Main news for 5 October 2022

King James Version (en)

Ephesians, Chapter 4, verses 20-24

¹⁸ He calleth them from the impurity of the Gentiles, ²⁴ to put on the new man

²⁰But ye have not so learned Christ;

²¹If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

²²That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

²³And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

²⁴And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

NOTES

Calling the Ephesian Christians to a normal, full spiritual life, Paul speaks of their need...

Calling the Ephesian Christians to a normal, full spiritual life, Paul speaks of their need to be renewed by the "breath" ("spirit") of the mind so that they may become different, new people, capable of living a righteous life in accordance with God's plan for humanity and its purpose. This new life is what the apostle considers Christian life in the proper sense of the word (vv. 20-24). Such an appeal fully corresponds to the ideas about spiritual life generally accepted in Paul's day in the rabbinic environment. Their quintessence is expressed in the well-known command to love God "with all your heart, with all your being ("all your soul"), and with all your strength" (Deut 6:5). A person's spiritual life is determined by the choice of the heart, which in the language of the Bible denotes the center of the human person where choices are made and decisions are taken that determine a person's relationship with God and with people, and where the system of values that determines his whole life is formed. In Greek, already from ancient times, this center came to be called the "mind," and the Greek philosophers connected with the concept of "mind" what the biblical authors writing in Hebrew placed in the concept of the "heart." It was precisely the spiritual influence ("spirit") of this "mind-heart" that renewed a person, and first of all his inner world, what the Bible usually calls the "soul," by which here is meant not the personal principle familiar to us, but the inner life force.

In this sense Paul speaks of the "renewal of the inner man," which is no surprise: a person's spiritual renewal always begins from within, although in the normal case it is never limited to his inner world alone. And the apostle, speaking of the renewal of the "inner man," also believes that it must be followed by a change in the whole life of the one who has turned to God. It is no accident that he contrasts two ways of life: the former one, which many Ephesian Christians evidently lived before their conversion (vv. 17-19), and the new one to which Paul calls them (vv. 25-32). But if before Christ came into the world the matter was the choice or rejection of the path of righteousness, now the matter is the choice or rejection of the Kingdom and salvation. And the apostle once again calls the faithful to remain faithful to the end, having chosen the Kingdom.

Calling the Christians of the Ephesian Church to new life in Christ, the apostle Paul explains in detail the causal...

Calling the Christians of the Ephesian Church to new life in Christ, the apostle Paul explains in detail the causal connection between faith and what we would today call a person’s moral character. He says that the ignorance and hardness of heart of the pagans lead to a darkening of the mind. This is what alienates a person from the life of God. Moving ever farther from Him, the person reaches insensibility. The Greek word used here can be translated as “anaesthesia, the inability to feel pain.” The Vulgate, St Jerome’s Latin translation, uses a word meaning desperation or hopelessness. In essence, this is the state in which a numbed human mind cannot hear the voice of its own conscience, cannot feel pain because of its own actions, and cannot share another person’s pain. Above all, this insensibility deprives us of the ability to see what agonising pain our vile acts cause the Creator. Because of this, says the apostle Paul, a person gives themselves over to extreme, unrestrained debauchery and impurity. Its driving force is the inner emptiness that arises because an insensible heart has been deprived of communion with God. Debauchery and impurity cannot fill this emptiness, and so, says the apostle, we pursue all this insatiably and greedily. This is the ultimate fall: a death from which there is no return. A way out of this hopeless fall opens because Truth itself appears to the person in Christ. We leave the state of ignorance and hardness of heart that, as the apostle showed above, leads us to hopeless death, and receive as a gift the opportunity to begin again. That is why he calls us to put off—literally, to take off—the old self, to be renewed in the spirit of our mind, and to put on the new self. Everything therefore depends on our choice. It is also essential that in this way we share in God’s life and, instead of insensibility, become capable not merely of knowing the truth but of feeling it with our whole being. Instead of pagan anaesthesia, a person acquires the ability to see the suffering of the Crucified One and, through it, to choose the truth. Always to choose the truth.

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