Ephesians 4:17
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.
“Futility”- mataiotes– devoid of truth, perverseness
Paul urges them as a command from God that they do not live like Gentiles. This connects to the points above about spiritual positions and unification in the church. The Gentiles who do not know God, that is, do not live according to truth nor do they care. They are perverse and do not do what is appropriate for living for God. For Jesus followers, we should live according to truth since we have come to know what truth is.
Ephesians 4:18
They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.
The process of being darkened and separated from God is a process God described here and is all due to the person making their own choices. Their hearts are hard and they refuse to believe and live by the truth, therefore they become ignorant or lack the knowledge. Because of this, they are excluded and separated from the life that God gives (eternal life). When we are separated from God’s life that gives life, we are in darkness in our thinking, all due to the refusal of the gospel.
Ephesians 4:19
Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
Sensitivity– apalgeo– to cease to feel pain or grief, having become callous.
These people have been so hardened and so calloused that they no longer feel anything or feel grief for doing the evil they do. When this happens, they become desensitized and no longer care what they do and evil abounds. This also causes them to surrender themselves to the practices of these things and evil is now their master.
Ephesians 4:20-21
That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.
Paul contrasts the dark way of life those who do not believe live and the way they learned to live. Paul makes mention that they heard about Jesus and were taught in him. This means that they heard the story of the cross and resurrection and they were taught how to live this new life. They learned about truth in Jesus from those who are in Jesus and this is the way they live now.
Ephesians 4:22-24
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
To have this unity of mind and faith, everyone in the body and who believes must put off the old way of living. The way of darkness and as Paul describes it here, desires that deceive us. Desires that make us think we are receiving pleasure and life but are only leading to distraught and death. When we put off the old self, we choose to stop living that way and choose to live differently. We are also renewed in our minds, or more accurately, the spirit of our minds. This renewal that comes from faith and the Holy Spirit helps us put on the new self that is made in God’s likeness and strives for right living and devotion to God.
This phrase “created to be like God” reminds me of being made in God’s image and how we were made “like God” in the beginning which was the great deception that led to Adam and Eve’s sin. They desired to be like God, yet, they were already made in his image and the humans were God’s glory. These same words Paul uses to describe the new self appear in the Septuagint of Genesis 1, reflecting this idea.
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