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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