Return to Spiritual Virtue
Ephesians 4:18–20
Ephesians Lesson #158
July 24, 2022
Dr. Robert L. Dean, Jr.
www.deanbibleministries.org

Opening Prayer

“Father, we’re thankful that we have Your Word, that we have the written Word that is breathed out by You, has its source in You, and was breathed out in the process of inspiration through the writers of Scripture over the centuries.  

“That we may know that it is absolute truth as You are truth, and that we have the living Word, the incarnate Word, the Lord Jesus Christ Who said ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me.’

“Father as we look at Your Word of truth today, we pray that it might challenge us that we might come to understand things that are going on in our own lives, perhaps in our own thinking, the way in which we look at the world around us. That we may recognize that our job is to be conformed to Your character, be conformed to Your way of thinking, be conformed to the character of Jesus Christ.

“And that we are not to conform You to our thinking. We are not to try to conform Your Word to our opinions, and we are not to interpret Your Word the way we would like it to be, but that we would take the time to understand what You have taught us, and how You have instructed us in Your Word. We pray this in Christ’s name, amen.”

Slide 2

Open your Bibles to Ephesians 4:18–20.

Ephesians 4:18–19 continues this description of the immoral and licentious way in which the Gentiles lived and conducted their lives. And the challenge that Paul gave these Gentile believers is that they are to no longer live like the Gentiles around them.

He spends this time describing the basic problem of the unsaved Gentile world around them, described in Ephesians 4:18–19. Then he challenges them in Ephesians 4:20, “But you have not so learned Christ.”

This reminds me of Ephesians 2:4–5 where, after describing the spiritual condition of everyone that comes into the world: we are born spiritually dead, we are dead in our trespasses and sins, then Paul shifts at the beginning, “But God, who is rich in mercy … even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together in Christ.”

It’s the same kind of emphasis describing the condition of all human beings in terms of:

• those who are spiritually dead and alienated from the life of God, Ephesians 4:18
• the consequences that has in terms of our living in the latter half of Ephesians 4:19
• the contrast in Ephesians 4:20, “But you have not so learned Christ …”

Looking at our passage, we will focus on understanding the last part of Ephesians 4:18–19, get into the contrast, then take some time to understand the description here of the fallen world around us: the world that is composed of those who are spiritually dead, those who are, as the text describes, in the futility of their mind.

Their understanding is darkened, they’re alienated from the life of God, so they produce their own culture, which is a culture of death, not a culture of life. It is a culture of death because they are spiritually dead, and they can produce nothing but that which is dead.

We have to understand the significance of that because if we are going to follow the command to walk not as the Gentiles walk, of which we are surrounded, then we have to understand the dynamics of that walk of the fallen unsaved Gentile world around us.

That correlates with what I’ve been teaching for many years on Romans 12:2 where we’re commanded “not to be pressed into the mold of the spirit of the age”, according to the way I translate “not conformed to the world.” But we have to know what the world is if we’re not going to be pressed into its mold; we have to know what that looks like.

It’s not just a matter of externals. So often superficial, legalistic churches have lists of behaviors, and if you do them, then you’re worldly. And if you don’t do these things, you’re not worldly. That is not what the Scripture says at all: worldliness is a matter of how we think.

We’re covering this to some degree in our study in Judges, as well as to some degree in what we’ve been studying about overcomers in our passage in Philippians: the day of Christ, understanding that in relationship to the Judgment Seat of Christ, and what it means to be an overcomer.

Because most often the object of overcoming is the world, as Jesus said in John 16:33, “I have already overcome the world.” We too are to overcome the world; we are to be overcomers, and not all believers are overcomers. We’ve been studying the details of that because there’s some controversy over just exactly what that word means.

In Ephesians 4:17–19 we get a very uncomplimentary review of the thinking and the lifestyle of the unsaved world. But “we have not learned Christ in that way”, so there needs to be a distinction. But it’s not just a superficial, external distinction; it’s one that is much deeper than that, one that involves a spiritual transformation after regeneration.

Slide 4

We came to the end of Ephesians 4:18 last time and thought our way through a translation problem there. “… having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.”

The problem here is not a textual problem; it wasn’t a copyist error. There are some words in one manuscript and other words in other manuscripts. It is that there’s a difficulty in understanding the meaning. There’s been debate over the meaning of this word POROSIS and how it is used.

I pointed out last time that it is translated as “blindness” in a number of translations. Even John Calvin in his commentaries translated it as “blindness.” That became the foundation of a doctrine that is known as “irresistible grace,” which is built on the presupposition of the prior doctrine “total inability.”

“T” = “Total inability” in the acronym TULIP summarizes Calvinistic theology

“U” = unconditional election: God has no conditions; He just chooses who will be saved and passes over the others who will be damned to eternal punishment.

“L” = limited atonement that Christ only died for those who were elect.

“I” = irresistible grace, that when God calls the unsaved unbeliever, he cannot resist that call, and God only calls those who are elect.

“P” = perseverance: those who are truly saved will persevere in their obedience to Christ until the end.

That is a quick summary of TULIP. I pointed out what some of the basic problems are, which we will review as we go through our lesson.

Slide 5

The basic lexical problem: is this blind or hardened?

Slide 6

Dr. Harold Hoehner, was one of my professors at Dallas Seminary, was the Chairman of the New Testament Department there for many years and lived out his career there as a New Testament professor. He has written an outstanding commentary on Ephesians. I think it is arguably the best commentary available on Ephesians.

That doesn’t mean I agree with him on every point. There’s nobody out there that would necessarily write something that everybody else is going to agree with. But he does an outstanding job of covering all of the issues and explaining the various different exegetical and theological problems. He says regarding POROSIS:

“The word conveys the idea of callus [British spelling. This spelling is what you will find in a lot of the lexicons] that serves as mortar (thus petrification) [that’s a hardening idea] to reunite the surfaces of fractured bones [this was in medical literature in ancient Greece] or a pus which comes out of the bone and produces callus … In Job 17:7 he refers to the eyes growing dim.”

That’s an Old Testament passage that uses this word in that sense translating a Hebrew text, but it’s not found to ever relate to eyes in the New Testament. That’s important. New Testament is using Koine Greek, whereas the Septuagint is closer to Classical Greek. So there’s some word meaning changes that take place in between.

Slide 7

To understand “callus,” The Concise Oxford English Dictionary has three basic meanings:

1.      “A thickened and hardened part of the skin or soft tissue, especially one that is caused by friction.”

All of us have experienced that. We’ve had blisters on out feet where the skin has then thickened up and hardened, and over time it becomes insensitive to pain and discomfort.

2.      Medicine: “the bony healing tissue which forms around the ends of a broken bone.”

That’s what Dr. Hoehner referred to in his explanation, and that’s how it was used in the writings of Hippocrates, who is considered the father of medicine. He used it that way as to this development of that material in a fractured bone that would lead to the healing of the bone.

3.      Botany: “a hard formation of tissue, especially new tissue that forms over a wound.”

Slide 8

Hoehner pointed out in the Old Testament, Job 17:7, “My eye has also grown dim because of sorrow.”

If you look up the word in the Hebrew, it can imply a process, not something that is instantaneous, a process of growing blind. That would be the idea here, that it has grown dim because of sorrow. Sorrow doesn’t make you blind, but as your eyes fill with tears, it clouds your vision. It doesn’t talk about some constitutional defect of blindness.

Slide 9

Usage in the New Testament

Mark 3:5, Jesus looking at the Pharisees, “And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts …” There’s that word, hardness which refers to a callus that has formed upon their soul, as it were.

Romans 11:25, King James and New King James Versions, it’s translated as “blindness,” “… lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel …”

But in other translations: the ESV, NET, the NASB 95 and most others, it’s translated “hardness.” This is an important word to look at, and the best way to see the difference between the concept of blindness and the concept of hardness.

Slide 10

In John 12:40 you actually have both words, Jesus speaking, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts [so you have both words] …”

Slide 11

TUPHLOO, is the verb “to become blind,” “to be blinded;” and the word that we’re looking at, POROO, is translated “hardened.” You wouldn’t have POROO meaning “blind” as a synonym for TUPHLOO, because you wouldn’t say “He has blinded their eyes and blinded their hearts.”

There are distinctions between these two words, and at no point in the New Testament is this word used in reference to the eyes. It’s always TUPHLOO, the noun for being blind that is used.

The concept of hardening is related to a process. It is often associated with stubbornness, and in some places, it’s translated that way—the idea of a stubborn rejection of the revelation of God.

Slide 12

That concept is explained in Romans 1:18, because in the verses that come after this, Paul explains that there is a clear witness to the existence of God in His creation. The psalmist in Psalm 19:1 said that “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork.”

Paul picks up on that theme in Romans 1:18–20, and he talks about how the fact that God’s existence is evident to us through the heavens. That we are able to see His invisible attributes, His power, and His wisdom through what He has created.

Although this is a clear revelation of God and that everyone, according to this passage, knows God because it is evident within them—it’s evident externally and it’s evident internally—nevertheless, the response is to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

Romans 1:18 explains the concept, that human beings know that God exists, but they choose to reject that; they suppress that truth in unrighteousness. You can’t suppress something you don’t know. That emphasizes human responsibility, that this callousness that develops is the result of negative volition: the rejection of God, not obeying Him, and trying to suppress that knowledge in unrighteousness.

Slide 13

Another thing needing to be developed comes at the beginning of Ephesians 4:19. This verse is extending the thought that is explained in Ephesians 4:17–18.

Note: there are a lot of commas here. For example, Ephesians 4:17, “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk … [no comma should really be there. How do they walk?] … in the futility of their thinking.”

That comma should not be there; it separates the clauses as if they’re not related.

Ephesians 4:18, “having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.”

That looks like there are four separate independent phrases that are describing “futility of their mind.” It’s not that way, so those commas actually break up phrases and clauses that should be together.

Ephesians 4:19, Paul says, “… who being past feeling …” [There really should not be a comma there. “Being past feeling” should not be set off with commas at all because it’s all together in the Greek.]

Slide 14

“Being past feeling” is APALGEO, meaning to lose all feeling, so it’s somewhat redundant to the idea of callousness. But it’s a different word, so it should be translated and understood a little differently. It develops, though, this same idea of the results of this callousness.

Ephesians 4:18 shows three things about “the futility of their mind.” Then Ephesians 4:19 gives us the additional information that “they are past feeling”. The reason it says that is that the grammar of this verb is a participle, but it’s in the perfect tense which means it’s completed action.

Just as Jesus said at the end, after He had paid the penalty for sin on the Cross, those three hours where there was darkness on Golgotha, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” At the end He says, “It is finished,” using a perfect tense verb which says it has been completed already.

By that time, it’s all paid in full; it’s completed. It’s not still being paid for; it has been completely paid in full. This is the same kind of word that would be written on the bottom of a Bill of Sale: “Paid in Full.” It’s something that is completed in the past with results that go on.

When Paul uses this word in a perfect tense, he is basically saying they are past feeling. This is a condition that is already in existence and has already been in existence. And it is a causal participle, so it should be translated “who because they are past feeling, there is this insensitivity to spiritual things.”

It’s a word that has the sense of being callous, insensible to pain, or apathetic according to Thayer’s Lexicon. The perfect tense indicates it’s completed action.

Slide 15

I would translate this, “who having become callous … [The verb starts describing the results of all these things we’ve just studied.] … have given themselves over to [a certain lifestyle, described here as] lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.”

Ephesians 4:18­–19 is helping us understand what the futility of thinking is. The last part of Ephesians 4:19 describes the externals of their behavior. 

Slide 16

Let’s walk our way through Ephesians 4:17, one of the most difficult grammatical sections in Ephesians. There are five major ways that grammarians structured the thinking here. I’ve combined two of them because they are so close, but they are interrelated, interconnected, and it helps us think this through.

Paul’s main statement is that the Gentiles are living in the futility, the emptiness of their thinking, because they are unable to think in the way God originally designed man to think.

When God created Adam and put him in the Garden, there was no sin. He had a remarkable mind, an IQ far beyond anything we could possibly imagine. Then when God put him to sleep and created the woman, taking her from his side, she too had an incredible IQ far beyond anything that we would be acquainted with.

They had a mentality, a way of thinking that allowed them to think as God thought, as God taught them to think. We’ve covered this before: God formats their thinking by talking to them and teaching them in the Garden. In Genesis 3 we learn from His statement that He normally would come every day and spend time with them, teaching them about His glorious creation.

They had a wonderful mind, and it could achieve what God intended it to do in terms of its comprehension and its capabilities. But because of sin, there is a distortion that occurs in human thinking. This relates to the phrase “total depravity.” “Total depravity” means every part of our make up—our emotions, our mentality, our volition—every part of our being is corrupted by sin.

You don’t agree that every part of our being is corrupted by sin? Just think about it. Can you do today what you did 20 years ago? Probably not. That’s the corruption of sin on our body. But it affects our thinking as well. Their thinking is distorted, and Paul will explain what that means in the next phrases.

That’s a causal participle in Ephesians 4:18, so I’m translating it that way because their understanding has already been darkened because they were already alienated from the life of God.

Your translation has a comma between “darkened” and “being alienated,” and that comma should not be there. It’s not two different things; there’s a correlation between the two. He’s describing the futility of their thinking.

Why is it futile?

Because their understanding has already been darkened from their inception. Because of sin, their understanding has already been darkened.

Why has it already been darkened?

Because they were already alienated from the life of God because of spiritual death.

Those two participles link together. That’s the importance of being able to understand the original languages. It’s one way of expressing cause, but there’s another way to express causation, and that’s through the causal preposition DIA, used in the next line.

Before I get there I want to add 1 Corinthians 2:14 where Paul writes, “But the soulish [the PSUCHIKOS from the word PSUCHE meaning soul] …”

It is usually translated “the natural man,” but that misses the point of that word. It’s a contrast in 1 Corinthians 2:9–16 between the PSUCHIKOS or the soulish man who is unsaved and the PNEUMATIKOS, meaning the spiritual man.

1 Corinthians 2:14, “But the soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God …”

In the passage from 1 Corinthians 2:9 on, Paul is talking about the things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard—the things which have not entered into the thinking of man. “The things” is a term for the content of revelation in the Old Testament.

So, the unsaved or the soulish person does not understand the things of the Spirit of God, that which is revealed in Scripture, “… for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

He can know them at one level, but he doesn’t know them in the sense that a believer does when he accepts them by faith. He is saying that this ultimate knowledge in a spiritual sense is obscured because of spiritual death and not having a human spirit. It’s spiritually discerned, which refers to the human spirit.

But that doesn’t mean that they can’t respond to God’s revelation: the nonverbal revelation of general revelation or the verbal revelation in Scripture. We pointed out last time that in the Doctrine of Irresistible Grace, the unbeliever has no capacity whatsoever to respond to anything unless God draws him by an irresistible act of the Holy Spirit.

Slide 18

John 6:44 Jesus said that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws him. How does the Father draw him? The next verse is usually never mentioned. In John 6:45 Jesus went on to say, “It is written in the prophets, ‘and they shall all be taught by God.’ ”

That’s a reference to the future teaching of children in the Millennial Kingdom, but it has application because Jesus then applies it to the situation and says, “Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.”

When did they hear and learn from the Father? When they heard the Scriptures, when they read the Scriptures.

The way in which the Father draws them is through His written Word. So when you hear the Word of God, it is your opportunity to respond; you are being drawn to God. Everyone who hears the Word is being drawn to God by the Word.

Additionally, Jesus said, John 12:32, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” Jesus is drawing everyone to Himself by virtue of the cross.

Slide 19

“… the futility of their thinking …” has to do with the limitations of thinking.

·         Reason 1: Because they’re futile in their thinking, the first causal participle [actually, the two linked together] because their understanding has already been darkened because they were already alienated from the life of God. Spiritual death is what causes their understanding to be darkened; that produces futility of thinking.

There are two more causal phrases, but these are distinguished by using a causal preposition. Reason 2 and 3 are not under Reason 1 and are not subordinate to Reason 1. They are independent, so there are three basic reasons that express why Gentiles have futile thinking.

·         Reason 2: Because of the ignorance that is in them.

First it’s because their understanding is darkened because they’re alienated from the life of God. Secondly because of the ignorance that is in them because they’re ignorant of God’s Word and ignorant of God’s revelation.

·         Reason 3: Because of the callousness of their heart.

I like to translate it “obdurate,” but that is not a user-friendly word. Probably a word we’re more familiar with is “stubborn.” “Obdurate” according to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary is “stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or course of action.” [That probably doesn’t apply to anyone here!]

This is saying that the third reason for the futility of the thinking of the unbeliever is because of the stubbornness of his heart. That’s a volitional concept; it’s his choice. He resists; he suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. He resists the revelation of God, and as a result, he becomes more and more callous to God’s revelation.

Slide 20

Ephesians 4:19 continues the thought resulting from Ephesians 4:17–19a, they “give themselves over to lewdness …”

Lewdness may be a little too restrictive. Some translate it as lasciviousness or licentiousness. Licentiousness is better. Lasciviousness tends to be limited, as does lewdness, to some sort of sexual lust, but it’s a much broader term than that.

First of all, grammatically it’s a perfect active causal participle, “who, being past feeling …” Because they are past feeling … they are past feeling because of their stubbornness, the end of Ephesians 4:18, which makes them even more callous. So, because they are past feeling, they then produce a certain lifestyle which is first described as lewdness.

Slide 21

“Lewdness” is ASELGEIA, translated a number of different ways which sort of express the complexity of the ideas there. It’s translated as sensuality, as unbridled lust, which is usually thought to be sexual.

But there are all kinds of different lusts: power lust, approbation lust, lust for pleasure, lust for drugs, lust for alcohol, lust for material things … there are all kinds of different lusts. It’s also translated as excess, licentiousness, lasciviousness, wantonness, outrageousness, shamelessness, and insolence.

We see a lot of that kind of behavior in our nation. We see shamelessness on every corner. People have no sense of propriety anymore and they are shameless in what they say and what they do. They’re shameless in what they say when they get on social media. They don’t agree with somebody, and they say the most outlandish things.

I learned pretty quick when I got on Facebook, which I have quit getting on, I would go to places that appeared as if they wanted to have a discussion on what the Word says. But in some of these places—one was a Facebook page on free grace gospel—and you’d have people who didn’t believe in free grace come on.

But you’d also have people who had enough knowledge of the Bible to maybe fill a thimble. And there’s nothing there to give them any indication that the person they’re talking to has had 40 years in the pulpit and has a doctorate.

They say the most outlandish things out of their abysmal ignorance, thinking that somehow because they’ve heard a pastor say something one way that they know it. People would get in arguments, and I would witness this, and I thought, “No, that’s not productive; that’s not edifying. I’m not going to have anything to do with that.” Most of those groups, I would say, are not productive and not edifying whatsoever.

The next point: it has the idea of a lack of self-constraint. People just get on social media and talk about politics or any subject, saying the most outlandish things. There is no restraint, no self-discipline, no propriety; they don’t have good manners. How can you as a Christian get on Facebook and read all that drivel? That’s like swimming in a cesspool.

There’s lack of self-restraint, and it violates all bounds of what is socially acceptable. That’s what ASELGEIA means; this is what the unsaved Gentiles have given themselves to. Paul is telling his audience, “You should no longer walk in this manner. This kind of thing should not characterize your life.”

Slide 22

Next is “to work,” ERGASIA. It’s a noun with a preposition, and it means to work toward a goal, to work in the direction of a goal.

Slide 23

The goal is described as uncleanness. It means impurity, sexual uncleanness in the Old Testament. It can refer to spiritual uncleanness or carnality.

Slide 24

That’s what the unbeliever is working toward: the goal of uncleanness with greediness. This word not only means greedy for money, but it also has the idea of just plain lust for anything.

Slide 25

Scripture says a lot about this. In Ephesians 5:3, Paul says, “But fornication and all uncleanness [a word we also saw in in Ephesians 4:19] or covetousness, let it not be even [I would translate this] mentioned among you as is it’s not fitting for saints [believers].”

Colossians 3:5, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth [in other words, separate yourself from those who live this kind of licentious lifestyle, including]: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is defined as idolatry.”

Not too many people in a materialistic culture understand that materialism is a form of idolatry. But that’s what the Scripture says.

2 Peter 2:14 also uses this word, “having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices …”

This refers to leaders who are taking advantage of those in their care or those who come to them to get their money and probably for other purposes as well.

Slide 26

The contrast, Ephesians 4:20, “But you have not so learned Christ.”

I would translate this, “but you have not learned Christ in such a way,” which shows again that he is describing this contrast between the lifestyle, the thinking of an unsaved Gentile and the lifestyle and the thinking that should characterize the believer.

In Ephesians 4:21 and following, we will get into more of the details and see that the contrast in this ancient world was between those that are characterized by immorality, licentiousness, and antinomianism—meaning against all law or all standards—and those who have the standards of the Word of God.

I’m taking time to talk about this because we live in a time of seeing our culture—Western civilization—coming apart at the seams because there’s no longer a moral foundation or a spiritual foundation. We have to understand what the consequences are.

Paul talks here about the realities of the condition of the unbeliever in terms of his thinking, which leads to his actions. But what are the consequences of a culture that is ruled by moral relativism? What has happened in history to civilizations and cultures and nations that have given themselves over to moral relativism?

We see that pictured in our Tuesday night study in the Book of Judges, the time period in Israel’s history when everyone did what was right in their own eyes. When every person becomes the ultimate standard for what is right and what is wrong, then you have a serious problem.

I have about three pages I wanted to get to, but I don’t think I’ll have your concentration if I go through these. But it is important to understand how words and ideas have changed over the last 150 years to produce what we see around us.

If you’re parents or grandparents, if you’re involved with the teaching and training of your children—if they’re in public schools or even in church schools, because churches are not immune to having been impacted by a lot of these things—then I really challenge you to read! There are some excellent things that are out there that have produced good analysis of what has happened and how this has come about.

A lot of people have just awakened to this—they didn’t get “WOKE,” they awakened to this—just during the pandemic that the government was somehow out of control, schools were out of control and businesses got out of control in the way they were seeking to dominate the decisions of people.

What in the world happened to our culture? This is not something new, it has happened previously. This is part of the trends of history in a fallen world. We need to discuss that because we need to understand the solution that is provided and the role of the believer in this situation, which is what is described in the remainder of this chapter.

Closing Prayer

“Father, we thank You so much for what we have learned in this study, how totally disrupted the human being is as a result of sin. How the corruption of sin has impacted every aspect of our being. And that rather than being obedient creatures, we are disobedient, rebellious creatures, seeking only our own desires and hostile to You.

“Father, we pray that we might come to understand from this Your grace, that You could have just destroyed us all in a nanosecond. But instead, You loved us in such a way that You set out a plan of salvation, announced from the very beginning of Eve’s sin and Adam’s sin, that there would come a Savior, the seed of the woman who would defeat the seed of the serpent.

“And that You would provide this salvation at no cost, that anyone could come to eternal life simply by trusting in Your solution. And that that solution is in the Person of Jesus Christ and His work on the Cross.

“Father, we pray for anyone here, anyone listening online, anyone who is listening at a later date, that if they’ve never understood Your free offer of salvation, that they would now. All that is necessary is to trust in Christ as Savior, to believe that He died on the Cross for our sins, and the result is eternal life.

“Father, we pray that as we have studied these things that we might take to heart what Paul says in Ephesians 4:20, “but we have not learned Christ in this way,” so we are to walk differently. We are not to walk as the unsaved Gentiles around us, but according to a new standard, a standard set forth in Your Word. We pray this in Christ’s name, amen.”