Commentary on Ephesians 4:17-24

Text in red are my additions.

CHRISTIANS MUST PUT OFF THE OLD MAN ACCORDING TO THE FLESH AND PUT ON THE NEW MAN ACCORDING TO GOD 

A Summary of Ephesians 4:17-24

At the beginning of the present Chapter St. Paul, starting with the words “I therefore,” proposed to deduce practical consequences in conduct from the doctrines he had just previously laid down; but after an exhortation to unity his intention was diverted into a description, more dogmatic than moral, of principles fundamental to the unity of the Christian commonwealth, the Church (Eph 4:4-11), and to a consideration of the ideal Church as a whole (Eph 4:12-14) and the harmonious interrelation of its members (Eph 4:15-16). Now resuming his original intention, expressed at the beginning of the Chapter, he will take up the question of the personal holiness of individual members of the Church, and explain it (a) negatively, in reference to the Gentile life of ignorance and impurity which they have discarded (Eph 4:17-19), and then (b) positively, in regard to the new life of enlightenment and purity which they have embraced as Christians (Eph 4:20-24).

Eph 4:17. This then I say and testify in the Lord: that henceforward you walk not as also the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind,

This then I say, etc. The Apostle now resumes in a more solemn manner the exhortation begun in verse i of this Chapter, that his readers should lead lives worthy of their exalted vocation as members of Christ’s Church. The word here translated “testify” occurs elsewhere in the New Testament only in Acts 22:26, and in Gal 5:3; it is a term of solemn appeal.

In the Lord, in whom we are all united, and from whom the Apostle got his mission and authority.

That henceforth, etc., i.e., that you no longer live as you did before your conversion, and as the pagans still live, “in the vanity, etc.,” i.e., in the state of intellectual and moral perversity wherein they were unable to distinguish between moral good and moral evil. For a description of this condition of the pagans see Rom 1:18-32; 1 Peter 4:1-4. The Greek for “mind” here (νοῦς = nous) embraces not only the abstract theoretical faculty of thinking and reasoning, but also the practical moral judgment of good and evil, as is evident from the following verse.

Eph 4:18. Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God on account of the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts.

In this verse St. Paul says that the “blindness”—or better, “hardness” or “dullness”—of the hearts of the Gentiles, which made them impervious to the divine overtures, was the cause of their culpable “ignorance” of the will and law of God, and this ignorance left their understanding darkened, with the result that they were “alienated from the life of God,” i.e., they lived lives not in conformity with the divine precepts, and far removed from the centre and source of all spirituality and holiness. Thus, their willful sins caused their hardness or dullness of heart, their hardness or dullness of heart caused their ignorance and mental darkness, and this in turn caused their alienation from the central source of grace and spiritual life.

Eph 4:19. Who, being bereft of feeling, have given themselves up to lasciviousness, unto the working of all uncleanness, unto covetousness.

It is not surprising that the moral and intellectual state described in the preceding verse should have left the pagans “bereft of feeling” (απηλγηκοτες) , i.e., without remorse and indifferent, so that they gave themselves up without restraint to all manner of impurity and to the commission of all kinds of uncleanness “unto covetousness,” i.e., with a greediness (πλεονεξια = pleonexia) never to be satiated. Some expositors understand πλεονεξια (= pleonexia) here to mean sexual excess. The desperantes of the Vulgate should be indolorii or indifferentes to agree with the best Greek (St. Jerome).

Eph 4:20. But you did not so learn the Christ;

In verses 17-19 the Apostle has shown his readers what their life must not be as Christians; now in verses 20-24 he will set before them what the Christian life demands of them in a positive way.

But you did not, etc., i.e., you were not so instructed in the teachings of the Gospel of Christ at the time of your conversion that you will allow yourself now to live as you lived as pagans.

Eph 4:21. If at least you have heard of him, and have been taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus

If at least, etc. See above on Eph 3:2. Here is what Fr. Callan wrote there, along with some further notes by me (in red):

If at least you have heard. Abbott and many others hold that these words prove that St. Paul was addressing readers personally unknown to him. Westcott thinks there is nothing in the words to sustain such a conclusion. Moule believes we have here “a phrase of almost irony, an illusion to well- known fact under the disguise of hypothesis.” Alexander says the words are expressive of gentle assurance. As a compromise, Robinson holds they mean that some, at least, of the readers were personally unknown to the Apostle. Hitchcock explains that St. Paul first had the intention of writing to the Ephesians, as he had written to the Colossians, but that his outlook changed as he wrote, embracing the Churches of the Lycus Valley and other Gentiles. Voste would translate: “Since indeed you have heard, etc.” If we explain the words as conditional, as in Eph 4:21, we still may hold that they are rhetorical, not implying any real doubt. A small number of ancient manuscripts and some church fathers witness to the fact that this letter may not have been addressed specifically to the Ephesians since the manuscripts in question had no addressee. Some scholars believe that “Ephesians” was actually written as a circular letter, intended to be delivered and read to a number of different churches and, therefore, originally lacked a specific addressee. Some phrasing in the letter (such as the current verse, Eph 4:21 and Eph 1:15) can be taken as indicating that St Paul was not directly acquainted with the people he is writing to, but Paul was intimately acquainted with the Ephesians.

Have been taught, etc., i.e., have been taught in Christ’s school, according to the doctrine revealed by Him.

In Jesus, i.e., in the historical Jesus who was the prophesied Christ. Only here in this Epistle does the name of Jesus appear alone.

Eph 4:22. To put off, according to former conversation, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desire of error.
This and the two following verses in Greek begin with an infinitive, “to put off,” “to renew,” “to put on,” all of which go back to what the readers of this Epistle “have been taught, etc.,” in verse 21. They have been taught—or rather, they were taught at the time of their conversion—to put off the old sinful man inherited from Adam, whose principles and mode of life were theirs as pagans, and living according to which they became ever more and more; plunged into sin and error.

According to the desire of error, i.e., according to the dictates of the passions, which are always false and deceitful, promising joy and pleasure but ending in sorrow and pain.

Eph 4:23. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

To put off the old man (ver. 22) and to put on the new man (ver. 24) are really one act, and therefore they are expressed by the aorist infinitive in Greek, signifying one definite act; but to be renewed in the spirit, etc., is a progressive process, and as such it is expressed by the Greek present infinitive (Westcott).

In the spirit of your mind. The meaning of this expression, which occurs nowhere else, is not quite certain, though it is clear that it refers to the human spirit or the mind, and not to the Holy Ghost. It seems to indicate that mind, or part of the mind, which through grace is subject to God, and which in justice and truth lives according to God, in contrast to the vanity and perversity of mind of the Gentiles (Voste).

Eph 4:24. And put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of the truth.

It is not sufficient to put off the old man of sin which you have inherited from Adam, but you must also “put on the new man, etc.,” i.e., the man who has been regenerated by the grace of the Holy Ghost, and who having been created “according to God, etc.” (i.e., having been created in the beginning in the image and likeness of God), imitates God in his new life of grace by keeping the commandments which reflect the divine will and therefore God Himself. This new man, or creation of grace, “is created in justice and holiness,” i.e., he lives a life faithful to the obligations he owes to his neighbor (justice) and to the duties he owes to God (holiness)—that is, a life which is in entire conformity with “the truth” of the Gospel, as revealed in the Gospel.