NOTES for Eph 4:17-32

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.

For Paul, the chief task of the Christian life, which constitutes the meaning of Christianity, is the transformation of the human person, a qualitative change in human nature. Above all, the apostle reminds us that such a change, even while it is still only in progress, permits no deliberate sin. At first, of course, no one can control their emotions; that comes with experience. But once control becomes possible, a person must separate from himself whatever does not conform to the inner Torah, which now becomes the principal instrument for changing his nature. At first, for example, it is difficult not to fall into anger, which may overwhelm the soul before the neophyte can respond. But if that same neophyte continues to nurture the anger that has flared up even when he could already free himself from it, that is now his choice, for which he will answer before God. Most importantly, such a deliberate, voluntary maintenance of a state that does not foster a normal relationship with God destroys a person's spiritual life and hinders him on the path of Christian life that he has begun.

At the beginning of the journey, everyone may for a moment lose awareness, overwhelmed by an emotional or intellectual wave. But one cannot live in such a state of oblivion, plunging into the abyss of sinful psychic and psychophysical states and giving oneself over, in the apostle's words, to “debauchery to the point of insensibility.” Human renewal consists precisely in such uncontrolled states becoming fewer and fewer over time. Indeed, such states that lead to sin are only a particular case and concrete manifestation of the lack of awareness generally characteristic of fallen human life, of that unreflecting automatism which in itself excludes every deep relationship, whether with God, with Christ, or with any other person. One can be freed from all these things only by being “renewed by the breath of the mind,” as the apostle describes this process.

By “mind” Paul here means what biblical books usually call the “heart”—the spiritual “I” of the person that conceals God's “breath of life.” In the depths of the Christian's spiritual “I,” the breath of the Kingdom is also revealed, which he experiences as he enters into the relationship between the Father and the Son. Unlike the Jews, the Greeks traditionally called this depth by a word usually translated into English as “mind,” and Paul, who wrote his epistles in Greek, also uses it, wishing to make his language understandable to people for whom the Greek tradition was closer than the Jewish one.

It is from this spiritual depth of the human “I,” behind which stands God's real presence, that the breath of the Kingdom acts to renew the person. Not immediately, of course: this process needs time to reach completion, more time than the span of a person's earthly life. But the essential thing is that it has begun; it is entirely possible to be ready by the day of the Kingdom's complete triumph and the Savior's return—provided, of course, that one neither stops nor turns aside from the path.

The key word in today's apostolic reading is “therefore.” In the preceding lines, the apostle says that we should be renewed in the spirit of our minds and put on the new person, since we have come to know that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, the Christ. Then, in the end of the fourth chapter of Ephesians that we read today, the apostle lists the consequences of this fact.

We cannot fail to notice that the traits he describes concern a Christian's relationships with other people. Briefly, they can be expressed like this: a Christian does not lie or steal, forgives others rather than abusing them, and brings peace and comfort through words. In theory, such a person would be very easy to live alongside. Christian apologists of the second and third centuries often drew the authorities' attention to the fact that society had no better citizens than Christians. Yet being like this is difficult, because such people irritate us. Against their background, what we ourselves are like becomes all too obvious. But that is precisely why the Lord told His disciples: you are the light of the world.

Listing things that are commonplace in the world but unacceptable for Christians—anger, theft, foul language, and lying—the apostle urges Christians not to grieve the Holy Spirit with them. The point is that the Spirit's voice, sounding in human hearts, can easily be drowned out by the voice of the flesh. This clearly shows that the gift of the Spirit abolishes neither human freedom nor responsibility. It is also clear that such simple things as refraining from foul language, lying, and theft can express love for the Spirit who has sealed us.

Do we speak the truth to one another? No, we understand that lying is wrong; we reject lies—in theory. In practice, though, we keep telling little lies. We may not tell outright lies, but we can hardly bring ourselves to call our words the truth.

Why is this so? Perhaps we are simply afraid. Afraid of reality, of what we are really like; afraid that unless we embellish the truth, everyone will see us stripped bare and gain some knowledge about us—and knowledge is strength, power. Lying is our self-defence. We use it like clothing, to conceal vulnerable, indecent parts and make ourselves look better. “Without a well-told lie, there is no story to tell.” We are also afraid to hear the truth about ourselves. “Dearer to us than a multitude of base truths is a deception that exalts us.” Better for someone to be mistaken about us, as long as they speak well of us. Accustomed to judging everything by ourselves, we are also afraid to tell others the truth about themselves. We call this “a lie to save someone”, justifying ourselves by saying, “Some truths can kill.”

So what comes of all this? Lies and fear, fear and lies. And all of it keeps driving us further apart. The apostle Paul tells us to cast aside all these false motives: there can be no such relationship between the organs of a single body; one member cannot pass something false on to another—the whole body will fall apart. Is it frightening to speak the truth? Perhaps we should try anyway?

As a rule, the beginning of this verse draws our attention. How can one be angry – and not sin, if the Lord Himself likened anger to the violation of the sixth command of Moses "Thou shall not kill"? And in the same chapter of the epistle to Ephesians, Paul named anger among the defects, which must be put away from us. But is the Holy Scripture not speaking so often about the anger of God, and Jesus also is not foreign to anger! (See Mk 3:5).

The possible resolution of the problem can be James 1:20, where the human anger is set against God's truth. Thus there are two various angers: sinful human anger and the righteous Divine anger. Sin is the object of the righteous anger, the object of the sinful anger - the sinner. So, we can understand the first half of the verse like this: either you sin with anger, either be angry not of a sinful anger (which is not on the sinner, but on sin).

But the second half of the verse summarizes in both cases - "let not the sun go down upon your wrath". You should not come to standstill "in anger, it is necessary to bring it {anger} before God’s Face so that He annihilates it as our sin or accepts it in His righteous anger, and fills us with His mercy.

Speaking of sin, Paul calls the addressees of his letter not to grieve, as the Greek text says, God's breath ("the Holy Spirit of God"), whose seal they received on the day of their baptism, which the apostle calls the "day of redemption." These words are often understood allegorically, meaning that every sin committed by a Christian grieves God approximately as it would grieve a person striving to conform to certain moral and religious norms. It is then assumed that God too expects such conformity from a person and, not receiving it, becomes upset.

But this is still far too human an image, created by a human measure and a human assessment of what is happening. Of course human sins truly do not rejoice God. But the issue here is not morality as such. God does not expect perfection from fallen man; He knows better than anyone with whom He has to deal. Something else is important. God sent His Son into the world so that He would bring the Kingdom into the world and make it accessible to every seeker. The Kingdom is permeated with God's breath, in which, through Christ, everyone who trusts Him can share.

Such a person who trusts can truly live one life with Christ, the life of His Kingdom. But there can be no place for sin in this life. The breath of the Kingdom not only surrounds the person who shares in its life. It also enters within the person, into the depths of his heart. The Christian's heart becomes the door through which the breath of the Kingdom enters the world, transforming it. The world and the person are transformed by the same breath of God that permeates the Kingdom as well. And sin interferes with this process, slowing it down.

Sin nesting in the heart interferes with God's breath, the breath of the Kingdom, abiding in a person. It also interferes with the sanctification of the world. Figuratively speaking, the ability of a human heart poisoned by sin to let God's breath pass through it decreases just as the ability of a water pipe to let a stream of clean water pass through decreases if the pipe is clogged with debris.

God's breath, oppressed by grief, is a beautiful image describing this reality. Every sin diminishes the measure of the fullness of God's breath abiding in the Christian's heart. And this means it diminishes the measure of that heart's sanctifying effect on the world. Ultimately, it postpones the day of the Kingdom's full and final triumph and Christ's return in glory. And therefore the day of the sinner's own salvation as well.

Speaking about relations among Christians, the apostle advises excluding, driving out of them all manifestations of anger and irritation, both outward and inward. At first glance this task may seem completely impossible. One can, of course, learn to restrain oneself when it comes to words, although even such restraint usually comes with difficulty.

But what is to be done with the inner world, with emotions that seem completely impossible to control? And will it be good to smile at one's neighbor if the smile is feigned? Clearly not: there is perhaps no worse profanation of authentic relations and real spiritual life than the mask of piety, kindness, and love of neighbor put on for the occasion of a church visit. As we can see, Paul calls his readers not to an outward change but to a real change in their spiritual life. But how is this possible? The apostle connects such changes with the person of the Savior Himself.

He says: forgive one another as God forgave you in Christ. And God's forgiveness of a person is very far both from indulgence and from the desire to punish the sinner for the sin he has committed. God reproaches a person in nothing. He accepts us as we are in order to make us what He wants to see us become. Spiritual life is first of all God's unceasing work with us and our work on ourselves with His direct participation. But if we are Christians, this work also presupposes the direct participation of Jesus Christ, and a participation recognized not only by Him, which is self-evident, but also by us. Of course, He often works also with those who do not even suspect His presence in their life, but such spiritual life still cannot be called Christian in the proper sense of the word.

Meanwhile the Savior bore witness to Himself as the living Torah, and the first two, and perhaps three, generations of Christians saw in Him the only example in all human history of the living Torah. The only one because one can become the living Torah only by being completely freed from sin, and no one had managed this before Christ. The Christian path was understood by Paul and by other Christians of the first generation as the path after Christ, on which the Christian himself becomes the living Torah, becoming like his Teacher, who frees the one following Him from the power of the sin that prevents him from reaching the set goal.

On this path, work with one's own intentions becomes a most important part of spiritual life. Precisely with intentions as such, not with their outward manifestations in the form of sharp words and corresponding emotions. This is the work, with the direct participation of Christ Himself, that the apostle has in mind when he speaks of the need to exclude irritation and anger from the life of Christians with all their manifestations. The task is not easy, but with God's help and in Christ it is fully attainable.

In the passage from the Epistle to the Ephesians that we read today, the apostle Paul sets out a view of human life that is very important for us: life as purposeful movement, a path directed toward God. He writes that God builds up all the diversity of the Church's life so that we may all “grow to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” The apostle reminds us that we are called to grow “into Him,” and that we can move along this path of growth only through true love. This view gives meaning to every human life, which is important in itself.

Still more comforting is that following such a path frees us from dependence on the standards by which we measure earthly success: wealth, power, authority, and strength. In the apostle's thought, the person who acts in love puts on the dignity of Christ. Thus, along with the call to growth, the apostle also offers a new scale of values, a true ordering of good and evil whose point of departure is God Himself.