Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ephesians 4:20

But ye have not so learned Christ;

20. ye ] Emphatic by position.

have not learned ] Better, did not learn; at their conversion. “ Learn ” implies the instruction then received in the Lord’s precepts, and in the holy bearings of His work. For a similar reference to the first apprehension by new converts of Gospel purity of principle, cp. 1Th 4:7; “God did not call us on terms of impurity.”

Christ ] Who is the Subject-matter of His own message.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

But ye have not so learned Christ – You have been taught a different thing by Christ; you have been taught that his religion requires you to abandon such a course of life.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Eph 4:20-21

But ye have not so learned Christ.

The Christian method of moral regeneration

The Christian method of moral regeneration includes three distinct processes.

1. The renunciation of the previous moral life. The ethical change was not to be partial, but complete. But this complete moral revolution is not accomplished either by one supreme effort of our own will, or by any momentary shock of Divine power. It is a lifelong and painful process.

(1) Self-examination is necessary. Our moral habits must be compared, one by one, with the commandments of Christ, and their conformity with the genius and spirit of Christian ethics must be patiently and honestly tested. In the humblest and obscurest of our Christian brethren we may often discover virtues which bring home to us how incompletely we have mastered our inferior and baser self. The imperfections in other men which provoke our resentment may make more vivid to us our own imperfections. The resentment itself, by its bitterness and impatience, may reveal to us a vanity, a wilfulness, and an impatience, which we thought we had subdued.

(2) Self-discipline, personal effort, as well as reliance on the Divine grace. If we discover that we have fallen into habits of careless speaking, and that with no deliberate intention to deceive, we are frequently conveying false impressions, we must call these habits by their right name; careless and inaccurate speaking is falsehood. We must watch our words so as to cheek the sin. We must speak less. We must think before we speak. We must submit to the humiliation of correcting the false impressions which we have created by our carelessness. If we find that we judge men hastily and harshly, condemn them on inadequate evidence, draw injurious conclusions from facts of which perhaps we have an imperfect knowledge, we must break the habit of rash judgment, must be silent about the conduct of other men till we are sure that we are right, and even when we are sure that we are right, ask ourselves whether there is any obligation resting upon us to pronounce any judgment at all. If we find that we are disposed to indolence we must try to discover whether we are yielding to any forms of physical indulgence which are unfriendly to vigorous and persistent industry, and avoid them. If sometimes we are betrayed into excessive drinking, we must consider whether our moral safety does not require us to abstain altogether from the kinds of drink that are perilous to us.

2. The constant renewal of the higher and spiritual life by the power of the Spirit of God. The spirit, which is that element of our life which comes to us direct from God, restores to the mind its soundness and health, the clearness of its vision, and its practical force and authority. In this high region of our nature Paul finds the springs of moral regeneration. Strength as well as light comes to us from invisible and eternal things; from the immeasurable love of God, from the glory of His perfection, from the knowledge that He is our comrade in every conflict with sin, that He is troubled by our defeats, and rejoices in our victories, from the hope of dwelling forever in His eternal peace and righteousness and joy. But if we are to be under the constant control of that spiritual universe by which we are environed, there must be a constant renewal of the spiritual life. It is not enough that, once for all, we have been born of God. The Divine life given in the new birth must be fed from its eternal springs, or the stream will soon run shallow, will cease to flow, will at last disappear altogether. The constant renewal of the spiritual life is the work of the Spirit of God; but we are not the merely passive subjects of His grace. It is our duty to be renewed. We are required to form the moral and spiritual habits which render possible, and which secure, the fresh access from day to day of Divine inspiration. There should be an habitual remembrance of the power and goodness of the Spirit, whose coming has more than compensated for the loss of the earthly ministry and visible presence of Christ. There should be habitual trust in Him as the Giver of light, of strength, of joy, and of righteousness. There should be habitual prayer for His teaching and His strong support. We should think much of God, and our thoughts of Him should be determined and controlled by the revelation of Himself in Christ. We should mind–not earthly things–but things heavenly and Divine; for our citizenship is in heaven, our riches, our honour, our blessedness, our home, are there.

3. The appropriation of the righteousness and holiness of that new and perfect humanity which God created in Christ. Christ is the prophecy of our righteousness, as well as the sacrifice for our sins–the prophecy, not merely the example or the law, of our righteousness; for He came down from heaven to give the very life of God to man, and in the power of that life all righteousness is possible. The prophecy has been fulfilled in every generation since He ascended to the Father, and in every country in which the Christian faith has been preached. The Lord Jesus Christ announced that He had come to give to the human race a new and diviner life, and strength to achieve a diviner righteousness. And we see that those great words have been accomplished. He has originated a new and nobler type of moral character, and a new and nobler religious faith. He Himself has been the root of the new ethical and spiritual life which has revealed its strength and its grace in Christian nations. His own unique perfection has been repeated, in humbler forms, in the lives of innumerable saints. The Vine has sent forth its branches into all lands, and men of every variety of civilization and of culture, of every variety of moral temperament and moral character, have illustrated the characteristic qualities of Christs own righteousness. In Him a new humanity was created. He is the Head of a new race. We ourselves are conscious that through Him we have passed into the Kingdom of God, are under the authority of its august and eternal laws, and that if our union with Him were more intimate we should have strength to achieve an ideal perfection. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)

True learning

I. Our lesson.

1. Learning Christ is

(1) much more than learning doctrine, precept, or ceremony.

(2) Much more than knowing about Christ, or learning from Christ.

2. It includes several forms of knowledge.

(1) To know Him as a personal Christ.

(2) To know His nature, and to treat Him accordingly.

(3) To know His offices, and how to use them.

(4) To know His finished work for God and for us.

(5) To know His influence over men, and to test it.

(6) To know by learning Christ the way to live like Him.

II. How we have not learned it.

1. So as to remain as we were before. Unchanged, and yet at peace.

2. So as to excuse sin because of His atonement.

3. So as to feel a freedom to sin because of pardon.

4. So as even to commit sin in Christs name.

5. So as to reckon that we cannot conquer sin, and so sit down under the dominion of some constitutional temptation.

6. So as to profess reverence for His name and character, and then think little of the truth which He reveals.

III. How we have learned it. We know the truth, and know it in its best light.

1. As directly taught by His own self, and by His own Spirit.

2. As distinctly embodied in His life and character.

3. As it relates to Him and honours Him.

4. Consequently, as it is in Him. Truth is in Jesus, indeed and of a truth, for in Him everything is real.

5. Consequently as it works a total change in us, and makes us like to Him in whom truth is embodied. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Thorough reformation

He exhorts not to an outward reformation of their converse only, but to that truth and sincerity of sanctification, which the doctrine and power Of grace in Christ teacheth and worketh in all true Christians: If so be, saith he, ye have learned the truth as it is in Jesus. Which doth not, as other doctrines of philosophers, etc., teach you to put off the evils of your outward converse only, and to put on a new conversation over an old nature, as a sheepskin over a wolfish nature; he that doth no more falls short of that truth of grace which Christ requires; but it teaches principally to put off the old man, as the cause of all the evils in the outward converse; and that is his meaning, when he saith. As concerning the outward converse put off the old man, without which it is impossible to reform the converse. (Thomas Goodwin.)

Learning Christ

To make a profession of religion is comparatively easy–and that on many accounts.

1. Because the secret doings of a man are known only to himself.

2. Because a mans doings, which are known to his family, by reason of the partiality and kindness of the members of that family, do not become known to many besides.

3. Because those who make a profession are so numerous that they have a family feeling for one another, and are always ready to help one another.

4. The heart of man aids a mere profession.

I. Those who have learned Christ properly, and not as the hypocrites, have learned their need of Christ. Do you feel your sins to be a burden, too heavy for you to bear?

II. Those who learn Christ properly, to the salvation of their souls, learn the worth of Christ. He obeyed the law for us; He died on the cross for us; He endured the wrath of God for us. Who can estimate the worth of all He did and suffered?

III. Those who have learned Christ to the saving of their souls have learned the design of Christ. That design was to prepare a people for His Father.

IV. Those who have truly learned Christ are conscious of new desires. The glory of God is now their aim and ambition.

V. Those who have learned Christ properly will be deeply interested in the glory of Christ. (H. Allen, M. A.)

Scholars of Christ

In the school of Jesus Christ it is not always the oldest or the cleverest who are the best scholars. In other schools the scholar must be naturally clever, or, at least, most industrious, if he is to gain a high place, and win a prize. In Christs school there is a place and a prize for the dullest, and he will succeed very well if only he wants to learn. I want you all to come to Christs school today, old and young, clever and dull, and to hear some of the lessons which that school teaches.

I. We must learn to hate our own sins. Like David, like St. Peter, like every penitent, when we think of the past we abhor ourselves, and sit down among the ashes of humiliation.

II. We must learn to know our own weakness, and our need of a saviour. The world will not give us that lesson.

III. Another of the lessons we must learn is to conquer ourselves. The world gives a great many instructions about conquering difficulties, beating down obstacles, overcoming enemies; but it is Christs school alone which can show us how to conquer ourselves. You have probably noticed the change in a young country lad after he has enlisted for a soldier, and gone through his drill. Whereas he was a high-shouldered, slouching, ungainly figure, now he has learnt to carry himself like a soldier, he has conquered the old bad habits which he acquired by lounging in the lanes, or plodding along the furrows. My brethren, we have all got our bad habits, our ugly tempers, our sharp tongues, our discontented feelings, and it is only the drill of Christs soldiers, and the teachings in Christs school, which will make us get the better of them. And we shall learn in Christs school to be brave. The worlds school can teach us a certain kind of courage, but not the highest, nor the best. The world can teach us how to resent an injury, not how to forgive one. It is in Christs school only that true heroes are made. The world can make such soldiers as Caesar, or Napoleon, but the school of Christ alone can make a Havelock or a Gordon. I have read of a poor boy who came to school with a patch on his clothes. One of his schoolmates singled him out for ridicule and insult; and the boy answered: Do you suppose I am ashamed of my patch? I am thankful to a good mother for keeping me out of rags, and I honour my patch for her sake. All the noble army of martyrs, of every rank and kind, learnt the secret of their courage in the school of Christ, and have left us an example to follow. (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, M. A.)

Learning Christ

There is, then, somewhere, a school where Christ is taught, and Christ is learnt. There are a great many schools where Christ is not taught; where almost everything is taught except Christ; where religion is taught, but it is not Christs; where even Christ is taught, but it is not the Christ of the Bible. Where, then, is the school of Christ? What is it? How is the instruction carried on? Who is the teacher? What are the lesson books? What is required of the scholars? How are they classified? What do they pay? Are there prizes? First, it is obvious, that if it be a school, the attainment of the knowledge which is taught there must be progressive, and whoever the teacher may be, there is required, on the part of the learner, earnestness, patience, fag. For it is a school. You say, But it is hard work. True; but the work wants doing.

1. In this school, who is the Master? Christ; only Christ. The Master! Not a master–The Master. In this school, then, of sacred lore, the one and only Teacher is the Lord Jesus Christ. There are human instructors, such as the Sunday school teacher, or a pious friend, or a parent, or a minister: but only as Christ is in them, and uses them. May not the cause why you have made no better progress be this, that you have not sufficiently recognized this fundamental principle?–for observe the line of thought how it runs on. You see the position is absolute. You must have heard Him, and been taught by Him.

2. How? What are the lesson books in that School of Christ? Of course, chiefly the Bible. For we have two words, a Living Word, and a written Word; and the written Word is the visible embodiment of the Living Word. It is when the Living Word is felt in the written Word, that the written Word becomes Gods Word indeed. But Christ can, and does, make everything His representative teacher. A providence–an object in nature–He is there: and therefore it can teach. He who can see and learn Christ anywhere, can see and learn Christ everywhere. The whole world becomes the primer.

II. Now, what is taught in this school? I answer, primarily, and in one word, Christ. The Teacher Himself is the subject. We have the highest authority for saying, In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Therefore, really to know Christ, is to know all things–all things that may serve our present peace, our present holiness, and our happiness forever. For observe, the whole Law embodied itself in Christ. He kept it for us, even to the law of death. There lies our safety. All nature–with all its beauties, and all its grandeur, and all its hidden mysteries–is the work of Christ. It is the mind of Christ; it is the development of Himself. So that no man knows creation till he knows the mind of the Creator. We shall best know the kingdom if we know the King! O wonderful and happy school! where the Infinite and All-loving and Almighty Teacher pours Himself into the learners, and as He does so, opens their understanding to understand it; softens their hearts to receive it; strengthens their memory to retain it; and enables their lives to exhibit it. O wonderful and happy school! where Omnipotence gives the will, the capacity, and the power to know and do what Omniscience teaches.

III. What are the prizes? The great reward–in this school of Christ–is that every learner, as he advances, is placed nearer and nearer to his Masters side. He becomes more conscious of his Masters love. These are the rewards now. What by and by? Eye hath not seen nor ear heard. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

The schools of Christ

It is a remarkable expression–Learning Christ. We learn a science, or we learn a language, or we learn a subject–but what is it to learn a person? We do not learn a person by hearing about him, or reading about him; we must know him. Now remember, that to learn implies effort, study, perseverance, progress. You do not learn by intuition. You do not learn by simply being told a thing. There must be patient earnestness. Now I wish to inquire, What are the schools in which Christ is most taught?

1. And I say first, and emphatically, the nursery. Perhaps in no part of our lives have we truer views of Christ than the views of our early childhood. The Scriptures is made for childhood. Even before a child can understand anything, it can understand Jesus. It is the basis of a good education. It meets a childs intellect. It draws out a childs thoughts. It is a childs philosophy.

2. The next best school, perhaps, is affliction. Life is more still. The day is not so crowded. The heart is more open. We are more impressible to holy lessons.

3. But affliction will not do much if it do not lead us to a further and most important school, the school of our own closet, By three teachings we chiefly learn Christ–prayer, the Bible, and meditation. If either be wanting we shall miss our lesson.

4. Another school of Christ and an eminent one, should be this place. What is this pulpit for but to teach Christ? All our theology begins and ends there. Christ the basis–Christ the sum and substance–Christ the end and object–of all true knowledge. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

As the truth is in Jesus.

Truth in Jesus

The portion of our text on which we would fix mainly your attention is, the description of truth as made known by revelation. Now, we shall take truth under two principal divisions, and compare it as it is in Jesus with what it is out of Jesus. We shall refer, first, to those truths which have to do with Gods nature and character; secondly, to those which have to do with mans condition.

I. We turn, then, to the truths which have to do with the nature and character of God. We begin with the lowest element of truth, namely, that there is a great First Cause, through whose agency hath arisen the fair and costly fabric of the visible universe. But take the truth of the existence of a God as it is out of Jesus, and then take that truth as it in Jesus, and let us see whether in the two cases the same truth will not bear very different aspects. Apart from revelation, I can believe that there is a God. I look upon the wonder workings by which I am encompassed; and I must sacrifice all that belongs to me as a rational creature, if I espouse the theory that chance has been parent to the splendid combinations. But what can be more vague, what more indefinite, than those notions of Deity which reason, at the best, is capable of forming? The evil which is mixed up with good in the creation; the disordered appearances which seem to mark the absence of a supreme and vigilant government; the frequent triumph of wickedness, and the correspondent depression of virtue; these, and the like stern and undeniable mysteries, will perplex me in every attempt to master satisfactorily the unity of the Godhead. But let me regard Jesus as making known to me God, and, straightway, there succeeds a calm to my confused and unsettled imaginings. He tells me by his words, and shows me by his actions, that all things are at the disposal of one eternal and inscrutable Creator. Putting forth superhuman ability, alike in the bestowment of what is good, and in the removal of what is evil, He furnishes me with the strictest demonstration that there are not two principles which can pretend to hold sway in the universe; but that God, a Being without rival, and alone in His majesties created whatsoever is good, and permitted whatsoever is evil. Thus, the truth, the foundation truth, of the existence of a God takes the strength, and the complexion, of health, only in the degree that it is truth as it is in Jesus.

II. Let us turn, now, from the nature of God to His attributes. We take, for example, the justice of God. We night obtain, independently on the scheme of redemption, a definite and firm-built persuasion, that God is a just God, taking cognizance of the transgressions of His creatures. What, then, shall we do with this truth of Gods justice? We reply, we must make it truth as it is in Jesus. We send a man at once to the cross of Christ. We bid him gaze on the illustrious and mysterious Victim, stooping beneath the amazing burden of human transgression. We ask him whether the agonies of the garden, and the terrors of the crucifixion, furnish not a sufficient and thrilling demonstration that Gods justice, when it takes in hand the exaction of punishment, does the work thoroughly–so that no bolt it too ponderous to be driven into the soul, no offence too minute to be set down in the reckoning? So, then, we may count it legitimate to maintain that the truth of God being a just God is appreciated truth, and effective truth, only in the degree that it is truth as it is in Jesus; and we add, consequently, new witness to the fact, that the definition of our text describes truth accurately under its influential and life-giving forms. We may pursue much the same line of argument in reference to the truth of the love of God. We may confess that he who looks not at this attribute through the person and work of the Mediator, may obtain ideas of it which shall, in certain respects, be correct. Yet there is no property of the Creator concerning which it is easier to fall into mistake. We have no standard by which to estimate Divine affections, unless one which we fashion out of the results of the workings of human. So that, whilst we have not before us a distinct exhibition of Gods love, we may fall naturally into the error of ascribing an effeminate tenderness to the Almighty, and reckon, exactly in proportion as we judge the love amazing, that it will never permit our being given over to torment. Hence, admitting it to be truth, yea, most glorious and blessed truth, that the creature is loved by the Creator, this truth must be viewed through a rectifying medium, which shall correct the distortions which a depraved nature produces. Now, we maintain again that this rectifying medium must be the person and work of the Saviour. In other words, we must make the truth of Gods love truth as it is in Jesus, and then, at one and the same time, we shall know how ample is the love, and be guarded against abusing it.

III. We proceed, further, to affirm, in reference to the condition of man, that truth, if rightly understood, or thoroughly influential, must be truth as it is in Jesus. Mans moral disability is not to be described, or understood, theoretically. We want some bold, definite, and tangible measurements. But we shall find these only in the work of Christ Jesus. I learn the depth to which I have sunk, from the length of the chain let down to updraw me. I ascertain the mightiness of the ruin by examining the machinery of restoration. Thus the truth of human apostasy, of human corruption, of human helplessness, how shall this be truth understood and effective? We answer, simply through being truth as it is in Jesus. We add, that the law of God, which has been given for the regulation of our conduct, is a wonderful compendium of truth. There is not a single working of wickedness, be it the lightest and most secret, which escapes the denouncements of this law; so that the statute book proves itself truth by delineating, with an unvarying accuracy, the whole service of the father of lies. But who knows anything of this truth, unless acquainted with the law as expounded and fulfilled by Christ? Christ in His discourses expanded every precept, and in His obedience exhibited every demand. Knowledge of the law would crush a man, if unaccompanied by the consciousness that Christ obeyed the law in his stead. So that truth as it is in Jesus, this is knowledge, and this is comfort. And, finally, for we must hurry over ground where there is much which might tempt us to linger, look at the context of the words under review, and you will find that truth, as it is in Jesus, differs from truth, as it is out of Jesus, in being a sanctifying thing. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The truth in Jesus learned by His disciples

I. Let us glance at the truth in Jesus.

1. The life of Jesus opposed and contradicted that which was false and wrong; and in this respect the truth was in Jesus. Ask ye me–And what was false and wrong? We answer, Christ scarcely found anything true and right. Himself was in perpetual collision.

2. Jesus embodied the truth of truths symbols. Certain ordinances from the day of Abel were symbols of truth. Jesus Christ was that which these symbols signified. There had been offerings for sin–the blood of bulls and of goats–of lambs and calves–the ashes of heifers. These sacrifices were the figures of the true. He abolishes old carnal sacrifices by being Himself the real sacrifice. And thus the truth of Sacrifice is in Jesus.

3. Jesus spake truth–that which, on account of its importance to man, is The Truth. This will appear in the following circumstances.

(1) The truth that is in Jesus is eternal. Eternal truth–that was within God before there was a creature to be spoken to by God.

(2) The truth in Jesus is also in harmony with all truth, and with the whole nature of Him who created all things, and by whom all things consist–it is in accordance with the one Infinite Mind that is expressed on the star and on the flower, by the Seraph and by the insect.

(3) It is universal truth. And truth worthy of all acceptation–so attractive to angels that they stretch their faculties to look into it, and so important to man that, sown broadcast on the earth, it will change the wilderness into a fruitful field.

(4) Almighty truth–a hammer that will break a rock, and a fire that will burn all before it as stubble; and living truth–the incorruptible seed of a new birth, and the principle of an eternal life.

II. Let us show what cannot be learned by those who have only heard and been taught by Christ.

1. Nothing childish can be learned of Christ. And the becoming a little child does not mean becoming weak and little. What Christ here enforces is modesty, teachableness, candour, simplicity, freedom from lawless ambition, a loose hold of surrounding objects.

2. A shifting and accommodating creed is not learned of Christ. His doctrines are not like inconstant, changeable gusts of wind, or even like steady trade winds. They are light, not wind–knowledge of truth arising in the midst of the darkness of ignorance, and shining brighter and brighter unto day.

3. Pious frauds are not learned of Christ. Truth is in Jesus; and ye have not learned to use artifice, cheating, and deceit in religion, if ye have heard and been taught by Him.

4. A literal and carnal interpretation of Christs laws is not learned of Christ.

5. Truth framed according to system is not learned of Christ.

6. Nothing contrary to the God-like can be learned of Christ. The doctrines Christ taught were Divine. The works Christ performed were Divine. The life Christ lived was Divine. All notions and ideas received from Him are light of Gods light. The character which His influence forms is in the likeness of God. The course of conduct which He marks out is an embodiment of the will of God. (S. Martin, D. D.)

Learning Christ changes the nature

If you have learned Christ as the truth is in Him, you have so learned Him as to put off the old man and to put on the new. Faith works by love, even as the tree has both its leaf and fruit. And as if a tree should be changed from one kind to another, the leaves and fruit should likewise be changed; as if a pear tree should be made an apple tree, it would have leaves and fruits agreeing to the change made in it; so man by faith having his heart purified, made a tree of righteousness, he has his leaves and fruits; leaves of profession, fruits of action. So again, a man, as a new tree set into and growing out of Christ, bears a new fruit, he converses in holiness and newness of life. Thus you see how those that are faithful are also saints, because by faith their heart is purified, their profession and conversation are sanctified. (P. Bayne.)

The school of Christ

The direct and immediate purpose of these words is to show the irreconcilable contradiction between a course of life, such as that of other Gentiles, and the Christian discipline and instruction which these Ephesian believers had received.

I. It is here distinctly affirmed that the living voice of Christ Himself is our teacher. Ye have heard Him. The New Testament everywhere represents Christ as still working and teaching in the world. He has pledged Himself to send that teaching Spirit of truth, in whose coming He Himself comes, and all whose illuminations and communications are imparting to us the things of Christ.

II. Those who are in Christ receive continuous instruction from Him. And have been taught by Him. These words seem to imply the conditions and the gradual process of Christs schooling. His teaching is not one act, but a long, patient discipline.

III. The theme of the teaching is the teacher. Ye have not so learned Christ. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Effects produced on the character by reception of the truth as it is in Jesus

I. If we have learnt the truth as it is in Jesus it has at once taught us to renounce all dependence on any works of our own, and at the same time put us on a course of holy action.

II. The truth as it is in Jesus is at once a source of great anxiety–and to the same person, on a more intimate view of it, of great consolation.

III. The truth as it is considered in Jesus, produces a very great humility of mind, and at the same time, a new and elevated sense of dignity. Nothing produces such humility of mind, so permanent and universal in its operation, as the reception of the truth as it is in Jesus. Hence, then, the real Christian begins to enlarge the view of his own dignity; he considers himself as born to immortality. And being now reconciled to God, and being made a member of Christ and heir to His promises, he feels in himself a new sort of worth and value.

IV. The truth as it is in Jesus, whenever it takes place in the heart, is a source of real happiness. It is a light-giving truth; it not merely enlightens the understanding, but it touches the sensibilities of our nature; it comes into contact with the sensitive part of our frame; it produces a goodness of heart, and peace and tranquility of mind, and an elevation of hope, that no other system produces.

V. If we are partakers of the truth as it is in Jesus, we shall be united in heart and affection with all those that embrace the same truth. This truth has an uniting quality. It binds together in the ties of amity all its disciples. It produces such a change in the character that it qualifies them for the closest degree of intercourse and friendship. (F. J. Judkin.)

Need of distinctive Christly teaching

The longer you live, if you keep in a healthful spiritual atmosphere, the more deeply you will feel the utter unreality, and blankness of help or comfort, of all religious teaching which is not saturated through and through with Christ, with special Christian doctrine: the more deeply will you feel the moral paralysis of all moral truth, but truth as it is in Jesus. The living, experimental Christian will turn away from all that is not such, just (though the similitude be homely) as an animal rejects the food which does not suit its nature. I dont say, will be the living Christians feeling, I dont say but all that may be true; but it is not the truth for me! And I do not mean Christ merely; but Christ as seen in the great Atonement. When one hears a great deal about the beauty of Christs character; and about His sympathy with us; and about looking to Him as our Example; but nothing of His atoning sacrifice and His regenerating Spirit; I refuse to receive that as gospel truth, the truth as it is in Jesus! I revolt, as much as any from the stupidity of those who would count how often Christs Name occurs in a discourse; as if that were a test how far the discourse is leavened by His Spirit. But I remember how one, chief among apostles, said to dear friends, I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness: But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 20. But ye have not so learned Christ] Ye have received the doctrines of Christianity, and therefore are taught differently; ye have received the Spirit of Christ, and therefore are saved from such dispositions. Some would point and translate the original thus: But ye are not thus; ye have learned Christ.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

But ye have not so learned; so as to walk as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of your minds, &c.

Christ; the doctrine of Christ, or rule of life prescribed by him.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

20. learned Christ (Php3:10). To know Christ Himself, is the great lesson of theChristian life: this the Ephesians began to learn at theirconversion. “Christ,” in reference to His office, ishere specified as the object of learning. “Jesus,” in Eph4:21, as the person.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

But ye have not so learned Christ,…. Some distinguish these words, and make two propositions of them, “but ye not so”, or “ye are not so, ye have learned Christ”; the first of these propositions has respect to what goes before, and suggests that regenerate persons are not as other men: they do not walk in the vanity of their minds as others, their minds are not empty and vain; but are filled with God, with a saving knowledge of God in Christ, with the fear and love of God, and with Christ, with a spiritual knowledge of him, with faith in him and love to him, and with the Spirit, with his graces and fruits of righteousness; and though there is a great deal of vanity, instability, treachery, and sinfulness in them, yet their walk and the course of their conversation is not according to this: nor are their understandings darkened as others; they are enlightened to see their lost state and condition by nature, the plague of their own hearts, the insufficiency of their own righteousness, the way of life and salvation by Christ, and that salvation from first to last is all of grace; they have some light into the doctrines of the gospel, and have some glimpse of glory; and their light is of an increasing nature: they are not alienated from the life of God as others, but live a life of communion with him, a life of faith upon him, and a life of holiness according to his mind; they are not past feeling as others, they are sensible of sin, and are often pressed down with the weight of it, and groan, being burdened by it; they cannot sin with that delight and pleasure as others do, nor will they plead for it, but confess it with shame and sorrow; nor do they give up themselves to it, and continue in it, and in an insatiable pursuit of it: the reason of all which is, they “have learned Christ”: so as to know him as God over all blessed for ever; as the Lord and heir of all things; as the Alpha and Omega of the covenant of grace; as intrusted with all that is near and dear to his Father; as the Father’s free gift to men, and as the sinner’s Saviour; as the way of access to God and acceptance with him; as the church’s head and husband; as the saints’ prophet, priest, and King, and as the only Mediator between God and men; and so as to receive him, believe in him, and commit their souls unto him; and so as to embrace his truths, and submit to his ordinances: and this lesson they learn, not in the book and school of nature, nor of carnal reason, nor of the law; but in the book of the covenant, and of the Scripture; and in the school of the church, and under the ministry of the Gospel; for the ministers of the Gospel are the instructors, the instruments of teaching; though the Spirit of God is the efficient cause, the anointing which teacheth all things, and leads into all truth, as it is in Jesus: and this lesson being truly learnt, will teach men to walk differently from others; to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

But ye did not so learn Christ (H ). In sharp contrast to pagan life (). Second aorist active indicative of .

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Have not learned [ ] . Rev., giving the force of the aorist tense, did not learn; at the time of your conversion, when you were instructed in Christ ‘s precepts. The phrase learn Christ occurs nowhere else. Christ does not stand for the doctrine of Christ; but Christ is the subject of His own message. See ver. 21.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “But ye have not” (humeis de ouch) “But you all (of the church of Ephesus) have not,” in contrast with the unconverted Gentiles.

2) “So learned Christ” (houtos emathete ton christon) So or thus learned the Christ,” Act 2:36; who taught them holy living, maturity of life, Mat 5:48; 1Co 1:23; 2Co 1:19; Gal 1:16; Php_1:15.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

20. But ye have not. He now draws a contrast of a Christian life, so as to make it evident how utterly inconsistent it is with the character of a godly man to defile himself regardlessly with the abominations of the Gentiles. Because the Gentiles walk in darkness, therefore they do not distinguish between right and wrong; but those on whom the truth of God shines ought to live in a different manner. That those to whom the vanity of the senses is a rule of life, should yield themselves up to base lusts, is not surprising; but the doctrine of Christ teaches us to renounce our natural dispositions. He whose life differs not from that of unbelievers, has learned nothing of Christ; for the knowledge of Christ cannot be separated from the mortification of the flesh.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(20) Ye have not so learned Christ.Better, ye did not so learn the Christ. To learn Christ is a phrase not used elsewhere; but easily interpreted by the commoner phrase to know Christ (see Joh. 14:7; Joh. 14:9; 2Co. 5:16; Php. 3:10), which is still nearer to it in the original, for the word used for to know properly means to perceive or come to know. It would seem that the name the Christ is here used emphatically, in distinction from the Jesus of the next verse. To learn the Christ is to enter into the true meaning of His office as the Anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, or, in one word, as the Mediator, in whom we as Christians escape from the guilt and bondage of the sins described above. Such learninglike the knowing of 2Co. 5:14is not after the flesh, by the mere hearing of the ear, but after the Spirit, writing Christ upon the heart.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

b. Be ye renewed from the old to the new man, Eph 4:20-24 .

20. But Now the vivid contrast of ye, from them; ye being emphatic; ye who have abandoned unscrupulous Gentilism. So In accordance with these Gentile depravities.

Learned Christ As ye were once taught this selfish worldliness. Christ is the embodiment of a new purity, unselfishness, and unworldliness.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘But you did not so learn Christ.’

This is one of Paul’s ‘buts’ (compare Eph 2:4). It heralds a reference to a life transforming change. This kind of behaviour was not the kind that they had been taught about by those who brought Christ to them. They had been taught that their meeting up with Christ was life transforming. It demanded a new way of life. Others were teaching that it was good to do as you liked and so show you were free. But Paul insists that that is abhorrent to Christ, as His own teaching, known to the churches, makes clear.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Old Man verses the New Man – This passage discusses the new man in contrast to the old man. The old man is corrupt (Eph 4:22) while the new man reflects the image of God (Eph 4:24, Eph 5:1). Therefore, in the following passage, (Eph 4:25-32), Paul gives them practical advice on how to put on the new man while further describing the characteristics of each type of man.

When a person physically dies, his sinful habits come to an end. His death ends the dominion of sin over his life. That dead person will never sin again. When we are born again, we die and are resurrected in Christ Jesus. All that remains of our old man is the memory of its former behavior. On the inside we are a new man, a new creation, with new desires. However, we must still renew our minds and recognize the fact that our mind has been used to following the cravings of our fleshly body that is sinful. We are to renew our mind and learn how to be led by our new, inner man which no longer desires to sin. This is what Paul is stating in this passage.

Eph 4:22 tells us to put off the old man while Eph 4:24 tells us to put on the new man, but often to get from one place to another we have to take a journey, or to go through a process. If we look at the Eph 4:23, which is placed in between these two verses, we will be told the process. The process requires that we renew our minds. We have to change our thinking in order to take on the lifestyle unto which God is calling us.

Paul discusses this topic in some of his other epistles (Rom 12:2, 2Co 5:17).

Rom 12:2, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

2Co 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

Eph 4:21 Comments – The Ephesians heard and received Jesus as their Saviour, then they were taught and disciple in the Christian faith. Thus, Eph 4:21 reflects the two phases of the Christian life: salvation and discipleship.

Eph 4:22 Comments Eph 4:22 tells us that a man who does not accept Christ will continue down a path of darkness that brings one deeper and deeper into corruption, which is a path that culminates in eternal darkness and hell. The unclean passions of the flesh described in Eph 4:17-19 are deceptive, corrupting men unto eternal damnation.

Scripture Reference – Note a similar verse:

2Pe 1:4, “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust .”

Eph 4:23 Comments The phrase “in the spirit of your mind” stands in contrast to “in the vanity of their mind” (Eph 4:17), with both phrases having a plural pronoun that modifies a singular object, “the mind.” The Gentiles, with no conscience to guide them, and no spiritual life within so that God can speak to them, walk in the vanity of their minds. In contrast, God’s children have the Spirit of God indwelling their human spirit, so that the life of God indwells them and God is able to speak to their spirit. Thus, they learn to be led by the Spirit of God, making decisions with their mind that are spirit-led. God’s children can think as God thinks, and live in righteousness and true holiness (Eph 4:24).

Eph 4:24 “which after God” Comments – We have been recreated in the new man, and patterned after God Himself.

Eph 4:24 “is created in righteousness and true holiness” Comments – The phrase “true holiness” can be translated “holiness of the truth.” God’s Word is the truth and is holy. It has been deposited into our spirit by the indwelling Holy Spirit (Heb 10:16).

Heb 10:16, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;”

We have the mind of Christ (1Co 2:16) in our recreated spirit. We, at salvation, know God, “for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest” (Heb 8:11). We instinctively know Him as our Father (Rom 8:15), since we were created by, or begotten by, Him and have that relationship to Him in fellowship and communion through Christ Jesus, our Lord.

1Co 2:16, “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

Heb 8:11, “And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.”

Rom 8:15, “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The New Man: Renewing the Mind of Man Eph 4:20-32 emphasizes the new man. Paul then tells the Ephesians how to develop this divine character in their lives, which was not there before their conversion. They are to renew to their minds and chose to lay aside the old man (Eph 4:17-19) and to put on the new man (Eph 4:20-32).

Note that each individual Christians must make a choice as to whether or not to put on the new man. No one can force them. God gives man this responsibility to act and chose to live Godly or not, even as a believer, in order to see if they truly love Him or not.

Outline Here is a proposed outline:

1. The Old Man verses the New Man Eph 4:20-24

2. Characteristics of the New Man Eph 4:25-32

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Eph 4:20. But ye have not so learned Christ; This may, perhaps, intimate, that there was a manner of learning Christ, which might seem more consistent with such irregularities; and may glance on some teachers, who called themselves Christians, and yet took very little care to inculcate practical religion.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Eph 4:20 . ] opposed to the unconverted Gentiles.

] but ye have not in such manner (so that this instruction would have directed you to that Gentile conduct of life, Eph 4:17 ff.) learned Christ . Observe the litotes in ( quite otherwise , comp. Deu 18:14 ). The proposal of Beza: “Quid si post distinctionem adscribas?” is, although adopted by Gataker and Colomesius, quite mistaken, since Eph 4:21 contains the confirmation not of the mere fact , but of the mode in which the readers have learned Christ, hence must necessarily belong to .

does not mean the doctrine of Christ or concerning Christ (so most expositors before Rckert; but see Bengel and Flatt), nor does mean to learn to know any one , as it has usually in recent times been explained (by Rckert, Holzhausen, Meier, Matthies, Harless), wherefore Raphel wrongly appeals to Xen. Hellen . ii. 1. 1 ( , comp. Herod. vii. 208, where it means to perceive ); but Christ is the great collective object of the instruction which the readers have received (Gal 1:16 ; 1Co 1:23 ; 2Co 1:19 ; Phi 1:15 , al. ), so that they have learned Christ. This special notion is required by the following .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 2110
EDUCATION AND WALK OF CHRISTIANS

Eph 4:20-21. But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus.

WE shall do well ever to remember, that Christianity is not a mere speculative theory, that is to inform the mind; but a great practical lesson, to renew the heart, and to bring us back to the state from whence we are fallen. The means which it prescribes for the attainment of its end, are doubtless most mysterious: but still the end is that for which the means are ordained; and the restoration of our souls to the Divine image must be our one constant and uniform pursuit. St. Paul ever bears this in mind. He sets forth, in the clearest view, and the most glowing colours, the wonders of redeeming love: but he ever comes to this at last, that we are to be sanctified by the truth, and that the truth must set us free from all our spiritual enemies. He was, at the time he wrote this epistle, imprisoned at Rome: yet what did he desire of the Ephesian Church? Did he request them to interest themselves in his behalf, that he might be restored to liberty? No; the thought did not so much as enter into his mind: the welfare of their souls was all his concern: I, therefore, says he, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, that ye walk worthy the vocation wherewith ye are called [Note: ver. 1.]: and again, This I say and testify in the Lord, that ye walk not as other Gentiles walk [Note: ver. 17.]: ye are instructed better: ye can never conform to their practices: no; ye have not so learned Christ, if so be ye have heard him, and been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus.

In these remarkable words, we see,

I.

The Christians education

He has been instructed by our Lord Jesus Christ himself.
There is a teaching which proceeds from Christ himself
[I readily grant, that, in learning from the inspired writings, we may properly be said to learn of Christ: for he himself said to his Apostles, He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me [Note: Luk 10:16.]. But it is evident that much more than this is contained in the words before us: in fact, here is a contrast drawn between those who learn by the word, or human teaching only, and those who learn of the Lord Jesus Christ himself: the former may find their instruction insufficient to regulate their life: the latter never can; because Christ instructs the heart, to which nothing but Omnipotence can gain access. This teaching is sometimes ascribed, in Scripture, to the Father: Every man that hath heard and learned of the Father, cometh unto me [Note: Joh 6:45.]. Sometimes it is ascribed to the Son: No man knoweth the Father, but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him [Note: Mat 11:27.]. Sometimes it is ascribed to the Holy Ghost: The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things [Note: Joh 14:26.]. But the truth is the same; since, whether it be the Father or the Son who instructs us, it is always by the agency of the Holy Spirit, To say exactly how Christ instructs us, is beyond our power: it is not by visions, or by voices, or by dreams, as in the days of old; but by opening to us the Scriptures, and giving us a spiritual perception of the truths contained in them. We know not how our own spirit operates on our body: yet we have no doubt but that it does; because the body obeys in all things the motions of the mind: so, though we cannot define the precise mode in which the Spirit of God operates on our spirit, we know, by the effects, that an influence is exerted by Him upon our minds, and that by that influence we are enabled to see and comprehend many things which to the natural man are utter foolishness [Note: 1Co 2:9-12; 1Co 2:14.].]

This teaching every true Christian receives
[In matters of science, the Christian has no advantage above others: his progress will be regulated by laws that are common to every student. But in the concerns of the soul he has a decided superiority, above all his equals in age and learning. He has the Lord Jesus Christ for his instructor: his heart has been opened by the Lord, as Lydias was, to attend to the things of God [Note: Act 16:14.]; and his understanding has been opened to understand them [Note: Luk 24:45.]. It was by this teaching that Peter, a poor fisherman, was enabled to declare the true character of Christ, which the Scribes and Pharisees, with all their advantages, were not able to discern: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven [Note: Mat 16:17.] If it be thought that this privilege was confined to the Apostles, or to the apostolic age, I answer, that it is the portion of all Gods people to the end of time; according as it is written, All thy children shall be taught of God, and great shall the peace be of thy children.]

Suited to this education is,

II.

The Christians walk

The Apostle tells us what this is: he tells us,

1.

Negatively, what it is not

[The state of the Gentile world is awful in the extreme. Whatever may be the conduct of a few amongst them, the great mass are alienated from all good, and addicted to all evil. As for God, they know him not, nor have any desire to know him. Their minds are altogether alienated from every thing which God would approve: they have no disposition but towards the vanities of this polluted world; nor, when they transgress what even their own consciences would dictate, do they feel that compunction of heart that would become them. The unenlightened amongst ourselves do not indeed resemble the Gentiles in some respects: they are free from open idolatry, and more limited perhaps in their sensual indulgences: but in an alienation from the life of God, and an addictedness to earthly vanities, they differ very little from the heathen world. But true Christians are of a very different mind: as the Apostle says, Ye have not so learned Christ. No, indeed: the true Christian has not so learned Christ: he cannot run to the same excess of riot that ungodly men do; nor will he be conformed, in any of these vanities, to the world around him. He comes out from the world, and is separate; and would not willingly touch the unclean thing; much less revel in all manner of uncleanness: and this very separation from the world is that which chiefly incenses the world against him. He comes out from the broad road which leadeth to destruction, and walks rather in that narrow path which leadeth unto life.]

2.

Positively, what it is

[The Christian, who has really heard Christ, and been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, will adhere to the truth as it is in Jesus: he will labour that the full end of Jesuss incarnation and life and death should be realized in him. He will see how the truth was exemplified in Jesus; and will endeavour so to walk, even as he walked. Not that he will be satisfied with any change in his outward conduct: he will seek to become a new creature; to put off the whole body of sin, with which he is encompassed; and to put on the whole body of righteousness, whereby he may approve himself to God. The life of God, from which the unenlightened is alienated, is that which he will cultivate to the utmost of his power; and in maintaining it, he will labour with all earnestness, forgetting what is behind, and reaching forth unto that which is before, if by any means he may attain so rich a prize.]

Address
1.

Those who desire to understand the Gospel

[Remember what it is you have to learn: the Apostle calls it learning Christ. This gives us the complete idea of all that a Christian needs to know. The Gospel is an exhibition of Jesus Christ: all that he is in himself, and all that he is to us, is there revealed: all the mysterious purposes of his grace; all the offices that he sustains in the work of redemption; all that he has done and suffered; all that he is now doing; all that he has engaged to do; all that can be known of him, is there set forth; and there may we behold all the glory of the Godhead shining in his face. This, then, is what we have to learn: the knowledge of Christ is all and in all. Come, then, and sit at the feet of Jesus: come, and learn of him with all docility of mind, as little children; entreat him to take away the veil from your hearts, and to manifest himself unto you as he does not unto the world. Then shall you behold his glory, even the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father; and know Him, whom to know is life eternal. And let no one be discouraged because of his want of intellectual powers: for what he has hid from the wise and prudent, he will reveal to babes and sucklings; and his strength shall be perfected in their weakness.]

2.

Those who desire to adorn the Gospel

[Take not the worlds standard of duty as that which you should aim at: for I declare and testify, that that will not suffice; nor can you ever please God by such a measure of sanctification as the best of unenlightened men affect. No; you must not walk as other Gentiles walk; nor as the merely nominal Christian walks. You must soar far above him: you must see how Christ himself walked, and follow him in all his ways; being pure as he was pure, and perfect as he was perfect. And never imagine that you have yet attained. To your latest hour there will be remnants of the old man to be put off, and larger measures of the new man to be put on. It is not in your life and conversation merely that you are to be renewed, but in the entire spirit of your mind: from being earthly, sensual, devilish, you must become heavenly, spiritual, divine; and never cease, till you have attained to the full measure of the stature of Christ himself. This is to walk worthy of your vocation; and in this shall your learning of Christ most surely issue. If you truly hear him, and are taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, you cannot so walk as the world around you walk; nor can you but walk, as Christ himself walked.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

20 But ye have not so learned Christ;

Ver. 20. But ye have not so learned Christ ] Caracalla never minded any good, quia id non didicerat (saith Dio), quod ipse fatebatur, because he had never learned it, as himself confessed. One main cause of Julian’s apostasy were his two heathenish tutors, Libanius and Jamblichus, from whom he drank in great profaneness. Christians cannot say but they have had the best teacher; they must therefore walk up to their principles lest they shame their profession, discredit their Master, who seemeth to say to them, as Samson once did to his brethren, Do not you bind me; the Philistines I care not for. Do not you dishonour me, &c.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

20 .] But YOU (emphatic) did not thus ( , Chr. not on these conditions, nor with such prospects. Beza suggests that a stop might be put at ‘ye are not thus: ye learned,’ &c.: but the sense is altogether marred by it) learn Christ (Christ personal not to be explained away into , as Chr., or any thing else: cf. 1Co 1:23 , : Phi 1:15-18 ; Col 2:6 . CHRIST Himself is the subject of all Christian preaching and all Christian learning ( Php 3:10 ) is the great lesson of the Christian life, which these Ephesians began to learn at their conversion: see next verse), if, that is (see ch. Eph 3:2 note, and 2Co 5:3 . He does not absolutely assume the fact, but implies that he then believed and still trusts it was so), it was Him that ye heard (if ye really heard at your conversion the voice of the Shepherd Himself calling you as his sheep , Joh 10:27 , see also Joh 5:25 ) and in Him that ye were taught (if it was in vital union with Him, as members of Him, that ye after your conversion received my teaching. Both these clauses are contained in ., the first hearing of the voice of the Son of God, and growing in the knowledge of Him when awakened from spiritual death), as is truth in Jesus (the rendering and connexion of this clause have been much disputed. I will remark, 1) that it seems by its form to be subordinate to , and the to express the quality of the : 2) that in this case we have . answering to . 3) to take the easier members first, is a closer personal specification of in Jesus that one name recalling their union in both in His Person, and, which is important here, in His example also: 4) expands if the nature of the teaching which you received was according to that which is truth (in Him). So that the meaning will amount to this if ye were taught in Him according to that which is truth in Jesus; if you received into yourselves, when you listened to the teaching of the Gospel, that which is true (respecting you and Him) in your union with and life in Jesus, the Son of God manifest in the flesh. See Ellicott’s note),

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Eph 4:20 . : but ye did not thus learn the Christ . , in emphatic contrast with the yet unconverted. The is an obvious litotes , suggesting more than is expressed. Meyer compares Deu 18:14 . The phrase has no precise parallel except the following . The nearest analogies to it are the phrases which speak of preaching Christ ( ; Gal 1:16 ; 1Co 1:23 ; 2Co 1:19 ; Phi 1:15 ), the in Phi 3:10 , and the in Col 2:6 . It cannot = “ye learned the doctrine of Christ”; nor can it be taken as = “ye learned to know Christ”; for there are no relevant examples of such usages. must be taken as the object of the learning, and the form , especially looking to the following (Eph 4:21 ), probably indicates that the official sense is in view here. The aor. further points to the definite time of their conversion. The Christ, the Messiah, He personally that was the contents of the preaching which they heard, the sum of the instruction they received and the knowledge they gained then.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

EPHESIANS

CHRIST OUR LESSON AND OUR TEACHER

Eph 4:20-21

The Apostle has been describing in very severe terms the godlessness and corruption of heathenism. He reckons on the assent of the Ephesian Christians when he paints the society in which they lived as alienated from God, insensible to the restraints of conscience, and foul with all uncleanness. That was a picture of heathenism drawn from the life and submitted to the judgment of those who knew the original only too well. It has been reserved for modern eulogists to regard such statements as exaggerations. Those who knew heathenism from the inside knew that they were sober truth. The colonnades of the stately temple of Ephesus stank with proofs of their correctness.

Out of that mass of moral putridity these Ephesian Christians had been dragged. But its effects still lingered in them, and it was all about them with its pestilential miasma. So the first thing that they needed was to be guarded against it. The Apostle, in the subsequent context, with great earnestness gives a series of moral injunctions of the most elementary kind. Their very simplicity is eloquent. What sort of people must they have formerly been who needed to be bade not to steal and not to lie?

But before he comes to the specific duties, he lays down the broad general principle of which all these are to be but manifestations-viz. that they and we need, as the foundation of all noble conduct and of all theoretical ethics, the suppression and crucifixion of the old self and the investiture with a new self. And this double necessity, says the Apostle in my text, is the plain teaching of Jesus Christ to all His disciples.

Now the words which I have selected as my text are but a fragment of a closely concatenated whole, but I may deal with them separately at this time. They are very remarkable. They lay, as it seems to me, the basis for all Christian conduct; and they teach us how there is no real knowledge of Jesus Christ which does not effloresce into the practice of these virtues and graces which the Apostle goes on to describe.

I. First, Christ our Lesson and Christ our Teacher.

Mark the singular expression with which this text begins. ‘Ye have not so learned Christ.’ Now, we generally talk about learning a subject, a language, a science, or an art; but we do not talk about learning people. But Paul says we are Christ’s disciples, not only in the sense that we learn of Him as Teacher-which follows in the next clause-but that we learn Him as the theme of our study.

That is to say, the relation of the person of Jesus Christ to all that He has to teach and reveal to the world is altogether different from that of all other teachers of all sorts of truth, to the truth which they proclaim. You can accept the truths and dismiss into oblivion the men from whom you got them. But you cannot reject Christ and take Christianity. The two are inseparably united. For, in regard to all spiritual and to all moral truth-truth about conduct and character-Jesus Christ is what He teaches. So we may say, turning well-known words of a poet in another direction: ‘My lesson is in Thee.’

But that is not all. My text goes on to speak about another thing: ‘Ye have learned Christ if so be that ye have heard Him and been taught.’ Now that ‘If so be’ is not the ‘if’ of uncertainty or doubt, but it is equivalent to ‘if, as I know to be the case,’ or ‘since ye have heard Him.’ Away there in Ephesus, years and years after the crucifixion, these people who had never seen Christ in the flesh, nor heard a word from the lips ‘into which grace was poured,’ are yet addressed by the Apostle as those who had listened to Him and heard Him speak. They had ‘heard Him and been taught.’ So He was Lesson and He was Teacher. And that is as true about us as it was about them. Let me say only a word or two about each of these two thoughts.

I have already suggested that the underlying truth which warrants the first of them is that Jesus Christ’s relation to His message and revelation is altogether different from that of other teachers to what they have to communicate to the world. Of course we all know that, in regard to the wider sphere of religious and Christian truth, it is not only what Christ said, but even more what He did and was, that makes His revelation of the Father’s heart. Precious as are the words which drop from His lips, which are spirit and are life, His life itself is more than all His teachings; and it is when we learn, not from Him, but when we learn Him, that we see the Father. But my text has solely reference to conduct, and in that aspect it just implies this thought, that the sum of all duty, the height of all moral perfectness, the realised ideal of humanity, is in Christ, and that the true way to know what a man or a nation ought to do is to study Him.

How strange it is, when one comes to consider it, that the impression of absolute perfection, free from all limitations of race or country or epoch or individual character-and yet not a vague abstraction but a true living Person-has been printed upon the minds and hearts of the world by these four little pamphlets which we call gospels! I do not think that there is anything in the whole history of literature to compare with the impression of veracity and historical reality and individual personality which is made by these fragmentary narratives. And although it has nothing to do with my present subject, I may just say in a sentence that it seems to me that the character of Jesus Christ as painted in the Gospels, in its incomparable vividness and vitality, is one of the strongest evidences for the simple faithfulness as biographies, of these books. Nothing else but the Man seen could have resulted in such compositions.

But apart altogether from that, how blessed it is that we have not to enter upon any lengthened investigations, far beyond the power of average minds, in order to get hold of the fundamental laws of moral conduct! How blessed it is that all the harshness of ‘Obey this law or die’ is by His life changed into ‘Look at Me, and, for My love’s sake, study Me and be like Me!’ This is the blessed peculiarity which gives all its power and distinctive characteristic to the morality of the Gospel, that law is changed from a statuesque white ideal, pure as marble and cold and lifeless as it, into a living Person with a throbbing heart of love, and an outstretched hand of help, whose word is, ‘If ye love Me, keep My commandments, and be like Me.’

Christian men and women! study Jesus Christ. That is the Alpha and Omega of all right knowledge of duty and of all right practice of it. Learn Him, His self-suppression, His self-command, His untroubled calmness, His immovable patience, His continual gentleness, His constant reference of all things to the Father’s will. Study these. To imitate Him is blessedness; to resemble Him is perfection. ‘Ye have learned Christ’ if you are Christians at all. You have at least begun the alphabet, but oh! in Him ‘are hid all the treasures,’ not only ‘of wisdom and knowledge,’ but of ‘whatsoever things are lovely and of good report’; and ‘if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise,’ we shall find them in Him who is our Lesson, our perfect Lesson.

But that is not all. Lessons are very well, but-dear me!-the world wants something besides lessons. It has had plenty of teaching. The trouble is not that we are not instructed, but that we do not take the lessons that are laid before us. And so my text suggests another thing besides the wholly inadequate conception, as it would be if it stood alone, of a mere exhibition of what we ought to be.

‘If so be that ye have heard Him.’ As I said, these Ephesian Christians, far away in Asia Minor, with seas and years between them and the plains of Galilee and the Cross of Calvary, are yet regarded by the Apostle as having listened to Jesus Christ. We, far away down the ages, and in another corner of the world, as really, without metaphor, in plain fact, may have Jesus Christ speaking to us, and may hear His voice. These Ephesians had heard Him, not only because they had heard about Him, nor because they had heard Him speaking through His servant Paul and others, but because, as Paul believed, that Lord, who had spoken with human lips words which it was possible for a man to utter when He was here on earth, when caught up into the third heaven was still speaking to men, even according to His own promise, which He gave at the very close of His career, ‘I have declared Thy name unto My brethren, and will declare it.’ So, though ‘He began both to do and to teach’ before He was taken up, after His Ascension He continues both the doing and the tuition. And, in verity, we all may hear His voice speaking in the depths of our hearts; speaking through the renewed conscience; speaking by that Spirit who will guide us into all the truth that we need; speaking through the ages to all who will listen to His voice.

The conception of Christ as a Teacher, which is held by many who deny His redeeming work and dismiss as incredible His divinity, seems to me altogether inadequate, unless it be supplemented by the belief that He now has and exercises the power of communicating wisdom and knowledge and warning and stimulus to waiting hearts; and that when we hear within the depth of our souls the voice saying to us, ‘This is the way, walk ye in it,’ or saying to us, ‘Pass not by, enter not into it,’ if we have waited for Him, and studied His example and character, and sought, not to please ourselves, but to be led by His wisdom, we may be sure that it is Christ Himself who speaks. Reverence the inward monitor, and when He within thy heart, by His Spirit, calls thee, do thou answer, ‘Speak, Lord! Thy servant heareth.’ ‘Ye have learned Christ if so be that ye have hearkened to Him.’

II. Secondly, mark the condition of learning the Lesson and hearing the Teacher.

Our Authorised Version, in accordance with its very frequent practice, has evacuated the last words of my text of their true force by the substitution of the more intelligible ‘by Him’ for what the Apostle writes-’in Him.’ The true rendering gives us the condition on which we learn our Lesson and hear our Teacher. ‘In Him,’ is no mere surplusage, and is not to be weakened down, as this translation of ours does, into a mere ‘by Him’ but it declares that, unless we keep ourselves in union with Jesus Christ, His voice will not be heard in our hearts, and the lesson will pass unlearned.

You know, dear brother, how emphatically and continually in the New Testament this doctrine of the dwelling of the believing soul in Christ, and the reciprocal dwelling of Christ in the believing soul, is insisted upon. And I, for my part, believe that one great cause of the unsatisfactory condition of the average Christianity of this day is the slurring over and minimising of these twin great and solemn truths. I would fain bring you back to the Master’s words, as declaring the deepest truths in relation to the connection between the believing soul and the Christ in whom it believes:-’Abide in Me, and I in you.’ I wish you would go home and take this Epistle to the Ephesians and read it over, putting a pencil mark below each place in which occurs the words ‘in Christ Jesus.’ I think you would learn something if you would do it.

But all that I have to say at present is that, if we would keep ourselves, by faith, by love, by meditation, by aspiration, by the submission of the will, and by practical obedience, in Jesus Christ, enclosed in Him as it were-then, and then only, should we learn His lesson, and then, and then only, should we hear Him speak. Why! if you never think about Him, how can you learn Him? If you seldom, or sleepily, take up your Bibles and read the Gospels, of what good is His example to you? If you wander away into all manner of regions of thought and enjoyment instead of keeping near to Him, how can you expect that He will communicate Himself to you? If we keep ourselves in touch with that Lord, if we bring all our actions to Him, and measure our conduct by His pattern, then we shall learn His lesson. What does a student in a school of design do? He puts his feeble copy of some great picture beside the original, and compares it touch for touch, line for line, shade for shade, and so corrects its errors. Take your lives to the Exemplar in that fashion, and go over them bit by bit. Is this like Jesus Christ; is that what He would have done? Then ‘in Him,’ thus in contact with Him, thus correcting our daubs by the perfect picture, we shall learn our lesson and listen to our Teacher.

Still your passions, muzzle your inclinations, clap a bridle on your will, and, as some tumultuous crowd would be hushed into silence that they might listen to the king speaking to them, make a great silence in your hearts, and you will ‘hear Him’ and be taught ‘in Him’.

III. Lastly, the test and result of having learned the Lesson and listened to the Teacher is unlikeness to surrounding corruption.

‘Ye have not so learned Christ.’ Of course the hideous immoralities of Ephesus are largely, but by no means altogether, gone from Manchester. Of course, nineteen centuries of Christianity have to a very large extent changed the tone of society and influenced the moral judgments and practices even of persons who are not Christians. But there still remains a world, and there still remains unfilled up the gulf between the worldly and the godly life. And I believe it is just as needful as ever it was, though in different ways, for Christians to exhibit unlikeness to the world. ‘Not so,’ must be our motto; or, as the Jewish patriot said, ‘So did not I, because of the fear of the Lord.’

I do not wish you to make yourselves singular; I do not wish you to wear conventional badges of unlikeness to certain selected evil habits. A Christian man’s unlikeness to the world consists a great deal more in doing or being what it does not do and is not than in not doing or being what it does and is. It is easy to abstain from conventional things; it is a great deal harder to put in practice the unworldly virtues of the Christian character.

There are wide regions of life in which all men must act alike, be they saints or sinners, be they believers, Agnostics, Mohammedans, Turks, Jews, or anything else. There are two ways of doing the same thing. If two women were sitting at a grindstone, one of them a Christian and the other not, the one that pushed her handle half round the circle for Christ’s sake would do it in a different fashion from the other one who took it from her hand and brought it round to the other side of the stone, and did it without reference to God.

Brethren, be sure of this, that if you and I do not find in ourselves the impulse to abstain from coarse enjoyments, to put our feet upon passions and desires, appetites and aims, which godless men recognise and obey without qualm or restraint, we need to ask ourselves: ‘In what sense am I a Christian, or in what sense have I heard Christ?’ It is a poor affair to fling away our faithful protest against the world’s evils for the sake of receiving the world’s smile. Modern Christianity is often not vital enough to be hated by a godless world; and it is not hated because it only deserves to be scorned. Keep near Jesus Christ, live in the light of His face, drink in the inspiration and instruction of His example, and the unlikeness will come, and no mistake. Dwell near Him, keep in Him, and the likeness will come, as it always comes to lovers, who grow to resemble that or those whom they love. ‘It is enough for the disciple to be as his Teacher, and for the slave to be like his Lord.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

have . . . learned = did . . . learn.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

20.] But YOU (emphatic) did not thus ( , Chr.-not on these conditions, nor with such prospects. Beza suggests that a stop might be put at -ye are not thus: ye learned, &c.: but the sense is altogether marred by it) learn Christ (Christ personal-not to be explained away into , as Chr., or any thing else: cf. 1Co 1:23, : Php 1:15-18; Col 2:6. CHRIST Himself is the subject of all Christian preaching and all Christian learning- (Php 3:10) is the great lesson of the Christian life, which these Ephesians began to learn at their conversion: see next verse), if, that is (see ch. Eph 3:2 note, and 2Co 5:3. He does not absolutely assume the fact, but implies that he then believed and still trusts it was so), it was Him that ye heard (if ye really heard at your conversion the voice of the Shepherd Himself calling you as his sheep- , Joh 10:27, see also Joh 5:25) and in Him that ye were taught (if it was in vital union with Him, as members of Him, that ye after your conversion received my teaching. Both these clauses are contained in .,-the first hearing of the voice of the Son of God, and growing in the knowledge of Him when awakened from spiritual death), as is truth in Jesus (the rendering and connexion of this clause have been much disputed. I will remark, 1) that it seems by its form to be subordinate to , and the to express the quality of the : 2) that in this case we have . answering to . 3) to take the easier members first, is a closer personal specification of -in Jesus-that one name recalling their union in both in His Person, and, which is important here, in His example also: 4) expands -if the nature of the teaching which you received was according to that which is truth (in Him). So that the meaning will amount to this-if ye were taught in Him according to that which is truth in Jesus;-if you received into yourselves, when you listened to the teaching of the Gospel, that which is true (respecting you-and Him) in your union with and life in Jesus, the Son of God manifest in the flesh. See Ellicotts note),

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Eph 4:20. , but you have not so learned Christ) The same form of expression is found at Deu 18:14-15, – . Christ is one,[68] says Paul (comp. 2Co 11:4); as then you have heard Him, i.e. so you ought (in conduct) to represent (copy) Him. As [Eph 4:21, ], which afterwards occurs, is to be referred to [ye have] not so [Eph 4:20]; not so is opposed to uncleanness, Eph 4:19; if so be that, etc., to vanity, Eph 4:17-18.- , Christ) He uses the name Jesus, more expressly denominating the Lord, in the following verse. Jesus, most perfectly and brilliantly completed the idea of Christ.

[68] i.e. If there were some other Christ, whom you could serve and yet obey your lusts, ye might walk still as in past times. But there is only one Christ, and He, one that requireth holiness, 2Co 11:4.-ED.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Eph 4:20

Eph 4:20

But ye did not so learn Christ;-This intimates that many had come into the church ill-taught, in the truth as Jesus taught it. [To preach Christ is to set him as the object of supreme love and confidence, so to learn Christ does not mean merely to learn his doctrines, but to attain the knowledge of Christ as the Son of God, God in our nature, the holy one of God, the Savior from sin, whom to know is holiness and life. Any one who has thus learned Christ cannot live in darkness and sin. Such knowledge is in its very nature light. When it enters, the mind is refined and purified.]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Putting on the New Man

Eph 4:20-32

The Lord Jesus is our text-book and our teacher, the schoolhouse in which we are taught, and the object lesson in which all truth is enshrined. But all is in vain unless we definitely and forever put away the old man; that is, our old manners and customs in so far as they are contrary to the Spirit of Christ. With equal decision we are called upon to seek the daily renewal of our spirit and the outward conformity of our mode of life to the example of Jesus. But it should never be forgotten that the latter will be a dry husk unless it is energized from the true vine. There can be little of Christ without unless He dwells without a rival within. But the Holy Spirit will see to this, if only we grieve Him not.

What a transformation immediately ensues! Truth instead of falsehood, gentleness for anger, earnest toil for dishonesty, cleansed instead of filthy speech. If all believers were to live like this, the world would know that the Son of God has come. It is not enough that a man should believe to secure deliverance from the wrath of God; he must daily seek to attain to such resemblance of Jesus as shall make men recall Him to mind.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Luk 24:47, Joh 6:45, Rom 6:1, Rom 6:2, 2Co 5:14, 2Co 5:15, Tit 2:11-14, 1Jo 2:27

Reciprocal: Psa 25:5 – teach Psa 26:3 – and Psa 119:102 – for thou Mat 11:29 – and learn Mat 28:20 – them Act 5:42 – preach Eph 5:3 – fornication Phi 4:12 – I am Col 2:8 – after Christ 1Th 4:1 – by the

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

(Eph 4:20.) -But ye did not thus learn Christ. is adversative, and is placed emphatically. is not simply the doctrine or religion of Christ, as is the view of Crellius and Schlichting, nor is it merely -virtue, as Origen conceives it (Catena, ed. Cramer, Oxford, 1842), but Christ Himself. Col 2:6. See also Php 3:10. Harless even, Rckert, Meier, and Matthies, take the verb in the sense of to learn to know-ye have not thus learned to know Christ. But this would elevate a mere result or reference to be part of the translation. The knowledge of Christ is the effect of learning Christ; but it is of the process, not of its effect, that the apostle here speaks. Christ was preached, and Christ was learned by the audience-. The manner of their learning is indicated-Ye have not learned Christ so as to walk any more like the rest of the Gentiles. Your lessons have not been of such a character-they have been given in a very different form, and accompanied with a very different result. Once dark, dead, dissolute, and apathetic, they had learned Christ as the light and the life-as the purifier and perfecter of His pupils. The following division of this clause is a vain attempt- []-but ye are not so;-ye have learned Christ. Yet such an exegesis has the great names of Beza and Gataker in its support. Adversaria Sacra, p. 158.

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Eph 4:20. But ye have not so learned Christ. The thought of this verse is as if it said, “you did not learn such practices from Christ.” The Ephesian brethren had evidently become tinctured with such corruptions, for the exhortations so common in the rest of this chapter, as well as in many other places in the epistle, indicates such a conclusion. We recall this is the same church that is accused by John of having “left its first love” (Rev 2:1-4).

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Eph 4:20. But ye, over against the Gentiles (Eph 4:17), whose walk has been described (Eph 4:18-19).

Did not thus learn Christ. The tense is historical, at the time of conversion. Not thus is put rhetorically for in an entirely different way. That different way is detailed in Eph 4:22-24. Christ is the Personal Object they learned, as is evident from Eph 4:21. It is not simply the doctrine of Christ; or, about Christ; the peculiar phrase suggests that in nothing else is a Person so directly and fully the object of the knowledge obtained.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

In these verses, 1. Our apostle acquaints the converted Ephesians, that the saving knowledge of Christ, which they had received, instructed them better than to practice such licentiousness and wickedness as the unconverted Gentiles wallowed in. But ye have not so learned Christ; that is, the gospel of Christ.

Nothing curbs sin, nothing cures sin, in a licentious sinner, like the doctrine of Christ revealed in the gospel; no moral precepts from the school of the heathens, which some so much magnify and applaud, can compare with this, which lays open the root of this accursed disease, and leads us to the remedy which the wisdom of God has appointed for its cure, even the blood of his own Son. Then blessed be God for revealed religion!

Observe, 2. The apostle acquaints them what the truth as it is in Jesus, that is, the doctrine of the gospel, doth direct them to, enjoin and require of them; namely, to put off the old man, that is, their former heathen conversation, and manner of life, say some; but this they had put off already at their first conversion to christianity.

By the old man, then, understand, the old corrupt nature, so called, because it is as old as Adam, and derived from Adam, and which daily more and more corrupts and depraves us by its deceitful lusts, if it be not resisted and subdued. But this is not sufficient, that we put off the old man, unless we put on the new, and be renewed in the spirit of our minds after God; that is, after the image of God, which consisteth in righteousness and true holiness.

Note here, 1. That regenerating grace is called the new man; because the person has a new principle infused into him, (says the pious bishop Fell, upon the place), which enables him to lead a new life. Regenerate men, then, are new men; they have a renewed and enlightened understanding, they have a sanctified and renewed will, renewed affections and desires; old things are passing away, and all things becoming new.

Note, 2. That God himself is the pattern and exemplar, after which, and according to which, the new man is formed in the soul, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

What is Godliness, but Godlikeness? What is holiness, but the conformity of our natures to the holy nature of God, and the conformity of our lives to the will of God? Act 13:1; Acts 20. I have found David, a man after my own heart, who shall perform all my will.

Note, 3. That holiness is not only the reforming of the mind; and not only of the mind, but of the spirit of the mind: by which understand the highest and most refined faculties of the mind, that part which is most free from the dregs of sin, and which comes up nearest to God, as the spirit of the mind and understanding doth.

Verily, not our minds only, but even the spirit of our minds, need renewing, because corruption is got into the highest powers and superior faculties of the soul, and because we must serve God with all our mind; and if so, with the spirit of our mind; and blessed be God that regenerating and renewing grace is a universal principle, as sin was.

Did sin invade the whole soul, all the powers and faculties of it, and deprive us of the divine image?

It is the work of grace to restore our depraved natures to their primitive integrity; the renewed person is sanctified totus, though not totaliter; a new nature is found with him, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Eph 4:20-24. But ye Believers at Ephesus; have not so learned Christ Or Christianity; that is, ye cannot act thus, now ye are acquainted with Christ and his gospel, which, you know, allows of no sin. If so be Or rather, seeing that, as , it seems, should be here rendered; ye have heard him Teaching you inwardly by his Spirit, as well as outwardly by his word; and have been taught by him Have been instructed in his religion; as the truth is in Jesus According to his own gospel, and not in that imperfect and adulterated form, in which some presume to deliver what they call his doctrine: that ye put off Entirely lay aside; concerning Or with respect to; the former conversation That is, those sinful habits and practices to which you were accustomed in your heathen state; the old man Your old nature and character; or the whole body of sin: which old nature is corrupt Depraved in every part, so that its dispositions and actions are directed, not by the rules of right reason, or by the word and will of God, but according to the deceitful lusts Which generally prevail in the unregenerate, and once prevailed in you. Observe, reader, all sinful desires are deceitful, promising the happiness which they cannot give, and deceiving men. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind That is, in all the faculties of your souls, by seeking and obtaining an enlightened understanding, a rectified will, and holy, well-regulated affections. And that ye put on the new man That ye apply to God for, and receive from him, a new nature; which after God That is, after a conformity to his image; is created For it is his workmanship, see Eph 2:10; in righteousness Toward your fellow-creatures; and true holiness Toward God. He says true holiness, in opposition to that which is only ceremonial or external, and in appearance. The dispositions of the mind are in Scripture compared to clothes, for two reasons: 1st, Because they render persons beautiful or deformed, according to their nature: 2d, Because they may be put off or on, while we remain in a state of trial, according as we yield to and obey, or resist and reject, the truth and grace of God.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But ye have not so learned Christ;

Wow, what a relief! The believer has not learned this perversion of truth. Glory to God that He has protected us from the likes of those that have rejected Him so completely. It is not that we don’t know of these things, it is that we are not involved in them. We are free of such corruption due to the work of Christ. If not Christ, then we would be in danger of the same peril.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

4:20 {13} But ye have not so learned Christ;

(13) Here follows the contrary part concerning men who are regenerated by the true and living knowledge of Christ, who have other principles by which they act that are very different, that is, holy and honest desires, and a mind completely changed by the power of the Holy Spirit, from which proceeds also like effects, as a just and holy life indeed.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The new man 4:20-32

Paul turned from how not to walk to the positive responsibility Christians have to live in holiness.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

In contrast to unsaved Gentiles, Christians’ minds are no longer dark, they are no longer aliens from God, and their hearts are no longer hard and impure. They did not learn to follow Christ by the natural mental processes that customarily lead to the degradation of unsaved Gentiles. They learned to follow Him as His disciples from the gospel.

"Usually we learn subjects, not persons; but the Christian’s choicest lesson-book is his loveworthy Lord." [Note: Simpson, p. 104.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 20

THE TWO HUMAN TYPES

Eph 4:20-24

BUT as for you!-The apostle points us from heathendom to Christendom. From the men of blinded understanding and impure life he turns to the cleansed and instructed. “Not thus did you learn the Christ”-not to remain in the darkness and filth of your Gentile state.

The phrase is highly condensed. The apostle, in this letter so exuberant in expression, yet on occasion is as concise as in Galatians. One is tempted, as Beza suggested and Hofmann insists, to put a stop at this point and to read: “But with you it is not so: you learned the Christ!” In spite of its abruptness, this construction would be necessary, if it were only “the Gentiles” of Eph 4:17 with whose “walk” St. Paul means to contrast that of his readers. But, as we have seen, he has before his eye a third class of men, unprincipled Christian teachers (Eph 4:14), men who had in some sense learnt of Christ and yet walked in Gentile ways and were leading others back to them. Eph 4:20, after all, forms a coherent clause. It points an antithesis of solemn import. There are genuine, and there are supposed conversions; there are true and false ways of learning Christ. Strictly speaking, it is not Christ, but the Christ whom St. Paul presumes his readers to have duly learnt. The words imply a comprehending faith, that knows who and what Christ is and what believing in Him means, that has mastered His great lessons. To such a faith, which views Christ in the scope and breadth of His redemption, this epistle throughout appeals; for its impartation and increase St. Paul prayed the wonderful prayer of the third chapter. When he writes not simply, “You have believed in Christ,” but “You have learned the Christ, ” he puts their faith upon a high level; it is the faith of approved disciples in Christs school. For such men the “philosophy and vain deceit” of Colossae and the plausibilities of the new “scheme of error” will have no charm. They have found the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are hidden in Christ. The apostle s confidence in the Christian knowledge of his readers is, however, qualified in Eph 4:21 in a somewhat remarkable way “If verily it is He whom you heard, and in Him that you were taught, as truth is in Jesus.” We noted at the outset the bearing of this sentence on the destination of the letter. It would never occur to St. Paul to question whether the Ephesian Christians were taught Christs true doctrine. If there were any believers in the world who, beyond a doubt, had heard the truth as in Jesus in its certainty and fulness, it was those amongst whom the apostle had “taught publicly and from house to house,” “not shunning to declare all the counsel of God” and “for three years night and day unceasingly with tears admonishing each single one.” {Act 20:18-35} To suppose these words written in irony, or in a modest affectation, is to credit St. Paul with something like an ineptitude. Doubt was really possible as to whether all his readers had heard of Christ aright, and understood the obligations of their faith. Supposing, as we have done, that the epistle was designed for the Christians of the province of Asia generally, this qualification is natural and intelligible. There are several considerations which help to account for it. When St. Paul first arrived at Ephesus, eight years before this time, he “found certain disciples” there who had been “baptised into Johns baptism,” but had not “received the Holy Spirit” nor even heard of such a thing. {Act 19:1-7} Apollos formerly belonged to this company, having preached and “taught carefully the things about Jesus,” while he “knew only the baptism of John.” {Act 18:25} One very much desires to know more about this Church of the Baptists disciples in Asia Minor. Its existence so far away from Palestine testifies to the power of Johns ministry and the deep impression that his witness to the Messiahship of Jesus made on his disciples. The ready reception of Pauls fuller gospel by this little circle indicates that their knowledge of Jesus Christ erred only by defect; they had received it from Judea by a source dating earlier than the day of Pentecost. The partial knowledge of Jesus current for so long at Ephesus, may have extended to other parts of the province, where St. Paul had not been able to correct it as he had done in the metropolis.

Judaistic Christians, such as those who at Rome “preached Christ of envy and strife,” were also disseminating an imperfect Christian doctrine. They limited the rights of uncircumcised believers; they misrepresented the Gentile apostle and undermined his influence. A third and still more lamentable cause of uncertainty, in regard to the Christian belief of Asian Churches, was introduced by the rise of Gnosticising error in this quarter. Some who read the epistle had, it might be, received their first knowledge of Christ through channels tainted with error similar to that which was propagated at Colossae. With the seed of the kingdom the enemy was mingling vicious tares. The apostle has reason to fear that there were those Within the wide circle to which his letter is addressed, who had in one form or other heard a different gospel and a Christ other than the true Christ of apostolic teaching.

Where does he find the test and touchstone of the true Christian doctrine? -In the historical Jesus: “as there is truth in Jesus.” Not often, nor without distinct meaning, does St. Paul use the birthname of the Saviour by itself. Where he does it is most significant. He has in mind the facts of the gospel history; he speaks of “the Jesus” of Nazareth and Calvary. The Christ whom St. Paul feared that some of his readers might have heard of was not the veritable Jesus Christ, but a shadowy and notional Christ, lost amongst the crowd of angels, such as was now being taught to the Colossians. This Christ was neither the image of God, nor the true Son of man. He supplied no sufficient redemption from sin, no ideal of character, no sure guidance and authority to direct the daily walk. Those who followed such a Christ would fall back unchecked into Gentile vice. Instead of the light of life Shining in the character and words of Jesus, they must resort to “the doctrines and commandments of men”. {Col 2:8-23}

Amongst the Gnostics of the second century there was held a distinction between the human (fleshly and imperfect) Jesus and the Divine Christ, who were regarded as distinct beings, united to each other from the time of the baptism of Jesus to His death. The critics who assert the late and non-Pauline authorship of the epistle assert that this peculiar doctrine is aimed at in the words before us, and that the identification of Christ with Jesus has a polemical reference to this advanced Gnostic error. The verses that follow show that the writer has a different and entirely practical aim. The apostle points us to our true ideal, to “the Christ” of all revelation manifest in “the Jesus” of the gospel. Here we see “the new man created after God,” whose nature we must embody in ourselves. The counteractive of a false spiritualism is found in the incarnate life of the Son of God. The dualism which separated God from the world and mans spirit from his flesh, had its refutation in “the Jesus” of Pauls preaching, whom we see in the Four Gospels. Those who persisted in the attempt to graft the dualistic theosophy upon the Christian faith were in the end compelled to divide and destroy the Christ Himself. They broke up into Jesus and Christ the unity of His incarnate Person.

It is an entire mistake to suppose that the apostle Paul was indifferent to the historical tradition of Jesus; that the Christ he taught was a product of his personal inspiration, of his inward experience and theological reflection. This preaching of an abstract Christ, distinct from the actual Jesus, is the very thing that he condemns. Although his explicit references in the epistles to the teaching of Jesus and the events of His earthly life are not numerous, they are such as to prove that the Churches St. Paul taught were well instructed in that history. From the beginning the apostle made himself well acquainted with the facts concerning Jesus, and had become possessor of all that the earlier witnesses could relate. His conception of the Lord Jesus Christ is living and realistic in the highest degree. Its germ was in the visible appearance of the glorified Jesus to himself on the Damascus road; but that expanding germ struck down its roots into the rich soil of the Churchs recollections of the incarnate Redeemer as He lived and taught and laboured, as He died and rose again amongst men. Pauls Christ was the Jesus of Peter and of John and of our own Evangelists; there was no other. He warns the Church against all unhistorical, subjective Christs, the product of human speculation.

The Asian Christians who held a true faith had received Jesus as the Christ. So accepting Him, they accepted a fixed standard and ideal of life for themselves. With Jesus Christ evidently set forth before their eyes, let them look back upon their past life; let them contrast what they had been with what they are to be. Let them consider what things they must “put off” and what “put on,” so that they may “be found in Him.”

Strangely did the image of Jesus confront the pagan world; keenly its light smote on that gross darkness. There stood the Word made flesh-purity immaculate, love in its very self-shaped forth in no dream of fancy or philosophy, but in the veritable man Christ Jesus, born of Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, -truth expressed

“In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought.”

And this life of Jesus, living in those who loved Him, {2Co 4:11} ended not when He passed from earth; it passed from land to land, speaking many tongues, raising up new witnesses at every step as it moved along. It was not a new system, a new creed, but new men that it gave the world in Christs disciples, men redeemed from all iniquity, noble and pure as sons of God. It was the sight of Jesus, and of men like Jesus, that shamed the old world, so corrupt and false and hardened in its sin. In vain she summoned the gates of death to silence the witnesses of Jesus. At last

“She veiled her eagles, snapped her sword,

And laid her sceptre down;

Her stately purple she abhorred,

And her imperial crown.”

“She broke her flutes, she stopped her sports,

Her artists could not please;

She tore her books, she shut her courts,

She fled her palaces”;

“Lust of the eye and pride of life-

She left it all behind,

And hurried, torn with inward strife,

The wilderness to find.”

– Obermann Once More.

The Galilean conquered! The new man was destined to convict and destroy the old. “God sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh”. {Rom 8:3} When Jesus lived, died, and rose again, an inconceivable revolution in human affairs had been effected. The cross was planted on the territory of the god of this world; its victory was inevitable. The “grain of wheat” fell into the ground to die: there might be still a long, cruel winter; many a storm and blight would delay its growth; but the harvest was secure. Jesus Christ was the type and the head of a new moral order, destined to control the universe.

To see the new and the old man side by side was enough to assure one that the future lay with Jesus. Corruption and decrepitude marked every feature of Gentile life. It was gangrened with vice, “wasting away in its deceitful lusts.”

St. Paul had before his eyes, as he wrote, a conspicuous type of the decaying Pagan order. He had appealed as a citizen of the empire to Caesar as his judge. He was in durance as Neros prisoner, and was acquainted with the life of the palace. {Php 1:13} Never, perhaps, has any line of rulers dominated mankind so absolutely or held in their single hand so completely the resources of the world as did the Caesars of St. Pauls time. Their name has ever since served to mark the summit of autocratic power. It was, surely, the vision of Tiberius sitting at Rome that Jesus saw in the wilderness, when “the devil showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and said, All this hath been delivered to me, and to whomsoever I will I give it.” The Emperor was the topstone of the splendid edifice of Pagan civilisation, that had been rearing for so many ages. And Nero was the final product and paragon of the Caesarean house!

At this epoch, writes M. Renan, “Nero and Jesus, Christ and Antichrist, stand opposed, confronting each other, if I may dare to say so, like heaven and hell.” In face of Jesus there presents itself a monster, who is the ideal of evil as Jesus of goodness Neros was an evil nature, hypocritical, vain, frivolous, prodigiously given to declamation and display; a blending of false intellect, profound wickedness, cruel and artful egotism carried to an incredible degree of refinement and subtlety He is a monster who has no second in history, and whose equal we can only find in the pathological annals of the scaffold The school of crime in which he had grown up, the execrable influence of his mother, the stroke of parricide forced upon him, as one might say, by this abominable woman, by which he had entered on the stage of public life, made the world take to his eyes the form of a horrible comedy, with himself for the chief actor in it. At the moment we have now reached [when St. Paul entered Rome], Nero had detached himself completely from the philosophers who had been his tutors. He had killed nearly all his relations. He had made the most shameful follies the common fashion. A large part of Roman society, following his example, had descended to the lowest level of debasement. The cruelty of the ancient world had reached its consummation The world had touched the bottom of the abyss of evil; it could only reascend.

Such was the man who occupied at this time the summit of human power and glory, the man who lighted the torch of Christian martyrdom and at whose sentence St. Pauls head was destined to fall, the Wild Beast of Johns awful vision. Hero of Rome, the son of Agrippina, embodied the triumph of Satan as the god of this world. Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary, reigned only in a few loving and pure hearts. Future history, as the scroll of the Apocalypse unfolded it, was to be the battlefield of these two confronting powers, the war of Christ with Antichrist.

Could it be doubtful, to any one who had measured the rival forces, on which side victory must fall? St. Paul pronounces the fate of the whole kingdom of evil in this world, when he declares that “the old man” is “perishing, according to the lusts of deceit”: It is an application of the maxim he gave us in Gal 6:8 : “He that soweth to his own flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption.” In its mad sensuality and prodigal lusts, the vile Roman world he saw around him was speeding to its ruin. That ruin was delayed; there were. moral forces left in the fabric of the Roman State, which in the following generations reasserted themselves and held back for a time the tide of disaster; but in the end Rome fell, as the ancient world-empires of the East had fallen, through her own corruption, and by “the wrath” which is “revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” For the solitary man, for the household, for the body politic and the family of nations the rule is the same. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”

The passions which carry men and nations to their ruin are “lusts of deceit.” The tempter is the liar. Sin is an enormous fraud. “You shall not die,” said the serpent in the garden; “Your eyes will be opened, and you will be as God!” So forbidden desire was born, and “the woman being deceived fell into transgression.”

“So glistered the dire Snake, and into fraud Led Eve, our credulous mother, to the tree Of prohibition, root of all our woe.”

By its baits of sensuous pleasure, and still more by its show of freedom and power to stir our pride, sin cheats us of our manhood; it sows life with misery, and makes us self-despising slaves. It knows how to use Gods law as an incitement to transgression, turning the very prohibition into a challenge to our bold desires. “Sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived me, and by it slew me.” Over the pit of destruction play. the same dancing lights that have lured countless generations, the glitter of gold; the purple robe and jewelled coronet; the wine moving in the cup; fair, soft faces lit with laughter. The straying foot and hot desires give chase, till the inevitable moment comes when the treacherous soil yields, and the pursuer plunges beyond escape into sins reeking gulfs. Then the illusion is over. The gay faces grow foul; the glittering prize proves dust; the sweet fruit turns to ashes; the cup of pleasure burns with the fire of hell. And the sinner knows at last that his greed has cheated him, that he is as foolish as he is wicked.

Let us remember that there is but one way of escape from the all-encompassing deceit of sin. It is in “learning Christ.” Not in learning about Christ, but in learning Him. It is a common artifice of the great deceit to “wash the outside of cup and platter.” The old man is improved and civilised; he is baptised in infancy and called a Christian. He puts off many of his old ways, he dresses himself in a decorous garb and style; and so deceives himself into thinking that he is new, while his heart is unchanged. He may turn ascetic, and deny this or that to himself; and yet never deny himself. He observes religious forms and makes charitable benefactions, as though he would compound with God for his unforsaken sin. But all this is only a plausible and hateful manifestation of the lusts of deceit.

To learn the Christ is to learn the way of the cross. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me,” He bids us; “for I am meek and lowly in heart.” Till we have done this we are not ever at the beginning of our lesson.

From the perishing old man the apostle tutus, in Eph 4:23-24, to the new. These two clauses differ in their form of expression more than the English rendering indicates. When he writes. “that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind,” it is a continual rejuvenation that he describes; the verb is present in tense, and the newness implied is that of recency and youth, newness in point of age. But the “new man” to be “put on” (Eph 4:24) is of a new kind and order; and in this instance the verb is of the aorist tense signifying an event, not a continuous act. The new man is put on when the Christian way of life is adopted, when we enter personally into the new humanity founded in Christ. We “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” {Rom 13:14} who covers and absorbs the old self, even as those who await in the flesh His second advent will “put on the house from heaven,” when “the mortal” in them will be “swallowed up of life”. {2Co 4:2-4} Thus two distinct conceptions of the life of faith are placed before our minds. It consists, on the one hand, of a quickening, constantly renewed, in the springs of our individual thought and will; and it is at the same time the assumption of another nature, the investiture of the soul with the Divine character and form of its being.

Borne on the stream of his evil passions, we saw “the old man” in his “former manner of life,” hastening to the gulf of ruin. For the man renewed in Christ the stream of life flows steadily in the opposite direction, and with a swelling tide moves upward to God. His knowledge and love are always growing in depth, in refinement, in energy and joy. Thus it was with the apostle in his advancing age. The fresh impulses of the Holy Spirit, the unfolding to his spirit of the mystery of God, the fellowship of Christian brethren, and the interests of the work of the Church renewed Pauls youth like the eagles. If in years and toil he is old, his soul is full of ardour, his intellect keen and eager; the “outward man decays, but the inward man is renewed day by day.” This new nature had a new birth. The soul reanimating itself perpetually from the fresh springs that are in God, had in God the beginning of its renovated life. We have not to create or fashion for ourselves the perfect life, but to adopt it, to realise the Christian ideal (Eph 4:24). We are called to put on the new type of manhood as completely as we renounce the old (Eph 4:22). The new man is there before our eyes, manifest in the person of Jesus Christ, in whom we live henceforth. When we “learn the Christ,” when we have become His true disciples, we “put on” His nature and “walk in Him.” The inward reception of His Spirit is attended by the outward assumption of His character as our calling amongst men.

Now, the character of Jesus is human nature as God first formed it. It existed in His thoughts from eternity. If it be asked whether St. Paul refers, in Eph 4:24, to the creation of Adam in Gods likeness, or to the image of God appearing in Jesus Christ, or to the Christian nature formed in the regenerate, we should say that, to the apostles mind, the first and last of these creations are merged in the second. The Son of Gods love is His primeval image. The race of Adam was created in Christ. {Col 1:15-16} The first model of that image, in the natural father of mankind, was marred by sin and has become “the old man” corrupt and perishing. The new pattern replacing this broken type is the original ideal, displayed “in the likeness of sinful flesh”- wearing no longer the charm of childish innocence, but the glory of sin vanquished, and sacrifice endured-in the Son of God made perfect through suffering. Through all there has been only one image of God, one ideal humanity. The Adam of Paradise was, within his limits, what the Image of God had been in perfectness from eternity. And Jesus in His human personality represented, under the changed circumstances brought about by sin, what Adam might have grown to be as a complete and disciplined man.

The qualities which the Apostle insists upon in the new man are two: “righteousness and holiness [or piety] of the truth.” This is the Old Testament conception of a perfect life, whose realisation the devout Zacharias anticipates when he sings how God has “shown mercy to our fathers, in remembrance of His holy covenant, that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.” Enchanting vision, still to be fulfilled! “Righteousness” is the sum of all that should be in a mans relations towards Gods law; “holiness” is a right disposition and bearing towards God Himself. This is not St. Pauls ordinary word for holiness (sanctification, sanctity), which he puts so often at the head of his letters, addressing his readers as “saints” in Christ Jesus. That other term designates Christian believers as devoted persons, claimed by God for His own; it signifies holiness as a calling. The word of our text denotes specifically the holiness of temper and behaviour-“that becometh saints.” The two words differ very much as devotedness from devoutness.

A religious temper, a reverent mind, marks the true child of grace. His soul is full of the loving fear of God. In the new humanity, in the type of man that will prevail in the latter days when the truth as in Jesus has been learnt by mankind, justice and piety will hold a balanced sway. The man of the coming times will not be atheistic or agnostic: he will be devout. He will not be narrow and self-seeking; he will not be pharisaic and pretentious, practising the worlds ethics with the Christians creed: he will be upright and generous, manly and godlike.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary