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Pauls's Epistle to the Ephesians
Chapter VIII.
THE WALK OF THE GENTILES.
"This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness." - EPH. iv. 17-19.

ACCORDING to what I consider the scheme of the practical part of this Epistle, I now take up the subject of the relation of the church to the world. It is a very close relation. And if it admits, on the one side, of the church influencing the world, it admits, to say the least, on the other side, of the church being influenced by the world.

Accordingly, it is against that influence of the world upon the church that the apostle is now anxious to admonish believers.
He has given a great picture, a high ideal, of the church, as a united body, not formed on earth, but formed and inspired from heaven. He has described its unity; a living unity through an inward movement in all its members ; but a unity compatible with diversity; admitting of different Offices and different qualifications; but still always the same. His primary exhortation to all believers is that they should walk worthy of that high calling.

He now points out another sort of walk from which they are to keep themselves free. The point or question here is, What is the walk to be avoided ? Positively, in the way of command, you have been exhorted to " walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called " (ver. 1). And the sort of walk enjoined has been indicated by a lofty delineation of the standard, or model, or ideal, of Christian perfection (vers. 2-16). Now, negatively, in the way of prohibition, you are warned against another sort of walk. And that sort of walk is described here (vers. 17-19). Generally, it is the walk of other Gentiles (ver. 17); of the rest of the world. It is the way of living naturally common to man; common to all men in their unconverted state, and with their unregenerate character. It was your way of living once: and, but for grace, it would have been your way of living still. The exhortation reminds you of this. For it runs thus - " That ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind." It sets you upon considering your old natural Gentile state and Gentile character. Such were you. Such are you naturally. If now God in his grace has made you to differ from other Gentiles, it is good for you to remember that you are yourselves of the same stock and of the same nature. It is good for you to remember that you are still prone to walk as they walk. Nay, you are still so prone to such a walk that you need to be strenuously warned against it. You need to be dissuaded from it with the utmost possible earnestness. " This I say then ;" I arn ever saying ; it is my constant counsel. And I say it as emphatically, as affectionately, and as solemnly as I can. "I testify ;" I obtest you ; I beseech you ; I adjure you, " in the Lord," in the Lord's name, and on the Lord's behalf; by all that is glorious, by all that is gracious in the Lord himself, and in his dealing with you, I adjure you that ye " walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind."

Look at this Gentile or worldly walk against which you are thus so anxiously put on your guard. Look at it in its nature, its causes, and its issues.
I. As to its nature, one leading feature or characteristic of it is vanity of mind. They walk in the vanity of their mind. By their mind we are to understand here their whole inner man; their soul or spirit considered simply as one ; not any particular part of their mental frame or constitution, such as the intellect in contradistinction to the emotions or the affections; but their entire spiritual nature. And by the vanity of their mind we are to understand its worthlessness ; its unprofitableness; its uselessness; its vacuity or emptiness; its utter unfitness to fulfil any really great or good purpose ; to serve any high or holy end. The life of men walking in the vanity of their minds is either all but wholly aimless, or else its aims are mean and frivolous, or, at the best, disappointing, tantalising, and unsatisfying. The character of vanity is stamped on all its pursuits and pleasures; on its worship, such as it is, and on all its works and ways. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity.

II. Now the cause of this dismal and disastrous state of things is indicated in the verse that follows (ver. 18) : - " Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart."

Let me here explain that the first clause of the verse ought to be connected with what goes before, more closely than our translation connects it. The participle " being" should be disjoined from the second clause, and emphatically prefixed to the first, so as to make the passage stand thus: "They walk in the vanity of their minds; being, as they are, darkened in respect of the understanding, alienated from the life of God." This is the first explanation 110 THE WALK OF THE GENTILES, given of their walking in the vanity of their minds; and it is itself twofold. On the one hand, they are darkened in respect of their understanding. They are blind, spiritually blind. They lack spiritual discernment of spiritual things. They want the faculty or capacity of perceiving any spiritual matter, any spiritual truth, in its glory, excellency, power, and beauty. They have no apprehension, no appreciation, no real and vivid sense of divine realities; of God, of holiness, of heaven. Their views are limited to the objects of natural sight; the things of the present world; things seen and temporal. Things unseen and eternal make no impression on the organ of mental vision, the eye of the soul. They may hear about them, and know something about them by hearsay; by the hearing of the ear. But as to any actual influential realisation of them ; any grasping of them as realities ; anything like seeing them ; so seeing them as to recognise their true nature and bearings, whether as regards God's true character, or as regards their own destiny and duty; they are as much in the dark as is a man born blind amid the beauties of earth and under the glorious sky.

Now it is not wonderful that they who are thus darkened in the understanding should walk in the vanity of their minds. For, in fact, how else can they walk ? They must walk ; they can only walk according to the light of their understanding, such as it is. And if that light is practically darkness as regards all but earthly things, then it is by earthly things alone that their walk can be determined and ruled. Their mind, unable to discern the heavenlies, must be occupied with the earthlies. But that is a vain occupation ; for the earthlies are all vanity, and the mind that feeds on them feeds on vanity.

But the connection in the case of other Gentiles, or worldly men, between this darkness in the understanding as the cause, and their walking in the vanity of their minds as ill the effect, is still more clearly brought out in what follows. For as, on the one hand, they are darkened in respect of their understanding, so, on the other hand, they are alienated from the life of God. For these two things - their being darkened in respect of understanding, and their being alienated from the life of God - go together. And together they explain and account for their walking in the vanity of their minds. By the life of God we are to understand the life which consists in glorifying and enjoying God ; the life for which man was originally made ; life in God, with God, to God; God's own life in the soul of man; life of which he is the source, the centre, and the end.

If men had kept that life, there would have been no walking in the vanity of their minds. In so far as by grace they recover and regain that life, there is, there can be, no such walking. God in heaven is not vanity, though all earthly idols are vanity j and walking with God, which is for men the life of God, is no walking in a vain show. God known to be real; God felt to be real; God trusted as real; God loved as real; as a real living person; a real living friend ; God lived on, lived in, lived for ; fills and satisfies the soul. There is no sense of vanity in communing with God, as there is in communing with all but God. All else is shadow. He alone is substance. The life of God, when a man comes to have it as his life, his own, his very life, is no mere breath, no vapour, no dream, no tale that is told, as, at the best, man's life otherwise is. It is life indeed ; even life eternal.

But men are alienated in heart from that life. They must be so if they are darkened in their understanding. For they cannot have the life of God in the heart unless they have the knowledge of God in the mind. An unknown God never can be life to any one. They who have no capacity of spiritual vision; no power of spiritual eyesight; no ability to apprehend God as real; to apprehend him as real and really present with them as a living person; so to apprehend him as vividly as if they saw him ; cannot live either in God, or with God, or to God. They are and must he alienated from this life of God.

Now for the alienation, as for the darkness, they are themselves alone to he hlamed. This is a farther explanation of their walking in the vanity of their minds. It traces the cause of such a vain walk farther back, ascribing their darkened understandings and alienated hearts to themselves, to their own wilful ignorance and obduracy. This is brought out in the closing clauses of ver. 18, in which they are said to be alienated from the life of God, " through the ignorance that is in them, through the hardness of their heart." For so the clauses should be read, as indicating the double source in men themselves of all this evil. Their ignorance is spoken of as " ignorance that is in them," with a view, I think, to impress this truth, that their being darkened in respect of their understandings is not to he ascribed to anything in God, anything wanting on his part, in the way of discovery and enlightenment; but solely to the ignorance that is in themselves. And in like manner I take the hardening of their hearts to be here brought forward as what is also due to themselves. For both of these conditions they themselves alone are responsible. They are conditions connected respectively, the one with being darkened in the understanding, the other with being alienated from the life of God. The ignorance explains and accounts for the first; the hardening of the heart explains and accounts for the second, of the two combined causes of men's walking in the vanity of their minds (ver. 17).

The ignorance which more particularly explains and accounts for the darkened understanding is the ignorance that is in them. If they have become so darkened in understanding as to be incapable of spiritually discerning spiritual things, it is not from want of the means of knowledge placed within their reach by God ; nor from want of original capacity, and a promise of divine grace to restore it; but through their own wilful ignorance. So the apostle testifies elsewhere : " For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness : because that which may be known of God is manifest in them ; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without excuse : because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened" (Rom. i. 18-21). The hardening of their heart also, which, on the other hand, more particularly explains and accounts for their alienation from the life of God, is similarly ascribed to themselves.

Thus the root of the disease is double. It is in the mind and in the heart. The mind is wilfully ignorant; the heart is wilfully hardened. Therefore there is neither light in the mind, nor love in the heart; and therefore there is vain walking. For, darkened in its understanding through its choosing to be ignorant of God and the things of God; and alienated consequently from the life of God, through the gradual hardening of the heart; what can a poor soul do but accustom itself to be taken up with the vain frivolities, and vain activities, and vain idolatries, of the only world it can know or love, the world of which it is said that it passeth away 1

III. The natural result or issue in the case of "other Gentiles," or worldly men, of their walking in the vanity of their minds, as thus explained and accounted for, is described in ver. 19. The form of the relative is to be noted here. It does not identify the persons referred to as individuals ; it does not stigmatise them as individuals. It characterises them as a class or family. The rendering might he - who are of the sort that, becoming reckless, abandon themselves. This is practically an important modification or qualification of the statement in our translation; not only warranted, hut grammatically required by the original. The apostle does not mean to say that all the " other Gentiles," or worldly men, against whose walk he warns you, are absolutely without feeling • and do, in consequence, literally and in outward act, give themselves over in the way here described. It is a much more solemn and searching warning that he gives. He warns you not against the walk of the openly licentious and greedy votaries of self-indulgence or self-aggrandisement; but against the walk of those who, however outwardly decent and respectable, are' yet really following vanity and forsaking God. And the point of this last part of his warning is this, that all who so walk are really of the class and character of those who, " being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasci-viousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness."

For, in fact, what should hinder the downward course here terribly indicated, if once you begin to walk as other Gentiles, "having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart" ? You are darkened in respect of understanding; unable to take in or apprehend and appreciate, either God, or the things of God. You are strangers to any higher life; to the life which God lives; the life which he would have you to share with him in his Son. The darkness and alienation are not from without, but from within. It is not God who withholds knowledge of himself from you: it is not God who casts you away from himself: it is you who choose to be ignorant and estranged. You blind or darken your own minds to God, and alienate your own hearts from, God. It is only natural that you should walk in the vanity of your minds. You have nothing else to walk in. But vanity leads to vice. What is there, when you thus cast yourself adrift, to keep you from the mire and filth of the foulest corruption ; from giving yourselves over "unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness"?

There is a question about the last word here, greediness. It usually means covetousness ; desire of gain; a self-seeking, self-aggrandising frame of mind. Is it unbridled excess in the sin of lasciviousness that it denotes here, or is it a separate and distinct outlet of'your walking in the vanity of your mind that it opens up ? The question is not in my view material. For I take the lasciviousness here spoken of, to which those who walk in the vanity of their mind, when they are past feeling, give themselves, to be excess in any form of self-indulgence and self-gratification. The usual forms are lust and avarice ; uncleanness and greed; what tends in the direction of worldly pleasure, and what tends in the direction of worldly profit. In the love of one or other of these objects of pursuit, the unrestrained spirit of self-love is sure to develope itself. And it is sure to do so in the way of whichever of these tendencies it follows becoming its work or business. You come to live for nothing else but only to please yourselves, or to profit yourselves. The pleasure you aim. at may be more or less refined; or more or less gross. The profit you aim at may be what you call a modest competency, or the wealth of a millionaire. Still, either way, self-pleasing, self-profiting, is the work or business to which you ultimately give yourselves over, with unfeeling callousness of conscience, and therefore, with unrestricted license. That is the sad result to which your walking as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their minds, naturally and inevitably tends. Thus the beginning and the end of this very solemn apostolic warning are brought'together; the beginning, as it might seem, not very serious; the end, however, very awful. A terrible course of possible declension or backsliding is pointed out. Note and mark it well. There are several stages in it. First, there is your walking like others in the vanity of your minds. Secondly, there is your being darkened in your understandings. Thirdly, there is your alienation from the life of God. And fourthly, there is a giving of yourselves over to a life of mere and thorough self-seeking or self-indulgence, in some form or other. Observe the stepping-stones in the downward path.

1. There is a measure, more or less decided, of worldly conformity. It may be in the outer life, in the way of your giving in to some one or more of the world's customs in business, or the world's gaieties in society, from which you once felt yourself bound to keep aloof. Or it may be in the inner life, the hidden life, the life of your inward thoughts and feelings, your inward motives and aims. You are beginning to think and feel, at least on some points, very much as others do; to be influenced as they are by considerations of worldly policy or expediency; to see things as they see them, and judge of things as they judge of them ; to consult, as they do, in some particulars, your own mind rather than the mind of God. What is this but walking in the vanity of your mind ? It is a most insidious snare. You do not mean to live altogether, or indeed to live at all, as other Gentiles live, without God in the world. Yours is still to be, in the main and on the whole, a life of godliness. But there must be some relaxations, some abatements, some accommodations. Self-denial, self-sacrifice, self-mortification, you are willing to practise, as far as is reasonable, to the utmost. You will try, as far as may be, to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. But insensibly, unconsciously, you yield to the suggestion that you must occasionally do as others do. And what is worse, insensibly, unconsciously perhaps, you yield to the suggestion that you need not always keep so strict a watch over your private studies, your secret thoughts and inclinations, as a constant and continual regard to your hig] calling might imply; since now and then nature must have its way, and the bent and bias of your soul must find some outlet. What is this but walking, like other Gentiles, in the vanity of your mind?

2. And is not this connected immediately with your being darkened in the understanding; doubly so connected, in the way of consequence and of cause t For cause and effect here act and react on one another. Walking as other Gentiles in the vanity of your minds, is in one view an eifect of your being darkened in your understanding and alienated from the life of God, springing out of that, flowing from it. But, in another view, it operates as a cause, deepening more and more the darkness and increasing the alienation. It deepens the growing darkness, this walk of worldly conformity. It dulls and deadens your spiritual sense and spiritual sensibility. Your spiritual discernment of spiritual things is dimmed and blunted. Your insight into the great realities of God and of eternity ; your taste and relish for them, and for communion about them with Christ in the Spirit, and with one another in Christ; your power of seeing the unseen, and bringing near the remote; all this is miserably impaired. You mind earthly things and become blind to those of heaven. There creeps over you a certain stupor and insensibility as to Christ himself, and all that is his. 3. And what next? Alienation again, more or less, from the life of God ; such alienation as ignorance and hardness of heart accompany, and either occasion or produce.

Let but the sad process go on, the process of your walking, like others, in the vanity of your mind, and so being darkened in the understanding; the life of God in you must inevitably and infallibly decay and die out. Eeal living fellowship with God cannot be kept up. You relapse into dead, cold formality. Instead of growing in grace and in the knowledge of your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, you begin to lose what knowledge of him you ever had. The ignorance that is in you, that is native and natural to you, takes its place. The teaching of the Holy Spirit is hindered ; his enlightening and assuring unction is arrested; the clear, full, sure, personal acquaintance with Christ, which he would enable you to realise, passes into mere dim and doubtful notions about Christ; until all again is vague uncertainty and doubt. Along with all this there is a gradual hardening of the heart. For if there be alienation from the life of God, from living, loving, real and personal intercourse with God ; what is there to keep the heart soft and tender, its affections warm, its emotional frames lively and acute ? What is there to counteract the miserable, indurating, secularising, freezing influences of the vain world in which you are again tempted to walk in the vanity of your mind!

4. And then what next t What but loss of feeling, of that keen-edged sensitiveness of conscience which once made you tremblingly alive to the risk of defilement and greed, whether greed of pleasure or greed of gain ? The moral sense is blunted. Sin ceases to be hated and feared. There comes to be a certain helpless self-abandonment; a throwing of the reins on the neck of carnal or worldly lust; a giving of yourselves over to some ruling appetite or passion, some dominant power or principle of evil; a consenting to obey its bidding and to do its work. The faculty of self-control and self-command is paralysed. The ability to resist the tempter is gone, as the right to bid him depart is forfeited. The flag is lowered, and the citadel surrendered tamely into the enemy's hands.

Ah, brethren, if this, or anything like this, is the inevitable course, and tendency, and issue of your walking as other Gentiles walk, is it at all surprising that Paul should be so very earnest in warning you against it 1 Be very sure the warning is needed. It is no unnecessary alarm that he sounds in your ears. So long as you are living in the midst of other Gentiles ; yourselves having been, and still, alas ! to so large an extent being, men of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips, you are in continual risk and hazard of being drawn aside into their ways of thinking, feeling, judging, acting. And you may be very sure that a very slight inclination or deviation towards them will suffice for a beginning of evil. It needs not much walking as other Gentiles walk, to bring you under the power of this vain world, and mar the holy love and joy of your divine connection. A very little of that walking will be enough.

Therefore, beloved brethren, in the spirit and after the example of the apostle, let me say this; let me be ever saying it, again and again, continually. Let me testify, let me adjure you in the Lord; by the Lord's love to you, by his giving himself for you for this very end, that he might redeem you from your vain conversation and make you partakers of the life of God ; by your love to him; as you prize his favour, and would win his approval, and would seek his glory, and would not grieve his blessed Spirit and frustrate the design of his atoning death; let me adjure you that ye walk not as other Gentiles walk. For your own sakes let me adjure you thus in the Lord, for your peace and hope and joy, your growth in grace, your victory over evil, your preparation for heaven. And for the sake of these other Gentiles themselves,' let me thus adjure you in the Lord; in the Lord whose grace alone causes you to differ; in the Lord who would have them to be receivers of that grace with you; that you may not, by your seeming toleration of their vanities, your easy acquiescence in their ways, compromise your right and power of rebuke and of persuasion; that they may not be hindered from seeing your good works and glorifying your Father which is in heaven.

And if there is any particular in regard to which you know, or suspect, or fear that you are or have been walking, not as the vocation with which you are called would worthily lead you to walk, but as other Gentiles walk, let me adjure you in the Lord that you walk henceforth no more in that or any other doubtful worldly path. For surely the time past of your life may suffice you to have wrought the will of the Gentiles. Wherefore I adjure you once more in the Lord, " forasmuch as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind : for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God" (1 Peter iv. 1-2).
Go To Chapter Nine

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