d. Submission: be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ (verse 21)
III. New standards
(Ephesians 4:1–5:21)
7. Unity and diversity in the church (4:1–16)
For three chapters Paul has been unfolding for his readers the eternal purpose of God being worked out in history. Through Jesus Christ, who died for sinners and was raised from death, God is creating something entirely new, not just a new life for individuals for a new society. Paul sees an alienated humanity being reconciled, a fractured humanity being united, even a new humanity being created. It is a magnificent vision.
Now the apostle moves on from the new society to the new standards which are expected of it. So he turns from exposition to exhortation, from what God has done (in the indicative) to what we must be and do (in the imperative), from doctrine to duty, ‘from the credenda … to the agenda’, from mind-stretching theology to its down-to-earth, concrete implications in everyday living.
He begins: I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you … He has taught them, and he has prayed for them (1:15–23 and 3:14–19); now he addresses to them a solemn appeal. Instruction, intercession and exhortation constitute a formidable trio of weapons in any Christian teacher’s armoury. Besides, Paul was no ordinary teacher. He uses the emphatic personal pronoun, the egō of self-conscious apostolic authority, as in 3:1. And he again describes himself as a prisoner for the Lord, using a slightly different grammatical construction but the same double entendre, that he is both a prisoner of Christ and a prisoner for Christ, both bound to him by the chains of love and in custody out of loyalty to his gospel. Thus the authority of one of Christ’s apostles and the passionate conviction of a man under house arrest because of his vision of a united church, together undergird his exhortation. I beg you, he writes, to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
What this life is to be like can be determined only by the nature of the divine call of which it is to be worthy. What is this? The new society which God is calling into being has two major characteristics. First, it is ‘one’ people, composed equally of Jews and Gentiles, the single family of God. Secondly, it is a ‘holy’ people, distinct from the secular world, set apart (like Israel in Old Testament days) to belong to God. Therefore, because God’s people are called to be one people, they must manifest their unity, and because they are called to be a holy people, they must manifest their purity. Unity and purity are two fundamental features of a life worthy of the church’s divine calling. The apostle treats the unity of the church in verses 1–16 and the purity of the church from 4:17 to 5:21.
During the last half-century and more a great deal has been said and written about the unity of the church. The modern preoccupation with it may be traced to the influential ‘Appeal to all Christian People’ which was issued by the 1920 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops under the chairmanship of Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury. Following this the movement towards reunion gathered speed, two notable milestones being the inauguration of the Church of South India in 1947 and of the World Council of Churches in 1948. Since then some more united churches have come into being, while other union schemes have foundered; and the movement may be said to be in the doldrums. It is all the more important, therefore, to look with fresh eyes at Ephesians 4:1–16, since this is one of the two classic New Testament passages on the subject of Christian unity (the other being John 17). It should prove both a strong stimulus to concern ourselves with Christian unity and a healthy corrective to a number of misleading notions about it.
Paul elaborates four truths about the kind of oneness which God intends his new society to enjoy. They may be stated in the following four propositions:
It will be observed that charity, unity, diversity and maturity appear to be the key concepts of this section.
1. Christian unity depends on the charity of our conduct (verse 2)
Paul immediately portrays the life worthy of our calling as being characterized by five qualities—lowliness, meekness, patience, mutual forbearance and love. He has prayed to God that we may be ‘rooted and grounded in love’ (3:17); now he addresses his appeal to us to see to it that we live a life of love. This is where he begins, and this is also where we should begin. Too many start with structures (and structures of some kind are indispensable), but the apostle starts with moral qualities. Certainly, in the quest for Christian unity, if we have to choose, we must say that the moral is more important than the structural.
Lowliness was much despised in the ancient world. The Greeks never used their word for humility (tapeinotēs) in a context of approval, still less of admiration. Instead they meant by it an abject, servile, subservient attitude, ‘the crouching submissiveness of a slave’. Not till Jesus Christ came was a true humility recognized. For he humbled himself. And only he among the world’s religious and ethical teachers has set before us as our model a little child.
Moreover, the word Paul uses here is tapeinophrosynē, which means ‘lowliness of mind’, the humble recognition of the worth and value of other people, the humble mind which was in Christ and led him to empty himself and become a servant.
Now humility is essential to unity. Pride lurks behind all discord, while the greatest single secret of concord is humility. It is not difficult to prove this in experience. The people we immediately, instinctively like, and find it easy to get on with, are the people who give us the respect we consider we deserve, while the people we immediately, instinctively dislike are those who treat us like dirt. In other words, personal vanity is a key factor in all our relationships. If, however, instead of manoeuvring for the respect of others (which is pride) we give them our respect by recognizing their intrinsic God-given worth (which is humility), we shall be promoting harmony in God’s new society.
Meekness (praötēs) was warmly applauded by Aristotle. Because he hated extremes and loved ‘the golden mean’, he saw in praötēs the quality of moderation, ‘the mean between being too angry and never being angry at all’. The word was also used of domesticated animals. So ‘meekness’ is not a synonym for ‘weakness’. On the contrary, it is the gentleness of the strong, whose strength is under control. It is the quality of a strong personality who is nevertheless master of himself and the servant of others. Meekness is ‘the absence of the disposition to assert personal rights, either in the presence of God or of men’. It is particularly appropriate in pastors who should also use their authority only in a spirit of gentleness.
‘Lowliness’ and ‘meekness’ form a natural couple. For ‘the meek man thinks as little of his personal claims, as the humble man of his personal merits’. They were found together in perfect balance in the character of the Lord Jesus who described himself as ‘gentle and lowly in heart’.
The third and fourth qualities also form a natural pair, for patience (makrothymia) is longsuffering towards aggravating people, such as God in Christ has shown towards us, while forbearing one another speaks of that mutual tolerance without which no group of human beings can live together in peace. Love is the final quality, which embraces the preceding four, and is the crown and sum of all virtues. Since to love is constructively to seek the welfare of others and the good of the community, its ‘binding’ properties are celebrated in Colossians 3:14.
Here, then, are five foundation stones of Christian unity. Where these are absent no external structure of unity can stand. But when this strong base has been laid, then there is good hope that a visible unity can be built. We may be quite sure that no unity is pleasing to God which is not the child of charity.
2. Christian unity arises from the unity of our God (verses 3–6)
Even the casual reader of verses 3–6 (thought by some to be part of a Christian hymn or a creed for catechumens) is struck by Paul’s repetition of the word ‘one’; in fact, it occurs seven times. A more careful reading discloses that three of these seven unities allude to the three Persons of the Trinity (one Spirit, verse 4; one Lord, verse 5, i.e. the Lord Jesus; and one God and Father of us all, verse 6), while the remaining four allude to our Christian experience in relation to the three Persons of the Trinity. This truth can be expressed in three simple affirmations.
First, there is one body because there is only one Spirit (verse 4). The one body is the church, the body of Christ (1:23), comprising Jewish and Gentile believers; and its unity or cohesion is due to the one Holy Spirit who indwells and animates it. As Paul writes elsewhere, ‘By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.’ Thus, it is our common possession of the one Holy Spirit that integrates us into one body.
Secondly, there is one hope belonging to our Christian calling (verse 4), one faith and one baptism (verse 5) because there is only one Lord. For the Lord Jesus Christ is the one object of the faith, hope and baptism of all Christian people. It is Jesus Christ in whom we have believed, Jesus Christ into whom we have been baptized, and Jesus Christ for whose coming we wait with expectant hope.
Thirdly, there is one Christian family, embracing us all (verse 6) because there is one God and Father … who is above all and through all and in all. A few manuscripts read ‘in you all’, clarifying that the ‘all’ of whom God is Father means ‘all Christians’, not ‘all people’ indiscriminately, or ‘all things’ (the universe). Armitage Robinson calls this addition of the word ‘you’ ‘a timid gloss’. Perhaps it is; and certainly the overwhelming manuscript evidence omits it. Nevertheless, it is a correct gloss. For the ‘all’ above, through and in whom God is Father, are his family or household, his redeemed children.
We are now in a position to repeat the three affirmations, this time the other way round and in the order in which the Persons of the Trinity are normally mentioned. First, the one Father creates the one family. Secondly, the one Lord Jesus creates the one faith, hope and baptism. Thirdly, the one Spirit creates the one body.
Indeed, we can go further. We must assert that there can be only one Christian family, only one Christian faith, hope and baptism, and only one Christian body, because there is only one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You can no more multiply churches than you can multiply Gods. Is there only one God? Then he has only one church. Is the unity of God inviolable? Then so is the unity of the church. The unity of the church is as indestructible as the unity of God himself. It is no more possible to split the church than it is possible to split the Godhead.
In stating the matter thus baldly and dogmatically (as the apostle Paul himself did), it is not difficult to imagine what the reader is thinking. You will be saying to me something like this: ‘It is all very well declaring that we cannot split the church; the truth is we have been extremely successful in doing the very thing you say we cannot do!’ How, then, can the evident phenomenon of the disunity of the church be reconciled with the biblical insistence on the indestructibility of its unity?
At this point a necessary distinction needs to be drawn. It is not just between the ‘visible’ and the ‘invisible’ church. That distinction is true, but the concept of the invisible church (whose members are known only to God) has been misused by some as an excuse for opting out of responsible membership in the visible church. So the distinction needs to be somewhat refined. It is between the church’s unity as an invisible reality present to the mind of God (who says to himself ‘I have only one church’) and the church’s disunity as a visible appearance which contradicts the invisible reality (causing us to say to ourselves, ‘There are hundreds of separated and competing churches’). We are one, for God says so, and in interdenominational conventions and congresses we sense our underlying unity in Christ. Yet outwardly and visibly we belong to different churches and different traditions, some of which are not even in communion with one another, while others have strayed far from biblical Christianity.
The apostle himself recognizes this paradoxical combination of unity and disunity. For in this very passage, in which the indestructible unity of the church is so emphatically asserted, the possibility of disunity is also acknowledged. Consider verse 3, which we have so far omitted and in which we are told to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This is a very strange exhortation. Paul first describes the church’s unity as ‘the unity of the Spirit’ (meaning a unity which the Holy Spirit creates) and then argues that this unity is as indestructible as God himself. Yet in the same context he also tells us that we have to maintain it! What can he mean? What is the sense of urging the maintenance of something indestructible, and of urging us to maintain it, when it is ‘a unity of the Spirit’, which he created and is therefore presumably himself responsible for preserving?
There seems to be but one possible answer to these questions, namely that to maintain the church’s unity must mean to maintain it visibly. Here is an apostolic exhortation to us to preserve in actual concrete relationships of love (in the bond of peace, that is, by the peace which binds us together) that unity which God has created and which neither man nor demon can destroy. We are to demonstrate to the world that the unity we say exists indestructibly is not the rather sick joke it sounds but a true and glorious reality.
Perhaps the analogy of a human family will help us to grasp our responsibility more clearly. We will imagine a couple called Mr and Mrs John Smith, and their three sons, Tom, Dick and Harry. They are one family; there is no doubt about that. Marriage and parenthood have united them. But in the course of time the Smith family disintegrates. Father and mother quarrel, keep up an uneasy truce for several years, become increasingly estranged and finally get a divorce. The three boys also quarrel, first with their parents and then with each other, and separate. Tom goes to live in Canada, Dick in South Africa and Harry in Australia. They never meet, write or telephone. They lose contact with each other altogether. More than that. So determined are they to repudiate each other that they actually change their names by deed poll. It would be hard to imagine a family which has experienced a more disastrous disintegration than this. All mutual relationships have been severed.
Now supposing we were cousins of the Smith family, how would we react? Would we shrug our shoulders, smile complacently and mutter ‘Oh, well, never mind, they are still one family, you know’? We would be quite correct. In God’s sight I reckon they are still one family, indestructibly. Mr and Mrs Smith are still husband and wife and still parents of their three sons, who are still brothers. For simply nothing can alter the unity of the family which the circumstances of marriage and birth have imposed upon it. But would we acquiesce in this situation? Would we try to excuse or minimize the tragedy of their disunity by appealing to the indestructibility of their family ties? No, this would not satisfy either our mind or our heart or our conscience. What, then, would we do? Surely we would seek to be peacemakers. We would urge them to ‘maintain the unity of the family by means of the bond of peace’, that is, to demonstrate their family unity by repenting and getting reconciled to one another.
Just so, the fact of the church’s indestructible unity is no excuse for acquiescing in the tragedy of its actual disunity. On the contrary, the apostle tells us to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit. The Greek verb for ‘eager’ (spoudazontes) is emphatic. It means that we are to ‘spare no effort’ (NEB), and, being a present participle, it is a call for continuous, diligent activity. Markus Barth expresses the sense vividly: ‘It is hardly possible to render exactly the urgency contained in the underlying Greek verb. Not only haste and passion, but a full effort of the whole man is meant, involving his will, sentiment, reason, physical strength, and total attitude. The imperative mood of the participle found in the Greek text excludes passivity, quietism, a wait-and-see attitude, or a diligence tempered by all deliberate speed. Yours is the initiative! Do it now! Mean it! You are to do it! I mean it!—Such are the overtones in verse 3.’
Where, I ask myself, is this eagerness for unity to be found among evangelical Christians today? Is this an apostolic command we are guilty of largely ignoring?
Take the local church first, for presumably it is to this that Paul is primarily referring. Some Christian fellowships are marred by rivalries between individuals or groups which have been allowed to fester for years. How can we possibly condone such things? We need to be ‘eager’ for love, unity and peace, and more active in seeking it.
But Ephesians, as we have seen, may have been a circular letter addressed to several churches. Perhaps even in the city of Ephesus itself there were now so many Christians that they met in several distinct house churches. We know, for example, that Aquila and Priscilla had a church in their home when they lived in Rome (Rom. 16:3–5), and probably also when they moved to Ephesus (Acts 18:26). So Paul may have in mind the need for unity between as well as within the churches. If so, his concern would apply to inter-church relationships today. This is not the place to go into the technical terms which are used for various kinds of relations between churches, such as ‘open communion’, ‘intercommunion’, ‘full communion’ and ‘organic union’. There is room for differences of conviction among us as to the precise form or forms in which God wants Christian unity to be expressed. But we should all be eager for some visible expression of Christian unity, provided always that we do not sacrifice fundamental Christian truth in order to achieve it. Christian unity arises from our having one Father, one Saviour, and one indwelling Spirit. So we cannot possibly foster a unity which pleases God either if we deny the doctrine of the Trinity or if we have not come personally to know God the Father through the reconciling work of his Son Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Authentic Christian ‘unity’ in truth, life and love is far more important than ‘union’ schemes of a structural kind, although ideally the latter should be a visible expression of the former.
3. Christian unity is enriched by the diversity of our gifts (verses 7–12)
The contrast between verses 6 and 7 is striking. Verse 6 speaks of God as the Father of us all, who is above all, through all and in all. Verse 7, however, begins: But grace was given to each of us … Thus Paul turns from ‘all of us’ to ‘each of us’, and so from the unity to the diversity of the church.
He is, in fact, deliberately qualifying what he has just written about the church’s unity. Although there is only one body, one faith and one family, this unity is not to be misconstrued as a lifeless or colourless uniformity. We are not to imagine that every Christian is an exact replica of every other, as if we had all been mass-produced in some celestial factory. On the contrary, the unity of the church, far from being boringly monotonous, is exciting in its diversity. This is not just because of our different cultures, temperaments and personalities (which, though true, is not Paul’s point here), but because of the different gifts which Christ distributes for the enrichment of our common life.
Verse 7 refers to Christ’s grace in bestowing different gifts. Although Paul does not here employ the term charismata for ‘gifts’ (as he does in Rom. 12:6 and 1 Cor. 12:4), yet clearly it is to these that he is referring. For ‘grace’ is charis, and ‘gifts’ are charismata. Moreover, it is very important to understand the difference between them. ‘Saving grace’, the grace which saves sinners, is given to all who believe; but what might be termed ‘service grace’, the grace which equips God’s people to serve, is given in differing degrees according to the measure of Christ’s gift (verse 7). The unity of the church is due to charis, God’s grace having reconciled us to himself; but the diversity of the church is due to charismata, God’s gifts distributed to church members.
It is, of course, from this word charismata that the adjective ‘charismatic’ is derived. The so-called ‘charismatic movement’, although controversial in a number of its distinctive emphases, has without doubt been used by God to bring spiritual renewal to many churches and individual Christians. Nevertheless, we should register a biblical protest against the designation ‘charismatic movement’, whether its adherents themselves chose it or were given it. ‘Charismatic’ is not a term which can be accurately applied to any group or movement within the church, since according to the New Testament the whole church is a charismatic community. It is the body of Christ, every single member of which has a gift (charisma) to exercise or function to perform.
What, then, does this paragraph teach us about charismata or spiritual gifts? It tells us about their giver, their character and their purpose.
a. The giver of spiritual gifts is the ascended Christ (verses 7–10)
According to verse 7 each gift is Christ’s gift, and this truth is now enforced in the following verse by a quotation from Psalm 68:18: When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.
Psalm 68 is a call to God to come to the rescue of his people and vindicate them again, as in olden days. For he went in triumph before his people after the exodus (verse 7), so that Mount Sinai trembled (verse 8) and kings were scattered (verses 11–14). Then, desiring Mount Zion as his abode (verse 16), he came from Sinai to his holy place (verse 17) and ascended the high mount, leading captives in his train. It is all very vivid imagery. It seems that the transfer of the ark to Zion is likened to the triumphant march of Yahweh into his capital.
Paul applies this picture to Christ’s ascension, not arbitrarily because he detected a vague analogy between the two, but justifiably because he saw in the exaltation of Jesus a further fulfilment of this description of the triumph of God. Christ ascended as conqueror to the Father’s right hand, his train of captives being the principalities and powers he had defeated, dethroned and disarmed.
In the application of Psalm 68:18 to Christ, however, there is a textual problem. For the Psalm reads that God ascended the mount, ‘receiving gifts among men’, whereas Paul’s quotation is that Christ ‘gave gifts to men’. Some commentators do not hesitate to say that Paul changed the wording to suit his purpose. For example, J. H. Houlden writes: ‘There is no need to suppose that the alteration was other than deliberate.’ Others think it was ‘an unintentional misquotation’. Because of the apostle’s known regard for Scripture both these explanations seem a priori unlikely.
The place to begin an explanation is surely to see that the two renderings are only formally but not substantially contradictory. Words cannot be interpreted by themselves, but only in context. So we need to remember that after every conquest in the ancient world there was invariably both a receiving of tribute and a distributing of largesse. What conquerors took from their captives, they gave away to their own people. The spoils were divided, the booty was shared. It seems possible that the Hebrew text itself may imply this, since the verb could be translated ‘brought’ rather than ‘received’, and it is not without significance that two ancient versions or translations, one Aramaic and the other Syriac, render it ‘gave’. So evidently this was already a traditional interpretation.
One other interesting point needs to be made. Liturgical custom in the synagogues associated Psalm 68 with Pentecost, the Jewish feast commemorating the giving of the law. Paul’s use of it in reference to the Christian Pentecost then makes a remarkable analogy. As Moses received the law and gave it to Israel, so Christ received the Spirit and gave him to his people in order to write God’s law in their hearts and through the pastors he appointed (verse 11) to teach them the truth. This whole argument that ‘receiving’ and ‘giving’ belong indissolubly to each other is aptly illustrated in Acts 2:33 where Peter on the day of Pentecost said: ‘Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit; he (sc. Jesus) has poured out this which you see and hear’. Christ could only give the gift he had received.
After the quotation from Psalm 68:18 Paul adds in parenthesis that Christ’s having ascended into heaven implies that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth (verse 9). Because of the immediate context, which concerns the gifts of Christ to his church following his ascension, G. B. Caird makes the novel suggestion that his ‘descent’ was his ‘return at Pentecost to give his Spirit to the church’. But, ingenious as this is, the natural interpretation of the words suggests that his descent preceded his ascent rather than followed it. The early fathers understood this as a reference to his descent into hades. They associated it with 1 Peter 3:19 (‘he went and preached to the spirits in prison’) which they interpreted as his spoiling or ‘harrowing’ hell. But, whatever the 1 Peter text means, there is no obvious reference to hades or hell in Ephesians 4:9. Calvin (followed by Reformed commentators like Charles Hodge) argued from the ‘ascended into heaven’ of John 3:13 that ‘the lower parts of the earth’ is a genitive of apposition or definition, that what it means is simply ‘the earth’, and that Christ’s descent refers to his incarnation. NEB takes it this way too, namely that he descended ‘to the lowest level, down to the very earth’. Perhaps, however, the reference is more general still, namely that Christ descended to the depths of humiliation when he came to earth. Or possibly the allusion is to the cross, and ‘to the experience of the nethermost depths, the very agonies of hell’ which Christ endured there.
Such an interpretation would fit well with Philippians 2:5–11, where ‘even death on a cross’ describes his deepest humiliation, which was followed by his supreme exaltation. This was ‘far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named’ according to 1:21, and here ‘far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things’ (verse 10), or ‘so that he might fill the universe’ (NEB). What is in Paul’s mind, therefore, is not so much descent and ascent in spatial terms, but rather humiliation and exaltation, the latter bringing Christ universal authority and power, as a result of which he bestowed on the church he rules both, the Spirit himself to indwell it and the gifts of the Spirit to edify it or bring it to maturity.
In the light of this emphasis on Christ, ascended, exalted, filling the universe, ruling the church, bestowing gifts, it would clearly be a mistake to think of charismata as being exclusively ‘gifts of the Spirit’ and to associate them too closely with the Holy Spirit or with experiences of the Holy Spirit. For here they are the gifts of Christ, while in Romans 12 they are the gifts of God the Father. It is always misleading to separate the three Persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Together they are involved in every aspect of the church’s wellbeing.
b. The character of spiritual gifts is extremely varied
Paul specifically says so in 1 Cor. 12:4: ‘Now there are varieties of gifts’. It is important to recall this because many today have a very restricted view of charismata. For example, some people speak and write of ‘the nine gifts of the Spirit’, presumably to make a neat but artificial parallel with the Spirit’s ninefold fruit. Others seem to be pre-occupied, even obsessed, with only three of the more spectacular gifts (‘tongues’, ‘prophecy’ and ‘healing’). In fact, however, the five lists given in the New Testament mention between them at least twenty distinct gifts, some of which are very prosaic and unsensational (like ‘doing acts of mercy’, Rom. 12:8). Moreover, each list diverges widely from the others, and gives its selection of gifts in an apparently haphazard fashion. This suggests not only that no one list is complete, but that even all five together do not represent an exhaustive catalogue. Doubtless there are many more which are unlisted.
In our text Paul selects only five for mention. Christ (autos, ‘he’, is emphatic, verse 11) gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. The word ‘apostle’ has three main meanings in the New Testament. Once only it seems to be applied to every individual Christian, when Jesus said: ‘A servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent (apostolos) greater than he who sent him.’ So every Christian is both a servant and an apostle. The verb apostellō means to ‘send’, and all Christian people are sent out into the world as Christ’s ambassadors and witnesses, to share in the apostolic mission of the whole church. This cannot be the meaning here, however, for in this sense all Christians are ‘apostles’, whereas Paul writes that Christ gave only ‘some’ to be apostles.
Secondly, there were ‘apostles of the churches’, messengers sent out by a church either as missionaries or on some other errand. And thirdly there were the ‘apostles of Christ’, a very small and distinctive group, consisting of the Twelve (including Matthias who replaced Judas), Paul, James the Lord’s brother, and possibly one or two others. They were personally chosen and authorized by Jesus, and had to be eyewitnesses of the risen Lord. It must be in this sense that Paul is using the word ‘apostles’ here, for he puts them at the top of his list, as he does also in 1 Corinthians 12:28 (‘first apostles’), and this is how he has so far used the word in his letter, referring to himself (1:1) and to his fellow apostles as the foundation of the church and the organs of revelation (2:20; 3:26).
We should not hesitate, therefore, to say that in this sense there are no apostles today. In 1975 John Noble wrote and published a booklet entitled First Apostles, Last Apostles. In it his concern is ‘to arouse my fellow Christians to look for apostles to shape church life in our day’, who will ‘unite and release an army under God which will accomplish his purpose in these end-times’. His reading of history is that when the original apostles died, ‘they left a vacuum of authority into which the wrong men stepped’, i.e. the bishops. He criticizes both Catholicism and Protestantism, the former for ‘investing absolute authority in one man’ and the latter for ‘giving every individual the right to rule in the church’. We can certainly agree with him that throughout the long and chequered history of the church there have been many misuses of authority, but he misses in his exposition the vitally important truths (1) that the original apostles as eyewitnesses of the historic risen Jesus can in the nature of the case have no successors, and (2) that their authority is preserved today in the New Testament, which is the essential ‘apostolic succession’. Once we have insisted, however, that there are today no apostles of Christ with an authority comparable to that of the apostles Paul, Peter and John, it is certainly possible to argue that there are people with apostolic ministries of a different kind, including episcopal jurisdiction, pioneer missionary work, church planting, itinerant leadership, etc.
What about prophets? Here again it is necessary to make a distinction. In the primary sense in which the Bible uses the word, a prophet was a person who ‘stood in the council of God’, who heard and even ‘saw’ his word, and who in consequence ‘spoke from the mouth of the Lord’ and spoke his word ‘faithfully’. In other words, a prophet was a mouthpiece or spokesman of God, a vehicle of his direct revelation. In this sense we must again insist that there are no prophets today. Nobody can presume to claim an inspiration comparable to that of the canonical prophets, or use their introductory formula ‘Thus says the Lord’. If this were possible, we would have to add their words to Scripture, and the whole church would need to listen and obey. Yet this is the sense in which Paul appears to be using the word here. He puts the prophets next after the apostles (as in 1 Cor. 12:28; ‘second prophets’), and he brackets ‘apostles and prophets’ as the church’s foundation and the recipients of fresh revelation from God (2:20; 3:6). As the foundation on which the church is being built the prophets have no successors, any more than the apostles have, for the foundation was laid and finished centuries ago and we cannot tamper with it in any way today.
But, as with apostles so with prophets, having first established the uniqueness of the original teachers of the church, we then have to ask if there is a subsidiary gift of some kind. It seems right to answer ‘yes’, but then to confess that we do not know for certain what it is! Some see it as a special gift of biblical exposition, an unusual degree of insight into the Word of God, so that by the ministry of the Holy Spirit modern ‘prophets’ hear and receive the Word of God, not however as a new revelation but as a fresh understanding of the old. Others see it as a sensitive understanding of the contemporary world, a reading of the signs of the times, together with an indignant denunciation of the social sins of the day and a perceptive application of Scripture to them. Those who hold this view draw attention to the socio-political oracles of the Old Testament prophets. A third view concentrates on the effect which the ministry of New Testament prophets had on their listeners, bringing to unbelievers a conviction of sin and to believers ‘upbuilding and encouragement and consolation’. In these three views the ‘prophetic’ gift is detected in the handling of the Word of God, for one cannot think of God’s prophets in isolation from God’s Word. It is understood as a gift of insight into either the biblical text or the contemporary situation, or both, namely a powerful combination of accurate exposition and pertinent application.
There is another view, however, popularized by ‘pentecostal’ and ‘charismatic’ Christians, namely that God is again raising up prophets and prophetesses today, who speak his word in his name and by his direct inspiration. I have to confess my own grave hesitation about this claim. Those who make it seldom seem to recognize either the uniqueness of the original apostles and prophets or the superfluity of successors once the New Testament Scriptures became available to the church. Besides, there have been many similar claims in the history of the church, which do not encourage one’s confidence in the modern phenomenon. In those churches in which the possibility of such a gift is accepted, however, it is important to insist that so-called ‘prophetic utterances’ could never be of more than local and limited value (to individuals or a particular congregation, not the whole church), that they must always be carefully tested by Scripture and by the known character of the speaker, and that the regular, systematic, thoughtful exposition of the Bible is much more important for the building up of the people of God.
After apostles and prophets Paul mentions evangelists. This noun occurs only three times in the New Testament (here, in Acts 21:8 of Philip and in 2 Tim. 4:5 of Timothy himself), although of course the verb ‘to evangelize’ is frequently used to describe the spreading of the gospel. Since all Christians are under obligation, when they have an appropriate opportunity, to bear witness to Christ and his good news, the gift of an ‘evangelist’ (bestowed only upon some) must be something different. It may refer to the gift of evangelistic preaching, or of making the gospel particularly plain and relevant to unbelievers, or of helping timorous people to take the plunge of commitment to Christ, or of effective personal witnessing. Probably the gift of an evangelist may take all these different forms and more. It must relate in some way to an evangelistic ministry, whether in mass evangelism, personal evangelism, literature evangelism, film evangelism, radio and television evangelism, musical evangelism or in the use of some other medium. There is a great need for gifted evangelists today who will pioneer new ways of exercising and developing their gift, so as to penetrate the vast unreached segments of society for Christ.
Since the definite article is not repeated in the expression some pastors and teachers, it may be that these are two names for the same ministry. Calvin did not think so, for he suggested that the administration of discipline, the sacraments, warning and exhortation belonged particularly to pastors. Yet it is clear that ‘pastors’ (that is, ‘shepherds’), who are called to ‘tend’ God’s flock, do so in particular by ‘feeding it’, i.e. by teaching. Perhaps one should say that, although every pastor must be a teacher, gifted in the ministry of God’s Word to people (whether a congregation or groups or individuals), yet not every Christian teacher is also a pastor (since he may be teaching only in a school or college rather than in a local church).
Looking back, we observe that all five gifts relate in some way to the ministry of teaching. Although there are neither apostles nor prophets in the original sense today, there are evangelists to preach the gospel, pastors to tend the flock, and teachers to expound the word. Indeed, they are urgently needed. Nothing is more necessary for the building up of God’s church in every age than an ample supply of God-gifted teachers. Yet I wonder if this need has ever been greater than it is in our own day. In some areas of the third world great ‘people movements’ are taking place. Large numbers, in some cases whole villages and tribes, are accepting Christ, and the church growth rate exceeds the population growth rate. This exciting fact brings with it both problems and dangers, however. The newly baptized converts are spiritual babies. As such they are prone to sin and error, and almost defenceless against false teaching. Above all else they need teaching from the Word of God. In some situations, believe it or not, missionaries are calling for a moratorium on converts. ‘For heaven’s sake’, they pray to God, ‘don’t give us any more, for we don’t know what to do with the thousands we already have.’ I sometimes urge my charismatic friends, therefore, some of whom seem to me to be preoccupied with the less important gifts, to remember Paul’s dictum ‘earnestly to desire the higher gifts’, and to consider whether these are not the teaching gifts. It is teaching which builds up the church. It is teachers who are needed most.
Another important question is raised by this verse (11). There is no mention in it of presbyter-bishops or deacons (to whom reference is made, for example, in Phil. 1:1 and 1 Tim. 3:1, 12), still less of the threefold order ‘bishops, presbyters and deacons’ which came to be developed in the second century and is widely acknowledged in Christendom today. How should we account for their omission here? Is this just an earlier stage before the more developed situation reflected in the Pastoral Epistles? Alternatively, should we distinguish between an ‘institutional’ ministry appointed by the church (‘bishops, presbyters and deacons’) and a ‘charismatic’ ministry appointed by Christ (‘apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers’)? No, neither of these explanations should commend itself to us. To separate the ‘institutional’ from the ‘charismatic’, or ministerial ‘order’ from ministerial ‘gifts’, is a false distinction and a disastrous one. That there is such a thing by God’s intention as an institutional ministry or a ministerial order (whether threefold or twofold does not matter for our purposes here) is clear from the Pastoral Epistles. Timothy was to select and ordain presbyters and deacons for every church. But how would he select them? What were to be their qualifications? Partly he was to assure himself of the integrity of their moral character, partly of their doctrinal orthodoxy, and partly of their gifts (e.g. ‘an apt teacher’, didaktikos). It is inconceivable that the church should select, train and ordain people who lack the appropriate God-given gifts. Ordination to the pastoral ministry of any church should signify at least (1) the public recognition that God has called and gifted the person concerned, and (2) the public authorization of this person to obey the call and exercise the gift, with prayer for the enabling grace of the Holy Spirit. So we must not separate what God has united. On the one hand, the church should acknowledge the gifts which God has given people, and should publicly authorize them and encourage their exercise in ministry. On the other, the New Testament never contemplates the grotesque situation in which the church commissions and authorizes people to exercise a ministry for which they lack both the divine call and the divine equipment. No, gift and office, divine enabling and ecclesiastical commissioning, belong together. It seems to me that Paul indicates this by numbering ‘pastors and teachers’ among Christ’s gifts to his church, since the work of ordained presbyters is precisely to shepherd and teach Christ’s flock. ‘They therefore are insane’, writes Calvin without mincing his words, ‘who, neglecting this means (sc. of building up the church), hope to be perfect in Christ, as is the case with fanatics who pretend to secret revelations of the Spirit, and the proud, who content themselves with the private reading of the Scripture, and imagine they do not need the ministry of the Church.’
c. The purpose of spiritual gifts is service
In verse 12 Paul states clearly why Christ gave these gifts to his church. The RSV first edition (1946) read: for the equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. It will be noted that according to this translation, Christ had three distinct purposes in mind. I think Armitage Robinson was the first commentator to insist that this was a mistake. ‘The second of these clauses’, he wrote, ‘must be taken as dependent on the first, and not … as coordinate with it.’ In other words, the first comma (‘the fatal comma’)—which is ‘without linguistic authority but with undoubted ecclesiological bias’—must be erased. If it is allowed to stand, we are faced with ‘a saddening result’, for ‘the verse then means that only the special ministers, not all the saints, are called to do “the work of ministry” and to cooperate in the “building of the body”.’ This interpretation ‘has an aristocratic, that is, a clerical and ecclesiastical flavour, it distinguishes the (mass of the) “saints” from the (superior class of the) officers of the church’.
If the comma is erased, however, we are left with two purposes—one immediate and the other ultimate—for which Christ gave gifts to his church. His immediate purpose was ‘to equip the saints for the work of ministry’ (RSV second edition 1971) or better ‘to equip God’s people for work in his service’ (NEB), and his ultimate purpose ‘for building up the body of Christ’.
The former expression about equipping God’s people is of far-reaching significance for any true understanding of Christian ministry. For the word ministry (diakonia) is here used not to describe the work of pastors but rather the work of so-called laity, that is, of all God’s people without exception. Here is incontrovertible evidence that the New Testament envisages ministry not as the prerogative of a clerical élite but as the privileged calling of all the people of God. Thank God that in our generation this biblical vision of an ‘every-member ministry’ is taking a firm hold in the church.
It does not mean that there is no distinctive pastoral ministry left for clergy; rather it establishes its character. The New Testament concept of the pastor is not of a person who jealously guards all ministry in his own hands, and successfully squashes all lay initiatives, but of one who helps and encourages all God’s people to discover, develop and exercise their gifts. His teaching and training are directed to this end, to enable the people of God to be a servant people, ministering actively but humbly according to their gifts in a world of alienation and pain. Thus, instead of monopolizing all ministry himself, he actually multiplies ministries.
What model of the church, then, should we keep in our minds? The traditional model is that of the pyramid, with the pastor perched precariously on its pinnacle, like a little pope in his own church, while the laity are arrayed beneath him in serried ranks of inferiority. It is a totally unbiblical image, because the New Testament envisages not a single pastor with a docile flock but both a plural oversight and an every-member ministry. Not much better is the model of the bus, in which the pastor does all the driving while the congregation are the passengers slumbering in peaceful security behind him. Quite different from either the pyramid or the bus is the biblical model of the body. The church is the body of Christ, every member of which has a distinctive function. Although the body metaphor can certainly accommodate the concept of a distinct pastorate (in terms of one ministry—and a very important one—among many), there is simply no room in it either for a hierarchy or for that kind of bossy clericalism which concentrates all ministry in the hands of one man and denies the people of God their own rightful ministries.
I saw the principle of the every-member ministry well illustrated when I visited St Paul’s Church, Darien, Connecticut, a few years ago. It is an American Episcopal church, which has been influenced by the charismatic movement. On the front cover of their Sunday bulletin I read the name of the Rector, the Reverend Everett Fullam, then the names of the Associate Rector and of the Assistant to the Rector. Next came the following line: ‘Ministers: the entire congregation’. It was startling, but undeniably biblical.
So Christ’s immediate purpose in the giving of pastors and teachers to his church is through their ministry of the word to equip all his people for their varied ministries. And the ultimate purpose of this is to build up his body, the church. For clearly the way the whole body grows is for all its members to use their God-given gifts. These gifts are so beneficial both to those who exercise their ministry faithfully and to those who receive it that the church becomes steadily more healthy and mature. If the sixteenth century recovered ‘the priesthood of all believers’ (every Christian enjoying through Christ a direct access to God), perhaps the twentieth century will recover ‘the ministry of all believers’ (every Christian receiving from Christ a privileged ministry to men).
All spiritual gifts, then, are service-gifts. This is their purpose. They are not given for selfish but for unselfish use, namely for the service of other people. Each of the lists of charismata in the New Testament emphasizes this. ‘To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good’. It follows that their comparative importance (Paul is quite clear that some are ‘higher’ or ‘greater’ than others) is to be assessed by the degree to which they ‘edify’ or build up the church. This is why the teaching gifts are of paramount importance, for nothing builds up the church like the truth of God’s Word.
To recapitulate, we have seen that it is the exalted Christ who bestows gifts on his church, that his gifts are very diverse in character, that the teaching gifts are primary, and that their purpose is to equip God’s people for their ministries and so build up Christ’s body.
4. Christian unity demands the maturity of our growth (verses 13–16)
The apostle goes on to elaborate what he means by building up the body of Christ. It will evidently be a lengthy process, leading (in three pregnant phrases) to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, mature manhood, and the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is the goal to which the church will one day attain.
Because this verb attain means literally ‘to come to meet’ (katantaō), and because the first and third phrases refer explicitly to the Lord Jesus (‘Son of God’ and ‘Christ’), Markus Barth interprets the second (‘mature manhood’) as referring to him too. He translates it ‘the Perfect Man’ and pictures the church as the bride of Christ going out in a joyful festival procession to meet her Bridegroom at his triumphant appearing. It is an attractive reconstruction, and certainly accords with the development of the bride and bridegroom imagery of 5:25–27. On the other hand, it seems somewhat forced, since what we are said to ‘attain’ or ‘meet’ is not simply ‘the Son of God’ but ‘the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God’, not simply ‘Christ’ but ‘the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’. In other words, the church’s goal is not Christ but its own maturity in unity which comes from knowing, trusting and growing up into Christ.
We pause to note that the church’s unity, although already in one sense given and inviolable, as we have seen, yet needs in another sense to be both ‘maintained’ (verse 3) and ‘attained’ (verse 13). Both verbs are surprising. If unity already exists as a gift, how can it be attained as a goal? Probably we need to reply that just as unity needs to be maintained visibly, so it needs to be attained fully. For there are degrees of unity, just as there are degrees of sanctity. And the unity to which we are to come one day is that full unity which a full faith in and knowledge of the Son of God will make possible. This expression effectively disposes of the argument that unity can grow without Christian faith or knowledge. On the contrary, it is precisely the more we know and trust the Son of God that we grow in the kind of unity with one another which he desires.
This full unity is also called mature manhood. Some interpret this individually of each Christian growing into maturity in Christ, which is certainly a New Testament concept. But the context seems to demand that we understand it corporately. The church is represented as a single organism, the body of Christ, and is to grow up into adult stature. Indeed, Paul has referred to it as the new humanity which God is creating, or as ‘one new man’ (2:15). To the oneness and the newness of this ‘man’ he now adds matureness. The one new man is to attain mature manhood, which will be nothing less than the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, the fullness which Christ himself possesses and bestows.
Although it seems that this growth into maturity is a corporate concept, describing the church as a whole, yet it clearly depends on the maturing of its individual members, as Paul proceeds to say: so that we may no longer be children (verse 14). Of course we are to resemble children in their humility and innocence, but not in their ignorance or instability. Unstable children are like little boats in a stormy sea, entirely at the mercy of wind and waves. Paul paints a graphic picture, tossed to and fro (klydōnizomenoi, from klydōn, rough water or surf) meaning ‘tossed here and there by waves’ (AG) and carried about (peripheromenoi) meaning ‘swung round by shifting winds’. Apparently Plato used this latter word of tops, which led E. K. Simpsom to dub such people ‘whirligigs’. NEB brings the two storm pictures together by translating ‘tossed by the waves and whirled about by every fresh gust of teaching’. Such are immature Christians. They never seem to know their own mind or come to settled convictions. Instead, their opinions tend to be those of the last preacher they heard or the last book they read, and they fall an easy prey to each new theological fad. They cannot resist the cunning of men (kybia means ‘dice-playing’ and so ‘trickery’) or their craftiness in deceitful wiles.
In contrast to doctrinal instability, which is a mark of immaturity, we should be speaking the truth in love in order that we may grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love (verses 15–16)
We must not look in these verses for inspired instruction on human anatomy and physiology. The apostle’s intention is not to teach us how the human body works, but rather how the body of Christ grows. True, he uses some terms employed by ancient Greek medical writers like Hippocrates and Galen. ‘We can almost see him turn to “the beloved physician”, of whose presence he tells us in the companion epistle (Col. 4:14), before venturing to speak—technical language of “every ligament of the whole apparatus” of the human frame.’ But his emphasis is on the head ‘into’ whom we are to grow up (verse 15) and ‘from’ whom the body grows when ‘each part is working properly’. Markus Barth brings out clearly in his translation this focusing of attention on the initiative and work of the Head, Christ: ‘He is at work fitting and joining the whole body together. He provides sustenance to it through every contact according to the needs of each single part. He enables the body to make its own growth so that it builds itself up in love.’
If now we drop the body metaphor and enquire exactly how the church grows into maturity, Paul is ready with his answer. It grows by truth and love. To allow ourselves to be hurled hither and thither by the fierce blasts of false teaching is to condemn ourselves and the church to perpetual immaturity (verse 14). Instead, what we need is ‘the truth’, provided we speak it ‘in love’ (verse 15). For it is ‘in love’ that the church grows and builds itself up (verse 16). What Paul calls for is a balanced combination of the two. ‘Speaking the truth in love’ is not the best rendering of his expression, for the Greek verb makes no reference to our speech. Literally, it means, ‘truthing (alētheuontes) in love’, and includes the notions of ‘maintaining’, ‘living’ and ‘doing’ the truth. Thank God there are those in the contemporary church who are determined at all costs to defend and uphold God’s revealed truth. But sometimes they are conspicuously lacking in love. When they think they smell heresy, their nose begins to twitch, their muscles ripple, and the light of battle enters their eye. They seem to enjoy nothing more than a fight. Others make the opposite mistake. They are determined at all costs to maintain and exhibit brotherly love, but in order to do so are prepared even to sacrifice the central truths of revelation. Both these tendencies are unbalanced and unbiblical. Truth becomes hard if it is not softened by love; love becomes soft if it is not strengthened by truth. The apostle calls us to hold the two together, which should not be difficult for Spirit-filled believers, since the Holy Spirit is himself ‘the Spirit of truth’, and his firstfruit is ‘love’. There is no other route than this to a fully mature Christian unity.
Conclusion
Here, then, is Paul’s vision for the church. God’s new society is to display charity, unity, diversity and growing maturity. These are the characteristics of ‘a life worthy of the calling’ to which God has called us, and which the apostle begs us to lead (verse 1).
The more we share Paul’s perspective, the deeper will be our discontent with the ecclesiastical status quo. Some of us are too conservative, too complacent, too ready to acquiesce in the present situation and to resist change. Others are too radical, wanting to dispense with the institution altogether. Instead we need to grasp more clearly the kind of new society God wants his church to be. Then we shall not be content either with things as they are, or with partial solutions, but rather will pray and work for the church’s total renewal.
Some look mainly for structures of unity, but seem to have no comparable concern that the church should become a truly caring community marked by humility, meekness, longsuffering, forbearance and love. Paul’s primary concern is not for structures; he begins and ends with love (verses 2, 16).
Others lay great stress on the fact of the church’s unity as a theological concept clearly articulated in their minds, but appear to see nothing anomalous in the visible disunity which contradicts their theology.
Others are content with a uniformity of church life and liturgy which is dull, boring, colourless, monotonous and dead; they have never glimpsed the variety God intends or the diversity of ministries which should enrich and enliven their membership of the body of Christ.
Others have a static view of the church, and are well satisfied if the congregation manages to maintain its size and programme, without cutback; they have no vision of church growth either by evangelistic outreach or by the Christian maturing of their members.
All such complacency is unworthy of the church’s calling. In contrast to it the apostle sets before us the picture of a deepening fellowship, an eagerness to maintain visible Christian unity and to recover if it is lost, an active every-member ministry and a steady growth into maturity by holding the truth in love. We need to keep this biblical ideal clearly before us. Only then shall we live a life that is worthy of it.
8. A new set of clothes (4:17–5:4)
The apostle continues to describe the new standards which are expected of God’s new society, or the life which is worthy of God’s call. Called to be ‘one’ people, he has argued, we must cultivate unity. Called to be a ‘holy’ people, he goes on to argue now, we must also cultivate purity. Purity is as indispensable a characteristic of the people of God as unity.
Paul opens this section on the church’s purity, just as he opened the former section on the church’s unity, with an assertion of his authority as an apostle of Christ.
Verse 1
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you
Verse 17
Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord
The phrase in the Lord means ‘in the Lord’s name’ (GNB). He is making the solemn claim that he writes to them with the authority of the Lord Jesus. NIV brings out this emphasis: ‘I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord.’
The gist of his message is plain: you must no longer live as the Gentiles do. He is generalizing of course. Not all pagans were (or are) as dissolute as those he is about to portray. Yet just as there is a typical Christian life, so there is a typical pagan life. When each life is true to its own principles, it is fundamentally opposed to the other. His readers knew from experience what he was saying; for they had been pagans themselves, and they were still living in a pagan environment. But they must live that way no longer, even if all around them others continued to do so (as the Gentiles do). Once they were pagans and so lived like pagans; now they were Christians and must live like Christians. They had become different people; they must behave differently. Their new status as God’s new society involved new standards, and their new life in Christ a new lifestyle.
The way Paul handles his theme is to begin with the doctrinal basis of the new life (4:17–24), and then move on to its practical outworking in everyday behaviour (4:25–5:4).
1. The doctrinal basis (4:17–24)
It was essential at the outset for his readers to grasp the contrast between what they had been as pagans and what they now were as Christians, between their old and their new life, and further to grasp the underlying theological basis of this change.
Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; 18 they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart; 19 they have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practise every kind of uncleanness. 20 You did not so learn Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. 22 Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
What is immediately noteworthy is the apostle’s emphasis on the intellectual factor in everybody’s way of life. While describing pagans, he draws attention to the futility of their minds, adds that they are darkened in their understanding and attributes their alienation from God to the ignorance that is in them. He thus refers to their empty minds, darkened understanding and inward ignorance, as a result of which they had become callous, licentious and insatiably unclean. But in contrast to them the believers had ‘learned’ Christ, ‘heard’ him, been ‘taught’ in him, all according to the ‘truth’ which is in Jesus. Over against the darkness and ignorance of the heathen Paul thus sets the truth of Christ which the Christians had learned. Scripture bears an unwavering testimony to the power of ignorance and error to corrupt, and the power of truth to liberate, ennoble and refine.
a. The pagan life (verses 17–19)
But what is the origin of the darkness of heathen minds, when God himself is light, and he is continuously speaking to mankind through his creation, and both heaven and earth declare his glory? It is due to their hardness of heart, says Paul. The word he uses is pōrōsis, and on its derivation and history Armitage Robinson supplies a long additional note. Pōros was ‘a kind of marble’ or in medical writers a ‘callus’ or a ‘bony formation on the joints’. Hence the verb pōroun meant to petrify, to become hard and therefore insensible, and even (when ‘transferred from the organs of feeling to the organ of sight’) blind. But in his view it does not mean ‘stubbornness’. It is rather ‘intellectual obtuseness, not the steeling of the will’. He examines the eight New Testament occurrences of the word and then concludes: ‘Obtuseness, or a dulling of the faculty of perception equivalent to moral blindness, always gives an appropriate sense. On the other hand, the context never decisively favours the meaning “hardness”, and this meaning seems sometimes quite out of place.’ So he opts for ‘blindness’, as does the AV in this verse, as ‘the least misleading’ rendering.
Despite the careful arguing of his case, however, Armitage Robinson has not carried the translators and commentators with him. Certainly Mark 3:5 (where Jesus ‘looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart’) seems to imply a wilful obtuseness. Coming back to our Ephesians text, NEB translates it ‘their minds have grown hard as stone’, GNB uses the word ‘stubborn’, and J. H. Houlden comments: ‘Pagan immorality is seen as wilful and culpable …, the result of their deliberate refusal of the moral light available to them in their own thought and conscience.’ It is true that in biblical usage ‘heart’ and ‘mind’ cannot be separated, since the heart includes our capacity to think and understand. Nevertheless, there is a real distinction between ‘ignorance’ and ‘hardness’ or ‘obstinacy’.
If we put Paul’s expressions together, noting carefully their logical connections (especially because of and due to, both translating dia), he seems to be depicting the terrible downward path of evil, which begins with an obstinate rejection of God’s known truth. First comes their hardness of heart, then their ignorance, being darkened in their understanding, next and consequently they are alienated from the life of God, since he turns away from them, until finally they have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practise every kind of uncleanness. NEB has ‘They stop at nothing to satisfy their foul desire’. Thus hardness of heart leads first to darkness of mind, then to deadness of soul under the judgment of God, and finally to recklessness of life. Having lost all sensitivity, people lose all self-control. It is exactly the sequence which Paul elaborates in the latter part of Romans 1. Comparative tables may help to demonstrate this:
Romans 1:18–32
Ephesians 4:17–19
Stage 1: Obstinacy
18 ‘Men … by their wickedness suppress the truth’
21 ‘Although they knew God they did not honour him as God’
28 ‘They did not see fit to acknowledge God’
18 ‘Due to their hardness (pōrōsis) of heart’
Stage 2: Darkness
21 ‘They became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened’
22 ‘They became fools’
28 ‘A base mind’
17 ‘The futility of their minds’
18a ‘They are darkened in their understanding’
18b ‘The ignorance that is in them’
Stage 3: Death or judgment
24 ‘Therefore God gave them up’
26 ‘For this reason God gave them up’
28 ‘God gave them up’
18 ‘They are … alienated from the life of God’
Stage 4: Recklessness
God gave them up to—
24 ‘Impurity’
26 ‘Dishonourable passions’
27 ‘Shameless acts’
28 ‘Improper conduct’
29–31 ‘All manner of wickedness …’
19 ‘They have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness (aselgeia, meaning public indecency of a shameless kind), greedy to practise every kind of uncleanness’
b. The Christian life (verses 20–24)
The RSV does not adequately bring out the sharpness of the contrast, the ‘but as for you’ (humeis de) or ‘you, however’ (NIV) of the beginning of verse 20: you did not so learn Christ! Over against heathen hardness, darkness and recklessness Paul sets a whole process of Christian moral education. He uses three parallel expressions which centre on three verbs, all in the aorist tense, meaning to ‘learn’, to ‘hear’ and to ‘be taught’, with a final reference to ‘the truth as it is in Jesus’.
First, ‘you learned Christ’ (verse 20, emathete)
Secondly, ‘you heard him’ (verse 21a, ēkousate)
Thirdly, ‘you were taught in him’ (verse 21b, edidachthēte)
These are remarkable expressions. They ‘evoke the image of a school’ and refer to the catechetical instruction which Paul assumes, indeed knows; they have had. According to the first, Christ is himself the substance of Christian teaching. Just as evangelists ‘preach Christ’, so their hearers ‘learn’ Christ, and ‘receive’ him, that is, a tradition about him. But what sort of Christ do they learn? Not just the Word made flesh, the unique Godman, who died, rose and reigns. More than that. The implication of the context is that we must also preach his lordship, the kingdom or rule of righteousness he ushered in, and all the moral demands of the new life. The Christ whom the Ephesians had learned was calling them to standards and values totally at variance with their former pagan life.
Secondly, Christ who is the substance of the teaching (‘you learned Christ’) is himself also the teacher (‘you heard him’). It is a pity that RSV translates the phrase you heard about him, for there is no preposition. Paul assumes that through the voice of their Christian teachers, they had actually heard Christ’s voice. Thus, when sound biblical moral instruction is being given, it may be said that Christ is teaching about Christ.
Thirdly, they had been taught in him. That is to say, Jesus Christ, in addition to being the teacher and the teaching, was also the context, even the atmosphere within which the teaching was given. When Jesus Christ is at once the subject, the object and the environment of the moral instruction being given, we may have confidence that it is truly Christian. For truth is in Jesus. The change from his title ‘Christ’ to his human name ‘Jesus’ seems to be deliberate. The historical Jesus is himself the embodiment of truth, as he claimed.
But what exactly is this truth that is in Jesus? If heathen darkness leads to reckless uncleanness, what is the truth which sets Christians free and leads them to righteousness? The next verses (22–24) give the answer. To ‘learn Christ’ is to grasp the new creation which he has made possible, and the entirely new life which results from it. It is nothing less than putting off our old humanity like a rotten garment and putting on like clean clothing the new humanity recreated in God’s image.
When does this take place? RSV is seriously misleading in that it renders the infinitive verbs as if they were imperatives, and thus represents Paul’s written instruction as fresh commands to his readers: Put off your old nature … and put on the new nature (verses 22, 24). But this cannot be right, for two main reasons. First, in the parallel passage in Colossians the verbs are aorist participles, indicating what the Colossian Christians did at the time of their conversion: ‘Seeing that you have put off the old nature … and have put on the new nature.’ Secondly, if they are commands in Ephesians 4:22, 24, then the command of verse 25 becomes a nonsense: Therefore, putting away falsehood … Surely this ‘therefore’, which builds on what has just been written, can hardly base one command upon another, as if to say: ‘Put off your old nature … and put on the new … Therefore put away falsehood’. The Colossians parallel, on the other hand, makes perfect sense, because it builds a present command on a past fact. It reads: ‘Put all these things away—anger, malice, slander (etc.)—seeing that you have put off the old nature … and have put on the new’ (3:8–10). It is because we have already put off our old nature, in that decisive act of repentance called conversion, that we can logically be commanded to put away all the practices which belong to that old and rejected life. In Ephesians 4 as in Colossians 3, therefore, the same logic is to be found. The verbs ‘put off’ and ‘put on’ are not fresh commands which the apostle is now addressing to his readers, but old ones which he gave when he was with them and of which he now reminds them. Indeed, these commands are the very ‘truth as it is in Jesus’ which they had been taught and learned. So we should repunctuate these sentences, and replace the full stop at the end of verse 21 with a colon or with the word ‘namely’, thus: ‘You did not so learn Christ!—assuming that you … were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, namely that you were to put off your old nature … and put on the new …’ JBP captures the sequence of thought well: ‘What you learned was to fling off … and to put on …’ So does NEB: ‘Were you not … taught the truth as it is in Jesus?—that, leaving your former way of life, you must lay aside that old human nature.’
What had they been taught, then? They had been taught that becoming a Christian involves a radical change, namely ‘conversion’ (as the human side of the experience is usually called) and ‘re-creation’ (the divine side). It involves the repudiation of our former self, our fallen humanity, and the assumption of a new self or re-created humanity. Each of these two Paul calls (literally) a ‘man’, the ‘old man’ which is put off, and the ‘new man’ which is put on. Charles Hodge explains their language: ‘What is here called “the old man” Paul elsewhere calls himself, as in Rom. 7:14 “I am carnal” … or “the flesh” … as in Gal. 5:16, 17 … It is called “man” because it is ourselves.’ Further, our former self and our new self are vividly contrasted with each other: ‘As we are called to put off our corrupt nature as a ragged and filthy garment, so we are required to put on our new nature as a garment of light. And as the former was personified as an old man, decrepit, deformed, and tending to corruption, so the latter is personified as a new man, fresh, beautiful and vigorous, like God …’ i.e. created in his image.
The portraits Paul paints of both ‘men’ balance one another. The old was corrupt, in the process of degenerating, on its way to ruin or destruction; the new has been freshly created after the likeness of God. The old was dominated by lusts, uncontrolled passions; the new has been created in righteousness and holiness. The lusts of the old were deceitful; the righteousness of the new is true. Thus, corruption and creation, passion and holiness, deceit and truth are set in opposition to one another, indicating the total incompatibility of the old and the new, what we were in Adam and what we are in Christ.
In between these contrasting portraits of the kind of person we ‘put off’ and ‘put on’ comes verse 23: and be renewed in the spirit of your minds. This verb is a present infinitive, in distinction to those of verses 22 and 24 which are aorists. It indicates that, in addition to the decisive rejection of the old and assumption of the new, implicit in conversion, a daily—indeed a continuous—inward renewal of our outlook is involved in being a Christian. If heathen degradation is due to the futility of their minds, then Christian righteousness depends on the constant renewing of our minds.
In all this teaching the divine and the human are beautifully blended. In the command to exchange our old humanity for a new one, Paul is not implying that we can bring about our own new birth. Nobody has ever given birth to himself. The very concept is ludicrous. No, the new humanity we assume is God’s creation, not ours. Nevertheless, when God recreates us in Christ according to his own likeness, we entirely concur with what he has done. We ‘put off’ our old life, turning away from it in distaste, and we ‘put on’ the new life he has created, embracing it and welcoming it with joy. In a word, recreation (what God does) and repentance (what we do by his grace) belong together and cannot be separated.
All this the Ephesian and other Asian Christians had been taught. They had been thoroughly grounded in the nature and consequences of the new creation and the new life. It was part of the ‘truth in Jesus’ which they had learned. They had not only been taught to ‘put off’ the old and ‘put on’ the new; they had done it. The reality took place at their conversion. Then the symbolism may have followed at their baptism, for some early baptisms included a ceremonial investiture with a white robe. Now Paul reminds them what they had learned and done.
Looking back over these verses, we can perhaps grasp more clearly the two solid doctrinal foundations for Christian holiness which Paul has laid. They are like two roots from which holiness sprouts and grows. First, we have experienced a new creation, and secondly, in consequence, we have received a new mind which is constantly being renewed. Moreover, the two are organically related to one another. It is our new creation which has given us a new mind; and it is our new mind which understands our new creation and its implications. Since it is a new creation in God’s holy image, it has involved for us the total putting away of our old fallenness and the thankful putting on of our new humanness.
Therefore, Paul continues, ‘each of you must put off …’ (verse 25, NIV). That is, because you did throw off your former self once and for all, you must now throw off all conduct which belonged to your old life. Your new behaviour must be completely consistent with the kind of person you have become. As we have already noted, the metaphor (‘putting off’ and ‘putting on’) is drawn from the way we dress. It can now be elaborated.
The kind of clothing we wear depends on the kind of role we are fulfilling. For example, when we go to a wedding we wear one kind of clothing; when we go to a funeral we wear another. I realize of course that some young people in the West wear blue jeans at all times. Nevertheless the custom of adapting our dress to suit the occasion still stands as a general principle. Many people’s dress is also determined by their job. Soldiers and sailors wear different uniforms. Lawyers have special clothing, at least when they appear in court. So do some clergy. So do prisoners and convicts. But when we change our role, we change our dress. When prisoners are released from custody and become free people again (putting off one role and assuming another), they change what they are wearing (putting off prison garb and putting on ordinary clothes). Similarly, when a soldier leaves the army and becomes a civilian, he gets out of uniform into ‘civvies’. Just so, since by a new creation we have put off the old humanity and put on the new, we must also put away the old standards and adopt new ones. Our new role will mean new clothing, our new life a new ethical lifestyle.
2. Six concrete examples (4:25–5:4)
It is marvellous to see how easily Paul can descend from lofty theological talk about our two humanities, about the Christ we have learned and the new creation we have experienced, to the nitty-gritty of Christian behaviour—telling the truth and controlling our anger, honesty at work and kindness of speech, forgiveness, love and sexual self-control. All very practical. And before we come to his six examples, we need to notice three features common to them all.
First, they all concern our relationships. Holiness is not a mystical condition experienced in relation to God but in isolation from human beings. You cannot be good in a vacuum, but only in the real world of people. Besides, ‘all the qualities enjoined here are aspects of that unity in the church which it is our writer’s prime concern to elucidate and to foster. To this matter he deliberately gives pride of place … Similarly, the evils to be avoided are all destroyers of human harmony.’
Secondly, in each example a negative prohibition is balanced by a corresponding positive command. It is not enough to put off the old rags; we have to put on new garments. It is not enough to give up lying and stealing and losing our temper, unless we also start speaking the truth, working hard and being kind to people.
Thirdly, in each case a reason for the command is either given or implied, indeed a theological reason. For in the teaching of Jesus and his apostles doctrine and ethics, belief and behaviour are always dovetailed into one another.
a. Don’t tell lies, but rather tell the truth (verse 25)
Strictly speaking, the Greek word is not falsehood in the abstract but ‘the lie’ (to pseudos). It is possible, therefore, that Paul is referring here as in Romans 1:25 to ‘the great lie of idolatry’, and that because his readers had renounced that supreme falsehood of paganism, the chief symptom of a futile and darkened mind (verses 17–18), he urges them now to forsake all lesser lies and speak the truth. Certainly the avoidance of lies is of little use without the active pursuit of truth. The followers of Jesus (in whom is truth, verse 21) should be known in their community as honest, reliable people whose word can be trusted. The reason given is not only that the other person is our neighbour, whom we are commanded in Scripture to love, but that in the church our relationship is closer still, for we are members one of another. Paul brings us back to his doctrine of the church as the body of Christ (cf. verses 12–16), and implies that ‘a lie is a stab into the very vitals of the Body of Christ’. For fellowship is built on trust, and trust is built on truth. So falsehood undermines fellowship, while truth strengthens it.
b. Don’t lose your temper, but rather ensure that your anger is righteous (verses 26–27)
‘Be angry, but sin not’ is an echo of Psalm 4:4. It seems clear that this form of words is a Hebrew idiom which permits and then restricts anger, rather than actually commanding it. The equivalent English idiom would be ‘in your anger do not sin’ (NIV). Nevertheless, the verse recognizes that there is such a thing as Christian anger, and too few Christians either feel or express it. Indeed, when we fail to do so, we deny God, damage ourselves and encourage the spread of evil.
Scripture plainly teaches that there are two kinds of anger, righteous and unrighteous. In verse 31 ‘anger’ is one of a number of unpleasant things which we are to ‘put away’ from us. Evidently unrighteous anger is meant. But in 5:6 we are told of the anger of God which will fall on the disobedient, and we know that God’s anger is righteous. So was the anger of Jesus. There must therefore be a good and true anger which God’s people can learn from him and from their Lord Jesus.
I go further and say that there is a great need in the contemporary world for more Christian anger. We human beings compromise with sin in a way in which God never does. In the face of blatant evil we should be indignant not tolerant, angry not apathetic. If God hates sin, his people should hate it too. If evil arouses his anger, it should arouse ours also. ‘Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake thy law.’ What other reaction can wickedness be expected to provoke in those who love God?
It is particularly noteworthy that the apostle introduces this reference to anger in a letter devoted to God’s new society of love, and in a paragraph concerned with harmonious relationships. He does so because true peace is not identical with appeasement. ‘In such a world as this,’ comments E. K. Simpson, ‘the truest peace-maker may have to assume the role of a peace-breaker as a sacred obligation.’
At the same time, we need to remember our fallenness, and our constant proneness to intemperance and vanity. Consequently, we always have to be on our guard and act as censors of our own anger. If we are wise, we shall be ‘slow to anger’, remembering that ‘the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God’. So Paul immediately qualifies his permissive be angry by three negatives. First, do not sin. We have to make sure that our anger is free from injured pride, spite, malice, animosity and the spirit of revenge. Secondly, do not let the sun go down on your anger. This instruction illustrates well the folly of excessive literalism in interpreting the Bible. We are not to understand Paul ‘so literally that we may take leave to be angry till sunset’, for ‘then might our wrath lengthen with the days, and men in Greenland, where days last above a quarter of the year, have plentiful scope of revenge’. No, the apostle’s intention is to warn us against nursing anger. It is seldom safe to allow the embers to smoulder. Certainly if we become aware of some sinful or selfish element in it (and if our orgē, anger, degenerates into parorgismos, resentment, the word used at the end of verse 26), then it is time for us to cease from it, and either apologize or be reconciled to the person concerned. In the Old Testament a moneylender who took a poor person’s cloak as a pledge was required to restore it ‘when the sun goes down’, so that he might sleep in it, and an employer who had any servants who were poor and needy was required to pay them their wages daily ‘before the sun goes down’. There are many similar situations in which it is wise to live a day at a time. ‘Never go to bed angry’ is a good rule, and is seldom more applicable than to a married couple.
Paul’s third qualification is give no opportunity to the devil (verse 27), for he knows how fine is the line between righteous and unrighteous anger, and how hard human beings find it to handle their anger responsibly. So he loves to lurk round angry people, hoping to be able to exploit the situation to his own advantage by provoking them into hatred or violence or a breach of fellowship.
c. Don’t steal, but rather work and give (verse 28)
‘Do not steal’ was the eighth commandment of Moses’ law. It had and still has a wide application, not only to the stealing of other people’s money or possessions, but also to tax evasions and customs dodges which rob the government of their dues, to employers who oppress their workers, and to employees who give poor service or work short time.
In echoing the commandment (let the thief no longer steal), however, the apostle goes beyond the prohibition and draws out its positive implications. It is not enough that the thief stops stealing. Let him start working, doing honest work with his hands, earning his own living. Then he will be able not only to support himself and his family, but also to give to those in need. Instead of sponging on the community, as thieves do, he will start contributing to it. And none but Christ can transform a burglar into a benefactor!
d. Don’t use your mouth for evil, but rather for good (verses 29–30)
The apostle turns from the use of our hands to the use of our mouths. Speech is a wonderful gift of God. It is one of our human capacities which reflect our likeness to God. For our God speaks, and like him we also speak. Speech distinguishes us from the animal creation. Cows can moo, dogs bark, donkeys bray, pigs grunt, lambs bleat, lions roar, monkeys squeal and birds sing, but only human beings can speak.
So let no evil talk come out of your mouths, Paul says. ‘Evil’ here is sapros, a word used of rotten trees and rotten fruit. When applied to rotten talk, whether this is dishonest, unkind or vulgar, we may be sure that in some way it hurts the hearers. Instead, we are to use our unique gift of speech constructively, for edifying, that is to build people up and not damage or destroy them, as fits the occasion. Then our words will impart grace to those who hear.
Jesus taught the great significance of speech. Our words reveal what is in our hearts, he said, and we shall have to give an account on judgment day of every careless word we have uttered. So James was only echoing the teaching of his Master when he emphasized the immense power of the human tongue for good or evil. If we are truly a new creation of God, we shall undoubtedly develop new standards of conversation. Instead of hurting people with our words, we shall want to use them to help, encourage, cheer, comfort and stimulate them. I have myself often been challenged by the contrasting speech of the wise man and the fool in Proverbs 12:18: ‘There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing’.
It is not immediately clear why Paul now introduces the Holy Spirit: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption (verse 30). But the apostle was constantly aware that behind the actions of human beings invisible personalities are present and active. He has just warned us to give no opportunity to the devil (verse 27); now he urges us not to grieve the Holy Spirit. It is evident from this that the Holy Spirit is fully personal, for lypeō is to cause sorrow, pain or distress, and only persons can feel these things. But what grieves him? Since he is the ‘holy Spirit’, he is always grieved by unholiness, and since he is the ‘one Spirit’ (2:18; 4:4), disunity will also cause him grief. In fact, anything incompatible with the purity or unity of the church is incompatible with his own nature and therefore hurts him. One might add that because he is also the ‘Spirit of truth’, through whom God has spoken, he is upset by all our misuse of speech, which has been Paul’s topic in the preceding verse.
We notice also in verse 30 the references to being sealed with the Spirit and to the day of redemption. The sealing (as Paul has already explained in 1:13) took place at the beginning of our Christian life; the Holy Spirit himself, indwelling us, is the seal with which God has stamped us as his own. The day of redemption, however, although we already have redemption in the sense of forgiveness (verse 1:7), looks on to the end when our bodies will be redeemed, for only then will our redemption or liberation be complete. So the ‘sealing’ and the ‘redemption’ refer respectively to the beginning and the end of the salvation process. And in between these two termini we are to grow in Christlikeness and to take care not to grieve the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is a sensitive Spirit. He hates sin, discord and falsehood, and shrinks away from them. Therefore, if we wish to avoid hurting him, we shall shrink from them too. Every Spirit-filled believer desires to bring him pleasure, not pain.
e. Don’t be unkind or bitter, bur rather kind and loving (4:31–5:2)
Here is a whole series of six unpleasant attitudes and actions which are to be put away from us entirely. Bitterness (pikria) is a sour spirit and sour speech. We sometimes talk about a ‘sour puss’, and I guess there are sour tomcats too. Little is sadder in elderly people than a negative and cynical outlook on life. Quoting Aristotle, Armitage Robinson defines it as ‘an embittered and resentful spirit which refuses to be reconciled’. Wrath (thymos) and anger (orgē) are obviously similar, the former denoting a passionate rage and the latter a more settled and sullen hostility. Clamour (kraugē) describes people who get excited, raise their voices in a quarrel, and start shouting, even screaming, at each other, while slander (blasphēmia) is speaking evil of others, especially behind their backs, and so defaming and even destroying their reputation. The sixth word is malice (kakia), or ill will, wishing and probably plotting evil against people. Alternatively, it may be inclusive of the five preceding vices, namely ‘silently harboured grudge, indignant outburst, seething rage, public quarrel and slanderous taunt.’ There is no place for any of these horrid things in the Christian community; they have to be totally rejected.
In their place we should welcome the kind of qualities which characterize the behaviour of God and his Christ. We are to be kind to one another. The word is chrēstos, and because of the obvious assonance with the name of Christ (Christos), Christians from the beginning saw its peculiar appropriateness. It occurs in the Sermon on the Mount for God’s kindness towards even ‘the ungrateful and the selfish’. Tenderhearted is ‘compassionate’, while forgiving one another (charizomenoi) is literally ‘acting in grace’ towards one another, as God in Christ has acted in grace towards us. Therefore, because of God’s gracious attitude and generous actions towards us, we are to be imitators (mimētai) of God, as beloved children. Just as children copy their parents, so we are to copy our Father God, as Jesus himself told us to. We are also to follow Christ, to walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. The same verb for self-giving (paradidōmi) is used of the heathen in 4:19. They give themselves up to licentiousness; we like Christ are to give ourselves up to love. Such self-giving for others is pleasing to God. As with Christ so with us, self-sacrificial love is a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. It is thus a striking truth that sacrificial love for others becomes a sacrifice acceptable to God.
It is noteworthy how God-centred Paul’s ethic is. It is natural for him, in issuing his moral instructions, to mention the three Persons of the Trinity. He tells us to ‘copy God’, to ‘learn Christ’ and not to ‘grieve the Holy Spirit’.
f. Don’t joke about sex, but rather give thanks for it (verses 3–4)
Paul turns from ‘self-sacrifice … to its very opposite, self-indulgence’, from genuine ‘love’ to that perversion of it called ‘lust’. The Greek words for fornication (porneia) and impurity (akatharsia) together cover every kind of sexual sin, in other words all sexual intercourse outside its God-ordained context of a loving marriage. To them Paul adds covetousness, surely because they are an especially degrading form of it, namely the coveting of somebody else’s body for selfish gratification. The tenth commandment had specifically prohibited coveting a neighbour’s wife, and earlier in this letter Paul has written of the ‘greed’ involved in unclean practices (4:19). So all forms of sexual immorality, he writes, must not even be named among you. We are not only to avoid their indulgence, but also to avoid thinking and talking about them, so completely are they to be banished from the Christian community. This was a high and holy standard to demand, for immorality was rife in Asia. And since the Greek goddess Artemis, ‘Diana of the Ephesians’, was regarded as a fertility goddess, sexual orgies were regularly associated with her worship.
Verse 4 goes beyond immorality to vulgarity. For filthiness means obscenity, and both silly talk and levity are probably an allusion to coarse jesting, which is the cheapest form of wit. All three refer to a dirty mind expressing itself in dirty conversation. But these things are not fitting. Instead, Paul says, let there be thanksgiving. The contrast is striking and beautiful. In itself thanksgiving is not an obvious substitute for vulgarity, since the latter is essentially self-centred, and the former God-centred. But perhaps this is the point that Paul is making: ‘Whereas sexual impurity and covetousness both express self-centred acquisitiveness, thanksgiving is the exact opposite, and so the antidote required; it is the recognition of God’s generosity’. It seems to me probable, however, that Paul is setting vulgarity and thanksgiving even more plainly in opposition to each other, namely as alternative pagan and Christian attitudes to sex. Of course Christians have a bad reputation for being negative towards sex. Dr Michel Fourcault, since 1970 Professor of the History of Thought Systems at the Collège de France, is apparently writing a History of Sexuality in six volumes. Explaining his work in Le Monde in January 1977 he spoke of ‘Christianity’s most intolerably burdensome legacy, sex as sin’. And it is true that some of our Victorian forefathers came close to this identification. But the reason why Christians should dislike and avoid vulgarity is not because we have a warped view of sex, and are either ashamed or afraid of it, but because we have a high and holy view of it as being in its right place God’s good gift, which we do not want to see cheapened. All God’s gifts, including sex, are subjects for thanksgiving, rather than for joking. To joke about them is bound to degrade them; to thank God for them is the way to preserve their worth as the blessings of a loving Creator.
Conclusion
What is the theme which has run right through chapter 4 and spilled over into chapter 5? These chapters are a stirring summons to the unity and purity of the church; but they are more than that. Their theme is the integration of Christian experience (what we are), Christian theology (what we believe) and Christian ethics (how we behave). They emphasize that being, thought and action belong together and must never be separated. For what we are governs how we think, and how we think determines how we act. We are God’s new society, a people who have put off the old life and put on the new; that is what he has made us. So we need to recall this by the daily renewal of our minds, remembering how we ‘learned Christ … as the truth is in Jesus’, and thinking Christianly about ourselves and our new status. Then we must actively cultivate a Christian life. For holiness is not a condition into which we drift. We are not passive spectators of a sanctification God works in us. On the contrary, we have purposefully to ‘put away’ from us all conduct that is incompatible with our new life in Christ, and to ‘put on’ a lifestyle compatible with it.
Two words stand out as summarizing this theme. In 4:1 Paul begs us to lead a life that is worthy of God’s call, and in 5:3 he tells us to avoid immorality, ‘as is fitting among saints’. It is most unfortunate that the word ‘saints’ has come to be used, if not for the heroes of the church who have been canonized, then at least for exceptional and often eccentric people who are distinguished from others by their pallid countenance, heavenward look and invisible halo. But ‘the saints’ are all God’s people who have been reconciled to him and to each other. Therefore, certain kinds of behaviour are ‘worthy’, or ‘fitting’, being appropriate to who we are, while certain others are ‘unworthy’ or ‘unfitting’, being inappropriate.
Let no-one say that doctrine does not matter! Good conduct arises out of good doctrine. It is only when we have grasped clearly who we are in Christ, that the desire will grow within us to live a life that is worthy of our calling and fitting to our character as God’s new society.
9. More incentives to righteousness (5:5–21)
It is somewhat arbitrary to suggest a break after verse 4 and the beginning of a new paragraph with verse 5, especially when the same topic of sexual morality is being handled in both. Yet verses 3 and 4 seem to belong to the previous section’s practical examples of ethical conduct, each consisting of a balancing prohibition and commandment. After them, although verse 5 continues the topic of sex, we become aware that the emphasis has changed. Paul moves on in his treatment of Christian behaviour from models to motivation, and adds four powerful incentives to righteous living.
All employers in business and industry know the vital importance of incentives. How can workers be persuaded to work harder and better, and so increase productivity or sales? All kinds of inducement are offered in the form of higher wages, more attractive conditions, bonuses, holidays, recreational and educational facilities, and then retirement and pension prospects. The best incentives are neither material nor selfish, however. Wise employers of labour seek to give their work force a heightened interest in their job, a greater loyalty to the firm, and a feeling of pride in what they are making or selling. All this bears witness to the nature of men and women, made in God’s likeness, who in addition to a job need reasons for doing it, ideals to inspire them and a sense of creative fulfilment. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Bible which gives us this doctrine of mankind is itself concerned not only with obligation but with motivation. People know what they ought to do; how can they be motivated to do it? Here is an aspect of the doctrine of sanctification (that is, of the process of becoming like Christ) which is much emphasized in the Bible and much neglected in the contemporary church.
The apostle has been arguing that because we are God’s new society we must adopt new standards, and because we have decisively ‘put off’ the old life and ‘put on’ the new, we must wear appropriate clothing. Now he adds more arguments for holiness. The first concerns the solemn certainty of judgment (verses 5–7), the second what he calls ‘the fruit of light’ (verses 8–14), i.e. the implications of being people who belong to the light, the third the nature of wisdom (verses 15–17) and the fourth the fullness of the Holy Spirit (verses 18–21).
1. The certainty of judgment (verses 5–7)
Many reasons are given in the New Testament why Christian people should abstain from immorality. There is, for example, the trinitarian theology of the human body as created by God, belonging to Christ and indwelt by the Spirit, which Paul develops in 1 Corinthians 6:12–20. Then there is the intrinsic inappropriateness of unholy practices in the holy people of God; in other words, sexual licence is simply ‘not fitting among saints’ (verses 3–4). And now there is the fear of judgment. Most immoral people get away with their immorality on earth, but they will not escape detection, conviction and sentence for ever. For be sure of this, Paul warns, since there is no uncertainty about it, that no fornicator or impure man (‘person’ would be better, for the words though masculine are not intended to limit the reference to men) … has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. We note in passing the remarkable bracketing of Christ and God in this expression. Since the definite article is not repeated, the kingdom is said to belong to him who is both ‘Christ’ and ‘God’. And this divine kingdom is a righteous kingdom, from which all unrighteousness will be excluded.
We must be cautious, however, in our application of this severe statement. It should not be understood as teaching that even a single immoral thought, word or deed is enough to disqualify us from heaven; otherwise, which of us would ever qualify for admission? No; for those who fall into such sins through weakness, but afterwards repent in shame and humility, there is forgiveness. The immoral or impure person envisaged here is one who has given himself up without shame or penitence to this way of life, one who is covetous in the sense already defined, namely sexually greedy (4:19; 5:3), that is, Paul adds in parenthesis, an idolater. Such people, whose lust has become an idolatrous obsession, will have no share in the perfect kingdom of God.
Let no one deceive you, the apostle continues. He has himself urged them to acknowledge the truth of divine judgment (be sure of this); now he warns them of the empty words of false teachers who would persuade them otherwise. In his day Gnostics were arguing that bodily sins could be committed without damage to the soul, and with impunity. In our day there are many deceivers in the world, and even in the church. They teach that God is too kind to condemn everybody, and that everybody will get to heaven in the end, irrespective of their behaviour on earth. But their words are empty and their teaching deceitful. Universalism (i.e. universal final salvation) is a lie. The truth is that because of these things (these evil, immoral, greedy, idolatrous practices) the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. The last phrase is a Hebraism already encountered in 2:2; it means simply ‘the disobedient’, those who know God’s law and wilfully disobey it. God’s wrath falls on such, beginning now, and culminating in the day of judgment.
Therefore, Paul concludes, because God’s kingdom is righteous and God’s wrath will overtake the unrighteous, do not associate with them. The RSV rendering is unfortunate. Paul is not prohibiting all contact or association with such people. Otherwise we could not bring them the good news or seek to restrain them from their evil ways. And we would need to go out of the world altogether, which Christ has forbidden. The Greek word summetochoi refers to participation, not just association, and the prohibition means ‘do not be partners with them’ (NIV). For if we share in their practices, as Lot was warned in Sodom, we run the risk of sharing in their doom.
It would be easy for Christians to speed-read a paragraph like this, without pausing for reflection, on the assumption that it applies to unbelievers, not to us. Has not Paul assured us in the earlier part of his letter of our heavenly inheritance, taught us that the Holy Spirit within us is God’s guarantee, even foretaste and first instalment, of it ‘until we acquire possession of it’, and prayed that our eyes might be opened to see ‘the riches of the glory of the inheritance’ which will one day be ours? Yes, indeed he has. At the same time he also addresses to us this warning about the danger of forfeiting our inheritance in God’s kingdom. How can we reconcile these things? Only by recalling that assurance of salvation is neither a synonym nor an excuse for presumption. And if we should fall into a life of greedy immorality, we would be supplying clear evidence that we are after all idolaters, not worshippers of God, disobedient people instead of obedient, and so the heirs not of heaven but of hell. The apostle gives us a solemn warning; we shall be wise to heed it.
2. The fruit of light (verses 8–14)
Paul goes on to give an additional reason for not getting involved in the evil conduct of immoral people. He bases it not now on the future (the coming judgment of God) but on the past and the present (the difference between what his readers once were and now are).
The whole paragraph plays on the rich symbolism of darkness and light, ‘darkness’ representing ignorance, error and evil, ‘light’ representing truth and righteousness. In 4:17–18 he has portrayed the darkened understanding of pagans. Formerly his readers were the same: Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Notice that he does not say they used to be in darkness, but now were in the light. This would have been true, as the New Testament writers say. But what Paul writes here is more striking still: they themselves were actually now ‘light’. ‘Their lives and not just their environment’ had been changed from darkness to light. And this radical transformation had taken place in the Lord, by virtue of their union with him who claimed to be the light of the world. So then, because they had become ‘light in the Lord’, they must walk as children of light or ‘like people who belong to the light’ (GNB). Their behaviour must conform to their new identity. They must radiate the light they are, and ‘live like men who are at home in daylight’ (NEB).
What will this mean in practice? It will mean a life shining with all that is good and right and true, for these things are the fruit of light (some MSS read ‘the fruit of the Spirit’ but this is probably an assimilation to Gal. 5:22, and ‘the fruit of light’ is the better reading). It is possible that Paul is following the metaphor through and likening the goodness and truth which grow by the light of Christ to a harvest ripening under the sun. Certainly if they are to live consistently as ‘children of light’, they will try to learn (dokimazō is to test, discern and approve) what is pleasing to the Lord. The light metaphor speaks vividly of Christian openness and transparency, of living joyfully in the presence of Christ, with nothing to hide or fear.
Unfortunately, however, it is not possible to live in the light and enjoy it, without also adopting some attitude towards those who still live in the darkness, and to their lifestyle. What attitude will this be? Negatively, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness. While the light produces the fruit of goodness and truth, the works of darkness are unfruitful, unproductive, barren; they have no beneficial results. So we are to take no part in them, but instead, positively, expose them, ‘show them up for what they are’ (NEB). We may not wish to do this, but we cannot help it, for this is what light invariably does. Besides, evil deeds deserve to be exposed, that is, to be unmasked and rebuked, for it is a shame even to speak of the things that they do in secret.
Verse 13 elaborates the double value of a Christian exposure of evil. First, when anything is exposed by the light it becomes visible. This is always good. Darkness hides the ugly realities of evil; the light makes them visible. Then evil is seen for what it is without any possibility of concealment or subterfuge. Secondly, anything that becomes visible is light. Paul’s economy of words makes it difficult to be certain what he means by this statement. But he seems to be describing a second stage in what light does: it actually transforms what it illumines into light. This may mean that Christians who lead a righteous life thereby restrain and reform evildoers, yes, and even convert them. For as their light shines, what it makes visible suddenly is light, just as the Ephesians themselves are light (verse 8). JBP paraphrases: ‘It is possible (after all it happened to you) for light to turn the thing it shines upon into light.’ If this is correct, then Paul has brought his argument about light and darkness to a fine climax. ‘Exposure’ sounds negative, showing people up for what they are, judgmental, condemning. And it is that. But the light which exposes has positive evangelistic power also, ‘the light of one soul making another light’. For it may bring people, as they see the ugliness of evil, to conviction of their sin and so to penitent faith in Jesus. This, then, is the twofold effect which a Christian’s light has on the prevailing darkness: it makes visible and it makes light.
Verse 14 is a natural conclusion. Paul clinches his argument with an apt quotation, which either summarizes the teaching of an Old Testament verse like Isaiah 61:1 (since legei, it is said, normally introduces a quotation from Scripture) or, as many modern commentators suggest, is an extract from an Easter or baptismal hymn: Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light. Here our former condition in Adam is graphically described in terms of sleep, death and darkness, from all of which Christ rescues us. Conversion is nothing less than awaking out of sleep, rising from death and being brought out of darkness into the light of Christ. No wonder we are summoned to live a new life in consequence!
3. The nature of wisdom (verses 15–17)
Paul’s next little paragraph is based upon two assumptions, first that Christians are sophoi,—wise people, not fools—and secondly that Christian wisdom is practical wisdom, for it teaches us how to behave. His word for to ‘behave’ throughout the letter has been a Hebrew concept, to ‘walk’. Our Christian walk or behaviour, he has written, must no longer be according to the world, the flesh and the devil (2:1–3), or like the pagans (4:17). Instead, it must be ‘worthy’ of God’s call, ‘in love’, and ‘as children of light’ (4:1; 5:1; 5:8). Now he adds a more general exhortation to us to behave like the wise people he credits us with being: look carefully how you walk, he writes. Everything worth doing requires care. We all take trouble over the things which seem to us to matter—our job, our education, our home and family, our hobbies, our dress and appearance. So as Christians we must take trouble over our Christian life. We must treat it as the serious thing it is. ‘Be most careful then how you conduct yourselves: like sensible men, not like simpletons’ (NEB). What, therefore, are the marks of wise people who take trouble over their Christian discipleship?
First, wise people make the most of their time. The verb exagorazō can mean to ‘redeem’ or ‘buy back’, and if used in this way here, the appeal is to ‘ransom the time from its evil bondage’. But probably it means rather to ‘buy up’, in which case RSV is right to translate making the most of the time, ‘time’ (kairos) referring to every passing opportunity.
Certainly wise people know that time is a precious commodity. All of us have the same amount of time at our disposal, with sixty minutes in every hour and twentyfour hours in every day. None of us can stretch time. But wise people use it to the fullest possible advantage. They know that time is passing, and also that the days are evil. So they seize each fleeting opportunity while it is there. For once it has passed, even the wisest people cannot recover it. Somebody once advertised as follows: ‘LOST, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward offered, for they are gone for ever’. By contrast, Jonathan Edwards, the philosopher-theologian who became God’s instrument in the ‘Great Awakening’ in America in 1734–5, wrote in the seventieth of his famous Resolutions just before his twentieth birthday: ‘Resolved: Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.’ He was a wise man, for the first sign of wisdom which Paul gives here is a disciplined use of time.
Secondly, wise people discern the will of God. They are sure that, whereas wilfulness is folly, wisdom is to be found in God’s will and nowhere else. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is (verse 17). Jesus himself prayed, ‘Not my will but yours be done,’ and taught us to pray, ‘May your will be done on earth as in heaven.’ Nothing is more important in life than to discover and do the will of God. Moreover, in seeking to discover it, it is essential to distinguish between his ‘general’ and his ‘particular’ will. The former is so called because it relates to the generality of his people and is the same for all of us, e.g. to make us like Christ. His particular will, however, extending to the particularities of our life, is different for each of us, e.g. what career we shall follow, whether we should marry, and if so whom. Only after this distinction has been made can we consider how we may find out what the will of the Lord is. His ‘general’ will is found in Scripture; the will of God for the people of God has been revealed in the Word of God. But we shall not find his ‘particular’ will in Scripture. To be sure, we shall find general principles in Scripture to guide us, but detailed decisions have to be made after careful thought and prayer and the seeking of advice from mature and experienced believers.
4. The fullness of the Holy Spirit (verses 18–21)
Paul has already told his readers that they have been ‘sealed’ with the Holy Spirit, and that they must not ‘grieve’ the Holy Spirit (1:13; 4:30). Now he bids them be filled with the Spirit. There is no greater secret of holiness than the infilling of him whose very nature and name are ‘holy’.
Grammatically speaking, this paragraph consists of two imperatives (the commands not to get drunk but to be Spirit-filled), followed by four present participles (speaking, singing, thanking and submitting). Theologically speaking, it first presents us with our Christian duty (to avoid drunkenness but seek the Spirit’s fullness) and then describes four consequences of this spiritual condition, in terms of our relationships. ‘Being filled with the Spirit’ is a topic much discussed and debated today; it is important for us to study Paul’s teaching carefully.
The apostle begins by drawing a certain comparison between drunkenness and the Holy Spirit’s fullness: Do not get drunk with wine, he says, … but be filled with the Spirit. And indeed there is a superficial similarity between the two conditions. A person who is drunk, we say, is ‘under the influence’ of alcohol; and certainly a Spirit-filled Christian is under the influence and power of the Holy Spirit. But there the comparison ends and the contrast begins. Of course in the heathen cult of Dionysus intoxication was regarded as a means to inspiration. But it is a serious mistake to suppose that to be filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ is a kind of spiritual inebriation in which we lose control of ourselves. On the contrary, ‘self-control’ (enkrateia) is the final quality named as ‘the fruit of the Spirit’ in Galatians 5:22–23. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit we do not lose control; we gain it. It is true that on the day of Pentecost some said the Spirit-filled disciples were drunk; ‘They are filled with new wine.’ These were a minority, however, described by Luke as ‘others’; the majority had no such thought in their minds, but were amazed to hear God’s mighty works being announced in their own languages. It seems that the minority were not even sincere in attributing drunkenness to the Spirit-filled Christians. Luke says they were making fun of them, so that the work of the Holy Spirit was ‘mockingly misinterpreted’.
The first chapter of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ exposition of Ephesians 5:18–6:9, Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home and Work, is entitled ‘The Stimulus of the Spirit’. Writing as both a physician and a pastor, he helpfully compares and contrasts the two states of drunkenness and the Spirit’s fullness. He says: ‘Wine—alcohol—… pharmacologically speaking is not a stimulant—it is a depressant. Take up any book on pharmacology and look up ‘alcohol’, and you will find, always, that it is classified among the depressants. It is not a stimulant’. Further, ‘it depresses first and foremost the highest centres of all in the brain … They control everything that gives a man self-control, wisdom, understanding, discrimination, judgment, balance, the power to assess everything; in other words everything that makes a man behave at his very best and highest’. What the Holy Spirit does, however, is the exact opposite. ‘If it were possible to put the Holy Spirit into a textbook of Pharmacology, I would put him under the stimulants, for that is where he belongs. He really does stimulate … He stimulates our every faculty … the mind and the intellect … the heart … and the will …’
Consider now how Paul paints the contrast. The result of drunkenness, he writes, is debauchery (asōtia). People who are drunk give way to wild, dissolute and uncontrolled actions. They behave like animals, indeed worse than animals. The results of being filled with the Spirit are totally different. If excessive alcohol dehumanizes, turning a human being into a beast, the fullness of the Spirit makes us more human, for he makes us like Christ.
The apostle now lists the four beneficial results of being filled with the Spirit.
a. Fellowship: addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (verse 19a)
The familiar AV version of this sentence begins, ‘Speaking to yourselves in psalms …’ This does not mean that Spirit-filled believers talk to themselves, however, for the Greek use of the reflexive here can equally be translated ‘each other’ (as in 4:32). Nor does it mean that, if we are filled with the Spirit, we stop speaking to one another and start singing to one another instead. No, the reference is to Christian fellowship, and the mention of ‘psalms, hymns and spiritual songs’ (which are not easily distinguishable, although the first word implies a musical accompaniment) indicates that the context is public worship. Whenever Christians assemble, they love to sing both to God and to each other. Sometimes we sing responsively, as the Jews did in temple and synagogue, and as the early Christians did also, meeting before daybreak ‘to recite a hymn antiphonally to Christ as to a god’. Also some of the psalms we sing are in reality not worship of God but mutual exhortation. A good example is Psalm 95, the Venite, in the singing of which we should turn to one another: ‘O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!’ Here is fellowship in worship, a reciprocal invitation to praise.
b. Worship: singing and making melody (perhaps the verbs combine vocal and instrumental music) to the Lord with all your heart (verse 19)
Here the singing is not ‘to one another’ but ‘to the Lord’. Although RSV may be right in translating the following words ‘with all your heart’, the Greek phrase probably means ‘in your heart’ (AV), as in Colossians 3:16, referring to either the sincerity or the inwardness of authentic Christian praise, or both. Perhaps JBP has caught the point with ‘making music in your hearts for the ears of the Lord’, an instruction from which unmusical people unable to sing in tune have always derived much comfort. In this case it may be silent worship, although at the same time inwardly joyful and melodious. Without doubt Spirit-filled Christians have a song of joy in their hearts, and Spirit-filled public worship is a joyful celebration of God’s mighty acts, though J. Armitage Robinson suggests that Paul ‘contrasts the merriment of wine with the sober gladness of sacred psalmody’.
c. Gratitude: always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father (verse 20)
The call to thanksgiving is not uncommon in Paul’s letters. The grumbling spirit is not compatible with the Holy Spirit. Grumbling was one of the besetting sins of the people of Israel; they were always ‘murmuring’ against the Lord and against Moses. But the Spirit-filled believer is full not of complaining, but of thanksgiving.
Although the text reads that we are to give thanks always and for everything, we must not press these words literally. For we cannot thank God for absolutely ‘everything’, including blatant evil. The strange notion is gaining popularity in some Christian circles that the major secret of Christian freedom and victory is unconditional praise; that a husband should praise God for his wife’s adultery and a wife for her husband’s drunkenness; and that even the most appalling calamities of life should become subjects for thanksgiving and praise. Such a suggestion is at best a dangerous half-truth, and at worst ludicrous, even blasphemous. Of course God’s children learn not to argue with him in their suffering, but to trust him, and indeed to thank him for his loving providence by which he can turn even evil to good purposes (e.g. Rom. 8:28). But that is praising God for being God; it is not praising him for evil. To do this would be to react insensitively to people’s pain (when Scripture tells us to weep with those who weep) and to condone and even encourage evil (when Scripture tells us to hate it and to resist the devil). God abominates evil, and we cannot praise or thank him for what he abominates.
So then the ‘everything’ for which we are to give thanks to God must be qualified by its context, namely in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. Our thanksgiving is to be for everything which is consistent with the loving Fatherhood of God and the self-revelation he has given us in Jesus Christ. Once again the doctrine of the Trinity informs and directs our devotion. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit we give thanks to God our Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
d. Submission: be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ (verse 21)
Although RSV begins a new paragraph with this verse, and translates it as an imperative, it is in fact another present participle (hypotassomenoi), dependent on the command ‘be filled with the Spirit’, like the preceding three. Sometimes a person who claims to be filled with the Spirit becomes aggressive, self-assertive and brash. But the Holy Spirit is a humble Spirit, and those who are truly filled with him always display the meekness and gentleness of Christ. It is one of their most evident characteristics that they submit to one another.
They also submit to Christ, for their mutual submissiveness is out of reverence for Christ, or in more familiar terminology ‘in the fear of Christ’. Those who are truly subject to Jesus Christ do not find it difficult to submit to each other as well. Incidentally, this expression ‘in the fear of Christ’ is a notable if indirect testimony to Paul’s belief in the deity of Jesus, since the regular Old Testament requirement was to live ‘in the fear of God’. There are several other ‘Christianizations’ of Old Testament thought in this chapter. For example, God’s kingdom is Christ’s (verse 5). We are to please Christ and seek his will, just as before Christ people sought God’s will and pleasure (verses 10, 17), and worshipping God becomes worshipping Christ (verse 19). For in the last three verses mentioned ‘the Lord’ is a title for Jesus.
Such are the wholesome results of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. They all concern our relationships. If we are filled with the Spirit, we shall be harmoniously related both to God (worshipping him with joy and thanksgiving) and to each other (speaking and submitting to one another). In brief, Spirit-filled believers love God and love each other, which is hardly surprising since the first fruit of the Spirit is love.
We need now to return to the imperative on which these four participles depend, that is, to the Christian duty and privilege from which these four Christian attitudes result. It is the command Be filled with the Spirit. The exact form of the verb plērousthe is suggestive.
First, it is in the imperative mood. ‘Be filled’ is not a tentative proposal, but an authoritative command. We have no more liberty to avoid this responsibility than the many others which surround it in Ephesians. To be filled with the Spirit is obligatory, not optional.
Secondly, it is in the plural form. In other words, it is addressed to the whole Christian community. None of us is to get drunk; all of us are to be Spirit-filled. The fullness of the Spirit is not an élitist privilege, but available for all the people of God.
Thirdly, it is in the passive voice. NEB renders it: ‘Let the Holy Spirit fill you’. There is no technique to learn and no formula to recite. What is essential is such a penitent turning from what grieves the Holy Spirit and such a believing openness to him that nothing hinders him from filling us. It is significant that the parallel passage in Colossians reads not ‘Let the Spirit fill you’ but ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly’ (3:16). We must never separate the Spirit and the Word. To obey the Word and to surrender to the Spirit are virtually identical.
Fourthly, it is in the present tense. In Greek there are two kinds of imperative, an aorist describing a single action, and a present when the action is continuous. Thus, when Jesus said during the wedding reception at Cana, ‘Fill the jars with water’ (Jn. 2:7), the imperative is aorist, since the jars were to be filled only once. But when Paul says to us, ‘Be filled with the Spirit’, he uses a present imperative, implying that we are to go on being filled. For the fullness of the Spirit is not a once-for-all experience which we can never lose, but a privilege to be renewed continuously by continuous believing and obedient appropriation. We have been ‘sealed’ with the Spirit once and for all; we need to be filled with the Spirit and go on being filled every day and every moment of the day.
Here, then, is a message for both the defeated and the complacent, that is, for Christians at opposite ends of the spiritual spectrum. To the defeated Paul would say, ‘Be filled with the Spirit, and he will give you a new love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self-control.’ To the complacent Paul would say ‘go on being filled with the Spirit. Thank God for what he has given you thus far. But do not say you have arrived. For there is more, much more, yet to come.’