes, which is to “change into” a different type of conduct. “Think of a prisoner, released from prison but still wears prison clothes, acting like a prisoner, not a free man. The first thing to tell that person is: Put on new clothes. If putting on different clothes will change the way you think about and see yourself, how much more will putting on a different lifestyle start to change your attitudes. This means that you shouldn’t wait until you feel like the new [self] before putting it on. Fundamentally, Paul says that for the Christian, there must be a break with the past. Jesus isn’t merely added to our old life; the old life must die and He becomes our new life.”²

In vv. 20–21, Paul reminds his readers to live the way they’d been taught as believers to live, instructed in “the way of life” that they’d learned. The phrase, “when you heard about Christ and were taught in him,” is likely a tongue-in-cheek comment, since Paul knew quite well that they’d been properly instructed. Our Christian life must go beyond head knowledge. It’s not merely our sense of knowing facts but having the ability to actively and intentionally set our minds on the right things and then do them.

The Ephesians had been taught, says Paul, to have put off their old corrupted selves (v. 22) and become new in their mind’s attitude (v. 23), thanks to the Spirit’s ongoing renewal. Once a person believes in Jesus, the old sinful self is cast off like a worn-out garment; it gets put to death and dies with Christ. Further, when we identify with Christ and attempt to become more like him, our old sinful self must be buried with him. Our newly created self is replenished by his perfect righteousness. For us and our new selves, given that we’ve put on this new self — put on Christ — it behooves us to strive to live the way Jesus wants us to live.

Note what Charles Spurgeon (English Baptist preacher, 1834–1892) said about putting on a new life in Christ: “So, if you want to know the Lord Jesus Christ, you must live with him. First he must himself speak to you, and afterwards you must abide in him. He must be the choice Companion of your morning hours, he must be with you throughout the day, and with him you must also close the night; and as often as you may wake during the night, you must say, ‘When I awake, I am still with thee.’”

Living a life worthy of our calling and relationship with Jesus isn’t easy. We tend to adopt and accept humanity’s still “darkened in [its] understanding” behavior. Thankfully, we’re able to successfully transition from such dark behavior. Our renewal is actually achieved only when we “put off the old self” and “put on the new self.” In reality, we must draw parallels with Christ’s death and resurrection. By means of this Christ-like identification, we realize that we’ve become caught up and actively engaged in God’s gracious plan for a new humanity. We then discover that we were “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

---

---