ACC ~ Ephesians 4 v17 - 24

OVERVIEW:

In exercising admonition, the teacher must yield human words over to the Lord (CHRYSOSTOM). Moral callousness begins with unawareness of future life (AMBROSIASTER). Persons remain responsible for their own callousness (CHRYSOSTOM). Paul shows how the minds of the Gentiles became subject to futility (ORIGEN). It was not that God’s own works became vain, but human works did (CHRYSOSTOM) through hardness of heart and lack of remorse (THEODORET).

Our illusions have been corrupted through inordinate desire (CHRYSOSTOM). To overcome this death, we must learn of Christ (MARIUS VICTORINUS). In Jesus alone the truth of God has appeared (JEROME, AMBROSIASTER) as truly God and truly man. Debilitated by sin (JEROME), we must become renewed through baptism (ORIGEN), changing not our physical but our spiritual nature, putting off that which belongs to our former life (TERTULLIAN). Only then do we avoid an otherwise inevitable corruption (CHRYSOSTOM). Only then are we enlightened in spirit (ORIGEN, JEROME). Christ himself is this new nature (GREGORY OF NYSSA). By him the spirit of our minds is being renewed. The new creation is a great work (JEROME) and the very end for which we were made (MARIUS VICTORINUS).

4:17a | Affirming and Testifying in the Lord

THE TEACHER HANDS OVER HIS HUMAN WORDS TO THE LORD. CHRYSOSTOM: It is the duty of the teacher to instruct and restore the souls of his disciples. This occurs not only by counsel and teaching but by awakening fear and handing them over to God. For when the words spoken by human beings are taken as if from fellow servants and lack the power to reshape the soul, it then becomes necessary to hand our very words over to the Lord. This is what Paul does here. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 12.4.17.

4:17b | Living in Futility of Mind

HOW THEIR MINDS BECAME SUBJECT TO FUTILITY. ORIGEN: Consider what Paul calls “futility of mind.” This occurs when someone has a mind but does not use it for contemplation, instead surrendering it to captivity under Satan. PALESTINIAN CATENA ON PSALM 118.37.

NOT GOD’S WORKS BUT OURS BECAME EMPTY. CHRYSOSTOM: What is meant by “the futility of their minds?” It is being preoccupied with futile things. This is what the Preacher in Ecclesiastes referred to when he said: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” But someone might say, “if these things are all vain and vanity, why have they come into being? If they are God’s works, how are they vain?” And there is great debate about this. But listen, beloved: he did not say that the works of God are vain, far from it! … “Vanity of vanities” refers to splendid houses, enormous and inflated wealth, herds of slaves strutting about the market, conceit, vainglory, arrogance and boastfulness. All these things are vain. Such things are not created by God but are of our own creating. Why are they vain? They lead to nothing good. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 12.4.17.

4:18 | Alienated from the Life of God

INSENSIBLE HARDNESS OF HEART. THEODORET: By “hardness of heart” he means a complete lack of remorse. When parts of the body are hardened, they feel no sensation, as though they were completely dead. This may happen to the heart. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 4.18.

4:19a | Callousness and Licentiousness

GIVING THEMSELVES UP TO LICENTIOUSNESS. AMBROSIASTER: They have lost their moral compass through lack of hope in a future life. Living now as if they had no future, they pollute their own lives with the foulest behaviors. They refuse to submit themselves to the most elementary requirement of faith, which brings their pleasure-seeking into accountability in relation to the future life. It is this future life that these people declare to be ridiculous. Hence they pretend to have a right to debauch themselves. They covet the goods of others with ravenous greed, as though there were no life whatever after this little space. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 4.19.

THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR CALLOUSNESS. CHRYSOSTOM: If the cause of their licentiousness is ignorance, why reproach them? Why not just inform them? For the one who is ignorant should not justly be punished or reproached but taught what he does not know. But how quickly Paul takes away from them this easy excuse: “They have become callous and given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness.” … He shows here that the cause of their hardening was their own voluntary way of life. Their way of life arose freely out of their own laxity and lack of remorse. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 13.4.17-19.

4:19b | Practicing Uncleanness

GREEDY TO SIN. THEODORET: At first their sickness was lawlessness. Then it became indulgence. Having slipped then into a lawless way of life, they gradually came to suffer from lack of remorse. Finally they ventured out toward every sin without fear, living the life of corruption beyond indulgence. This is what he means by “becoming greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness.” PISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 4.19.

4:20 | You Did Not So Learn Christ!

LEARNING CHRIST TO OVERCOME DEATH. MARIUS VICTORINUS: To believe in Christ is to obtain immortality and receive eternal life. For he himself is life. He himself is light. He himself is eternity. He himself is the one who overcomes death. He has by overcoming death overcome us too through the fulfilled mystery of salvation. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.4.20-21.

4:21a | Hearing About and Being Taught in Christ

PRACTICING WHAT WE WERE TAUGHT IN CHRIST. AMBROSIASTER: It is Christ himself who teaches us about himself! When we are “taught in him,” we learn who he is, how great we should reckon him to be and what hope is in him. We learn “in him” what sort of people believers ought to be. Any one who has “learned Christ” knows that he rose from the dead to be the pattern for the faithful. He teaches that there is great hope after this death for those who love God. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 4.21.

ASSUMING YOU HAVE HEARD. JEROME: If all who seem to hear Christ did indeed hear him, the apostle would never had said this to the Ephesians. They were those to whom he had already revealed the promises of Christ. Why would he then say conditionally: “if indeed you have heard him?” To know Christ is the same thing already as knowing virtue. To hear of Christ rightly is the same as being attentive to all the virtues: wisdom, justice, temperance, fortitude and the other names by which Christ is called. Therefore if anyone has indeed heard and learned Christ, he would not be living “in the futility of his mind” nor “be darkened in understanding” nor be “alienated from the life of God.” He would already have practical knowledge, since his ignorance would have been dispelled, his darkness illuminated and every blindness lifted from the eyes of his heart. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.4.20.

4:21b | Truth Is in Jesus

IN JESUS THE TRUTH OF GOD HAS APPEARED. JEROME: On the one hand the name Jesus refers to the man who was assumed by the Word, the man born from the Virgin. … Then again it refers to the Word of God: “for to us there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things” … When Paul says “as truth is in Jesus,” he is speaking of the temple of God in which God the Word dwells. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. God is the Word. As life dwells in him, so he also is life. … In this same way the Son too may be called the truth, and truth may be said to dwell in him. In saying this we do not separate God the Word from the humanity he assumed. The man he assumed is not someone else. According to our understanding of certain passages we give different titles to him whom we believe to be the one Son of Man and Son of God, both before and after the virgin birth. … In none of the patriarchs, in none of the prophets, in none of the apostles did truth reside as it did in Jesus. For others know in part and prophesy in part and see “as through a glass darkly.” In Jesus alone the truth of God has appeared. He confidently asserts “I am the truth.” EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.4.21.

4:22a | Put Off the Old Nature

THE OLD NATURE IS PUT OFF. ORIGEN: The “old man” includes all born as earthly men in their old nature. It is this “old man,” this ancient condition of humanity, that is put off in Christ. Although his body continues, he nonetheless undergoes a change to new life engendered by living baptism. What he was has been “put off.” His old life is renewed by the holy water and the copious mercy of the anointing. He becomes new rather than old, whole rather than corrupt, fresh rather than enfeebled, an infant rather than an old man, eternal rather than ephemeral. ON PSALM 91.12-13.

PUT OFF THAT WHICH BELONGS TO YOUR FORMER WAY OF LIFE. TERTULLIAN: The apostle clearly identifies the old man. For he “put off the old man which belongs to your former manner of life,” not with respect to the decay of any substance. For he is telling us to put away not the flesh but those things that he has elsewhere shown to be oriented to the fleshly way of life, indicting not the body as such but its works. ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 45.6.

THE OLD NATURE AGED BY WICKEDNESS. JEROME: The “old nature” whom he tells them to put off has, in my opinion, been aged by wickedness. For, going constantly astray in his former way of life and in the desires of waywardness and acting like a beast in works of corruption, he himself suffers corruption and decay. … But the Word of God kills in such a way as to make the dead one come alive. He then seeks the Lord whom he did not know before his death. He does not corrupt but kills the old man. … As the outer man decays the inner man is renewed. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.4.22.

4:22b | Corrupt Through Deceitful Lusts

LUSTS DECEIVE. CHRYSOSTOM: As his lusts become corrupt, so does he himself. How do his lusts become corrupt? Everything is finally dissoved in death. Remember the psalm that says “in that very day” [of his death] “his thoughts perish.” “Beauty departs. It dies and decays at the approach of illness or old age. So does bodily vigor. Even luxury itself does not afford the same comfort in old age.” … Pleasures often are destructive. They end up being not really pleasures but bitterness and deceit and pretense, like a theatrical illusion. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 13.4.22.

4:23 | Renewed in the Spirit of One’s Mind

THE MIND RENEWED. ORIGEN: As there are many spirits, each has its proper abode. There is a spirit proper to your mind. When your mind is detoxified and expels confusions, the spirit of your mind renews you by taking up its dwelling within you. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS.

THE SPIRIT OF OUR MIND. JEROME: We are not being renewed in our thinking process apart from the renewal of our spirits. Nor are we renewed in our spirits without thinking. We are being jointly renewed “in the spirit of our mind.” Hence as we sing psalms in the spirit, so we also sing them in our thoughts. As we pray in the spirit, so we also pray in our thoughts. The renewal of “the spirit of our mind” means that when the thought is clear and pure … then the spirit is rightly joined to it. They are so coupled as if by a cohesive glue that we no longer speak simply of spirit but of “the spirit of our mind. “ EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.4.23-24.

4:24 | Putting On the New Nature

CREATED AFTER THE LIKENESS OF GOD. MARIUS VICTORINUS: He is calling us to live as one whose thoughts come from the Spirit, who is himself once again becoming the spiritual man created by God. We are to live in the likeness of God, just as God intended when he said: “Let us make humanity in our own image and likeness.” Admittedly God has no face or physical aspect. God is Spirit. So we too have been created according to God, to think according to the Spirit and thus to allow nothing to drag us down to worldly and unworthy thoughts. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.4.23-24.

THE CLOTHING OF THE BAPTIZED. CHRYSOSTOM: When one is already clothed, how is it said that one must further “put on” a new nature? New clothing was once put on in baptism. The new clothing now being put on is the new way of life and conduct that flows from baptism. There one is no longer clothed by deceitful desires but by God’s own righteousness. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 13.4.24.

PUTTING ON THE NEW NATURE. GREGORY OF NYSSA: There is but one garment of salvation, namely, Christ. Hence the “new man” created in God’s likeness is none other than Christ. One who has put on Christ has thus put on the new person created in God’s likeness. AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3.1.52.

THE NEW PERSON IS CREATED. JEROME: The metaphors of creating and establishing are never spoken of in Scripture except in great works. The world is created. A city is established. But observe that a house, however grand it may be, is more commonly said to be built than established or created. Note then that it is a great work of God when it is said that “the new person is created by God in Christ.” This creature towers over the other creatures. This creature alone is said to have been established in the same way as the world was established, from “the beginning of God’s ways,” when all the elements first came into being. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.4.23-24.