But you didn’t learn Christ that way,
Parallel Translations
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But you didn’t learn Christ that way,
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But ye have not so learned Christ,
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But yee haue not so learned Christ,
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Ephesians 4:20 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Titus 2:11-14 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we would live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age; looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.
- John 6:45 It is written in the prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who hears from the Father and has learned, comes to me.
- Matthew 11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls.
- 1 John 2:27 As for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you don’t need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, you will remain in him.
- Luke 24:47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
- 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 For the love of Christ constrains us; because we judge thus, that one died for all, therefore all died. He died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again.
- Romans 6:1-2 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 20. But ye have not. He now draws a…
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.
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 Here followeth the contrary part touching men which are…
Here followeth the contrary part touching men which are regenerate by the true and lively knowledge of Christ, which have other principles of their doings far different, to wit, holy and honest desires, and a mind clean changed by the virtue of the holy Ghost, from whence proceed also like effects, as a just and holy life indeed.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 20 But ye have not so learned Christ;
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.
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 But ye have not so learned; so as to…
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.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain In these verses, 1. Our apostle acquaints the converted…
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!
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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.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain But ye have not so learned Christ,.... Some distinguish…
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.
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.
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Ephesians 4:21
eph 4:21
eph 4:21
eph 4:21If so be that ye have heard him,.... Not heard him preach, but heard him preached; and that not merely externally, with the outward hearing of the ear; though oftentimes spiritual conviction and illumination, true faith in Christ, real comfort from him, and establishment and assurance of interest in him, come this way, as to these Ephesians, Eph 1:13 but internally, so as to know him, understand his word, and distinguish his voice; so as to approve of him and love him, and believe in him; feel the power of his Gospel, relish his truths, and obey his ordinances, and so bring forth fruit to his glory; as such do, who are quickened by him, whose ears are unstopped, and their hearts opened, and their understandings enlightened; and who have hearing ears, and understanding hearts given them:
and have been taught by him: not personally, but by his Spirit and ministers; for Christ is not only the subject of the ministry of the word, and whom the Spirit of God teaches and directs souls to for righteousness, pardon, cleansing, and for every supply of grace; but he is the efficient cause of teaching; and there is none who teaches like him: and those who are taught by him, are taught
as the truth is in Jesus; as the Gospel is in him, as in its original and subject; for he is truth itself, and grace and truth came by him; and as it was preached by him, and so is pure and unmixed.
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 But ye have not so learned Christ - That…
But ye have not so learned Christ - That is, ye cannot act thus, now ye know him, since you know the Christian dispensation allows of no sin.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 20. But ye have not so learned Christ]…
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: Ὑμεις δε ουχ οὑτως· εμαθετε τον Χριστον· But ye are not thus; ye have learned Christ.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Eph 4:20-24. But ye — Believers at Ephesus; have…
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 ει γε, 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.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain But ye have not so learned Christ - You…
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.
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 learned Christ-- (Phi 3:10). To know Christ Himself, is…
learned Christ-- (Phi 3:10). To know Christ Himself, is the great lesson of the Christian life: this the Ephesians began to learn at their conversion. "Christ," in reference to His office, is here specified as the object of learning. "Jesus," in Eph 4:21, as the person.
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 b. Be ye renewed from the old to the…
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.
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Learned Christ—As ye were once taught this selfish worldliness. Christ is the embodiment of a new purity, unselfishness, and unworldliness.
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 20. ye] Emphatic by position.
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.”
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Christ] Who is the Subject-matter of His own message.
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 (20) Ye have not so learned Christ.—Better, ye did…
(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 learning—like the “knowing” of 2Co_5:14—is not “after the flesh,” by the mere hearing of the ear, but “after the Spirit,” writing Christ upon the heart.
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 But ye did not thus learn Christ. "But" emphatic…
But ye did not thus learn Christ. "But" emphatic a great contrast, that must come home to the conscience of every Christian, and to his whole heart and soul. The expression, "learn Christ," is a pregnant one, corresponding to "preaching Christ" (Act_8:5) all about Christ, Christ in all his offices, and in all his influence. He that learns Christ appropriates him in the efficacy of his atonement, in the power of his Spirit, in the force of his lessons, and in the spirit of his influence, and finds the whole to be diametrically opposite to the godless world.
Vers. 20-24.
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In Christ the transition effected from the old man to the new man.
The apostle represents "believers" as having "learned Christ," not as having learned about him, but as having reached the true knowledge of him, having heard his voice and having been taught by him, as to "the truth as it is in Jesus a truth that carried them far apart from the frightful license of the heathen. We now understand the exact import of this truth. It is to put off the old man and put on the new man. It is, in a word, sanctification.
I THE NECESSITY OF THIS TRANSFORMATION. The question might naturally arise Had not the saints at Ephesus already put off the old man and put on the new man? Were they not already true believers? Why should they be asked to do it again? We must keep in view the distinction that the apostle clearly maintains in this familiar figure between "the old man" and "the new man." Sometimes he refers to our legal condition, sometimes to our moral condition. "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ". (Rom_13:14) In this Epistle the apostle exhorts the Christians to put off the old man; but in the Epistle to the Colossians he says the old man has been already put off. (Col_3:9) In this Epistle the exhortation is given, Put on the new man" (ver. 24); but elsewhere that which is new has been already accomplished. (2Co_5:17) We are exhorted again to be transformed" (Rom_12:2) and "renewed" (ver. 23); but we are elsewhere said to be already "transformed" and "renewed". (2Co_5:17) It is necessary to mark this distinction, that we may not be led aside or into that mysticism which seems to confound justification with sanctification. It is the moral, not the legal, condition that is here in question. It is worse than a mistake to say that we ought not to trouble ourselves about sin, because the new man cannot sin, and that sin comes from the old man, who has been already crucified and put off. This theory makes the work of the Holy Spirit altogether unnecessary.
II THE NATURE OF THIS TRANSFORMATION. This is evident from the contrast between the old man and the new man.
1. The old man represents corrupt nature, and is called "old" because it is original as opposed to what is new. It precedes what is new. Its character is vividly pictured by the apostle: "waxing corrupt according to the lusts of deceit." There is a progressive moral disintegration, which is inconsistent with the life of God or the happiness of man. The moral nature goes to pieces under the action of this corruption. Then it finds its natural development in" lusts of deceit." These lusts are deceitful, for they promise pleasure and bring pain; they promise liberty and bring bondage; they promise secrecy and bring shame; they promise impunity and bring retribution. Christians are well taught to put off this old man.
2. The new man represents the new nature, with its renewed intellect, its renewed affections, its renewed will. It has been "created after God in the righteousness and holiness of truth;" that is, in the righteousness and holiness which belong to the truth, or which are its essential products. Observe:
(1) That the new man is a creation, as man was a creation at the beginning. "We are God"s workmanship". (Eph_2:10)
(2) The new man is in God"s image, as the first man was in God"s image. The apostle says, According to the image of him who created him". (Col_3:10)
(3) The lineaments of the image of the new man are "righteousness that principle which guides him in all his relationships to God, man, and himself; and "holiness that principle of the spiritual life which has primary relation to God himself. Righteousness and piety, governed and guided by the truth, are the two great principles of spiritual perfection. The image of God is thus manifest in its intellectual and its moral side. All things, indeed, have become new to the believer a new name, new relations, new honors, new possessions, new thoughts, new affections, new words, new actions because he now acts from a new principle, (Gal_2:20) and is governed by a new end in life. T.C. (1Co_10:31)
Vers. 20-24.
The true method of studying Christianity.
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: that ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." These verses, including those back to the seventeenth, contain a general exhortation to holiness. The exhortation takes two forms the negative and the positive. The negative we have noticed in our previous homily, vers. 17-19; the positive is now before us. The subject is The true method of studying Christianity. Christianity is to be "learned." It is not an inbred knowledge. Man has no intuitions about it. Nor is it a knowledge imparted in any way irrespective of the use of our faculties and means. It comes to a man as the result of "learning." The man who does not rightly study will never know it. But what is the true method of studying? This is our present question, a question which we shall endeavor to answer in the light of the passage before us.
I THE TRUE METHOD OF STUDYING CHRISTIANITY REQUIRES THAT IT SHOULD BE STUDIED IN CHRIST. "Truth... in Jesus." Christianity must be looked upon as seen in Christ.
1. Not as seen in religious professors. This would give a false view.
2. Not as seen in religious books. This would give a false view.
3. Not as seen in religious institutions. These would give a false view. There is nothing cold in truth or narrow, as seen in Jesus, but all that is broad, warm, free, sublime.
II THE TRUE METHOD OF STUDYING CHRISTIANITY REQUIRES THAT IT SHOULD BE STUDIED UNDER THE TUITION OF CHRIST, We are "taught by him," or, as some translate it, "taught in him." Christ is the only effective Teacher of his own religion. If the sun is to be seen it must show itself all the stars and moons of the universe cannot reveal it; so with Christ. But how are we to place ourselves under his tuition? Three things are necessary.
1. We should realize our true moral relation to truth as it is in him. Truth in him has a special relation to us, not merely as men, but as corrupt, guilty, and ruined sinners. We must feel ourselves to be the character to which it is specially addressed.
2. We must endeavor to identify ourselves with the particular class of character which it indicates. "Truth in Jesus" has reference to special classes of sinners, such as the worldling, the formalist, the hypocrite, the inquirer, the penitent. We must put ourselves in the right class.
3. We must invoke the aid of his Spirit. Christ"s body is not in the world, but his Spirit is. The bodies and souls of ether great men have left the world Plato, Seneca, etc. They are not with the students of their works, but Christ is. He is with all his students.
III THE TRUE METHOD OF STUDYING CHRISTIANITY REQUIRES THAT WE SHOULD STUDY IT IN ORDER TO BE MADE CHRIST-LIKE. "Which after God that is, God"s image created in righteousness and true holiness." It is not to be studied for intellectual, ecclesiastical, secular, or professional purposes, hut for moral ends studied in order to make us like God. The moral transformation is here indicated as consisting of two things.
1. The renunciation of the old and corrupt character. The "old man" is put off.
(1) Character is the man. It is moral character that makes the human animal a man. "As a man thinketh in heart so is he." His character forms his world, his heaven or his hell.
(2) A sinful character is the old man. It is old because it is the first character we get. This must be put off. Old principles, purposes, habits, motives, thrown away.
2. The adoption of a new principle of character. "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind." Renewed in the central springs of being. The assimilation of our character to the grandest ideal which after God is created, and so on. D.T.
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 But ye have not so learned Christ.
Eph_4:20-21
But ye have not so learned Christ.
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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.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Chapter 20
Chapter 20
THE TWO HUMAN TYPES
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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.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 20–24. But ye have not so learned Christ. You…
20–24. But ye have not so learned Christ. You are Gentiles by birth, like those just described, but you have learned otherwise from Christ.
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.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Eph 4:20-21
EPHESIANS
CHRIST OUR LESSON AND OUR TEACHER
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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.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 But that is not how you learned about Christ
But that is not how you learned about Christ
The word "that" refers to the way the Gentiles live, as described in Ephesians 4:17-19. This emphasizes that what the believers learned about Christ was the opposite of that. AT: "But what you learned about Christ was not like that"
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I assume that you have heard ... and that you were taught
Paul knows that the Ephesians have heard and been taught. (See: Irony)
you were taught in him
Possible meanings are 1) "Jesus' people have taught you" or 2) "someone has taught you because you are Jesus' people." (See: Active or Passive)
as the truth is in Jesus
"as everything about Jesus is true"
to put off what belongs to your former manner of life
Paul is speaking of moral qualities as if they were pieces of clothing. AT: "to stop living according to your former manner of life" (See: Metaphor)
to put off the old man
Paul is speaking of moral qualities as if they were pieces of clothing. AT: "to stop living as your former self did" (See: Metaphor)
old man
The "old man" refers to the "old nature" or "former self."
that is corrupt because of its deceitful desires
Paul speaks of the sinful human nature as if it were a dead body falling apart in its grave. (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
Christ
true
Jesus
deceive
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 4:20-24 What you learned about Christ is the truth…
4:20-24 What you learned about Christ is the truth that comes from him. He gives true understanding (cp. John 14:6) and calls his people to an entirely new way of life (cp. Rom 6:3-14; 13:12-14; Col 3:8-10).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.