being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts.
Parallel Translations
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being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts.
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blynded in their vnderstondynge beynge straungers from the lyfe which is in god thorow the ignorancy that is in them because of the blyndnes of their hertes:
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Hauing their vnderstanding darkened, and being strangers from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardnesse of their heart:
Cross-references (24)
Passages linked to Ephesians 4:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Matthew 13:15 for this people’s heart has grown callous, their ears are dull of hearing, they have closed their eyes; or else perhaps they might perceive with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and would turn again; and I would heal them.’
- Ephesians 2:12 that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
- Romans 1:21-23 Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, four-footed animals, and creeping things.
- John 12:40 “He has blinded their eyes and he hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, and would turn, and I would heal them.”
- 2 Corinthians 4:4 in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:5 not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God,
- James 4:4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
- Colossians 1:21 You, being in past times alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil deeds,
- 1 John 2:11 But he who hates his brother is in the darkness, and walks in the darkness, and doesn’t know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
- Romans 8:7-8 because the mind of the flesh is hostile toward God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be. Those who are in the flesh can’t please God.
- Galatians 4:8 However at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods.
- Acts 17:30 The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,
- Romans 11:25 For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,
- Romans 1:28 Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;
- Psalms 74:20 Honor your covenant, for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the earth.
- Psalms 115:4-8 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they don’t speak. They have eyes, but they don’t see. They have ears, but they don’t hear. They have noses, but they don’t smell. They have hands, but they don’t feel. They have feet, but they don’t walk, neither do they speak through their throat. Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.
- Isaiah 44:18-20 They don’t know, neither do they consider: for he has shut their eyes, that they can’t see; and their hearts, that they can’t understand. No one thinks, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, “I have burned part of it in the fire. Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals. I have roasted meat and eaten it. Shall I make the rest of it into an abomination? Shall I bow down to a tree trunk?” He feeds on ashes. A deceived heart has turned him aside; and he can’t deliver his soul, nor say, “Isn’t there a lie in my right hand?”
- Isaiah 46:5-8 “To whom will you compare me, and consider my equal, and compare me, as if we were the same? Some pour out gold from the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god. They fall down— yes, they worship. They bear it on their shoulder. They carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. Yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer. It cannot save him out of his trouble. “Remember this, and show yourselves men. Bring it to mind again, you transgressors.
- Daniel 5:20 But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him.
- Mark 3:5 When he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their hearts, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored as healthy as the other.
- Acts 26:17-18 delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles, to whom I send you, to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
- Romans 2:19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,
- 1 Corinthians 1:21 For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.
- 2 Corinthians 3:14 But their minds were hardened, for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains, because in Christ it passes away.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (16 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 18. Being alienated from the life of God. The…
18. Being alienated from the life of God. The life of God may either mean what is accounted life in the sight of God, as in that passage,
“they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God,” (John 12:43,)
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or, that life which God bestows on his elect by the Spirit of regeneration. In both cases the meaning is the same. Our ordinary life, as men, is nothing more than an empty image of life, not only because it quickly passes, but also because, while we live, our souls, not keeping close to God, are dead. There are three kinds of life in this world. The first is animal life, which consists only of motion and the bodily senses, and which we have in common with the brutes; the second is human life, which we have as the children of Adam; and the third is that supernatural life, which believers alone obtain. And all of them are from God, so that each of them may be called the life of God. As to the first, Paul, in his sermon at Athens, says, (Acts 17:28,) “In him we live, and move, and have our being;” and the Psalmist says,
“Send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created; and thou wilt renew the face of the earth.” (Psalm 104:30.)
Of the second Job says,
“Thou hast granted me life, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.” (Job 10:12.)
But the regeneration of believers is here called, by way of eminence, the life of God, because then does God truly live in us, and we enjoy his life, when he governs us by his Spirit. Of this life all men who are not new creatures in Christ are declared by Paul to be destitute. So long, then, as we remain in the flesh, that is, in ourselves, how wretched must be our condition! We may now form a judgment of all the moral virtues, as they are called; for what sort of actions will that life produce which, Paul affirms, is not the life of God? Before anything good can begin to proceed from us, we must first be renewed by the grace of Christ. This will be the commencement of a true, and, as the phrase is, a vital life.
On account of the ignorance that is in them. We ought to attend to the reason which is here assigned; for, as the knowledge of God is the true life of the soul, so, on the contrary, ignorance is the death of it. And lest we should adopt the opinion of philosophers, that ignorance, which leads us into mistakes, is only an incidental evil, Paul shews that it has its root in the blindness of their heart, by which he intimates that it dwells in their very nature. The first blindness, therefore, which covers the minds of men, is the punishment of original sin; because Adam, after his revolt, was deprived of the true light of God, in the absence of which there is nothing but fearful darkness.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Whereby God liveth in them.
Whereby God liveth in them.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the…
18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
Ver. 18. Having the understanding darkened] By the devil’s black hand held before their eyes, 2Co 4:4. {See Trapp on "2Co 4:4"}
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Alienated from the life of God] That is, from a godly life, which none can live but those that partake of the divine nature, 2Pe 1:4.
Because of the blindness] Gr. πωρωσιν, callum obductum. Hardness, brawniness, a hoof upon their hearts, corneas fibras, brawny breasts, horny heart-strings. The Greek word imports a metaphor from the hard hand of hardest labourers. They say in philosophy, that the foundation of natural life is feeling; no feeling, no life: and that the more quick and nimble the sense of feeling is in a man, the better is his constitution. Think the same we may of life spiritual.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Having the understanding; the mind as reasoning and discoursing,…
Having the understanding; the mind as reasoning and discoursing, and so their ratiocinations and discourses themselves.
Darkened; as to spiritual things.
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Being alienated from the life of God; not only strangers to it, (for so are those creatures which are not capable of it), but estranged from it; implying, that in Adam originally they were not so.
The life of God; a spiritual life; that life which God commands, and approves, and whereby God lives in believers, and they live in him, Gal 2:19,20; and that both as to the principle of life, and the operations of it.
Through the ignorance that is in them; that ignorance which is naturally in them is the cause of their alienation from the life of God, which begins in light and knowledge.
Because of the blindness of their heart; or rather hardness: the Greek word signifies a callum or brawniness in the flesh, which is usual in the hands of labourers. Either this is set down as another cause of their estrangement from the life of God, or as the cause of their ignorance, which, though in part it be natural to them, yet is increased to further degrees by their own hardness and obstinacy, shutting their eyes voluntarily against the light.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Having the understanding darkened,.... Not that the natural faculty…
Having the understanding darkened,.... Not that the natural faculty of the understanding is lost in men, nor the understanding in things natural and civil, and which is quick enough, especially in things that are evil; but in things spiritual it is very dark and ignorant, as about the nature and perfections of God, his holiness and righteousness; about sin and the consequences of it; about Christ, his person, office, and work, and salvation by him; about the Spirit, and his work of grace upon the soul; and about the Scripture, and the doctrines contained in it; and so it came to be by sin: the understanding of man was at first filled both with natural and divine knowledge; but man was not content with this, and being ambitious of more, even of being as God, lost what he had; for on account of his sin he was banished from the divine presence, which brought not only a darkness upon him, but upon all his posterity; and which is increased by personal iniquity, and oftentimes by Satan the god of this world, who blinds the minds of men; and sometimes men are given up in just judgment by God, to a judicial blindness and hardness of heart; and which issues in utter darkness, in blackness of darkness for evermore:
being alienated from the life of God; not that which God lives in himself, but that which he lives in his people; nor that natural life which men receive from him, but a spiritual life, a life of grace, faith and holiness; and which may be called the life of God, because it is infused by the Spirit of God, and the word of God is the means of it, and it is supported and secured by the power of God, and is according to the will of God, and is directed to his glory: now wicked and unconverted men are alienated from this life; they are estranged from God the fountain of it; and go astray from the law, the rule of an holy life; and are entirely destitute of a principle of life, from whence men can only act and are utterly unacquainted with the pleasures and sweetness of the life of faith and holiness; nor do they approve of such a life, but have the utmost aversion to it:
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through the ignorance that is in them; every unregenerate man is an ignorant man, and especially the Gentiles were very ignorant of God, and of divine things; ignorance is natural to men, it comes by sin, and is itself sinful, and is sometimes the punishment of sin, and also the cause of it, as here of alienation from the life of God; for where is ignorance of God, there can be no desire after him, no communion with him, no faith in him, had dependence on him; no true worship of him, or living according to his will, and to his glory: and this ignorance is,
because of the blindness of their hearts, or "the hardness of it"; there is a natural hardness of the heart, the heart is naturally stony, and so it remains till grace takes away the stony heart, and gives an heart of flesh; it is insensible and inflexible, and not susceptive of any impression; and there is a voluntary hardness of it, men willingly harden themselves against the Lord, and make their hearts like an adamant stone, all sin is of an hardening nature; and there is a judicial hardness, which God gives up men unto; and when and where this is the case, in either sense, it is no wonder men should be so ignorant of God, and so alienated from the life of him: , "blindness of heart" (c), is a Rabbinical phrase.
(c) T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 105. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Having their understanding darkened, through the ignorance that is…
Having their understanding darkened, through the ignorance that is in them - So that they are totally void of the light of God, neither have they any knowledge of his will. Being alienated from the life of God - Utter strangers to the divine, the spiritual life. Through the hardness of their hearts - Callous and senseless. And where there is no sense, there can be no life.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 18. 2. Having the understanding darkened] This is…
Verse 18. 2. Having the understanding darkened] This is the second instance alleged by the apostle of the degradation of the Gentiles. Having no means of knowledge, the heart, naturally dark, became more and more so by means of habitual transgression; every thing in the Gentile system having an immediate tendency to blind the eyes and darken the whole soul.
3. Being alienated from the life of God] The original design of God was to live in man; and the life of God in the soul of man was that by which God intended to make man happy, and without which true happiness was never found by any human spirit: from this through the ignorance that was in them, δια την αγνοιαν την ουσαν, through the substantial or continually existing ignorance, which there was nothing to instruct, nothing to enlighten; for the most accurate writings of their best philosophers left them entirely ignorant of the real nature of God. And if they had no correct knowledge of the true God they could have no religion; and if no religion, no morality. Their moral state became so wretched that they are represented as abhorring every thing spiritual and pure, for this is the import of the word απηλλοτριωμενοι (which we translate alienated) in some of the best Greek writers. They abhorred every thing that had a tendency to lay any restraint on their vicious passions and inclinations.
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4. Blindness of their heart] δια την πωρωσιν. Because of the callousness of their hearts. Callous signifies a thickening of the outward skin of any particular part, especially on the hands and feet, by repeated exercise or use, through which such parts are rendered insensible. This may be metaphorically applied to the conscience of a sinner, which is rendered stupid and insensible by repeated acts of iniquity.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Having the understanding darkened - That is, because they…
Having the understanding darkened - That is, because they were alienated from the true God, and particularly because of “the blindness of their hearts.” The apostle does not say that this was a “judicial” darkening of the understanding; or that they might not have perceived the truth; or that they had no ability to understand it. He speaks of a simple and well-known fact - a fact that is seen now as well as then that the understanding becomes darkened by indulgence in sin. A man who is intemperate, has no just views of the government of the appetites. A man who is unchaste, has no perception of the loveliness of purity. A man who is avaricious or covetous, has no just views of the beauty of benevolence. A man who indulges in low vices, will weaken his mental powers, and render himself incapable of intellectual effort. Indulgence in vice destroys the intellect as well as the body, and unfits a man to appreciate the truth of a proposition in morals, or in mathematics, or the beauty of a poem, as well as the truth and beauty of religion.
Nothing is more obvious than that indulgence in sin weakens the mental powers, and renders them unfit for high intellectual effort. This is seen all over the pagan world now - in the stolid, stupid mind; the perverted moral sense; the incapacity for profound or protracted mental effort, as really as it was among the pagans to whom Paul preached. The missionary who goes among the pagan has almost to create an “intellect” as well as a “conscience,” before the gospel will make an impression. It is seen, too, in all the intellect of the bar, the senate, the pulpit, and the medical profession, that is ruined by intemperance, and in the intellect of multitudes of young men wasted by licentiousness and drunkenness. I know that under the influence of ambition and stimulating drinks, the intellect may seem to put forth unnatural efforts, and to glow with an intensity nowhere else seen. But it “soon burns out” - and the wastes of such an intellect become soon like the hardened scoriae of the volcano, or the cinders of the over-heated furnace. Learn hence, that if a man wishes to be blessed with a clear understanding, he should he a “good man.” He who wishes a mind well balanced and clear, should fear and love God; and had Christianity done no other good on earth than to elevate the “intellect” of mankind, it would have been the richest blessing which has ever been vouchsafed to the race. It follows, too, that as man has debased his “understanding” by sin, it is needful to make an exertion to elevate it again: and hence a large part of the efforts to save people must consist in patient “instruction.” Hence, the necessity of schools at missionary stations.
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Being alienated - see the notes on Eph 2:12.
From the life of God - From a life “like” that of God, or a life of which he is the source and author. The meaning is, that they lived a life which was “unlike” God, or which he could not approve. Of the truth of this in regard to the pagan everywhere, there can be no doubt; see the notes on Rom. 1.
Through the ignorance that is in them - The ignorance of the true God, and of what constituted virtue; compare notes on Rom 1:20-23.
Because of the blindness of their heart - Margin, “hardness.” Hardness is a better word. It is a better translation of the Greek; and it better accords with the design of the apostle. Here the reason is stated why they lived and acted as they did, and why the “understanding” was blinded. It is not that God has enfeebled the human intellect by a judicial sentence on account of the sin of Adam, and made it incapable of perceiving I the truth. It is not that there is any I deficiency or incapacity of natural powers. It is not that the truths of religion are so exalted that man has no natural ability to understand them, for they may be as well understood as any other truth; see the notes on 1Co 1:14. The simple reason is, “the hardness or the heart.” That is the solution given by an inspired apostle, and that is enough. A man who has a blind and hard heart sees no beauty in truth, and feels not its force, and is insensible to all its appeals. Learn, then:
(1) That people are to blame for the blindness of their understanding. Whatever proceeds from a “wicked heart” they are responsible for. But for mere “inferiority of intellect” they would not be to blame.
(2) They are under obligation to repent and love God. If it was required of them to enlarge their intellects, or create additional faculties of mind, they could not be bound to do it. But where the whole thing required is to have a “better heart,” they may be held responsible.
(3) The way to elevate the understandings of mankind is to purify the heart. The approach must be made through the affections. Let people “feel” right toward God, and they will soon “think” right; let the heart be pure, and the understanding will be clear.
(Doubtless there is a reciprocal influence between the dark mind and depraved heart. The one acts on the other. Admitting that the understanding is affected “first,” through the will or heart, and that it is a bad heart which makes a spiritually dark mind, still the fact remains the same, that “in consequence of our union with Adam, in consequence of the fall,” all our faculties, understanding, will, affections, have been corrupted. See the supplementary notes, Rom. 5)
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain More literally, "Being darkened in their understanding," that is,…
More literally, "Being darkened in their understanding," that is, their intelligence, or perceptions (compare Eph 5:8; Act 26:18; Th1 5:4-5).
alienated--This and "darkened," imply that before the fall they (in the person of their first father) had been partakers of life and light: and that they had revolted from the primitive revelation (compare Eph 2:12).
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life of God--that life whereby God lives in His own people: as He was the life and light in Adam before the irruption of death and darkness into human nature; and as He is the life in the regenerate (Gal 2:20). "Spiritual life in believers is kindled from the life itself of God" [BENGEL].
through--rather as Greek, "on account of the ignorance," namely, of God. Wilful ignorance in the first instance, their fathers not "choosing to retain God in their knowledge." This is the beginning point of their misery (Act 17:30; Rom 1:21, Rom 1:23, Rom 1:28; Pe1 1:14).
because of--"on account of."
blindness--Greek, "hardness," literally, the hardening of the skin so as not to be sensible of touch. Hence a soul's callousness to feeling (Mar 3:5). Where there is spiritual "life" ("the life of God") there is feeling; where there is not, there is "hardness."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 18. Understanding—The region of the play of reasoning, the…
18. Understanding—The region of the play of reasoning, the channel of the ordinary thought-current. As the intuitive power above, of these men, was filled with vanity, so the current of thought flowed in darkness.
Alienated—Foreignized, de-citizenized, as if belonging to another race from the sons of God. From the life of God—That divine regenerative life produced by the vitalizing touches, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, by which we are sons of God. St. Paul’s participle, alienated, glances back to a period when they were home-born natives of the kingdom of God.
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And this is true both of our humanity and of every man born into this atonement-pervaded world.
Bengel and others discern a parallelism between the present four clauses by which the first corresponds to the third, and the second to the fourth. Thus:—
Having the understanding darkened,
Through the ignorance that is in them:
Being alienated from the life of God,
Through the callousness of their heart.
But, we may add, this whole double process of darkness through ignorance, and alienation through hardness, is the result of the vanity, in the intuitive mind, by which God has been discarded and apostasy been committed.
Blindness—Rather, hardness. The Greek term is derived from a word signifying stone, and is then applied, in surgery, to a hardening of the flesh into bone—ossification. Hence, viewing the heart as the symbolical seat of the moral emotions, the word designates a stolid insensibility to moral impressions. It forms an encasement through which the life of God cannot enter.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 18. having the understanding darkened] Lit., haying been darkened…
18. having the understanding darkened] Lit., haying been darkened in the understanding. On “the understanding” see note above on Eph_2:3 (where A.V., “mind”). The Gr. word may fairly be said to mean the reason (nous) in action. Here accordingly the phrase defines, so to speak, the phrase just previous; the general illusion of the reason comes out in obfuscated acts of thought.—On the metaphor of darkness cp. Mat_6:23; Joh_3:19; Joh_8:12; Joh_12:35; Joh_12:46; Act_26:18; Col_1:13; 1Th_5:4-5; 1Jn_1:5-6; 1Jn_2:8-9; 1Jn_2:11; and below, ch. Eph_5:8; Eph_5:11, Eph_6:12. It often combines the ideas of blindness and of secrecy; here it gives only the former.
being alienated from the life of God] The words, Gr. and Eng., imply a fall from a state of union. See above on Eph_2:12 where “alienated” occurs in another connexion. Here, as there, the Human Soul in the abstract is viewed as having shared, in its unfallen state, the Life of God, and having lost it in the Fall. And this view is transferred from the Soul to the souls in which it is individualized. Historically, we begin our personal existence aliens; ideally, we began in union and fell from it.
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“The life of God”:—the word “life” occurs here only in the Epistle. The phrase here denotes the spiritual force given to the human spirit by spiritual contact with God, resulting in the action and exercise of holiness. The Christian believer finds “this life in His Son” (1Jn_5:11). In Joh_17:3 we have at once its secret and its issue; “to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent.” It is entered, from one point of view, by “justification of life” (Rom_5:18), that acceptance of the guilty in Christ which is the sine quâ non in Divine Law. Its development is the state of glory, which is therefore very often called, in a special sense, “eternal life” (e. g. Mat_25:46), though that phrase is also fully true of the present state of the believer (1Jn_3:15; 1Jn_5:13).—It is plain that the word “life,” in spiritual connexions, means very much more than “existence.” See above on Eph_2:1.
through the ignorance] Better, on account of, &c. They lost connexion with the Life of God, and so remain, because of their ignorance of the eternal facts about God and holiness. We have here still something of the idealization explained just above. As the Human Soul fell through guilty “ignorance” of the supreme right and joy of absolute submission to God, so the individual soul is viewed as, ideally, losing union through the same “ignorance” of self-will. Historically, the individual begins self-willed and therefore alienated; ideally, he breaks an existing connexion. The practical aspect of the matter is that he maintains disconnexion by the ignorance of self-will. He “wills not to come that he may have life” (Joh_5:40), “seeing no beauty” in Christ, “that he should desire Him” in an effectual sense (Isa_53:2).
blindness] Better, hardening (so R.V.). The word denotes failure of sensation in general. This clause is a re-statement of that just previous. What took place “on account of ignorance” took place “on account of hardening”; another aspect of the same moral state.
heart] See on Eph_1:18, Eph_3:17. Much more than the seat of emotion is meant by this word in Scripture.—Phrases compounded of “heart” and “harden” occur (in the Gr.) Mar_3:5; Mar_6:52; Mar_8:17; Joh_12:40. In 2Co_3:14 we have (Gr.) “their thoughts were hardened.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (18) Having the understanding darkened.—Of this vanity the first…
(18) Having the understanding darkened.—Of this vanity the first result noted is the intellectual. They are “darkened in the understanding,” and so, “by the ignorance in them alienated from the life of God.” The phrase “the life of God” is unique. It may, however, be interpreted by a similar phrase, the “righteousness of God” (Rom_1:7), i.e., the righteousness given by God. What the life given by God is, we know by our Lord’s own words (Joh_17:3), “This is the life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent.” So far as the understanding is concerned, this alienation signifies the loss of the central light of Truth in God, and with it the loss, partial or complete, of the vision of other truths in their right proportion and harmony.
But the second result is moral. St. Paul attributes the alienation from God, or (possibly, though less probably) “the ignorance which is in them,” to the hardness of their heart—for the marginal reading is correct; the word used signifies, almost technically, “callousness” and insensibility. To make his meaning clearer still he adds, “who (or, inasmuch as they) being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness.” There is precisely a similar current of thought (noting, however, the characteristic difference referred to above) in Rom_1:24-32, where St. Paul draws out, as consequences of the same vanity, first lusts of uncleanness, next unnatural sin, and at last breaks out into a fearful enumeration of the signs of the reprobate mind. On this side, therefore, “the alienation from the life of God” is the loss of the grace by which He dwells in the soul, and by indwelling gives it the moral and spiritual life.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Being darkened in their understanding (second point of difference),…
Being darkened in their understanding (second point of difference), and thus blind to all that is most vital ignorant of God, of the way of salvation, of the love of Christ. Even at best the natural understanding cannot discover these things, and when it is not only imperfect but darkened made more obscure than ever by sin (see after) its guidance is altogether defective. It has been said truly that theyoungest scholar in a Sunday school that has been taught the elements of the gospel has more light than the wisest of the heathen. Alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart (third point of difference). Two causes are given for their alienation, viz. ignorance, and hardness of heart, this last being the ultimate cause. Through worldly living, their hearts have become hard, callous, insensible to spiritual influences, perceiving no beauty in Divine things, no preciousness in Divine promises, no excellence in the Divine image; this makes them ignorant, careless, foolish; and such being their state of heart, they are alienated from the life of God, can"t bear vital religion, hate the very idea of spiritual and holy service.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the, life…
Eph_4:18
Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the, life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.
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Spiritual blindness
A coward never knows what the ecstasy of courage is; and if you ask me why, my reply is, that he has not that in him by which he can know it. A man hearing a magnificent symphony of Beethoven says, I would give more for Yankee Doodle than for a thousand such symphonies. Why? Because he has not that in him by which he can appreciate Beethovens music. A man says in regard to a magnificent work of art, I would rather see the sign that hangs over the door of the tavern in our town than any picture that Raphael ever painted. Very likely he would. That sign is just coarse enough for him to understand; and he has not that in him which would enable him to interpret the paintings of a great master. Many men would rather read a ballad than Miltons Lycidas or Comus or Paradise Lost. (H. W. Beecher.)
The immorality of the heathen
We are environed by an invisible, Divine, and eternal world. It does not lie far away from us in the remote future, but surrounds us now as the starry heavens surround the common earth, There is a faculty in us which, when inspired and illuminated by the Spirit of God, enables us to see it. When once that world is revealed to us our whole conception of human duty and of human destiny is changed. We discover that the pleasures and pains of this brief and transitory life, its poverty and its wealth, its honours and its shame, are of secondary importance, that there is a kind of unreality in them all, that they are external to us, that they are rapidly passing away. In this life indeed it is impossible for us not to be affected by them; and they have their place in the discipline of our righteousness. But our horizon has widened, and we see beyond them. We discover that it is only the larger world which has been revealed to us by Christ that is real and enduring; and that compared with its august and glorious realities things seen and temporal, are but passing shadows. We see that the true life of man is the eternal and Divine life by which he is related to what is eternal and Divine; that the true honour, the true wealth, the true wisdom, the true happiness of man are found in that eternal and Divine kingdom. But Paul says that heathen races are living among things seen and temporal, not among things unseen and eternal. The faculty by which they should be brought into contact with what is real and enduring, is impaired, so that it mistakes shadows for substances, dreams for realities: they walk in the vanity of their mind. And as no light reaches them from the infinite and eternal world, they are darkened in their understanding. Darkness and death go together. Man was so created that the root of his perfection is in God. But where the knowledge of God is lost the life of God is lost. Heathen men are living in regions of moral darkness, in which the life of God cannot be theirs. They are separated, estranged, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. But the ignorance is not a mere intellectual defect involving no moral fault; they are alienated from the life of God … because of the hardening of their heart. Their increasing moral insensibility was the real cause of their ignorance; and their ignorance and moral insensibility were the causes of their alienation from the life of God. What kind of men they had become through this hardening of their heart Paul describes in words which it is not possible to read without a sense of horror. They were past feeling. They had ceased to he sensitive to the obligations of truth, of honesty, of kindness, of purity; and to the guilt of falsehood, of injustice, of cruelty, of sensual sin. They committed the grossest vices, and were conscious of no shame. Their imagination was no longer fascinated by the beauty and nobleness of virtue. No sentiment of personal dignity checked the indulgence of the foulest and most disgraceful passions. They had no reverence for the purer and loftier traditions of better times. They were untouched by the censure and scorn of the wiser and nobler of their contemporaries. All the inducements that draw men to virtue and all the restraints that hold them back from vice were destroyed. They were past feeling. Their sin was therefore gross and habitual. They were not betrayed into sin, against their better purposes; they were not merely overcome now and then by the violence of their passions; they were not mastered by some malignant power, against which they struggled in vain; nor were their worst excesses followed by any remorse. They sinned deliberately and without any protest from their reason or their conscience, or any purer and more generous affections in their moral life. They gave themselves up--it was their own act, done with set purpose and with the consent of their whole nature--they gave themselves up to lasciviousness--to a life in which there was a wilful, reckless, wanton defiance of all moral restraints. Vice, by their own choice and intention, was not to be an occasional incident in their life, it was to be their main business, the employment at which they were to work; and as some men have an insatiable desire for money, these men had an insatiable desire for every kind of impurity, they gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. It is a horrible picture. But Paul was describing the men among whom he had lived and among whom the Christians at Ephesus were living still. The morality of the Greek cities of Asia Minor was so base and so foul that we wonder that the fires of God did not descend to destroy them. Is it surprising that with such a moral environment the Christians at Ephesus, who a few years before had been heathen men themselves, required the ethical teaching contained in the later chapters of this Epistle? (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
Christians must live above the world
To ourselves the ethical condition of the Ephesian Christians is profoundly suggestive, perhaps I ought to say that it is very alarming. English society is free from the gross, the sensual, the brutal vice which infected the great heathen cities of Asia Minor. There is a strong public sentiment on the side of truthfulness, honesty, temperance, purity, industry, self-control, kindliness, and public spirit. We inherit these virtues from our parents; we have been disciplined to them by all the complex influences that have contributed to form our character. In a very true sense they are natural to us, and we practise them without effort. And so it is assumed that when a man receives the life of God there is no reason for any great change in his moral habits. There may be defects of temper which have to be corrected, and in some of the details of moral conduct we may recognize the necessity for amendment; but if he has lived among good moral people he takes it for granted that in working out his own salvation he has to think almost exclusively of his spiritual life; his moral character is already what it should be. He attends public worship more frequently than before; secures more time for private prayer, for religious thought, for reading the Bible and other religious books; he tries to increase the fervour of his love for God and the steadfastness of his faith in God; he takes up some kind of religious work. About moral discipline he thinks very little. About the necessity of reconstructing his whole conception of moral duty, adding to it new elements, resting it on new foundations, he thinks still less. The results of this grave error are most disastrous. The ideal of the ethical life is no higher in the Church than it is in the world. But if the morals of the Church, as a whole, are not distinctly in advance of the morals of society as a whole, if when a man becomes a Christian his moral life is not governed by nobler laws and inspired with a new generosity and force, the power of the Church will be seriously impaired, and its triumphs will be only occasional and intermittent. At times a great passion of religious enthusiasm may enable it to count its converts by thousands; but the fires of enthusiasm soon sink, and for its permanent authority the Church should rely on steadier forces. In heathen countries, although the morality of Christian converts may be grossly defective, it is in advance of the morality of the mass of their fellow countrymen. The darkness of their old life is about them still, but their faces are towards the light. In countries described as Christian there should be the same difference between the morality of those that are in Christ and the morality of those that are not. The revelation of the Divine love and the Divine righteousness, of our kinship to God, of the glorious immortality which is the inheritance of all that have received the Divine life, should ennoble our ideal of every moral virtue, and should inspire us with a more ardent passion for moral perfection. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
Ignorance of religion
Its ignorance of the price of pearls that makes the idiot slight them. Its ignorance of the worth of diamonds that makes the fool choose a pebble before them. Its ignorance of the satisfaction learning affords that makes the peasant despise and laugh at it; and we very ordinarily see how men tread and trample on those plants which are the greatest restoratives, because they know not the virtue of them; and the same may justly be affirmed of religion, the reason why men meddle no more with it is--because they are not acquainted with the pleasantness of it. (Anthony Horneck.)
Ignorance of a depraved heart
But there is another sort of ignorance which is not an ignorance of an empty understanding, but of a depraved heart; such an ignorance as does not only consist in a bare privation, but in a corrupt disposition; where the understanding is like that sort of blind serpents, whose blindness is attended with much venom and malignity. This was such a blindness as struck the Sodomites; there was darkness in their eyes, and withal villany in their hearts. (Dr. South.)
Guilty ignorance
There is also an affected ignorance, such a one as is contracted by a wilful neglect of the means; and this is not excusing but condemning … In the midst of light to be in darkness; for an Israel to have an Egypt in a Goschen; this is highly provoking, and may justly cause God to lay hold on vengeance. (Dr. South.)
Innocent ignorance
Is any father so cruel, or hard hearted, as to disown and cast off his son, because he is a fool? No; an innocent ignorance excuses from sin, both before God and man; and God Himself will own that maxim of equity, Ignorantia excusat peccatum. (Dr. South.)
Different kinds of ignorance
Ignorance may be distinguished into five kinds; human, natural, affected, invincible, proud, and puffed up.
1. Human.
This is not sinful, as in Adam not to know his nakedness nor Satans subtlety; as in the angels, and even Christ, as man, not to know the latter day.
2. Natural.--The ignorance of infirmity, incident to mans nature since the Fall.
3. Affected ignorance (see Joh_3:19).--These shut their ears when God calleth; and, being housed in their security, will not step to the door to see if the sun shines. This ignorance, if I may say so, doth reside rather in their affection than understanding part.
4. Invincible ignorance.--When God hath naturally darkened the understanding by a sore punishment of original sin.
5. A proud ignorance.--Whereof there is no hope, saith Solomon (Pro_27:1). The other is invincible, indeed this more invincible: a fool is sooner taught. (T. Adams.)
Natural ignorance
We read of an ancient king, who being desirous to know what was the natural language of men; in order to bring the matter to a certain issue, made the following experiment:--He ordered two infants, as soon as they were born, to be conveyed to a place prepared for them, where they were brought up without any instruction at all, and without ever hearing a human voice. And what was the event? Why, that when they were at length brought out of their confinement they spake no language at all, they uttered only inarticulate sounds like those of other animals. Were two infants in like manner to be brought up from the womb without being instructed in any religion, there is little room to doubt but (unless the grace of God interposed) the event would be just the same. They would have no religion at all: they would have no more knowledge of God than the beasts of the field, than the wild asss colt. Such is natural religion l abstracted from traditional, and from the influences of Gods spirit. (J. Wesley.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 18. Having the understanding darkened. He shows how the…
18. Having the understanding darkened. He shows how the Gentiles walk in vanity. They are in darkness, unenlightened by the gospel. Alienated. Without the spiritual life that comes from knowing God. Because of blindness of heart. The idea is a willful blindness.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 4:18 Their minds are full of darkness because their…
4:18 Their minds are full of darkness because their minds are closed and hearts are hard (see 2 Cor 4:4).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.