30
The Old Man
(Eph.
4:17-19 [22a])
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.
. . . the old man,
As noted at the beginning of our study of the second half of Ephesians, while the first three chapters deal chiefly with doctrine, the last three deal mainly with duty. We also expressed this contrast in various ways, such as, Riches and Responsibilities, and Wealth and Walk.
The word walk, in fact, is the key word in Chapters 4-6 (4:1, 17; 5:2, 8, 15) and is used in the figurative sense to refer to “conduct of life,” that is, how we “how we walk about,” how we conduct ourselves as we walk through life. We noted, therefore, that chapters 4-6 reveal seven ways in which we are to walk, each of which in-turn is based on related doctrine in Chapters 1-3, as the following table illustrates.
Doctrine and Duty in Ephesians
|
THE
DUTY |
THE
DOCTRINE |
|
Walk in unity (4:1‑16) |
1:22-23; 2:16,21-22; 3:6 |
|
Walk in purity (4:17‑32) |
1:4 |
|
Walk in love (5:1‑7) |
3:17-19 |
|
Walk in light (5:8‑14) |
1:18 |
|
Walk in wisdom (5:15‑17) |
1:8,17; 3:10 |
|
Walk in submission (5:18‑6:9) |
3:8 |
|
Walk in victory (6:10‑20) |
1:19-21 |
Having examined the first reality of our Christian walk in 4:1-16—to walk in unity—we come now to the second in verses 17-32—to walk in purity.
We again see the word therefore in verse 17: This I say therefore, and testify
in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity
of their mind. We
are reminded of the significance of this word. Once again, there can be no
separating doctrine from duty, or the reverse, duty from doctrine.
Without both, we do not have the full Truth. Paul is now going to deal with the
duty of every believer to walk in purity and holiness of life.
This duty is based on the doctrine of 1:4: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” As we discovered in our study of that verse, the reason for God’s election is that we should be holy and blameless. In other words, the reason God saved us is that He is holy and His holiness demands that we be holy. With that doctrine as the foundation, Paul now shows the specifics of being holy. Verses 17-32 are naturally divided into three emphases:
· The Old Man (vs. 17-19)
· The New Man (vs. 20-24)
· The New Life (vs. 25-32)
In this chapter, let us examine the old man by observing first what the old man is and then what are his characteristics.
I. What the Old Man Is (v. 17a, [22a])
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk . . . the old man,
While the
term old man does not actually appear until verse 22, he is obviously in view
in verses 17-19. Before we can understand what the old man is,
it’s important to note what he is not.
What the “Old Man” is Not
T
erminology
is important. Sometimes people who disagree try to dismiss the issue by saying,
“Well, we are just arguing semantics. Why make a big deal of terms?” May we
submit, however, that words matter when Truth is at stake. One of the passions
of my life and ministry is that words matter; they make a difference in
doctrine. How many false doctrines, and even entire cults, have been created
because of the lack of precision?
One such
term that has been around for many years in the teaching of sanctification and
holiness is the term “old nature,” as in the expression, “The Christian has two
natures.” This is an unfortunate statement, however. To be accurate in our
terminology—and if words matter we must be accurate—we must recognize that the
Scripture simply does not say we have two natures. The common teaching
is that we have two natures that are warring against one another. Yes, we
certainly do have a war going on, but to be precise, the Bible does not say
that this war is between two natures. In fact, Scripture doesn’t even
use the word “nature” either in our text or in another pivotal text on this
issue, Romans 6:6. In both cases, it first uses palaios (old) which means
“old in the sense of worn out, decrepit, useless,”[1] and then anthropos, which
means man,
not a mere “part” of a man, such as a “nature” or “self,” but the whole man,
every aspect of him. This, then, leads us to consider what the old man really
is.
What the “Old Man” Is
Romans 6:6
declares, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him [i.e., Christ],
that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve
sin.” Here is the greatest declaration of sanctification in all Scripture. Here
is the very foundation for living a holy life. Why? Because we can be reminded
every day that we are no longer this old man, that he is gone. It
reveals that the old man was crucified (past tense in the Greek)
and has been destroyed. What, then, is the old man?
This verse
has been a battleground for centuries. The question has been not whether we
become holy in Christ—all agree there—rather how this holiness is
brought about. One theory is the Eradication Theory. Ever since the
esteemed John Wesley formulated it,
this doctrine has been widely believed and taught. The teaching is that “entire
sanctification,” that is, sinlessness, the complete purging of “inbred sin,”
“the old nature,” “the flesh,” comes through a “second blessing.” Through a
process of continually purging of sin and the old man, the Christian by his efforts
reaches the goal of sinlessness. This teaching is based, oddly enough, on
Romans 6:6, that having yielded everything to Christ, we by faith identify
ourselves with Him in His death and believe that our “old nature” is “crucified
with Him” and therefore “destroyed.” Since we “reckon” ourselves “dead indeed
unto sin” (v. 11), we will actually experience it the eradication of sin. But
as we’ll see, this teaching is based on a very basic misreading of the text.
A second
view of sanctification is the Counteraction Theory. Simply stated, this
teaches that sanctification comes not by eradicating our inherited
sin-bias, but by counteracting it, working against it, suppressing it;
by our daily efforts of “dying to self” and “crucifying the old man,” we
suppress the “old nature.” This comes, it is taught, by an inward “joint
crucifixion with Christ” that counteracts the “old nature,” “renders it
inoperative,” for the time being, but which can be re-activated at any moment.
We must then crucify ourselves again to render the “old nature inoperative”
again. Like the Eradication Theory, however, this too is based on a fundamental
misreading of Romans 6:6 and its context.
What is so
strange about both these views is that they are based on the idea that Romans
6:6 refers to something that happens in our own experience, that it is
something that we do in our efforts, that it is something that comes as result
of our own struggling against sin. But that is the exact opposite of what
the text SAYS. Let us examine four major points on Romans 6:6 and then
bring it full circle back to our text.
First, Romans 6 is located in what can
be called the “judicial section” of the Epistle, not the “experiential.” In
other words, as Ephesians is divided into doctrine and practice,
Romans has a similar structure. While Chapters 1-8 are judicial (i.e., doctrinal)
as they show how God saves the sinner, and Chapters 9-11 are unique to Romans
as they are national, explaining how the Gospel relates to Israel,
Chapters 12-16 are experiential (practical), as they demonstrate how the
Gospel bears on our practical conduct. Romans 6, therefore, has nothing to
do with what we do but with what God alone has accomplished JUDICIALLY,
not what we do EXPERIENTIALLY.
Second, and this is perhaps the key, all
the verb tenses in Romans 6 are past tenses, either the Aorist or Perfect.
In other words, every verb tense that refers to our identification with Christ
in His death refers to that identification being completed in the past. Romans
6:6, therefore, does not say that our “old man is crucified” or that our
“old nature must be crucified,” rather it says that our “old man was
crucified” way back when Christ died and that it was completed then and there.
It does not say that we must each morning get up and “crucify ourselves again
to sin.” Rather it says that by God’s judicial act, not by our experiential
effort, the old man was “crucified” and therefore “destroyed.”
Third, this brings us to the meaning of
the term old man. If this doesn’t mean “old nature” or “inbred sin” that
we must either eradicate or suppress—and it does not mean either one—what
does it mean? The old man can refer to one thing and one thing only: all
that we were in Adam, that is, all the guilt, penalty, power, and dominion
of sin that was in Adam. Immediately we want to ask, “But I do still sin—why?”
We’ll deal with that in a moment. The point to get here is that sin is not the
rule of life like it was before. We are not dominated by sin as we once were.
The old man, the person we were before salvation is gone because of what
Christ accomplished on Calvary. We are not sinless, as we’ll examine in verses
20-24, but we are no longer dominated and controlled by sin. While sin
used to rule, it is now Christ Who rules.
To make
this practical, how often have we all used the excuse, “Well, I just can’t help
it; I’m a Christian, but because of my old nature, I just can’t help but sin?”
Such an attitude is defeatist and actually justifies our sin. The fact is, as
we’ll see, we most certainly can “help it” because we are no longer dominated
by sin. Sin is not longer the rule, it is the exception.
Paul adds
in Romans 6:6, that “the body of sin might be destroyed.” “Destroyed” is katargeō, “to tender inactive, put out of
use, cancel, bring to nothing, do away with.”[2] Because it is in a past tense,
like all the verbs in the passage, it declares that “the body of sin” (a
synonym for old man) has been nullified, put out of use, done away with completely in
the past. It was through the cross that God put the old man out of
action. That “body of sin” no longer hangs on us as like an anchor to sink into
the ocean of sin; God has removed it and freed us from sin’s dominion.
As J.
Sidlow Baxter masterfully summarizes, here is the meaning of Romans 6:6
according to the language of the text:
·
OUR
OLD MAN—all that were in position and relation to Adam, with all our
culpability and condemnation.
·
WAS
CRUCIFIED WITH HIM—was judged and executed in the One-for-all death of Christ.
·
THAT
THE BODY OF SIN—the whole Adam humanity as guilty before God.
·
MIGHT
BE DESTROYED—completely done away in the judicial reckoning of God.
·
THAT
WE SHOULD NO LONGER BE IN BONDAGE TO SIN—that is, no longer in legal
bondage through judicial guilt.[3]
Fourth,
we now consider the role of what is called “the flesh.” This answers the
question, “If I was crucified with Christ, and the old man is dead, and the
body of sin has been put out of action, why do I still sin?” Paul knew this
question would arise, so right after he writes Romans 6, he writes Romans 7,
where he laments over “the flesh.” Even though the old man is gone, even
though sin it doesn’t rule and dominate, “the flesh” remains. Some argue, “It’s
the same thing to say ‘the flesh’ and ‘the old nature.” May we ask in response,
how can these be the same when they are different words? Let us again be
precise. We still sin not because of the “old nature,” but because the new
spiritual man is still in the old body and must still contend with the
infirmities of “the flesh.”
The Greek
for “flesh” is sarx, which occurs 96 times in Paul’s Epistles (including
five in Hebrews). It refers to the physical body 37 times (e.g, Rom. 2:28), to
humanity or that which is human 25 times (e.g., 3:20), and to inherent evil
in the human nature 27 times (e.g., 7:5). Romans 7:5, in fact, defines this
third use of “flesh:”
For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
“Motions”
is an Old English term for “impulses,” which is the idea in the Greek pathēma, from pathos (English,
“pathology”), “which describes the emotions of the soul, i.e., human feelings,
and impulses which a man does not produce within himself but finds already
present, and by which he can be carried away.” In Classical Greek, “it acquired
a predominately negative meaning, that of passion.”[4] We can, indeed, be carried away by
our passions. In short, “the flesh” is the animal and selfish inclinations,
the self-centered perversity and propensity inherent and co-existing in our
moral nature. How often do we think that Satan is our greatest enemy? While
in the spiritual realm, he is certainly the ultimate foe, our greatest enemy in
our personal experience is ourselves, our flesh. As Martin Luther wrote, “I
dread my own heart more than the pope and all his cardinals, for within me is
the greater pope, even self.”
So, it’s
not that we have “two natures” or “two minds.” We are not spiritual
schizophrenics. We are not beings with a split personality or bipolar disorder,
where one personality or behavior is trying to suppress the other. Rather we
have two “states of mind,” the higher and the lower, the higher
is our spirituality, the lower is the flesh. The higher is present because of
the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the lower remains because we are still in the
flesh. This explains, as we’ve mentioned before, why the words “pride,”
“proud,” and “self” are NEVER used in a positive way in Scripture (see
our exposition of 3:8a). Pride is of the flesh, and it is the flesh, our
passions, our impulses, that are our problem. Seeing this enables us to
understand the truth of the text by expanding the translation of Romans 7:15-25
thusly:
15 For that which I [the lower part] do, I [the higher part] allow not: for what I [the higher part] would, that [I] [the lower part] [do] not; but what I [the higher part] hate, that do I [the lower part].
16 If then I [the lower] do that which I [the higher]would not, I [the higher] consent unto the law that it is good.
17 Now then it is no more I [the one undivided personality] that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me [the one me, not “us”].
18 For I [the higher and intellectual] know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) [the lower and animal] dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me [the higher]; but how to perform that which is good I [the higher] find not . . .
22 For I [the higher] delight in the law of God after the inward man [the higher]:
23 But I [the higher] see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind [the higher], and bringing me [the one me, not “us”] into captivity to the law of sin which is in my [not “our”] members.
24 O wretched man that I [the lower] am! who shall deliver me [the total me] from the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself [the total me] serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.[5]
So, within
the one human nature, there is the higher and the lower. The
question that now arises is, “How does the higher rule? How do we deal
with those passions and impulses that remain? How do we deal with this flesh?”
Indeed, if Paul had stopped with Romans 7, we would have cause for deep
depression. But Paul did not stop there. He goes on in Romans 8 to reveal the
truth that the indwelling Holy Spirit provides the victory over the flesh. In
fact, “the flesh” is never mentioned in Chapter 8 without the Holy Spirit also
being mentioned (vs. 1, 3-4, 5, 8-9, 12-13).
We have, therefore, been freed from sin in two ways: freed from the old man positionally by the past action of Christ (Rom. 6) and then experientially from “the flesh” by the indwelling Holy Spirit (Rom. 7-8). Ponder this: We do not have the inability to sin, but we do have the ability not to sin. Did you get it? Have we reached sinless perfection? Have we reached the point where we no longer sin? Certainly not. But we still have the ability not to sin, we can still claim the victory over sin by the power of the Holy Spirit. No longer can we say, “I just couldn’t help it.” Yes, we can “help it” because of the Holy Spirit. Even though our passions and impulses are strong, we can claim the victory. As I Corinthians 10:13 declares: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” God promises that temptation to sin will never overwhelm us, that even our passions and impulses do not control us.
How often do we try to run and hide from the sins that
defeat us? But that is the wrong approach. We can and must face our passions
and impulses. In the power of the Holy Spirit, we can say, “I’m not afraid of
you. I’m not going to run away from you. I claim God’s power in my life to
deliver me from myself. I’m not the old man, so I’m not going to act
like the old man.”
This
brings us back to our text. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord,
Paul declares, we must not walk . . . as other Gentiles walk. Because
the old man is dead, the last thing the Christian should want is to cling to
any of the characteristics of the old man”
It’s
interesting to note that back in 4:1, to get the reader’s attention, Paul said,
“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you,” but now he uses two
words: say and testify. Say is legō, which underlies the word logos.
Originally (prior to the 5th Century B.C.), legō meant to denoted the “activity of
collecting, carefully selecting, cataloguing in succession, and arranging
together in an orderly sequence.”[6] This developed into the meaning
“to lay before, i.e., to relate, recount” and finally “to say, speak, i.e., to
utter definite words, connected, and significant speech equal to discourse.”[7] Paul’s readers, therefore, knew
that he had something definite, connected, and significant to tell them.
But that
was not enough, for Paul added, and testify in the Lord. Testify
is marturomai, which is from martus (English, “martyr”). The
original setting of both these and others in this group was “clearly the legal
sphere,”[8] just as today. The witness gives
solemn testimony to that which he knows and gives evidence. What Paul is
saying, then, is clear: he is about to give a solemn declaration, give
clear evidence concerning what the old man was and what the “new man” is.
Puritan Matthew Henry captures it perfectly:
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord; that is, seeing the matter is as above described, seeing you are members of Christ’s body and partakers of such gifts, this I urge upon your consciences, and bear witness to as your duty in the Lord’s name, and by virtue of the authority I have derived from him.
In other
words, “Based upon all that I have said, I want you to listen carefully to the
evidence I am about to give and allow it to sink into your mind and dictate how
you live.”
Added to
this, Paul says that his declaration will be in the Lord, that is, it
will not stand out as his own personal declaration, rather the authoritative
pronouncement of the Lord Jesus Himself. We should be reminded that this
is what true preaching is all about. The Biblical preacher never declares his
own opinion, never asserts his own authority, and never states his own ideas.
Rather his responsibility is to testify of Christ, to declare solemnly,
as if he were in a courtroom, “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth.”
What then does Paul declare? That as we walk through life, we no longer conduct ourselves, we no longer order our behavior, as do other Gentiles, the ways of the old man. As we detailed back in 2:11-13, the term “Gentile” was not a complimentary one. As commentator William Hendrickson summarizes Paul’s fivefold description, the Gentiles were Christless, stateless, friendless, hopeless, and Godless.[9] While verse 13 goes on to declare, “the blood of Christ” changes that state, Paul’s point in the present text is to underscore the Gentile’s lost condition and the true believer no longer lives like that. As one commentator puts it, “How emphatic is [Paul’s] warning to forsake the sins and sensualities of surrounding heathendom.”[10] What a challenge to us to today! We are not to act like heathens, to live like pagans, but to live like the new creatures we are (II Cor. 5:17).
As we’ll see in verse 22, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.” In other words, we take off the old man, all that we were in Adam, as we would take off an overcoat when we come in from the cold. Yes, the old man is dead, but it is up to us to take off the behavior, the characteristics of the old man that still exist. Positionally, the old man is dead, but behaviorly the attitudes still exist. We must not be conduct ourselves according to that old behavior.
The famous 16th and 17th Century
Spanish novelist and playwright Miguel de Cervantes is best known for his masterpiece
Don Quixote. It contains many famous lines, such as, “To give the Devil
his due,” “Let the worst come to the worst,” “Every dog has his day,” “I begin
to smell a rat,” “Fore-warned [is] fore-armed,” “The pot calls the kettle
black,” “Every man was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth,” and others.
Still another of his immortal lines, however, reflects the philosophy of many
people today: “When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.” [11]
We call it by many names: “Fitting in,” “Blending in,” “Getting along,”
“Playing ball,” “Not rocking the boat,” and so forth. But, of course, that is
the very opposite of Scripture. As our Lord said of Himself, we likewise are in
this world but are not of this world (Jn. 17:11-16). Whether we be in
Rome, Denver, Phoenix, Dallas, or Timbuktu, we are not to walk . . . as other Gentiles walk. We no longer walk as does the old
man because he is dead.
II. The Characteristics of the Old Man (v. 17b-19)
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.
As
believers, we no longer “walk,” no longer conduct ourselves, like unbelievers.
The characteristics, the behavior of the world can really be boiled down to
three traits: Intellectual Deficiency, Spiritual Debility, and Moral Depravity.
Intellectual Deficiency
(v. 17b)
in the vanity of their mind,
You know,
men are very clever. There is no denying their staggering advancements and
accomplishments. Computer technology, for example, is utterly amazing. Today’s
computers are capable of doing trillions of calculations per second, enabling
us to accomplish tasks in minutes or seconds rather than months or days. One of
the most fascinating stories in the history of computers, and actually
technology in general, is the story of the first electronic digital computer,
ENIAC.
As war broke out in Europe in 1939, the staggering realization of America’s own lack of preparedness for war became clear. Besides the fact of an Army of only about 120,000 officers and men, another serious deficiency was the Ordinance Department, which was responsible for the design, development, procurement, storage, and issue of all combat materiel and munitions for the Army. The only scientific facility then available to the Ordnance Department for carrying out weapons research and testing was the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. One of its key responsibilities was the creation of artillery firing tables, which dictated how far a shell could travel given the inclination of the gun. Many factors were involved in such calculations, including: the angle of the gun, wind speed and direction, temperature, atmospheric pressure, and humidity, as well as the type of gun, projectile, and propellant charge. To make it even more complex, many different tables had to be produced for each gun.
The only computers that existed in that day were people; in fact, dictionaries in the 1930s and before defined “computer” as “a person who calculates numbers,” but was only later changed to “ machine that calculates numbers.” The creation of a single table, therefore, took twenty hours. A mechanical device called the Bush Differential Analyzer, an analogue machine, or continuous variable calculator, made up of rotating shafts and wheels powered by electric motors, reduced this to fifteen minutes, but it had some serious limitations, the worst being breaking down near the end of a long calculation. In June of 1942, the Ordnance Department made a contract with the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania to improve this machine, but even such improvements were not enough. Something better was needed.
One of many talented people at the Moore School was Dr. John W. Mauchly, who had a truly brilliant idea, that of using electronics for numerical computation instead of mechanics. With the help of Dr. J. Presper Eckert, ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) was born. Compared to today’s small and elegant computers, ENIAC was a monstrosity. It’s thirty separate units, plus power supply and forced-air cooling, weighed over thirty tons and covered 1800 square feet of floor space. It contained 19,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, 1,500 relays, 6,000 manual switches, and 5 million soldered joints. It’s total power consumption was 200 kilowatts, and when turned on, it caused the city of Philadelphia to experience brownouts.
But it was all worth it. What used to take twenty hours by hand, and fifteen minutes by a mechanical calculator, now took thirty seconds. ENIAC became the prototype from which most all modern computers descended. Instead of thousands of vacuum tubes (which are simply switches), however, we now use their descendents, transistors. The Pentium 4 microprocessor in common personal computers, for example, which came out in the year 2000, is a multi-layered silicon chip that is only about two inches square and a few millimeters thick, but contains 42 million transistors, just a bunch of switches. And because of the computer, it would be hard, if not impossible, to find any other area of technology, or even a single aspect of society, that has not been changed and even revolutionized by Mauchly and Eckert’s machine.
Yes, men are pretty smart. Yet, in all that genius, and many other examples we could list, the unregenerate man is still intellectually deficient. In other words, he thinks differently. Paul speaks here of the vanity of the mind. The Greek behind mind is nous, which speaks of intellect, thought, reason, and understanding. Vanity is mataiotēs, that which is aimless, futile, empty, fruitless, and worthless. Men were smart in Paul’s day and even before that. Even in our day, for example, engineers can’t figure out how the Egyptians built the pyramids, how they could have designed them and how they moved stones weighing several tons. Still Paul says, men’s minds are vain.
II Timothy 3:7 sums it up better than any: “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Does this not it say perfectly? Men are smart, ever coming up with new technology, inventing clever devices. But while clever, he is foolish, while smart, he is stupid, for “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Ps. 14:1).
Martyn Lloyd Jones illustrates our text by picturing a soap bubble. It’s perfectly symmetrical, colorful, and pretty, but it bursts and leaves nothing. Many people are living such a life. When the bubble bursts, there is nothing left.[12] All the accomplishments of man’s cleverness, all the benefits it brought are in the end nothing because they leave out God and are only temporal.
The Greek mataiotēs appears only two other places in the New Testament. In Romans 8:20, Paul uses it to describe the misery of nature, that, “The creature was made subject to vanity.” Peter used it to describe apostates, that they “are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest . . . they speak great swelling words of vanity” (II Pet. 2:17-18). In the end, all man’s thinking is aimless and futile because it is totally of self, without regard for God. As one Greek authority comments on this verse:
According to Eph. 4:17, mataiotēs is the characteristic of the pagan way of thought and life. In ingratitude man forsakes God, the fountain of life. In his thought he takes counsel only for himself, and in carrying out his vain thoughts he thwarts himself and the world he lives in.[13]
As 4th Century expositor Chrysostom wrote:
. . . that is called “vain,” which is bare and purposeless, which is of no use . . . What then, tell me, is the end? Corruption. Let us put on clothing and raiment. And what is the result? Nothing. Such are the lives of the Greeks. They philosophized, but in vain. They made a show of a life of hardship, but of mere hardship, not looking to any beneficial end, but to vainglory, and to honor from the many. But what is the honor of the many? It is nothing . . .
While technology is certainly useful, while it certainly makes life easier, even it is empty because God is ignored. Further, man will do anything and think it’s alright to do. Left to his own aimless thoughts, he recognizes no absolutes. John Gill well describes the state of this man:
Every natural man walks in a vain show; the mind of man is vain, and whoever walk according to the dictates of it, must walk vainly: the phrase is expressive of the emptiness of the mind; it being naturally destitute of God, of the knowledge, fear, and grace of God; and of Jesus Christ, of the knowledge of him, faith in him, and love to him; and of the Spirit and his graces; and it also points at the instability and changeableness of the human mind, in which sense man at his best estate was altogether vanity; as also the folly, falsehood, and wickedness of it in his fallen state: and the mind discovers its vanity in its thoughts and imaginations, which are vain and foolish; in the happiness it proposes to itself, which lies in vain things, as worldly riches, honours, [etc.] and in the ways and means it takes to obtain it, and in words and actions; and the Gentiles showed the vanity of their minds in their vain philosophy and curious inquiries into things, and in their polytheism and idolatry: to walk herein, is to act according to the dictates of a vain and carnal mind . . .
How different that attitude is when compared with what the
foundational verse of the Book of Proverbs declares. In a collection of
proverbial sayings concerning true knowledge and wisdom, Solomon lays the
foundation in 1:7: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but
fools despise wisdom and instruction.” This
statement is amplified in 9:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom: and the knowledge of the [Holy One] is understanding” (cf. Job 28:28,
Ps. 111:10).
From where does knowledge come? It comes from a proper attitude toward God. We must “fear” Him. There are at least eighteen references to “the fear of the Lord” in Proverbs.[14] If one reads all these verses carefully, he will get a good idea of what this important Biblical phrase means. The word translated “fear” is the Hebrew yirah. It has been softened by many to mean simply “reverence.” While that is partly true, the basic, primary meaning is what we mean by the words “fear and terror.” Let’s take a moment to examine a contrast.
First, The meaning “abject terror” is found in several passages (Ex. 20:20; Deut. 2:25; Ps. 55:5; and Ezek. 30:13), each of which shows God writing to His people. This absolutely must be the beginning of one's attitude. Unless God is acknowledged as supreme, sovereign, and sacred, unless there is the presupposition of His existence, absoluteness, and wrath, man can never find real truth. Science without God creates evolution. Philosophy without God produces existentialism, humanistic psychology, and countless other empty notions. Religion without God spawns everything from the violent fanaticism of Islam, to the worship of a rock or stick by heathens, to the works oriented “salvation” of all religious thought. All knowledge begins with God, and that beginning is a fear of Who He is. As Jonathan Edwards preached in his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” on July 8, 1741 in Enfield Connecticut, a message that resulted in most of that wicked city coming to Christ, so we need to be proclaiming the same:
O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment . . . [As Jesus declared] “And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that, have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him” (Luke 12:4, 5).
That is where knowledge begins! Why is man arrogant in his so-called “knowledge?” Why does he, as we’ll see later, thrown off ever shred of moral decency? Because he doesn’t fear God, and as a result, he knows nothing.
Second, as
believers this “fear” matures
into what is called “reverence.” But what is “reverence” exactly? For one
thing, it’s much more than just “being quiet in church.” Webster defines reverence as “deep respect tinged with
awe,” and defines awe as “a feeling
of reverence, fear, and wonder.” Clearly, then, all these ideas are implicit is
both words: fear and reverence. This is not the servile fear of the
slave before the master but the respectful fear of the
child before the parent.
Children fear not only because their parents can hurt them, but also because they can hurt their parents. Yes, God’s
chastisement hurts, and that keeps us from sin. But another motive should be
that sin hurts our Lord and His cause so we avoid it. Puritan Charles Bridges
asks, “What is this fear of the Lord?” He then answers,
It is that affectionate
reverence by which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to his
Father’s law. His wrath is so bitter, and His love so sweet; that hence springs
an earnest desire to please Him, and—because of the danger of coming short from
his own weakness and temptations—a holy watchfulness and fear, “that he might not sin against Him.”[15]
Solomon goes on to add
in Proverbs 1:7, “Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Three Hebrew
words are translated “fools” in Proverbs. The one here is eviyl, which occurs nineteen
times and refers to the person who has a lax or careless habit of mind or body.
It is the height of human folly to ignore the Bible and then to hope for
knowledge. The fool is the one who not
only does not desire the knowledge of
God, but who even treats it with contempt.
The fool despises the Scriptures,
Christ, the Gospel, and God’s servants. The fool despises authority,
discipline, and absolutes of behavior. As a result, even as smart as he
is, he is still intellectually
deficiency. And
that is what the Christian is not and must never be.
Spiritual Debility (v.
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:
There is
also in the unsaved heart a complete spiritual debility, a feebleness,
weakness, and impediment. As mentioned earlier, we live in a day of
unparalleled knowledge. Without doubt, many in our day, as in Paul’s, would be
much more insulted to be called “ignorant” than they would “sinful.” But man is
indeed ignorant and feeble. The reason is because his understanding
has been darkened. As in verse 17, the mind is again in view. Man cannot understand
spiritual things because his mind has no light in it. As John Eadie puts it,
“There could be no light in their mind because there was no life in their
hearts, for the life in the Logos is the light of men.”[16]
It is
significant that a description of the lost person is that he is in darkness. As
out Lord declared in John 3:19: “Men loved darkness rather than light, because
their deeds were evil.” People talk often about being “enlightened” or “seeing
the light” in some new philosophy. But Scripture declares with certainty that
light is found only in Christ. As our Lord Himself declared, “I am the
[definite article—one and only] light of the world: he that followeth me shall
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (Jn. 8:12). Only when
we follow Christ, do we have light. Recounting his conversion, Paul said that
the Lord called him to be a witness to the Gentiles, “To open their eyes, and
to turn them from darkness to light” (Acts 26:18).
Without
Christ, men will always walk in darkness. As he lay on his death bed,
the last words of the famous 18th and 19th Century German
poet, novelist, and scientist Johann von Goethe were, “Mehr licht!”—“More
light!” After spending his entire life studying, thinking, and writing, he
still was in darkness. The greatest philosopher is in no better condition than
the so-called “heathen in Africa” who worships a stick. Both are in darkness,
one having no more light than the other.
For the
Believer, this provides two applications. First, the only light we have is
Christ and His Word; it is that alone on which we lean. Second, it is Christ
alone Who we preach and proclaim as Savior to a lost world.
Paul goes deeper here, however, to say that man is alienated from the life of God. The Greek behind alienated (apallotrioō) is the same word translated aliens back in 2:12: “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” As Gentiles were strangers in contrast to being citizens, the unsaved man is a stranger to God and the life that only He can bestow.
How did that happen? With three statements, Paul shows that
man did it to himself, he willfully alienated
himself from God.
First, the Greek verb tense of alienated, as well as darkened, is the Perfect Tense, which speaks of an action completed in the past and having present results. Paul is saying that this darkening and alienation were completed in the past and the permanent result continues. Further, while the translation being alienated does emphasize the continuing result, an even more literal translation would be [having become] alienated. Not only are they alienated, but they became this way long ago; it was Adam’s sin that alienated them. By his own volition, man alienated himself from God.
Second, Paul says through the ignorance that is in them. Ignorance is agnoia
(English, “agnostic”). As one Greek authority tells us, this ignorance is not
caused by something external, but by man himself.[17] Another points out that in ancient
use, it could refer to a man who lives without knowledge does so either because
he hasn’t heard the truth or because he has refused the truth, and that if he
“had received it, it would have freed him from his ignorance of his origin.”[18] In other words, he just closed his
eyes to the Truth, he refused to believe what was right in front of him. This
certainly exposes the so-called “agnostic.” He says that he doesn’t believe we
can know if there is a God, but he says this only because he does not want
to know. His ignorance is deliberate, but if he would just believe, he
would be freed from his ignorance.
This is
exactly the point of Romans 1:18: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in
unrighteousness.” “Hold” is katechō,
which is made of the root echō,
to have or hold, and the prefix kata, which literally means “down.” The
idea, then, is to “hold down, quash, suppress.”[19] Tyndale’s 1534 translation and the
Geneva Bible both render it “withhold” and Young’s Literal Translation
has “holding down.” Man will do anything he can to suppress, hold down, and
withhold God’s Truth. He tries to do so through evolution, philosophy, and even
religion. Paul goes on to write in verse 28, “They did not like to retain God
in their knowledge.” “Retain” is again echō, “to have or hold.” No longer did
man want to have any knowledge of God, and he still has no such desire. He
simply will not have it!
Third, Paul adds the words because of
the blindness of their heart. Here is a fascinating truth. Blindness
is the Greek pōrōsis, which not only means “blindness,”
but also “hardness.” It comes from the pōros, which means “to harden, to form a
callous (when broken bones heal), and thus to petrify, to become hard.”[20] And may we add, the callous is
harder than the bone it self. Man was, indeed, broken at the fall, and his
heart has deliberately continued to grow calloused toward God, with the result
that it is petrified, stone hard. Perhaps you have spoken to someone about
spiritual things and you actually saw a stone hard look form on their face, and
the more you tell them the harder they get. That is Paul’s point. The prophet
Ezekiel had a vision of the salvation that would be revealed in the New
Testament when he wrote: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit
will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh,
and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26).
As one
commentator summarizes our passage thus far:
An inner petrifaction of the very heart itself was the cause of this inborn ignorance which caused the darkening in spite of all the light in nature and all the light inherited from Adam from Noah, and with this darkening went the alienation. The very heart was stone-hard, unresponsive to moral and spiritual impression.[21]
Paul painted
a similar picture when he wrote to Timothy that man’s “conscience [has been]
seared with a hot iron” (I Tim. 4:2). The Greek for “seared” is kauteriazō (English, “cauterize”). Just as
scar tissue looses feeling because of nerve damage, man has no spiritual
feeling because sin has cauterized him. This thought leads directly to a final
condition.
Moral Depravity (v. 19)
Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
Man’s moral
depravity truly is the final condition that is caused by the first two
characteristics. What happened in man’s mind now expresses itself in his
behavior. He is, indeed, past feeling. This term is among the
most graphic in Scripture. The Greek apalgeō, which appears only here in the New
Testament, means to cease from feeling pain or grief. Men, women, and even
adolescents can do unthinkable things to other people—murder, torture,
mutilation, abortion, and more—but feel absolutely nothing. I have heard police
officers say that they have seen adolescents do such things but see not a
glimmer of guilt or remorse in their dead eyes. This develops over time, a
little at a time. One commentator writes:
[It could be translated] “having got over the pain.” How expressive! When conscience is first denied, there is a twinge of pain; there is a protest that can be heard. But if the voice is silenced, presently the voice becomes less clear and clamant; the test is smothered; the twinge is less acute, until at last it is possible to “get over the pain.” [22]
Indeed,
every person starts out feeling guilt when wrong is done, but the sin gets
easier and easier until they finally “get over it” and no longer feel anything.
Writing concerning the sin of Israel, Jeremiah declared, “Were they ashamed
when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither
could they blush” (Jer. 6:15). How true that is today! Recall the immorality of
former president Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski. Graphic sexual terms were
talked about in the evening news and few people seemed to care. Indeed, society
has lost the ability to blush.
Commenting
on our text, Calvin writes:
Unmoved by the approaching judgment of God, whom they offend, they go on at their ease, and fearlessly indulge without restraint in the pleasures of sin. No shame is felt, no regard to character is maintained. The gnawing of a guilty conscience, tormented by the dread of the Divine judgment, may be compared to the porch of hell; but such hardened security as this—is a whirlpool which swallows up and destroys.[23]
Famous 19th Century Presbyterian minister and lecturer Thomas Dewitte Talmage recounted the time he was taking a tour of a medical museum in Philadelphia with a very learned surgeon of that day. The surgeon pointed out glass cases containing splintered bones, and the cancerous protrusions, and fractured thighs, and he said: “What beautiful specimens they are.” Talmage’s thought was that if that man had to endure the agonies that those things suggested, he would not have thought they were such splendid specimens.[24] Likewise, men are past feeling; they have become detached from that which should affect them deeply.
The rest of
the verse graphically describes the practical outworking of such depravity:
they have given
themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. Consider these three
characteristics.
Lasciviousness (aselgeia) speaks of
unrestrained self-indulgence, especially in sexual sin. The Greek root behind uncleanness
is katharos, which means clean or pure, so with the prefix a
added (akatharos), it forms the opposite, specifically, “the whole realm
of uncleanness, ranging from menstruation to moral pollution through
wrongdoing.”[25] Actually, in fact, that is putting
it delicately. The debauchery of the ancient world was beyond comprehension. As
one writer comments:
The refinements of art too often ministered to such groveling pursuits. The naked statues of the goddesses were not exempted from rape (Lucian, Amores, 15, p. 272, vol. 5 ed. Bipont), and many pictures of their divinities were but the excitements of sensual gratification . . . There was a brisk female trade in potions to induce sterility and barrenness. In fact, one dares not describe the forms, and scenes, and temptations of impurity, or even translate what classical poets and historians have revealed without a blush.[26]
One such poet was the famous 1st and 2nd Century Roman poet Juvenal, whose sixteen Satires, especially the Sixth, were graphic depictions of and scathing attacks on the moral perversion of the Empire. In one place he wrote, “What neighborhood does not reek with filthy practices?” Satire ii, 8). Another poet of the day, Martial, wrote, “Long have I been searching the city through to find if there is ever a maid to say ‘No;’ there is not one” (Ep. iv, 71.). Worse, homosexuality and sodomy were considered acceptable and normal behavior. Is it any wonder that the Roman Empire fell and why our own nation is following suit?
The same was true of the Greeks, as the Ephesians were quite aware. Due in part to the fact of the pagan temple of Artemis (or Diana), Ephesus was a leading city in debauchery and sexual immorality. Some historians view it as the most perverted city of Asia Minor. The rituals and ceremonies merely justified the perversion of the people’s hearts. Every indulgent sexual practice was common and condoned. Artemis was, in fact, a goddess of sex, which was served by thousands of temple prostitutes, eunuchs, singers, dancers, priests, and priestesses. Even the pagan 5th Century B.C. Greek philosopher Heraclitus referred to Ephesus as “the darkness of vileness. The morals were lower than animals and the inhabitants of Ephesus were fit only to be drowned.”[27]
Additionally, the general behavior of the Greeks was equally wretched. Theft was dishonorable only when the thief failed to conceal it. In other words, “It’s okay as long as you don’t get caught.” While they prided themselves in philosophy, and professed to desire truth, Truth was, in reality, not a priority. 4th Century B.C. poet Menander lays down the general rule “that a lie is better than a hurtful truth.” The so-called great Plato allows us to lie as needed, as long as we do it at the proper time. 600 years later, this philosophy remained unchanged. 2nd Century philosopher Maximus Tyrius asserted, “There is nothing decorous in truth, save when it is profitable, and sometimes a lie is profitable, and truth injurious to men.” In the 4th Century, philosopher Proclus likewise asserted that “good is better than truth,” a philosophy we are hearing today even among evangelicals. During the same period, historian Herodotus records the common teaching of the day that, “When telling a lie is profitable, tell it!” These examples are more than sufficient to justify Paul in his condemnation of the crimes and corruptions of the heathen world. So important is this, in fact, that He returns to it later in verses 22 and 25-32, as will we.
But Paul
adds more: to work all uncleanness. Work is ergasia,
which speaks not only of the effort of work itself, but also of a business,
occupation, or trade. It appears in Acts 19:25, for example, where due to
Paul’s preaching, the angry silversmith Demetrius was loosing money because
people were no longer buying shrines of Diana, and therefore “called together
with the workmen of like occupation” to do something about the problem. Putting
all this together, we could
humbly translate verse 19:
Who having ceased to feel pain or grief, have given
themselves to unrestrained self-indulgence and make a business of filth.
While
society today has not reached the proportions of the wickedness of the ancient
world, it certainly is running to catch up, is it not? Besides the perversions
of that day, technology has provided more opportunity. Not only has it aided
prostitution, but it has given pornography a quantum leap. According to Forbes
Magazine (5-25-01), pornographic magazines gross $1 billion annually, the
Internet another billion, Pay-Per-View movies $128 million, and adult videos
add between $500 million and $1.8 billion, yielding a total of $2.6 to $3.9
billion per year. May we add, if that is not enough to appall us, how about the
complicity of local and state governments that gather sales tax on such
perversion? After all, “it’s just another business,” and “we can’t regulate
morality.” Indeed, we are past feeling.
Finally, with
greediness describes the attitude that brings on all this uncleanness.
Man’s underlying motive is greed, covetousness, lust, and self-gratification.
As I Timothy 6:10 declares, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”
Take any issue, any practice, and just begin to trace it back. As you peel back
the layers, you will ultimately uncover greed. Colossians 3:5 tells us that
covetousness is actually idolatry, the worship of a false god. How true this is
of man. He worships himself. He is his own god. Again, as Paul outlines in
Romans 1, man has suppressed the truth (Rom. 1:18), disregarded God, (vs. 21,
28), and worships himself (v. 25). As a result, his behavior is vile and
unrestrained (vs. 26-32).
Why has
Paul gone into all this? To remind us, as he declares in verse 17, that this
is not the way the Christian walks. Most of us can recall how we lived
before Christ saved us and that we no longer behave that way. The Christian
walks in purity, far above such vile behavior. He walks as a “new man,” a “new
creature,” (II Cor. 5:17), as we’ll now study in verses 20-24.
May we not be like the canary that was put in with the sparrows. A little boy mixed these together thinking the sparrows would learn to sing. But in a few days, the canary was chirping like the sparrows. Likewise, we must be careful that the world doesn’t have us chirping right along with it.[28] How easy it is to chirp like the world, to have the same attitudes and actions, the same values and virtues. “But [we] have not so learned Christ,” Paul goes on to write (v. 20), for we have been “renewed in the spirit of [our] mind” (v. 23).