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Ephesians 4:17-19: Sacred Selfishness

By Jeremy Myers
1 Comment

Ephesians 4:17-19: Sacred Selfishness
https://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/2075830816-redeeminggod-sacred-selfishness-ephesians-47-19.mp3

Imagine that I was a guest speaker at your church. Or maybe at your social club or gathering of friends. Maybe you had heard that I have some insightful ideas and some things that will better help you understand God and yourself, and so you showed up to hear what I had to say.

And imagine that after the introduction, I stood up, and one of the first things I did was spend several minutes insulting you, your friends, and everything you had ever thought, said, or done. Imagine I said something like this:

Thanks for having me to speak, you morons. You’re all a bunch of idiots. You have never had an intelligent thought in your life. Everything you think and say is nothing but stupidity and ignorance. And it’s your own fault, really. You have intentionally turned away from wisdom and knowledge and decided to keep yourselves dumb and oblivious to anything approaching intelligence.

And it’s not just your mind, but your actions and behavior as well. Have you ever done anything loving or kind in your entire life? No. Everything you do is pure stupidity. You are filled with nothing but greed, lust, hate, and violence. Seriously. You may be thinking, “But Jeremy, we do some good things. We’re not all evil all the time.” Well, you’re wrong. Everything good that you think you do is actually just done out of selfishness, ignorance, arrogance, and pride. You’re greedy all the time, and everything you do is just to satisfy your own lusts.

If I was a guest speaker at your gathering, and that is how I started my talk, how would you respond?

Ironically, there are many Christians who would probably shout “Amen!” because, oddly, some Christians like to be regularly whipped with a verbal tongue lashing. Some Christians like to be verbally abused by pastors. They’re Christian masochists. They enjoy being reminded how depraved, immoral, and evil they are.

But the majority of people would be offended. And rightly so. Nobody wants to be insulted. Nobody wants to be told that they are nothing but ignorant sinners and that everything they do is wrong.

I myself would be offended if anyone said such things to me. In fact, if some preacher or teacher said these things, I would want to ignore everything else they taught, because one of my central beliefs is that if a person cannot say something with love, then they are not speaking truth. While it is not kind and loving to speak untruth, it is a fact that genuine, godly truth will always be spoken in love. Paul says in Ephesians 4:15 that we must speak the truth in love. So if someone is not speaking the truth in love, then they don’t need to be listened to.

In fact, I would argue that love is a litmus test for truth. If someone thinks they have the truth, but they cannot say it in love, then they don’t have the truth. True truth, when truly spoken, will be spoken in love. Therefore, if someone is claiming to speak the truth, but they say it with hate and venom, then they are not speaking truth, but lies and deceit.

So, if I came to your gathering and said the things I accused you of being ignorant, perverse, immoral, having no understanding about God, being spiritually empty, hard of heart, callous, full of lust and sensuality, and greedy for all forms of impurity, you would have every right to ignore everything else I said. In fact, even though my words would be accusing you, or others, of being evil and ignorant, it would in fact be me who was evil and ignorant for talking in such a manner. It would not be you who was sinning, but me.

With all of this in mind, it is absolutely shocking to me what Paul seems to say in Ephesians 4:17-19. Here he is, the so-called Apostle to the Gentiles, absolutely blasting all Gentiles for being ignorant, backward sinners. After just saying that the truth should be spoken in love, Paul seems to abandon all pretenses of love to speak some hurtful truth, which indicates a complete lack of truth. Listen to his words in Ephesians 4:17-19:

This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

Frankly, I don’t much care for what Paul writes here in Ephesians 4:17-19. I don’t like his tone. I don’t like his words. I don’t like his message. From a strictly face-value perspective, I think Paul is flat-out wrong. What he says and how he says it pisses me off.

I know. That is shocking to hear. Paul is an inspired biblical author. He can’t be wrong.

But I’m going to be bold enough to say it. If the traditional understanding of Paul’s words here is correct, then Paul is wrong. His words are harsh, judgmental, and unloving, and aside from that, Paul is flat-out wrong.

Or, at least, the way we read Paul is wrong.

But most of us think Paul is absolutely correct here. And do you know why? Because we see that Paul is condemning “those evil Gentiles.” He’s not condemning me. He’s not condemning you. He’s condemning them. And so we smugly nod our heads in agreement with Paul, because his words are not a description of me. They’re a description of those evil sinners over there.

As we read through this list of sinful attitudes and behaviors, all of us can think of someone we know that they apply to. Maybe it’s a neighbor we despise who has no interest in God and is always getting wasted on the weekends and never has a stable relationship. Maybe it’s a boss or coworkers who is hateful toward us at work, and seems to only care about getting more and more money. Maybe it’s those idiots on the other side of the political aisle who are destroying our country. Maybe it’s the Wall Street executives or the pharmaceutical CEO’s or certain social media influencers or sports stars or Hollywood idols or famous musicians.

That’s who Paul is describing. Not me. Not us. Them.

And that is the way the way the majority of people read this text. It’s the way the majority of pastors preach this text. The usual approach to Ephesians 4:17-19 goes something like this:

Those non-Christians are evil. Paul’s describing them here. And sure, some of us Christians used to be that way, but we’re not that way any longer. We’re the good guys now. Those non-Christians are evil. Our task as Christians is to go save them and make them like us.

And then the teacher will quote Isaiah 64:6, “All their righteous works are filthy rags,” or Romans 3:10-12, “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”

And that is how this text is usually preached. I used to preach it that way. In fact, my original sermon on Ephesians 4:17-19 is still on my website, and you can find it on there still, if you want. I recently went and looked at it, and it pretty much fits with the summary I provided above.

And I am appalled. I repent of ever teaching this passage that way.

Why am I appalled? Why do I repent?

Because in the last fifteen or twenty years, God has taken me on a journey to show me how wrong I was in my views toward others. I am still on this journey with God, and still have a long way to go, but God is showing me a completely different way to view other people, and at the same time, a completely different way of reading and understanding Scripture.

So today, I can say I was wrong. And I can also say that the common way of reading Paul here in Ephesians 4 is also wrong. I think the majority of Christians have misunderstood what Paul is saying here. It is completely out of character for Paul, the gracious and loving Apostle to the Gentiles to spew such venom toward the Gentiles as he seems to do in Ephesians 4:17-19 (cf. Barth, Anchor Bible Commentary).

And let’s face reality here as well. If Paul’s words in these verses are to be understood at their face value, then Paul is absolutely wrong in what he says. The only people who can agree with what Paul seems to say about non-Christians here, are people who don’t actually know any non-Christians. And again, that was me for most of my life. I didn’t really know any non-Christians and so I just took Paul at his word here, and in other similar passages, and put a blanket condemnation on them all. They’re all ignorant fools. They’re all blind, violent, backward sinners with no redeeming traits at all. And because of this view I had of them, I didn’t really want to get to know any of them either. Why would I want to become friends with such evil people? They’re wickedness would probably rub off on me somehow. I’d be guilty by association.

But then God started to do some crazy things in my life. Things that were very, very painful at the time, and in many ways, are still quite painful. Through these events, I was forced to encounter many non-Christians. And I was absolutely shocked by what I found. In more ways than I could count, I discovered that many of the non-Christians I encountered behaved more like Jesus than did most of the Christians I knew. I encountered more love, grace, forgiveness, acceptance, generosity, and kindness among non-Christians than I ever had in church.

If you have experienced this, then you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t experienced this, it’s probably because you are still too involved in your local church to have genuine friendships outside of church. I know that may be hard to hear, but I have come to believe in a principle that I have found to be always true among Christians. It is this: Christians who think all non-Christians are always evil, greedy bastards don’t genuinely know any non-Christians.

I said what I said. And I stand by it.

When you genuinely get to know non-Christians, you discover that many of them are wise, kind, loving, generous, patient, joyful, gentle, and loyal. Many of them are more like Jesus than many Christians. Are they perfect? Of course not. Just like Christians aren’t perfect. Do they still have faults and failures? Absolutely. Yes. Just like Christians.

You might say, “But Jeremy! They’re headed for hell! We’re going to heaven.” Well, I’m not talking about that. Except I will say this: That mentality right there is what causes so much arrogance and pride among Christians. Be very careful about thinking that way. I explain more about this in my book What is Hell? and so won’t say anything more about this now.

The issues here in Ephesians 4:17-19 seems to be about intelligence and morality, not eternal destiny, and when it comes to intelligence and morality, there is almost no difference between Christians and non-Christians. If there is a difference in intelligence and morality between the Christians and non-Christians, I would have to say that non-Christians have us beat. If moral development was a race, the church is losing.

And why are we losing? Because we have an ingrained sense of moral superiority which allows us to ignore all evidence to the contrary. We think we have the once-for-all final truth about life and knowledge and morality in the Bible, and so we can ignore any ideas or progress in culture about truth and morality. We hold firmly to truths “once for all delivered to the saints” and think we don’t need anything else. And as we sit there with our Bible on our laps and our hands in the air, culture passes us by. But rather than learn from others, we prefer to use passages like Ephesians 4:17-19 to condemn others so that we can safely and comfortably ignore them.

All of this is wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

So what are we to do with passages like Ephesians 4:17-19? And why did Paul write it?

There are three steps to seeing what Paul meant when he wrote this text, to understanding why Paul wrote it. I am going to walk you through these three steps. The first step will be to simply look at the text itself, to understand the words and phrases of Ephesians 4:17-19. This will be a straightforward and literal reading of the text.

The second step will be to notice something very strange about the text that most people miss. There are numerous contextual clues that most people miss which provides insight on how to properly understand what Paul was saying and why he wrote these verses. So the second step will be to point out these contextual clues.

Thirdly, and finally, then, only after we make this crucial observation, we will be able to see what Paul really meant when he wrote these words.

So that is how we will proceed. First, a straightforward reading and explanation of the text, then a missed observation about the text in its wider context, so that, finally, we can understand what Paul was doing when he wrote the harsh words of Ephesians 4:17-19.

Explanation of Ephesians 4:17-19

Ephesians 4:17-19. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind. Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

With that word, therefore, Paul is providing instructions based on what he just finished writing. Ephesians 4:11-16 contains what I call “God’s Blueprints for Church Growth.” In that passage, Paul explains how we are all to be ministers to each other using the spiritual gifts God has given.

Now Paul is going to build on that by showing that members of God’s church should walk in purity. But Paul does this in a strange way. He does this by condemning the way of life in which the Gentiles walk.

What is interesting about this is that the Ephesian Christians were Gentiles. And in Ephesians 4:18-19, Paul goes on to say some pretty negative things about Gentiles. Isn’t this odd? Paul bashes the character, intelligence, and behavior of the people he is writing to! Why would he do this?

Well, the typical answer in the average commentary is that while the Jews used to divide the world up into two groups of people—Jews and Gentiles—with the birth of the church, which included both Jews and Gentiles, there were now three groups of people: Jews, Gentiles, and Christians. And so, the explanation goes, even though the Ephesian Christians were Gentiles, they were actually now a separate people group. They were, in a sense, a third race (1 Cor 10:32). They were Christians now, and not Gentiles. So when Paul bashes the Gentiles here, he is not bashing the Ephesian Christian Gentiles, but the regular, heathen non-Christian Gentiles.

Frankly, I don’t like this explanation at all. I think it is wrong. I think it completely misunderstands the message and purpose of Paul. After all, back in Ephesians 2:11-22, Paul says that while there used to be two groups of people, Jews and Gentiles, insiders and outsiders with God, Jesus has now broken down the dividing wall of hostility so that now, all are accepted, forgiven, and welcome into the family of God.

But now it seems strange to me that, after tearing down the middle wall of separation, the wall of hostility and enmity, the wall of judgment and condemnation of other people, it seems strange that Paul would now erect a brand new wall, this time, not between Jews and Gentiles, but between Gentiles and other Gentiles. After tearing down the wall of enmity, is Paul really constructing a new wall all over again?

I cannot see Paul doing this. He was the Apostle of grace. He was the Apostle to the Gentiles. Well, we will see later why Paul is wrote what he did here. For now, let us continue looking at the text of Ephesians 4:17.

leaving ministryAlso note the verb walk. It is used twice in Ephesians 4:17, and it is a key word for the rest of chapter 4, all of chapter 5, and the first half of chapter 6.  Ephesians can be summarized with three verbs: Sit, Walk, Stand. Chapters 1–3 are about being seated with Christ. Chapters 4–5 and half of chapter 6 is about walking with Christ. And then Ephesians 6:10-20 is about standing our ground with Christ.

So we are in the walk section of Ephesians. The verb walk refers to our manner of life, our conduct, the way we behave, the way we think. And rather than telling his readers right away how they should walk, which he begins to do in Ephesians 4:17, Paul first provides a negative example of how the Gentiles walk.

I also want to point out that the words no longer in verse 17 are a hint at what Paul is doing. This phrase serves as a reminder to his readers that they used to walk in the way he is about to describe, and that there is a distinct possibility that they can still walk in these same wicked ways. Some people say that it is impossible for true Christians to habitually practice, or continually walk, in certain sinful behaviors and attitudes. But Paul’s instruction here that his readers no longer walk in the ways he is about to describe is a clear indication that Paul knows that true Christians can, and do, walk in these ways.

It is a helpful principle of biblical interpretation and biblical theology to remember that every prohibition in Scripture, every command to refrain from a certain behavior, is inherently an admission that true Christian can, and do, live in such sinful ways. Any positive imperative written to the New Testament Christian, presupposes by its very nature, that the opposite of that imperative can take place in that believer’s life. If the Bible tells Christians not to do something, then this is inherently an admission that Christians can do it. When there is an instruction to not do something, as we have here in Ephesians 4:17, it implies that even though a person is a Christian, it is still possible for them to continue to do what the instruction tells us not to do.

This is an important theological point, because there are many people today who preach and teach that true Christians cannot habitually sin or will not live in certain patterns of behavior. But the Bible indicates otherwise by including commands to not live in these ways.

With this in mind, let us look at the rest of this passage to see the ways in which Christians are supposed to no longer walk.

In the rest of the passage, Paul lists several characteristics of these Gentiles. Different Bible translations offer different suggestions for how to translate and punctuate the list of traits, but I’m not going to get into the various options. All that matters for our purposes is that we understand the terms and phrases in Paul’s warning.

The first trait is in the last part of Ephesians 4:17. Paul writes that Christians should not walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind.

This statement would have been a bit of a shock to the first century reader in Paul’s day. “The Greco-Roman society considered the mind to be the best, noblest, and most worthwhile part of the human being—they even considered it to be divine. And with geniuses like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to boast of, they took great pride in their intellectual enlightenment.”[1]

So Paul’s statement in Ephesians 4:17 about the futile mind of the Gentiles would have shocked most people in his day. Saying that we have a worthless mind would get the same reaction today, right? I mean look around! Look how much we’ve accomplished! All the cures for diseases we have. How far we’ve come in our understanding of the human body, and of this world, and of the universe, and the nature of molecular structures! The advances in philosophy, psychology, physics, medicine, biology, and every other field shows that we are not futile in our thinking. Imagine someone showing up today and telling the entire scientific world that their thinking is futile and worthless!

But that is essentially what Paul is doing with this first descriptive phrase. He is telling the Greco-Roman world that they are futile in their thinking, in their patterns of thought. How can Paul say this? How can Paul say that Gentiles have a worthless mind?

Paul doesn’t mean that the mind is unable to accomplish great things and come up with great ideas. What he means is that it is aiming at a meaningless goal with silly methods.[2]

So what if we can send a man to the moon, and find a cure for cancer, and clone a human being? So what? How will any of that help you when you die without God? All of our accomplishments and achievements are worthless then. Pointless. Meaningless. Futile.

Humans have made great academic strides in nearly every possible direction, but our advances have led us only closer to death and destruction. Carl Jung raises the question this way:

How is it that, for all our progress in all the administration of justice, in medicine and in technology, for all our concern for life and health, monstrous engines of destruction have been invented which could easily exterminate the human race?[3]

Jung goes on to say that these devilish engines and destructive ideas were developed by minds of “reasonable, respectable citizens” who are everything we would wish that all great humans could be. Yet it all leads to greater futility, pain, subjection, violence, death, and destruction. “Our rationalistic attitude,” Jungs writes, “leads us to believe that we can work wonders with international organizations, legislation, and other well-meant devices.”[4]

This is what Paul means when he is talking about the futility of the mind. Humanity has the brightest minds working on the hardest problems, but nothing seems to be helping. The same problems keep cropping up over and over and over. We make progress in all sorts of areas, but when it comes to the condition of the human heart, mind, and soul, no real progress is being made at all!

Now, you may be tempted to think that the problem with all these great thinkers, inventors, doctors, scientists, and philosophers is that they were not Christians. It is those “Gentiles,” as Paul indicates, that are the problem. It’s not us. It’s them. If they simply adopted a heavenly perspective, an eternal mindset, then things would turn out better.

If that is what you are thinking that right now, then hold on to that thought. It will be addressed shortly. If you agree with that idea that the whole world would be better if the whole world became Christian, then just hold on to that thought, and we will see how Paul addresses it.

The rest of the descriptive phrases are essentially the same, and will be covered more quickly. Paul is basically condemning all the beliefs and behaviors of the Gentiles, which again, is a very strange thing for the Apostle of the Gentiles to do.

The next trait of the Gentiles is that they have their understanding darkened. Here again, the emphasis is on the lack of knowledge among the Gentiles. Their mind is darkened, meaning there is no inner light in their minds. They have an inner shadow that obscures and hides all the great essential truths from their understanding. Since this trait is so similar to the previous one of Gentiles being futile in their minds, nothing else needs to be said here.

The third characteristic of the Gentiles, according to Paul, is that they alienated from the life of God. This means they don’t know or care about God or what He wants, and so they live as they please. The next part of Ephesians 4:18 tells us why they are this way. They are alienated because of the ignorance that is in them, and because of the blindness of their heart. They are willfully determined to stay in their sin. Again, there is an emphasis here on mental ignorance and blindness, showing that the root problem is a problem in the mind. Paul seems to be implying that the Gentiles having nothing good going on inside their mind.

Next, in the first part of Ephesians 4:19, they are past feeling. They are without feeling. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have physical sensation, feelings, or emotions. They do. The first century Mediterranean world was motivated by honor and shame, and so in that context, this phrase means that they have no sensitivity toward the issues of honor and shame. Today, we might say that their conscience been seared (1 Tim 4:2). They are no longer sensitive to the sensations of a guilty conscience.

Then we read that they have given themselves over to lewdness. Lewdness can also be translated as lasciviousness, debauchery, sexual excess, absence of restraint, or insatiable desire for pleasure. And finally, Paul writes that the Gentiles do all of this uncleanness with greediness. They engage in all of these behaviors that Paul has listed, and they cannot get enough of such things. No matter how much they live in such wicked ways, they are always greedy for more.

Now what are we to make of this blanket condemnation by Paul of all things Gentile? Sadly, most Christians seem to rip passages like this out of context so that they can smugly condemn and judge anyone else who is not a Christian. They also use texts like this to ignore any ideas or wisdom that might come from a non-Christian. For example, I purposefully quoted Carl Jung above. Because many people feel that certain elements in his life prove that he was not a Christian, and therefore, they can disregard anything he taught or said. Christians will similarly completely discard ideas from the great philosophers and scientists of history.

I recently heard a famous pastor in California say that the Bible contains all truth, and so if something is not found in the Bible, then it is not true and can be ignored. What a shocking statement! It’s also completely contradictory to any possible way of living. For example, this particular pastor made this statement on social media. Well, the technology behind social media is not in the Bible. The people who created the computer code, and developed the apps certainly were not using biblical truths to do so. And electricity and computers aren’t in the Bible. Nor is the polyblend suit and satin tie this pastor was wearing in the picture on his social media post. Nor the spectacles he had on his face. Nor the pulpit he was standing behind. Nor the microphone he was speaking into.

And yet, according to this pastor, if it’s not in the Bible, it’s not true. It is because of passages like Ephesians 4:17-19 that this pastor feels totally justified in making such a ridiculous claim. He can point to Paul’s description here and say, “See? Non-Christians are futile in their thinking. They are spiritually blind and mentally ignorant. They have no connection with God, and nothing good to say. Everything they do is nothing but sinful sensuality and lust. So we can safely ignore them all.”

What an attitude! In fact, let me go a step further and say, “What an ignorant attitude!” Any Christian who says that non-Christians are ignorant and blind and so can be ignored, is themself ignorant and blind.

But wait! Isn’t that what Paul himself just said? Didn’t Paul just say that non-Christians are ignorant and blind, darkened in their understanding, futile of mind, given to nothing but sensuality, lewdness, and greediness? If I just said that anyone who says such things is ignorant themselves, and Paul just said such things, then am I saying that Paul is ignorant?

No, I am not. Here, as always in Scripture, context is critically important. And people like that famous pastor who think that Paul is issuing a blanket condemnation of all non-Christians here in Ephesians 4:17-19 have missed a very important truth from the context of this passage to show us what Paul was actually saying (Note: all similar passages have similarly contextual clues about what is really going on. Cf. Eph 2:3; 5:3-5; Col 3:5-10; Rom 1:19-24).

Let us briefly look at this overlooked contextual observation to see what Paul was saying, and then, once we have understood the context, we can reconsider Ephesians 4:17-19 again, to see how to properly read this text.

An Overlooked Observation

So what is Paul saying in Ephesians 4:17-19? Paul seems to be blasting the Gentiles. He seems to be issuing a blanket condemnation on all Gentiles for everything they think, say, and do. And since Paul is the Apostle to the Gentiles, this seems to be a very strange and unloving approach. Paul has just written in Ephesians 4:15 that we should speak the truth in love, but there seems to be very little love in Ephesians 4:17-19.

scapegoat mechanismFirst of all, before we look to the wider context, an alert biblical thinker will recognize that Paul is engaging in a classic scapegoating technique. He is portraying a group of outsiders as monsters, so that they can be safely sidelined, ignored, or in some more extreme cases, arrested or even killed. All hatred, war, and violence comes from scapegoating, and one of the primary purposes for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was to unveil the scapegoating sin that all humans practice.

Paul knows this. It is quite evident from various other texts that Paul knows that humans love to scapegoat other humans, and that Jesus came to reveal it and put an end to it. But Paul engages in it here. … Or at least, he seems to.

Paul uses a classic scapegoating technique to create a division between two people groups. He is creating an “us vs. them” division. Insiders vs. outsiders. Though Paul earlier said in Ephesians 2, “You were outsiders, but now you are insiders,” Paul now seems to say, “There is a new group of outsiders. It’s those nasty Gentiles.” (cf. Perkins, New Interpreters Bible Commentary, 67).

And this is a very curious thing to do, because previously, when Paul referred to Gentiles, he was referring to the Gentile Christians of Ephesus. In Ephesians 2:11 and 3:1, he doesn’t say, “You Gentile Christians,” but simply “You Gentiles.” But now Paul issues a blanket condemnation on all Gentiles. But his readers knew, as you and I do, that he’s not talking about the Gentile Christians in Ephesus, but all the other Gentiles. Paul is now contrasting the Gentile Christians from the Gentile pagans, even though he has called both groups “Gentiles.” He is creating a division between the two groups. At least, that’s what he seems to be doing.

Which is very strange, because previously when Paul wrote about Gentiles, Paul said that the dividing wall of enmity between them and God had been torn down (Eph 2:14). But now, it appears from a surface reading of the text that the wall was not, in fact, torn down at all; it was only moved. While there used to be a wall between Jew and Gentile, now there was a wall between Christians and everyone else. So there are still two groups, and there is still a wall between them. And just as before, one group should shun and reject the other, just as it has always been.

And many Christians today agree. That famous pastor says, “Ignore everything non-Christians say. Just read your Bible. That’s all you need.” Others say, “Shun non-Christians. Ignore them. Don’t hang out with them. They will drag you down into their sin and shameful ways of living. Don’t read their books. Don’t listen to their music. Don’t fellowship with them in any way. If you must interact with them, do so only to invite them to church or share the gospel with them.”

Is this really what Paul is saying? Did Paul really tear down the dividing wall of separation in Ephesians 2, only to reconstruct it in Ephesians 4?

No.

Quite to the contrary, Paul performs a masterful move here which reveals the truth of what he is actually saying. Though Paul initially seems to be erecting another dividing wall of separation, he then, with just a few words, tears it all down and shows the Ephesians Christians what he really wants them to see.

Let me walk you through it. In Ephesians 4:17-19, Paul writes a disparaging description of Gentiles. He knew, due to the propensity humans have for scapegoating others, that his readers would be nodding their heads in agreement with what he writes. As they read his words, they would be saying, “Yes! Those Gentiles are so evil and depraved! I’m not like that, thank God. But they are. I need to stay away from such sinners! I need to ignore them.” Many Christians today have the same attitude.

But then Paul turns the tables on his readers. He makes a masterful move. It’s a theological checkmate. In the following verses, in Ephesians 4:20-22, Paul turns the tables on his readers and basically says, “Remember how I referred to you as Gentiles before? And I’m writing here about Gentiles also, and you thought I was referring to someone else, those non-Christian Gentiles? Well, I’m not. I’m still writing about you!”

In Ephesians 4:20-22, based on something Paul says, we learn, much to our shock, that in Ephesians 4:17-19, Paul was not writing about unregenerate Gentiles at all, but about the Ephesians Christians themselves! And therefore, Paul is also writing about us!

In Ephesians 4:20-22, Paul says to the Ephesian Christians, “Now that you are a follower of Jesus, you need to put off the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.” In other words, Paul is saying, “That description of Gentiles I provided earlier? That’s a description of the old man that is still living in you! It’s you I was describing! Not them. And you need to get rid of that way of thinking and living!”

Further evidence for this is that Paul goes on in the rest of Ephesians 4 and Ephesians 5 to give some very specific examples of how they should put off the old man and put on the new. He tells them how they should no longer be like the description he provided in Ephesians 4:17-19 and should instead be who Jesus has called them to be.

Do you see what a masterful move this is? It uses the behavior of others to hold a mirror up to our own soul. Paul blasts Gentile thinking and behavior, knowing full well that his reading audience would be nodding their heads in agreement. Some would be shouting “Amen!” Others would be saying, “Preach it!” Then, after they’re all worked up into a lather, Paul says, “Oh, and by the way, I’m talking about you.” Imagine the silence that then settles over the listening audience. And Paul basically goes on to say, “And the simple fact that you thought I was talking about someone else reveals the truth of this description for you. You are futile in your thinking, and darkened in your understanding, and blind in your hearts because, although you are a Christian, you are still carrying around that old man! Get rid of him!”

Talk about a gut punch.

Now this is a very common tactic for Paul. He does something similar in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, and Colossians. In various places, he talks about various sins that Gentiles commit, and then he turns the table on his reading audience and says, “But I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about you! The things you condemn in others, you are guilty of yourselves! Don’t worry about them! Focus on your own life!”

Essentially, Paul is holding up a mirror to the souls of his readers by getting them to condemn some other group of people, and then he says, “Look! You’re looking into mirror. They are the mirror of you!”

And even though this is a common tactic for Paul, you should know that Paul didn’t come up with it himself. It is a very common literary device found all over the Hebrew Scripture. The prophetical book of Amos is one famous example.

The book of Amos was written to the people of Israel, and it begins by pronouncing judgment upon all the nations that surround Israel. Over and over, Amos lists the sins that these nations committed, and then he condemns them for it. Amos does this with Damascus (Amos 1:3-5), Gaza (Amos 1:4-8), Tyre (Amos 1:9-10), Edom (Amos 1:11-12), Ammon (Amos 1:13-15), Moab (Amos 2:1-3), and Judah (Amos 2:4-5). But then, beginning in Amos 2:6, the prophet turns the tables on his readers and says, “Hey … as I was going through that list of sinful nations and condemning all their sin, and you were nodding your head in agreement about how sinful and wicked those other nations are … Guess what? You are all guilty of exactly the same things!”

You can almost imagine the scene:

Amos: The people of Damascus are evil! God will punish them!

People: Yeah!

Amos: Gaza is so wicked, God will destroy it!

People: Yes! Get rid of them all!

Amos: Tyre is full of sin and rebellion! Destruction is coming!

People: The sooner the better!

Amos: And the same goes for the ignorant, idolatrous, greedy, sinful people of Edom, Ammon, Moab, and Judah!

People: Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

Amos: And worst of all, the greatest sinners of all … is you!

People: Yea… wait … what?

Amos: Everything those other people have done, you’ve done worse!

People: No. That’s not true.

Amos: It is. Look at yourself. Take a careful look. Judgment is coming. If you want judgment to fall upon your enemies, then be careful, because it will fall on you first. You are just as bad as they are, if not worse.

This is exactly what Paul is doing here in Ephesians 4. He describes the traits of the Gentiles, knowing that his reading audience will be nodding his head in agreement about how wicked and evil “they” are. And then Paul holds up the mirror, and says, “Yes. I’m describing you. So get rid of that old man and put on the new.”

So Paul is not constructing a new dividing wall of hostility. Jesus tore down that wall. Paul is not building a new one. He is not creating a new “us vs. them” division made up of insiders and outsiders.

Paul is setting a trap for his religious readers. He’s pulling the rug out from under his readers. In Ephesians 4:17-19, he paints this vivid picture of the Gentiles—futile minds, darkened understanding, hardened hearts—and it’s easy to nod along, thinking, “Yeah, those outsiders are a mess.” It’s comfortable to point fingers. Then in Ephesians 4:22, he turns it around: “You were taught … to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.” Suddenly, it’s not about “them”—it’s about “you.”

Paul’s not subtle about this elsewhere either. In Romans 2:1, after slamming idolatry and immorality, he hits the self-righteous with, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself.” It’s a classic move: lure you into agreement, then flip the mirror. Here in Ephesians, the trap’s sneakier—4:17-19 sets up the “Gentile life” as the foil, but 4:22 reveals that “old self” isn’t gone just because you’re a Christian. It’s still lurking, and those traits—insensitivity, lust, impurity—can be yours if you’re not careful. Paul is saying, “Don’t get smug in condemning non-Christians. Their sins are still yours as well. In fact, since you claim to be an enlightened follower of Jesus Christ, your sins are worse!”

But we refuse to see it, because it’s so much easier and more enjoyable to point the finger at someone else. Let me quote Carl Jung again. He once wrote, “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.” He also taught that one of the best ways to see our own souls is to see it reflected in the mirror of other people. He said that everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. One of the best ways that God uses to reveal to us the faults and problems of our own soul is to see it reflected back to us through the lives of other people. Other people are the mirror to our own soul. Carl Jung taught that our relationships with others are the mirrors of ourselves.

And many Christians condemn Carl Jung and ignore his insights in psychology because they claim he wasn’t a Christian. But Jung is teaching the same thing that Paul teaches here. Both are teaching that it is helpful to look at the sins of others, not so that we might condemn them, but so that we might get a glimpse into the problems of our own soul. We look to others as a mirror for the self. That is what Jung taught and that is what Paul teaches here in Ephesians 4:17-19.

Each of us have an inner shadow, a hidden, unrecognized, unacknowledged, messy part of ourselves that we shove down so that we don’t have to deal with it. When we see sin, hypocrisy, or arrogance in other people and it grates on us, maybe it’s not just them. Maybe it’s the mirror flashing something we’re wrestling with too, something we don’t want to deal with.

The world is a mirror that reveals ourself to ourself, as we really are. When we have emotional responses to others, particularly those that cause irritation or discomfort, this response can reveal unresolved or unacknowledged aspects of ourselves. The “irritating” traits we see in others might be connected to our own hidden self, the unconscious part of our personality that we repress or deny. By examining our reactions to others, we can gain insights into our own unconscious patterns and work towards greater self-awareness and personal growth.

But we must be careful. The mirror of others is not an exact mirror. For example, if you find yourself constantly annoyed by someone who is always late, this doesn’t mean that you also are always late. You’re probably not. You are probably very punctual, and so it annoys you when others are late. But that annoyance is an opportunity to learn something about yourself. Maybe you have tendencies towards perfectionism or control, which you are projecting onto the other person.

This is what Paul is doing in Ephesians 4:17-19. He purposefully creates a scapegoat out of the Gentiles, so that he can expose the scapegoat for what it is and hold up to his Gentile Christian audience their own hypocrisy and self-deception. He uses Gentile non-Christians to hold up a mirror to Gentile Christians so that they can get a glimpse into the shadows of their own soul.

This brings us to the third and final point. We looked at the meaning of the text of Ephesians 4:17-19, the overlooked observation that helps us better understand what Paul is doing, and now, with this observation in mind, we want to talk about the proper way of reading this text.

The Proper Way to Read Ephesians 4:17-19

It should be obvious by now that Paul, as the loving and gracious Apostle to the Gentiles, is not blasting non-Christian Gentiles for how sinful and evil they are. This would contradict Paul’s mission and ministry, and pretty much everything he has written in Ephesians up to this point. He is not issuing a blanket condemnation on all Gentiles. He is not condemning them all or judging them all. Rather, he is holding up a mirror to the Ephesian Christians, and thus to us as well, so that we can see that the problem with the world is not “out there” but “in here.” The problem is with me. With you.

Paul is playing on a form of religious bigotry that all religious people have. Though we used to be just like the people we condemn, and though in many ways, we are still just like them, we think that we are now better than them. We look down our spiritual noses at them and say, with the Pharisee, “God, thank you that I am not like this sinner” (Luke 18:11). Paul is doing the same thing Jesus did when He pointed out the hypocrisy and spiritual blindness that exists among the religious people of His own people in His own day when He called the Pharisees “whitewashed tombs” (Matt 23:27-28).

The reality is that we are just like those we condemn. Sure, we’ve been redeemed, but this doesn’t make us perfect. We still have lots of faults in our own lives that requires Spirit-filled work to fix. By holding up the Gentiles in a negative light as he has, Paul is actually holding up a mirror for the Ephesian Christians to look into, so that they can see their own faces (Jas 1:23) and then go away and do something about what they have seen.

Paul’s language is rhetorical and pastoral, aiming to contrast the “old self” with the “new self” in Christ (as the chapter continues). Ephesians 4:17-19 is not a Gentile condemnation, but a call to Christian transformation. If we use this text to condemn and judge non-Christians, then we are guilty of the sins listed in this text. The text is not at all about “them” out there, but about “me” in here, in my heart.

For if we are truly honest with ourselves, we will recognize that genuine Christians can have many of the traits mentioned by Paul in Ephesians 4:17-19. Many Christians are futile in their thinking, insensitive, or indulgent, hard hearted, greedy, and full of sensuality. Many Christians really don’t know the first thing about God, though we certainly talk like we do.

Many of us think that since we have believed in Jesus, we’re good to go. That we are morally and spiritually superior to everyone else. But this is pure self-deception! It is futile thinking! Faith doesn’t automatically erase human flaws. We all can still chase impure desires despite our belief in Jesus. Some of us might lean on ritual or dogma (futile thinking) without genuine transformation or become desensitized to others’ needs while clinging to a moral high ground. The “continual lust for more” (NIV) does not seem to refer to sexual lust itself (which some Christians are guilty of), but could even manifest as an obsession with status, control, or material blessings under the guise of spirituality.

Many Christians struggle with hypocrisy, judgmental attitudes, arrogance, blindness to personal faults, unwillingness to learn or consider different perspectives, a lack of empathy for non-Christians and other similar traits. In fact, all such traits are far worse in the Christian than in the non-Christian, for it is Christians who claim to be different. Yes, such human failings are not exclusive to Christians; they just sting more when wrapped in a faith that’s supposed to counter them. Christians are just as broken as anyone, but the stakes feel higher because of the ideals they claim.

We need to remember that when someone becomes a Christian, human nature doesn’t just vanish. Faith might redirect people, but it doesn’t erase the raw stuff we’re made of—things like pride, fear, and selfishness. Christians are still wrestling with the same impulses everyone else does. Paul’s “old self” (Ephesians 4:22) doesn’t just vanish at conversion; it’s a lifelong fight. Some don’t fight it hard enough. Some retain the old self and simply learn to cover it up with outwardly righteous words and behaviors, but this just makes the problem even worse.

How does it make it worse? Christians become very good at hiding their flaws in church and from one another. But when we hide the flaws instead of deal with them, the flaws only become larger. They are amplified. Certain church environments, those that are insular, dogmatic, or performance-driven, can breed hypocritical judgmental traits. When faith becomes about rules, status, or “us vs. them,” it’s easy to slide into judgment, arrogance, or hypocrisy. Empathy gets sidelined when the focus is on being “right” rather than being loving. When the goal shifts from following Christ to policing others, we lose empathy and become judgmental instead. It’s far easier to spot sin “out there” than deal with it “in here.”

And in the churches where perfectionism is taught and sin is often condemned, some people are afraid to admit their own flaws. Admitting flaws or considering other perspectives takes guts. Some Christians might cling to certainty, using arrogance as a shield, because questioning feels like a threat to their identity or salvation. It hardens them, ironically, against the humility their faith calls for.

Sometimes complacency sets in. For some, faith starts strong but turns into a routine. They lean on the label “Christian” without the ongoing self-reflection or growth Jesus modeled. That blindness to faults or unwillingness to learn might come from resting on past decisions rather than living them out daily.

In Ephesians 4:17-19, Paul is not telling us to point the finger at those evil non-Christians and condemn them for all that is wrong with the world. He is, instead, pointing the finger at himself. And inviting us to point our finger at ourselves. The problem with the world is not someone else. For me, the problem is me. For you, the problem is you.

In Kindergarten we are taught that whenever you point the finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at you. That is how to read this text, and Paul deftly does some finger pointing at others to reveal to the Ephesian Christians that they should stop worrying about what others do, and instead take a look at their own life. Who cares what “they” do? Life isn’t about fixing them or controlling them. Life is about you becoming who God made you to be.

Think of it as sacred selfishness. Before you can even begin thinking about fixing others, you must first work on yourself. You must first know yourself, and then work to accept yourself, love yourself, forgive yourself, and develop yourself into the person God wants you to be. And this is a task that will take your own life.

We object by saying, “But if all I do is focus on conforming myself to who God made me to be, then how will those people over there stop sinning? How will they get fixed?” The truth of the matter is that they are probably saying the same thing about you. So rather than everyone focusing on everyone else, imagine how much better the world would be if everyone just worked on themselves.

Christians often thing, “Well, the whole world would be better if the whole world became Christian.” And while that might be true, it reveals an internal problem for why it will never be true. As long as we are focused on the problems with “them” out there, the world will never improve. Think of the pride and arrogance it takes to say that the whole world would be better if the whole world was like us. And it is this pride and arrogance that leads to all the negative character traits that Paul lists in Ephesians 4:17-19.

The problem, Paul reveals, is not “them” at all. It’s you. It’s me. And we can’t change them. But there is one person in the world I can change, and it’s me. There is one person in the world you can change, and it’s you. The world is changed one person at a time, and the person you can change is not anyone “out there.” The only person you can change, the only person you should try to change, is you.

True and lasting change does not come from trying to get everyone else to behave like you. No, that will never work. It’s also futile, ignorant, and arrogant. But the world can change, and will change, if you seek to change yourself. Again, Carl Jung says it best:

As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual who will experience it and carry it through. The change must begin with an individual; it might be any one of us. Nobody can afford to look around and wait for somebody else to do what he is loath to do himself.”[5]

We are, each of us, “that infinitesimal unit on whom the whole world depends, and in whom, if we read the meaning of the Christian message aright, even God seeks his goal.”[6]

When we see someone acting ignorantly or arrogantly, it is not an opportunity to condemn them, but to take a good look into our own soul and see what work needs to be done inside. We must come to terms with our own shadow. We must learn to deal with the parts of ourselves that the mirror of others reveals to us.

Notes on Ephesians 4:17-19

[1] Swindoll, 123.

[2] Snodgrass, referencing Barth, 230.

[3] Jung, Collected Works X, (Amazon affiliate link) “The Undiscovered Self,” 276.

[4] Jung,  Collected Works X, (Amazon affiliate link) “After the Catastrophe,” 217.

[5] Jung, Man & His Symbols, (Amazon affiliate link) 101.

[6] Jung,  Collected Works X, (Amazon affiliate link) “The Undiscovered Self,” 305.

God is Bible Sermons, Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture, z Bible & Theology Topics: Ephesians 4:17-19, Gentiles, scapegoating, sin

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By Grace are you Saved Through Faith (Ephesians 2:8-9)

By Jeremy Myers
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By Grace are you Saved Through Faith (Ephesians 2:8-9)
https://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1113539725-redeeminggod-by-grace-are-you-saved-through-faith-ephesians-28-9.mp3

I firmly believe that the Bible teaches that we receive eternal life by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. But is that what Paul is teaching in Ephesians 2:8-9 when he writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast”? Though many Christians think so, I do not. This study of Ephesians 2:8-9 will explain what I think Paul is really talking about in these verses.

Before we get to that, I want to address a question from a reader about whether it is sinful or not for Christians to engage in New Age practices.

Question from a Reader about New Age Practices

I feel like a lot of Christians are against things like manifesting, meditation, and positive affirmations. I do believe Jesus died for my sins and he is the way to heaven. But most of my day is centered around these New Age practices because they help me clear up the doubt and fear in my life and bring me to a better mental state and ultimately so much more happiness. Is there anything wrong with this and should I feel guilty for it? Is this talked about in any of your books? I would love to hear more about what you have to say. I appreciate your response it was a weight lifted off my shoulders.

Great question! To my knowledge, I have not written about this anywhere.

Let me give you a principle that I use in my life that helps me often make tricky decisions about morality. There are two ways to approach life regarding biblical morality. They are this: First, some people think we should only do what the Bible commands. Second, some think we can do anything the Bible doesn’t forbid.

The first group thinks that we should only do what the Bible tells us we can do. Everything else is potentially sinful. This is why some extreme groups, like the Amish, don’t have electricity and won’t drive cars or have phones. That’s super simplistic, and there are other reasons also, but one reason for this approach to life is that the Bible doesn’t mention such things, and so we should avoid them.

The second approach is that we should only avoid what the Bible strictly forbids. This is the approach that most Christians try to follow, but even here, there is a wide diversity of opinion on what the Bible forbids. For example, lots of Christians in previous generations taught that playing cards was sinful. But the Bible doesn’t forbid this practice anywhere. So why did they think cards were sinful? I honestly don’t know, but they probably had their reasons.

These issues sort of go hand-in-hand with whether the Bible is prescriptive or descriptive, but that’s a slightly different issue, and so I’ll leave that one alone for now.

Anyway, I do follow that second option. For the most part, God gives us freedom to live life how we want, as long as we don’t go against the clear teachings of Scripture on moral issues. This is not a fool proof plan, because of course, the Bible never strictly forbids slavery, but we all know slavery is evil. I use a bit of trajectory hermeneutics to help make these sorts of conclusions.

So how can we apply this to New Age practices?

Well, I need to be honest. I am mostly ignorant of New Age practices and beliefs. I did a little reading and watched a few videos, but based on my extremely limited knowledge, it seems to me that many of the New Age practices are quite similar to some of the practices mentioned in the Bible, but the New Age approach sort of removes God from the equation.

So for example, many New Age practitioners talk about Manifesting or the Law of Attraction, where, which some positive thinking about yourself and the universe, you can bring good things to yourself and turn hopes and dreams into reality. Well, this is somewhat similar to prayer. Rather than trying to manifest your hopes and dreams into reality, why not have a conversation with God about your hopes and dreams instead?

What about positive thinking? Well again, why not think positive thoughts about who you are in Jesus Christ? Why not recognize all the truths from Scripture about what God thinks about you?

Does this mean that manifesting or positive thinking are sinful? …. Probably not. I just don’t think it is anywhere near as effective as prayer or as claiming the truths of Scripture about yourself.

Now look, I would avoid some of the New Age beliefs that teach we are all mini gods. That’s not true. Or that all roads lead to heaven. I am not a universalist and so don’t agree with that either.

Anyway, I am not an expert on any of this. I would love it if you weighed in below by leaving a comment. Let me know what you think about mystical beliefs and practices and how they line up with Scripture or contradict it.

By Grace are You Saved Through Faith … Ephesians 2:8-9

This study was difficult for me to prepare, because I could spend hours talking about Ephesians 2:8-9 and all the various ways of understanding this verse, and also the importance of understanding the key terms in this verse, such as grace, saved, faith, and the “gift of God” at the end of the verse. I have lessons on all these words in my Gospel Dictionary Online Course for those who join my discipleship group.

But let me just try to summarize everything for you. Let us begin with the traditional understanding of Ephesians 2:8-9. The verses say this:

Ephesians 2:8-9. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Traditionally, Christians believe that Ephesians 2:8-9 is talking about how to receive eternal life. I even taught this in the past, and you read my old teachings on Ephesians 2:8-10 here. Christians think this because of the word “saved.” Most Christians think that the word “saved” refers to receiving eternal life and going to heaven when you die.

Therefore, most Christians think that this verse is teaching that God offers eternal life to use solely by His grace, and we receive this free gift through faith … that is, by believing Jesus for it.

Ephesians 2:8 faith is not a giftThere is also an issue there at the end of the verse about the “gift of God” and what it refers to. What is the gift of God that Paul is referring to? Is it the grace? The faith? the salvation? I have taught about this frequently in the past, so I’m not going to dive deep into the question now. (See these articles: Faith is NOT a gift from God, Is faith the gift from God, Faith is Not a Gift from God) The answer to the debate, however, is that the Greek words have the entire “by grace are you saved through faith” package in view. The gift that Paul has in mind is all that God has done for us human to offer us salvation by grace through faith. That’s all I’m going to say about that, and you can read those other articles for a longer explanation.

Now, it is 100% true that we receive eternal life by grace through faith. The Bible teaches this everywhere (cf. John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47).

However, although the Bible everywhere teaches that we receive eternal life by grace along through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, Ephesians 2:8-9 is not one of the verses that teaches this idea.

The reason is because the word “saved” in Scripture does not ever actually refer to receiving eternal life. As I briefly explained in the previous study of Ephesians 2:5-7, the word “salvation” means “deliverance” and the context of the passage determines what kind of deliverance is in view. When you perform this study on every passage in the Bible (as I have done), you discover that the Bible never uses the words “saved” or “salvation” in reference to receiving eternal life.

Not even here in Ephesians 2:8-9.

Again, as we saw last time, the salvation of Ephesians 2 has in view the way God has delivered us from our bondage and slavery to the sin of blame, accusation, scapegoating, and violence that dominates and rules the world. Since Cain murdered Abel, the world has run on violence. We know of no other way to live.

But God, through the person and work of Jesus Christ, came and rescued us, delivered us, SAVED us from this way of living and showed us a completely different way of living. This new way of life is what we were made for originally, and what God has always modeled for us, and what we are now to walk in, as we follow Jesus.

God revealed this to us out of His grace, and as we follow this new way by faith, we will be saved from the death that has enslaved humanity.

In other words, Ephesians 2:8-9 is not about how to go to heaven when you die, but rather about how God stepped in to the human problem to rescue us from our slavery to death.

So with that in mind, here is how to read Ephesians 2:8-9:

God gave us an amazing free gift [by grace] in showing us how to live a different way than through violence and bloodshed [are you saved], and while this new way of living is counterintuitive and seems to contradict everything we think we know about life, if we believe that what we see in Jesus is the true way to properly live life [through faith], then God will lead us into this new way of life. This entire thing did not come from ourselves. We humans did not think it up and come to this new understanding on our own [and that not of yourselves]. This entire revelation of the new way to live life is a gift from God [it is the gift of God]. No one can boast that they thought this up on their own [not of works so that no one can boast]. Nope, it’s solely and only from God.

Does that way of reading these verses make sense?

This way of reading the verse fits perfectly in the overall context of Ephesians 2, where Paul has laid out the problem of humanity in Ephesians 2:1-3, the solution to this problem that has come from God through Jesus in Ephesians 2:4-10, and the application of how to live this new way in Ephesians 2:11-22.

Again, Ephesians 2 is not about how to go to heaven when we die, but is about how to bring heaven down to earth by living at peace with one another here on this earth, just as Jesus did during His life and just as God wants us to do in ours. And our world desperately needs this way of living right now, doesn’t it?

We will pick back up next time with Ephesians 2:10 as we continue to talk about this new way of living as revealed in Jesus.

God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology, z Bible & Theology Topics: Ephesians 2:8, Ephesians 2:8-9, faith, gift of God, grace, new age, new age movement, podcast, saved, sin, violence

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Sin Leads to Wrath (Ephesians 2:3)

By Jeremy Myers
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Sin Leads to Wrath (Ephesians 2:3)
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Ephesians 2:1-3 explains the greatest problem humanity faces on this earth. Ephesians 2:3 reveals the root cause of this problem, and how it leads to the destruction of humanity. This podcast study explains all of this from Ephesians 2:2. Before that, however, we look at a question from a reader about Critical Race Theory.

Question about Critical Race Theory

I listened to your recent discussions of Critical Race Theory, and while I agree that there might be some concerns with CRT, since the goal is to get rid of racism so that all people can live in love and unity with each other, shouldn’t we accept and embrace CRT, or at least allow it to have a voice in our schools and churches? CRT is part of an overall conversation about race relations, and is therefore a good thing. Right?

Everybody wants love and unity among all people. I completely agree that love and racial reconciliation are taught in the Bible and are godly goals.

The problem, however, is that while CRT claims to work toward unity, forgiveness, and reconciliation, it actually does the exact opposite. The reason it fails is twofold.

First, in the attempt to achieve racial reconciliation, CRT demonizes one particular race, namely, white people. Love, unity, and reconciliation can never occur when one group seeks to accuse and condemn another group. Such behavior does nothing but amplify the division and strife. Reconciliation can only occur when all parties agree that we are all equal in God’s image, and are all willing to view and treat each other in light of this equality.

But secondly, CRT does not lead to love and racial reconciliation because it seeks to achieve unity and love between the races through law, and specifically, through hedging around the law. Hedging around the law always leads to the opposite of what God wants. Let me explain what this is before I explain how CRT does this.

Law-hedging, or hedging around the law occurs when people take the commands and laws of God, and in an attempt to help people obey those divine instructions, create a secondary set of laws to keep people from breaking the primary law.

I talk about this in my sermon on Luke 6:1-5 and the Sabbath law keeping. “Don’t do work on the Sabbath” becomes don’t walk a certain distance on the Sabbath, don’t spit, don’t light a fire, and don’t rub heads of grain between your hands.

We have similar law-hedging rules today.

Don’t lust becomes don’t let women be beautiful (which is doubly sad, because the women get punished for the sins of men). If we really wanted to put up a hedge around the prohibition to lust, we should gouge out men’s eyes … as Jesus suggested (Matt 5:29).

Don’t get drunk becomes “Don’t drink.” Oh, let’s hedge that one too: “Don’t even have alcohol in your house.” But we can hedge that one too: “Don’t even have alcohol in your town. Let’s have dry town.” During the Prohibition Era, our country tried to really hedge around this one by banning all alcohol in the country. You know how well that turned out.

So that is hedging the law. And hedging around the law always results in catastrophe. It always leads to the exact opposite of what God wanted. Rather than result in love, law-hedging leads to hate.

Why? Because as soon as you build a hedge around the law in an attempt to keep the law, you are now using a standard which is not biblical to judge and condemn other people. And this standard based on human traditions leads to criticism and judgmentalism of people who may be engaging in behaviors that God is okay with, but you are not, because you use the standard of law-hedging while God uses the standard of love.

This is how hedging around the law leads to hate.

And this is exactly what happens with Critical Race Theory. CRT creates a system of laws and rules intended to “force” people to “do the work of antiracism.” I found a great article from Krista Bontrager called “The New Legalism” which explains how this works with CRT. After talking about how the Pharisees hedged around the law in the days of Jesus so that they could actually do the opposite of what the law required, Krista says that CRT advocates are doing the exact same thing today. CRT hedges around the biblical instructions against racism, not to end racism, but to do the exact opposite!

Here is a bit of what Krista writes in the article:

I have become persuaded that Social Justice and Critical Race Theory ARE the holiness codes of our cultural moment. “Doing the work” of antiracism has come to comprise the accepted values, language, and moral code—not just in our culture, but in many of our churches too.

“Social Justice Warriors” act as the new Pharisees. They are standing by watching, willing and ready to point out others’ moral shortcomings according to their human traditions—their hedge laws. The clear message: obey their “laws” or risk being cancelled. Within the church (or Christian higher ed), the sincerity of your faith may even be questioned!

This popular graphic is used all over the internet to explain the new definition of “White Supremacy.” The actions and attitudes listed here indicate what makes a person “unclean.” Ideas such as “White privilege” or “color blindness” are the new “holiness code” or “hedge laws” that are put forward to help prevent us from participating in covert racism.

But the question is: does this complex list demonstrate how I MUST live out God’s law of loving my neighbor? I would say no. Showing partiality, using slurs, or hating my neighbor in my heart because of her ethnicity would violate God’s standards of justice (Gal. 5:20). This graphic implies little more than a bunch of “hedge laws” that are intended to tell me how I must obey God’s commands. There is nothing about White privilege or White fragility in the Bible. There are no commands in Scripture about decentering Whiteness or performing the works of antiracism.

BUT many Christian leaders are talking as if there are!

I am opposed to racism. Racism is evil and must be purged from the world. Racism does the exact opposite of what God wants or desires, and in fact, has no place in the Kingdom of God, but rather belongs to the kingdom of darkness and the rule of satan. We must all work to bring love, healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation to all the people of the world.

But CRT does not accomplish this. Like the hedging-laws of the Pharisees, the laws and regulations of CRT accomplishes the opposite of what it claims. It does not bring love or reconciliation, but instead only amplifies hatred, discord, and jealousy among people, and thus, creates more racist feelings and tensions. Do not be led astray by Critical Race Theory. It does not help in creating unity. Instead, follow Jesus into love, grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. These are traits of the Kingdom of God and these are the only way to restore unity and reconciliation to this world.

This all fits with what we learn in our study of Ephesians 2:3.

How Sinful Desires Lead to Wrath (Ephesians 2:3)

Ephesians 2 is all about the primary problem that humans face in this world, which is the problem of hatred, division, strife, and racism. Humans have always suffered from religious hatred, economic hatred, racial hatred, and cultural hatred. We use this hatred to accuse, condemn, and kill one another, and we do it all in God’s name.

In Ephesians 2, Paul describes this problem, shows what Jesus did to fix it, and then invites us to apply the example of Jesus to our world so that we can live in love and unity with each other. Ephesians 2:1-3 contains Paul’s description of the problem we humans face. We have already considered Ephesians 2:1 where were learned what the great problem of humanity is and how it leads to death, and then also Ephesians 2:2, where we learned that the accuser, satan, is behind this great human problem.

Ephesians 2:3 now shows how we humans have fallen prey to the lies of the accuser, and also shows how our actions lead to the destruction of humanity.

Ephesians 2:3. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

Here in Ephesians 2:3, Paul begins by saying All of us also lived among them at one time. There are no exceptions here. All means all. You, me, Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, everyone. Paul even includes himself in this. He says all of us. All of us at one time lived as the rest of the world lives, caught up in sin that leads to death (Ephesians 2:1) and under the control of the accuser, satan, which rules the kingdom of the air (Ephesians 2:2).

Paul says next in Ephesians 2:3, that all of us were gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.

There are several things to note about these statements.

Sinful nature = Flesh

First, I am not fond of the term “sinful nature,” and it is not the best translation of the terms here that Paul wrote in the Greek. The Greek word is sarx, which is best translated as “flesh.” I argue in my Gospel Dictionary course that we do not have a “sinful nature” and should stop using that phrase. The biblical term is “flesh,” and it refers to the human tendency to use religious laws as a way to justify our violence against other human beings. It is “religious zeal carried out through religious violence.”

When Paul writes about “the flesh,” he is thinking the tendency of religious zealots to think that their faithful obedience to God’s commands (and more specifically, the manmade rules humans have constructed around God’s commands) puts them in better standing with God than others (cf. 2 Cor 10:3; Gal 2:20). This fits exactly with what we discussed above with Critical Race Theory.

Cravings = Lusts

Second, the term “cravings” could be translated as lusts. The word “lust” is a weighty theological word which reminds us of the three forms that sin takes … the lust of the eyes, the lust the flesh, and the pride of life. These are the three sins that Jesus was tempted with in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13), and are also the three sins that Eve was tempted with in the Garden (Genesis 3:6).

These cravings, or lusts, are closely related to desire, which Paul also mentions in this text.

Desire

Third, the word “desire” is a key term in Scripture, as it summarizes the basic source of all sin. As far back as Genesis 3 and Genesis 4, we see that desire led Eve to eat from the forbidden tree, and desire led Adam to imitate her actions, and desire led Cain to murder Abel (Gen 4:6-7).

I previously recorded a video about the importance of desire in understanding … pretty much everything … including sin, Scripture, and human society and culture. Watch it to learn more:

So when these three terms are properly understand, Paul is saying that all people on earth used to live according to religious zeal that led us to engage in violence against our enemies. We did this because desire caused us to want what others have and destroy those who were different from us. This is the way all of humanity lives, because we didn’t know any other way to live. Sacred violence runs the world, and we all use this sacred violence to get what we want and justify the violence we use in the process.

The end result of this sort of living is wrath. But what is wrath?

What is Wrath?

Paul says … like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

When most people read about “wrath” in the Bible, they think of the “wrath of God.” They think of God’s anger directed toward sinful human beings.

Punishment of God

But this is not what the Bible teaches about wrath. In fact, in Scripture, wrath does not come from God at all. Most of the time, when the Bible talks about wrath, it simply uses the word “wrath” as we see here in Ephesians 2:3, without any reference to God at all. There are a couple of texts in the New Testament that do indeed use the term “wrath of God,” but I am convinced that those references are not referring to the way God really is, but instead refer to the way some religious people think about God.

I know that’s a challenging idea, but let me put it this way. There are many Christians today who teach that God hates certain types of people. You will hear some preachers say “God hates Muslims,” or “God hates homosexuals.” When you hear a pastor say such hateful things, are you to assume that since a pastor says it, this is the way God really is? No! Instead, you are to realize that some people have really bad ideas about God, and our job as followers of Jesus is to recognize pastors who preach hate are not accurately representing God the way He really is. We are to refute such false teachers as not properly showing what God is like as revealed to us in Jesus.

So in the few places where the New Testament speaks about “the wrath of God,” those texts are not correct representations of what Paul thought. Instead, in those texts where Paul writes about the wrath of God, he is quoting some bad Christian teachers from his day who wrongly believed that God was wrathful. Paul quotes these bad teachers, not because he agrees with them, but because he wants to refute them. And that is what Paul goes on to do.

It’s called Epistolary Diatribe, and Paul engages in it quite frequently. Paul quotes someone he disagrees with so that he can go on to show how they are wrong. That is what is going on when Paul writes about “the wrath of God.” Paul does not believe that God is wrathful. Paul knows that God is not. Yes, wrath exists, but it does not come from God. I will eventually have an entry in my Gospel Dictionary online course on the word “wrath” which will explain more.

So what is wrath if it is not God’s anger directed toward humans?

Wrath is the devastating and destructive consequences of sin that fall upon humanity because we sin. Wrath does not come from God; wrath comes from sin. Sin bears its own punishment with it, and Paul calls it “wrath.” When we sin, there are natural consequences that result, and these consequences destroy, hurt, harm, kill, ruin, and damage humans, animals, climate, relationships, government, culture, society, economics, and every other aspect of this world.

Dead in sin Ephesians 2:1-3Wrath is a fire that destroys everything it touches, and the fire of wrath is sparked by human desire that leads to human violence.

The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand led to Word War I, which caused the mistreatment of the German people, which led to the rise of Adolph Hitler and World War II. One act of human violence led to the death and misery of millions. This is wrath. It is a contagion that starts with a spark and spreads to destroy countless lives.

Do you see why this is the greatest problem that humans face? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could end all the violence? Wouldn’t it be great if we could fulfill the desire of every beauty pageant model and achieve world peace? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could bring an end to wrath?

Ah, well, that is exactly what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. And that is exactly what Paul goes on to begin describing in Ephesians 2:4.

Summary of Ephesians 2:1-3

We humans do not function properly in our roles as God’s image on earth. Instead, we were subject to the ways of this world and to the lies of satan. This led us to sin according to our desire, resulting in our own mutually-assured destruction.

More succinctly still: Because we did not follow God in the ways of love, unity, and peace, but instead followed satan in the ways of desire, sin, and death, humanity is doomed.

Ephesians 2:1-3 has explained the greatest problem that humanity faces, which is the universal human problem of desire that leads to accusation and blame, which results in a contagion of death and violence. Most humans have absolutely no idea how to break free from all this violence. Our only solution is to have more guns and bombs than the next guy.

But Paul has a better solution. And it is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. And as Jesus showed us how to solve the problem of human violence, we as the church can show the world how to solve the problem also, which in turn, can start to bring an end to violence.

This is what Paul goes on to describe in Ephesians 2:4, where we pick up next time.

God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology, z Bible & Theology Topics: critical race theory, desire, Ephesians 2:1-3, Ephesians 2:3, flesh, mimetic theory, Rene Girard, sin, sin nature, sinful nature, What is wrath, wrath

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What does it mean to be dead in trespasses and sins? (Ephesians 2:1)

By Jeremy Myers
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What does it mean to be dead in trespasses and sins? (Ephesians 2:1)
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Ephesians 2 is one of the most misunderstood and misapplied chapters of the Bible. This study provides a brief overview of how to understand Ephesians 2, and then takes a deeper look at Ephesians 2:1 as an introduction to the chapter. We also discuss a question from a reader about the problem of peace in the Middle East.

Israel and the Palestinian Conflict

gospel of peaceI recently received this question from Aaron:

Just listened to your recent podcast about Ephesians and with the comments as to the situation in Israel and Palestine. I found the two particularly contrasting – you seem to be so close and yet so far. Theologically, you are on the side which understands the immediacy of the kingdom of God and our participation in it in the here and now through loving our neighbors, and your understanding of deliverance and heaven on earth are testament to that (I thank God you’re not a fundamentalist).  Yet your discourse about Israel and its right to occupy, or in your words defend, was seemingly of stark contrast to your theological position. I’m not sure the argument that the subsequent occupation after the six day war ‘for defensive purposes’ holds much water at all.

Specifically, I wonder what your response is towards the following two videos. Some Israelis seem to be in less denial about what they are doing to Palestinians than the west in general. And for the second video, just provides more context than just the immediate aftermath of six day war.

First of all, let me clarify that I am a fundamentalist, at least, according to the original definition of the term. Originally, the term referred to a set of 90 essays titled (#AmazonAdLink) The Fundamentals published by R. A. Torrey and A. C. Dixon between 1910 and 1915, published in 12 volumes. But that’s not what the question is about.

I watched both videos, and I don’t disagree with the overall message of either video. There is a history of problems between Hebrews and the Arabs living in Israel, and there are extremists on both sides that want to see the other side destroyed. I have never taught otherwise.

The first video however, with Assaf Harel on Haaretz.com, made some claims I want to challenge. He said, for example, that Israel is an Apartheid state. But it isn’t. At least, not according to the political and dictionary definition of Apartheid. As I stated earlier, Israel is a true democracy and is the only democracy in the Middle East. Israel affords its Arab citizens full rights. Arab Israelis are full participants in Israeli society. They vote in elections and Arab parties sit in parliament. There are Arab justices on the Supreme Court. About 20% of doctors in Israel and about half of pharmacists are Arab. Now, 20% is clearly not a majority, and so I agree that it is difficult for that 20% to rule over the other 80%, but 20% numbers make perfect sense when you realize that Arabs represent 20% of the population, which is exactly what you would expect in a representative democracy. So no, Israel is not an apartheid state.

He went on to indicate that Israel is withholding water, energy, and basic food necessities from the Arab Israelis. But they aren’t. It is Hamas doing that. The Arab Israelis have received billions and billions of dollars in aid from the United States and other countries. In fact, Israel herself has given tens of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority. But rather than use that aid to upgrade their infrastructure or provide for the basic necessities of the people, the Palestinian Authority gives most of the money to Hamas who then uses it to buy weapons and train soldiers. Here’s an article from Forbes which shows this and another from the Wall Street Journal which shows the problem persists to this very day. More detailed facts and figures are found here.

If someone is poor and I give them $1000 to buy food and clothing for their children, but they use the money to buy guns and ammo to attack me, I am not going to be too keen about the idea that they are only attacking me because I am starving their children.

Then his whole argument about violent extremists was quite illogical. He basically argued that there was no such thing as violent extremists because the it was only the right wing extremists who were accusing their opponents of being violent extremists, which proves that it is really the right wing extremists who are the violent ones. Assaf Harel is correct in that we tend to accuse others of that for which we ourselves are guilty, but this doesn’t mean that one side is violent and other is peaceful. It means both sides are violent and both sides need to own up to their contributions to violence.

Which brings me to the best line in the entire video. He said this: “If only for once we could be smart enough to reach a peace agreement before the war.”

Yes. But the solution to this is twofold. It requires truth and forgiveness.

church at warFirst, truth. Peace does not require truth about our enemies, but truth about ourselves. Finger pointing always leads to war. But it is only we can look at our own face in the mirror that we can own up to our own violence and bring an end to it.

Second, forgiveness. We must learn to forgive those on the other side. Whether they ask for it or not. Whether they own up to their part in the problem or not.

The sad reality in the Middle East, and indeed, in most human conflict, is that the two opposing sides refuse to perform either of these two requirements. And so there can be no peace.

As for me, I am not blaming the Arab people in Israel for the problem. But I will also not blame the Jewish people. Neither will I let either side off the hook. Both sides are at fault, and both must own up to their own faults and also extend forgiveness to the other side if there is to be peace.

Now, again, they will never do this because it is not what nations do. It is, however, what individuals can do, and maybe, just maybe, as we who follow Jesus learn to love one another with truth and forgiveness in our own lives, we can lead the nations to follow in our example.

Which is a perfect transition into the text we are studying today … Ephesians 2:1.

The Big Picture Message of Ephesians 2

Ephesians 2 is one of the most misunderstood chapters in the New Testament. This is largely due to our tendency to read everything in the Bible through “heaven-colored glasses” so that every passage about sin and salvation is thought to be about going to heaven when we die. So when most people teach and write about Ephesians 2, they see the references to death, sin, and satan in Ephesians 2:1-3 and then the references to grace, faith, and salvation in Ephesians 2:4-10, and think that this passage is about avoiding the consequences of sin so we can go to heaven when we die.

As a result, the text of Ephesians 2:8, “… for by grace you have been saved through faith …” is almost as widely known as John 3:16. So when you hear pastors or Bible college professors teach about Ephesians 2:1-10, the message you usually hear about this passage goes something like this:

We humans are evil sinners, under the control of the devil and our sin nature. We were dead and unable to do anything to change. Worse yet, because of sin, God’s wrath burns against us, and He wants to send us all to hell. But thankfully, God sent Jesus to help us get to heaven and if you believe in Jesus, you can go to heaven when you die.

Now honestly, I don’t truly have much a problem with those statements. In general, I agree with the basic facts as stated. However, I am convinced that this is NOT what Paul is writing about in Ephesians 2. Though the statements above are taught in Scripture, they are not taught in Ephesians 2.

In the next several podcasts studies, I am going to present a radically different understanding of Ephesians 2 which will help you see what Paul was really talking about, and how his message makes much more sense in the overall flow and structure of Ephesians. You will also discover that Ephesians 2 becomes much more applicable to our lives and to the church today.

But before we start looking at the text, let me just tip my hand and give you a preview of where we are headed. Here are some of the key truths which impact our understanding of Ephesians 2.

  1. Ephesians 1 has just ended with a statement by Paul that he is going to show the church how the church, as the body of Jesus in this world, is the only solution to all of the problems in this world. In Ephesians 2, Paul addresses the GREATEST problem in the world, and shows how Jesus calls the church to fix it.
  2. The central truth of Ephesians 2 is discovered by reverse engineering the chapter. Paul has a clear progression in Ephesians 2, following the “Problem (Ephesians 2:1-3) – Solution (Ephesians 2:4-10) – Application (Ephesians 2:11-22)” format. If all the “sins” we Christians like to focus on were really the issue for Paul, Paul’s train of thought would conclude with an application about how we must stop lusting, lying, stealing, etc. But Paul does not go there at all. Instead, Paul ends his train of thought by talking about how Jews and Gentiles, who used to hate each other, are now brought together in peace and unity as one family. Therefore, since this is the application Paul aims for, then the problem and solution must logically lead up to this application. The problem in Ephesians 2:1-3, then, cannot be about the “sins” we Christians often focus on, but rather, the “sins” we tend to ignore and overlook, which are the sins that create disunity and enmity between ourselves and other people in the world. These are the sins of hatred, accusation, blame, scapegoating, and rivalry. These are the sins that dehumanize us and dehumanize others. In other words, the sin that Paul is concerned with is the bigotry, racism, and hatred that exists between various people groups on earth. Paul wants all such hatred to end, and for there to be unity and love in the world, and Ephesians 2 shows us how to do this.
  3. So, with this in mind, the word “dead” in Ephesians 2:1 does not mean “non-existent,” nor does it refer to “total inability”. Instead, it refers to powerlessness, weakness, corruption. It is to be understood in light of Genesis 3–5 where sin leads to death, which is primarily physical death, and especially the death of murder.
  4. The spirit of the power in Ephesians 2:2 is a reference back to Ephesians 1: 21 and points to the rule and dominion of satan. But satan is best understood in light of what his name means, which is accuser. The course of this world, the spirit of this age, is the spirit of accusation and blame. Religious people are quite guilty of engaging in these activities, which means that the trespasses and sins in view is not the “sins” we Christians often condemn in others, but is actually the true “sin” of accusing and condemning others. Paul is most concerned here with the same thing that Jesus was most concerned with, which is the religious sins which people commit in God’s name. When these things are corrected by God (Ephesians 2:4-10), peace and unity result (Ephesians 2:11-22).
  5. We know this because Paul includes himself in the description of engaging in these practices, and yet he kept the law perfectly. So what sins did Paul engage in along with everybody else? The sin of accusation and blame, which leads to scapegoating violence and murder. These things all come from desire, which Paul also mentions in the context, and also takes us back to Genesis 3–4.
  6. There is no mention of “the sinful nature” in Ephesians 2:1-3. This phrase from the NIV is a tragic mistranslation of the Greek text. Paul is talking about the lusts and desires of the flesh. The “flesh” refers to our physical body, and it is from our flesh that lusts and desires rise, as we imitate and covet what other people have.
  7. Wrath, then, is not God’s wrath toward us, but human wrath directed toward one another (which we then justify by blaming it on God). Wrath is when we engage in violence against others, and do so in God’s name. It does not come from God, nor does it have anything to do with hell or eternal punishment.
  8. The solution to this great problem is found in Ephesians 2:4-10, and is based entirely on the grace of God and accepting by faith what Jesus has revealed on the cross about the problem of humanity and how to fix it.

The bottom line summary of Ephesians 2, then, is this:

We humans live in a world of sin and death, which we inflict upon ourselves by accusing, condemning, and killing one another, and justifying it all by doing these things in God’s name. We did these things because in our flesh, we knew no other way to live. We religious people killed and were killed, just like everyone else. But Jesus revealed the way to peace, and if we believe and follow the way of Jesus, then the church can lead the world into the way of peace as well.

That summary is very different than the first summary above!

I know that’s a lot of information, and is a challenge to comprehend all at once. So over the course of the next several podcasts, I will unpack all of this in much more detail. We begin today with a brief look at Ephesians 2:1

Dead in Trespasses and Sins (Ephesians 2:1)

In Ephesians 2:1, Paul says this:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins … 

This is the beginning of Paul’s description about how our life used to be before we were Christians. Before we learned the truth that Jesus revealed (which Paul will discuss later).

To properly understand this verse, we must grasp what Paul means when he describes humanity as being “dead” and then also what he means when he refers to trespasses and sins.

I will cover both of these terms at great length in my Gospel Dictionary online course, but they are also discussed in my book, (#AmazonAdLink) Nothing But the Blood of Jesus.

What does it mean to be “dead”?

Many Christian leaders say that the word “dead” means non-existent or completely powerless to do anything. It is not uncommon to hear pastor says, “A dead person can’t do anything. The body just lies there. It can’t talk. It can’t think. It can’t walk or move. So also, a person who is spiritually dead is unable to do anything that helps them move closer to God. They can’t think properly about spiritual matters. They can’t believe in Jesus. They are totally unable to do anything spiritually good.”

This sort of teaching is completely wrong. It is not true and it does not fit with the biblical understanding of the word “dead.”

Dead in sin Ephesians 2:1-3In my online course and my book, I teach that the word “dead” refers to something that is not functioning properly.

Theologically, the words death and dead refer to that which is inactive, powerless, not properly functioning for life as God intended. The words refer to that which is separated from its God-given purpose. To be dead is to be deprived of power. For example, Paul writes in Romans 4:19 that Abraham was dead, even though he was very much alive. What does Paul mean? He means that Abraham was powerless to perform. He was not functioning properly (cf. Heb 11:12). This is the way the words “dead” and “death” can be understood in all the contexts they are used.

So when someone physically dies, they are no longer functioning properly in life the way God planned and intended. Death was never supposed to touch human beings. Similarly, when someone who is alive is described as being dead, it means that something about them is not functioning properly the way God intended. Such a definition fits with all forms of death, no matter what kind of death is in view.

It is important to note that the words dead and death do not mean “non-existent” or to “total inability.” The words never carry these sorts of ideas. A dead body does exist; it is just not functioning properly. Abraham could be described as dead, even though he was alive, because his body was not functioning the way God intended. Similarly, dead plans or dead faith do exist, they just are not being carried out properly.

So when Abraham was described as being dead, even though he was alive, this was a symbolic form of death, in which his body was not functioning the way God intended. Physical death is similar. God never intended for humans to die, and so when our life leaves our bodies, we physically die. We are no longer functioning physically in our bodies the way God wanted or planned.

Then there is spiritual death. When we think of someone being spiritually dead, it means that although they do indeed have a spirit, the spiritual side of them is not functioning the way God intended. They are separated from the God-given functions for which they were created.

Eternal death speaks of the idea that people fail to function in eternity the way God desired and intended. Then the Bible can also use the word dead in reference to inanimate or intangible items, such as faith. In such cases, the words dead or death simply mean that the object under discussion is not properly functioning or being carried out as planned.

So when Paul writes here about us being dead, he is not thinking about total inability or any such thing. He is simply saying that we were not functioning properly as God intended. We did the opposite things God wanted and desired. Paul doesn’t mean we couldn’t think about spiritual things or do anything good.

He is saying that, as humans, we are not functioning as humans should. We are failing to live up to our calling and purpose as humans. The word “dead” here has nothing to do with spiritual death or physical death, but to humanity’s death. The death of the human race as God’s image in this world … and specifically, the death of the church as the body of Jesus in this world. That is the “death” Paul has in mind.

We are dead in that we fail to live up to what God wanted us to do and be. We are alive (Ephesians 2:2), but are flunking at life.

Why did we fail? Rather than do what God wanted, what did we do instead?

Trespasses and Sins

Our failure at life is described in the last half of Ephesians 2:1 with the terms “trespasses and sins.”

This is two different words for the same idea. Again, the term “sin” is a word I will cover at great length in my my Gospel Dictionary online course, and which is already covered in my book, (#AmazonAdLink) Nothing But the Blood of Jesus. I also covered an explanation of sin in great detail in my podcast studies on Genesis 3-4.

In brief, while sin can be understood as disobeying God, the Bible is much more specific than that about the nature and character of sin. In the Bible, sin is specifically the pattern of rivalry and scapegoating other people that leads to humans committing violence in God’s name.

Sin is a failure to live as fully human beings in the image of God. This is why sin is so closely connected with death here in Ephesians 2:1.

When we sin, we are not functioning properly as humans. We are not living up to God’s standard of us living in love toward one another, but are instead doing the exact opposite by living in hate, anger, and violence.

love vs hate

Sin is not so much about pride and rebellion or thinking we know better than God as it is about living as less than human. Sin is the dehumanization of ourselves and others. It is the problem of broken human relationships between God and one another. Relationships are key to being human, and when we are living as less than human, it surfaces in how we interact with God and with others.

So what is Paul saying in Ephesians 2:1? He is describing the human condition, but in ways that few people have ever really considered before. Paul is saying that the great problem with humanity is that we have failed to function properly as the image of God on earth. Or, to put it in terms related to the church, we have failed to function properly as the body of Jesus Christ on earth.

Instead of live up to what God desired and intended for us, we did the opposite. We have lived in sin. Rather than love one another, we hate one another. Rather than serve and build up one another, we kill and tear down one another. Rather than function as one family of God, we live in bigotry and racism, seeking to portray our enemies as monsters and as less than human, so that we might justify our violence against them, so that we might kill them in the name of God.

To go back to the question from the reader about the problem of peace in the Middle East, one of the big problems is that everyone want to blame and accuse someone else of the problems that exist in Israel. The Arabs blame the Jews and the West, and the Jews blame the Arabs and the Muslims. All groups seek to dehumanize the other groups so that they can attack and kill them or just ignore and abuse them. And since this conflict is religious in nature, all sides claim that God is on their side.

This is the exact problem that Paul addresses in Ephesians 2. Right now, he is just laying out the problem, but he will soon address the solution to the problem and how to apply this solution to the problem of the world. In this way, Ephesians 2 address one of the most significant and long-lasting problems in human history … the problem of two or more groups of people who hate each other and want to see the other group destroyed.

Are you beginning to see that Paul is talking about something much different, and much more practical, than the teaching about how to go to heaven when we die?

Yes, and in fact, Paul’s description here of the problem of humanity is not just about unregenerate unbelieving non-Christians, but is also about those who claim to follow Jesus.

Far too often, it is we Christians who seek to dehumanize our enemies so that we might accuse and condemn them in God’s name, and even call for their death and destruction in God’s name. When we do this, we are living in death. We are living in sin. We are, as Paul will say next, living satanically.

Did you know that Christians can be satanic? Yes, that is what will begin to see next time when we look at Ephesians 2:2.

For now, though, I just want to leave you with a word of caution.

love and hate in GodBe careful about accusing and condemning others. If you are into politics, it is very easy to start seeing your political opponents as monsters. As less than human. It is easy to start calling them names and wishing for their death. That is the sin Paul has in view here in Ephesians 2:1.

Or maybe it’s a group of people from another religion. The Muslims. Or the Atheists. Or … more close to home … the liberal Christians … or the evangelical Christians. When we start condemning and accusing them and thinking of them as our enemies, we are falling into sin.

The same applies for issues of race. Hopefully you don’t hate people who have a different skin color than you, but we’re starting to see more and more of this now, especially in the area of accusing other people of being racist simply because they have a certain skin color.

All such things must stop for all such things are sinful and cause us to live in death. We will discuss this concept more next time when we look at Ephesians 2:2.

 

God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology, z Bible & Theology Topics: dead, dead in sin, Ephesians 2:1, peace, racism, scapegoating, sin, violence

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Will Licentiousness and Lewdness send you to hell? (Jude 4, Jude 7)

By Jeremy Myers
1 Comment

Will Licentiousness and Lewdness send you to hell? (Jude 4, Jude 7)
https://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1005031720-redeeminggod-will-licentiousness-and-lewdness-send-you-to-hell-jude-4-jude-7.mp3

In this podcast episode, I discuss how to avoid hypocritical thinking in politics, answer a listener question about Jude 4, and discuss what the eternal fire in Jude 7 refers to.

How to Avoid Hypocrisy in Politics

Listen to the podcast for the full discussion, but the bottom line truth is that whenever you think about criticizing a political opponent or person for their actions, first consider whether you would say the same thing if someone from your own political party had done the same thing. (Chances are, someone from your own political viewpoint HAS done the same thing… when that happened, what did you say or do?) If you would be silent, then remain silent now. If you spoke out, then feel free to speak out now.

Question from a Listener on Jude 4

How do you harmonize eternal security with the book of Jude? Especially the statement in Jude 4 about licentious men who deny God and Jesus Christ. It says they abuse the grace of God and turn it into licentiousness or lewdness If a person, pastor, teacher, etc promotes eternal security, aren’t they teaching and promoting licentious, saying we can sin/abuse God’s grace and still be saved? I read Zane Hodge’s Power to Stand, an exposition on Jude and it brought some confusion/questions, one of the many questions I had long ago. I was wondering if you might answer it. I am grateful for your website and ministry! Thank you! I appreciate it!

I do believe in eternal security and grace is one of the primary reasons I hold to eternal security. In my Gospel Dictionary course I have a lesson on grace, and in it, I said this:

It is extravagant, outrageous grace which shocks all sense of propriety. God is shameless in His love for us, so that even when we say and do things that would chase off any human being, God sticks with us and by us. As soon as we seek to limit God’s grace or restrict it to a holy few, we have stopped believing in grace and have plunged headlong into the hell of religion. Grace is free! Absolutely free. It has no limits, borders, restrictions, or conditions. It is freely given and freely received, and as such, can never be rescinded or revoked. There is nothing that can be done (or not done) to earn, merit, or deserve grace. Grace cannot be increased or decreased, merited or demerited. Grace is infinite, universal, and free.

I can hear the objection already: But if grace is how I have been describing it above, won’t people take advantage of this kind of grace? The answer to that is “Of course they will!” But grace that comes with restrictions to avoid being abused is no longer grace. In fact, true grace, by definition, opens itself up to being abused. It is not true grace if it cannot be abused.

So yes, by definition, grace can be abused. It opens itself up for abuse. If God limited grace so that it could not be abused, then it would no longer be free. It would instead be earned or deserved because we gained it or kept it through certain God-approved behavior.

So what about these licentious teachers that Jude is writing about in Jude 4? Some translations say “lewdness.” Lewd behavior is that which is lustful, vulgar, lascivious. I like “licentious” though, because it gives the impression of “license.” A license allows you to do something. A driver’s license allows you to drive. A fishing license allows you to fish. So these teachers that Jude is warning about were saying that grace gives us a license to sin. You can sin all you want and it doesn’t matter.

Now, I have written and taught in the past that grace does indeed allow you to sin all you want. So does the Jude 4 warning apply to me? Am I one of the teachers Jude 4 warns you against? No.

And here’s why. From the context in Jude 4, it appears that these teachers were saying that Christians could go sin all they want, and such behavior doesn’t matter. There are no serious consequences to such behavior. In this form of teaching, grace is a license to sin.

I teach no such thing. I teach that while grace does allow you to go sin all you want, when you really understand grace, it actually teaches you not to sin. Grace teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust, as we read in Titus 2:11-12.

Let me put it this way. The teachers Jude was writing against were saying that grace allows people to sin all they want and there are not serious consequences for their sin. I (and other eternal security teachers) say that grace allows people to sin all they want, but grace also teaches us that there are very serious consequences for such behavior. Like what? While you will not lose your eternal life, you will likely suffer serious devastation and destruction to your health, your marriage, your finances, you job, your psychological and emotional well-being, and even to your eternal reward in eternity.

Do you see the difference? In the teaching of eternal security, free grace is not a license to sin but is rather a warning against sin. We say “Yes, grace allows you to sin all you want, but when you really understand grace and sin, why would you want to?” Grace allows you to sin all you want just like owning a knife allows you to stab it into your leg. Yes, you can do this if you want to, but why would you want to?

So the teaching on eternal security is not a license to sin. It is not licentiousness. It is the opposite. We uphold the grace of God in all its glory, and also know that grace, when it is properly taught and understood, teaches us to live righteously and godly in this present world. Grace, when truly grasped, is not the freedom to sin, it is the freedom to truly start living.

That is a brief explanation of Jude 4 in relation to the question of eternal security.

As long as we’re here in Jude, let’s look ahead a couple verses and also consider Jude 7 for our Scripture text of this podcast episode.

The Eternal Fire in Jude 7

The warnings of Jude 7 relate to what we just discussed from Jude 4. I have written and taught about this text previously in the lesson on “Fire” in the Gospel Dictionary Online course, and also in my book on Hell, titled (#AmazonAdLink) What is Hell?

Here is what we read in Jude 7

… as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 7)

As frequently seen in this study, the image of fire in Scripture refers to the temporal destruction of cities. This is also what is described in Jude 7, where the author points to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of what happens to those who stray from the will of God. However, some point to the phrase at the end of the verse that the cities are “suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” as evidence that Jude is talking about eternal suffering in the flames of hell. However, several contextual insights reveal that this is not what Jude had in mind.

First, this reference to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is parallel to the preceding two examples. Jude loves to give examples in triplicate, and so prior to writing about Sodom and Gomorrah, he writes about the death of some of the Israelites in the wilderness because they did not believe (Jude 5), and the imprisonment of some angels in everlasting chains while they await judgment (Jude 6).

Sodom and GomorrahThe first example of the Israelites in the wilderness clearly refers to physical death, rather than to eternal torment in hell. The example of the angels is more difficult, since we are not quite sure what event Jude has in mind. But many believe he is referring to the “sons of God” who had sexual relations with the daughters of men in Genesis 6, and were imprisoned as a result. Yet notice that while these angels are imprisoned in chains and darkness, they are not being tortured with fire. In fact, darkness and fire are mutually exclusive. And since angels are immortal, they cannot be killed. Therefore, they were imprisoned and are awaiting judgment.

This third example of Sodom and Gomorrah is a combination of the first two. Like the angels, the inhabitants of these cities committed sexual immorality and went after strange flesh. This is referring to the fact that the cities were inhospitable and attempted to rape the angels who visited them (Gen 19:4-7; Ezek 16:49-50). The result of this behavior was that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with fire.

Yet how do we know that Jude is not referring to eternal torment in the flames of hell? We know this because Jude says that Sodom and Gomorrah were “set forth as an example,” which means that this example could be seen by humans. If Jude were referring to the eternal fires of hell, then Sodom and Gomorrah could not be set forth as an example to be seen and witnessed by humans. Jude cannot be referring to some sort of future punishment in hellfire, because then it would not in any way be set forth as an historical example to mankind.

But we also know that Jude was not referring to the eternal flames of hell because of what he writes in Jude 23. Jude writes that it is possible to pull people out of the fire. This is, of course, exactly what happened with Lot and his family. They were rescued, pulled, or delivered from the flames that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and Jude indicates that similar deliverance can happen today.

If Jude was referring to the flames of hell in this text, then he would be teaching that it is possible to rescue and deliver people from hell after they are already there. But few who believe that hell is a place of everlasting torment in fire are willing to say that it is possible to rescue the people who are there. It is better to recognize from the context that Jude is not thinking about eternal torment in the flames of hell, but rather the everlasting destruction of cities due to temporal flames.

sodom and gomorrah

Indeed, this is exactly how to understand the phrase “suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” To begin with, “suffering the vengeance” is probably not the best way of translating the Greek (Gk., dikēn hupechousai). In 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9, the Greek word dikē means “penalty” or “justice” (Dikē was the Greek god of justice). The second word, hupechō, appears only here in the New Testament, and literally means “to undergo” or “hold under,” and carries the idea of experiencing something.

So the phrase itself means “to undergo justice” or to “experience justice.” And as frequently mentioned elsewhere, this experience of justice, or this penalty, is not sent by God but is brought upon someone through their own actions. Sin carries its own penalty with it. This is exactly what Jude says in verse 10 when he writes that the false teachers “corrupt themselves.” The corruption and punishment that come upon people is not sent from God but is brought by a person upon their own heads.

Jude says that this self-inflicted punishment upon Sodom and Gomorrah was “eternal fire.” This does not mean that the cities are still burning, for they are not. It means that the fire that fell upon these cities destroyed them completely, and they have not been rebuilt (cf. Rev 18:9, 18). This is true, for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were in the location of what is now the Dead Sea.

Sodom and GomorrahAccording to historical accounts from the New Testament era, the Dead Sea was also known as the Lake of Fire, where there were frequent bouts of flame and smoke, burning sulphur, and where everything that went through it collected a tarnish of oily soot and grime (cf. Gen 19:24-28; Deut 29:23; Isa 34:9; Jer 49:17-18; Rev 20:10). In the days of Jesus, the valley was still smoking and smoldering, and they assumed it would go on that way forever. This is what Jude has in mind when he speaks of the cities suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. It is not hell, but is the ongoing, physical destruction and devastation that came upon those cities.

And this is the overall truth that Jude is presenting in Jude 4 and Jude 7. Abandoning grace, or turning grace into a license to sin without consequences, is a recipe for disaster. Though grace does allow itself to be abused, the abuse of grace leads to devastation and destruction in the person’s life who does it. It invites fire into a person’s life, which sweeps through their life, leaving behind only dust and ashes.

So don’t abuse grace. Grace is given to us so that we might live free. Therefore, live in the freedom for which you have been set free.

To learn more about these sorts of truths, join my online discipleship group and take the Gospel Dictionary Online Course.

God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology, z Bible & Theology Topics: eternal fire, eternal security, fire, grace, hell, Jude 4, Jude 7, sin, Titus 2:11-12

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