NOTES for Eph 4:20-24

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.

For Paul the main task of Christian life, which constitutes the meaning of Christianity, is the transformation of the human being, a qualitative change in human nature. Above all, the apostle reminds us that such a change, even while still in process, allows no conscious sin. Of course, at first no one can control his emotions; that comes with experience. But at the moment when control becomes possible, a person must separate from himself what does not correspond to the inner Torah, which now becomes the chief instrument of changing his nature.

At first, for example, it is hard not to fall into anger, which can overwhelm the soul before the novice has time to respond. But if that same novice continues to nurture the anger that flared up even when he could already have been free of it, then this is already his choice, for which he will answer before God. Most importantly, this conscious, will-level maintenance of oneself in a state that does not foster normal communion with God destroys a person's spiritual life and slows him on the path of Christian life on which he has set out.

At the beginning of the path it happens to everyone that for a moment he can lose himself, swept over by an emotional or intellectual wave. But one cannot live in such a state of forgetfulness, plunging into the abyss of sinful psychic and psychophysical states, giving oneself over, in the apostle's words, to 'debauchery unto insensibility.' Human renewal consists precisely in the fact that such uncontrolled states become fewer and fewer in a person's life over time. Indeed, such states leading to sin are only a particular case and concrete manifestation of the unconsciousness generally characteristic of fallen human life, that unaccountability reaching automatism which by itself excludes any deep relationship, whether with God, with Christ, or with any human being at all. One can be freed from all this only by being 'renewed by the breath of the mind,' as the apostle says about this process.

By 'mind' Paul here means what biblical books usually call the 'heart': the spiritual 'I' of the person, which conceals God's 'breath of life.' To the Christian, in the depth of his spiritual 'I,' there is also opened that breath of the Kingdom which he feels as he enters the relationships of the Father with the Son. Unlike the Jews, the Greeks traditionally called this depth by a word usually translated into Russian as 'mind,' and Paul, writing his letters in Greek, also uses it, wanting to make his speech understandable to people for whom the Greek tradition was closer than the Jewish one.

From the spiritual depth of the human 'I,' behind which stands God's real presence, acts the breath of the Kingdom that renews the person. Not immediately, of course; this process requires time for its completion, time exceeding the span of a person's earthly life. But the main thing is that it has begun: before the day of the full triumph of the Kingdom and the return of the Savior, there is time enough. If, of course, one does not stop and does not turn aside from the path.

Other notes

For Eph 4:17-32

¹⁷This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

¹⁸Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

¹⁹Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

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.

²⁵Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.

²⁶Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

²⁷Neither give place to the devil.

²⁸Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

²⁹Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

³⁰And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

³¹Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

³²And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

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

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.

For Eph 4:17-32

¹⁷This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

¹⁸Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

¹⁹Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

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.

²⁵Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.

²⁶Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

²⁷Neither give place to the devil.

²⁸Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

²⁹Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

³⁰And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

³¹Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

³²And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

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

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.

Luke 11:1-4

Notes

NOTES for Eph 4:20-24

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