Eph 4:17–24 — The Spirit of Your Mind

Context

In broad strokes, we can say that Ephesians 1-3 sets forth the indicative, while Ephesians 4-6 draws out the implications of the indicative for our lives - the imperative.

As we begin this section of Ephesians (4:17ff), we see that Paul is beginning to flesh out what he had said back in 4:1, when he exhorted the Ephesian Christians to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which they have been called. What does this mean? What does it mean to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called?

To begin with, in 4:1-16, we see that it means maintaining the unity of the Spirit, a unity that is achieved by means of doctrinal instruction via the pastors and teachers the ascended Christ has given to the church. In 4:17-24, it means not living like we used to when we were Gentiles but being renewed in the spirit of our minds we are to view ourselves as the new creation in Christ. In 4:25-5:2, it means: if we are no longer Gentiles, it ought to affect our relationships with one another in the body, as we strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit.

The old man and the new man

Verses 22-24 are the heart of our text, with its contrast between the old man and the new man. I am going to explain the meaning of these terms first. Then I am going to break the passage into two sections: (1) verses 17-19 - a description of the old man, and (2) verses 20-24 - a description of the new man.

Consider first of all the Adamic language of covenant solidarity that Paul employs in these verses. The old man is simply another term for Adam and the new man is Christ, the second Adam. Notice also the reference to the second Adam as a new creation in v. 24.

New creation imagery is also implied in the use of the verbs of putting on and off. The metaphor is one of taking off an old outfit of clothing and putting on a fresh new garment in place of the old. Before they ate of the forbidden tree, Adam and Eve were naked. This does not mean they were without clothing. Their clothing was the image of God in which they were created. After they sinned they were both naked, and made garments of fig leaves to cover their shame. But God removed the garment of shame and clothed them instead in the animal skins which were a type or picture of the righteousness of Christ. Just as the animal skins were provided by God not created by Adam and Eve’s own works, so the righteousness of Christ is a free gift provided by God for the elect apart from works. “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them” (Gen. 3:21).

That is why Paul calls it “the righteousness of God.” This righteousness is provided by God himself. Man contributes nothing. Just as the animals skins had to be prepared by the slaying of a substitutionary sacrifice so the righteousness of Christ was prepared for us only by means of his sacrificial death in our place. Thus, the verbs in vv. 22-24 are not commands to us to do something, as if we could put off the old Adam and clothe ourselves in the garments of the second Adam.

There may be a secondary reference to baptism here in view of Paul’s description of baptism elsewhere as a putting on Christ. E.g., Gal. 3:27: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” But baptism is only a secondary reference. The primary concern here is redemptive historical. Paul is looking at the great transition in redemptive history from the old epoch under the sway of Adam’s sin with its corruption, condemnation and death to the new age under the sway of Christ’s obedient accomplishment with its righteousness and life.

(1) Verses 17-19 - the old man

“In the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding …” The word “futility” is sometimes translated “vanity.” This word captures the emptiness, the meaninglessness, that aimlessness of pagan life. Pagan life isn’t headed anywhere. It’s just an endless cycle of hopelessness and confusion guided ultimately by the fleeting pleasures of the moment.

Notice that Paul begins his description of the pagan life that we as Christians have abandoned, and which are continually called to turn away from, by focusing on the futility of the pagan MIND - the pagan way of thinking. This is interesting because we might have expected Paul to focus first on the life of sin and debauchery. To be sure, he will go on to mention this in v. 19, but that’s not where Paul begins his analysis.

Not only is their thinking futile and empty but they are “excluded from the life of God.” Excluded here has the connotation of being cast outside of the presence and fellowship of God. This phrase is an allusion to the fall of man when Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden of God from the place of divine fellowship and intimacy and especially from the tree of life which symbolized man’s hope of partaking of God’s own eternal life, the life of God himself.

“Because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” “Ignorance” here is a biblical term for the culpable rejection of God. This is made clear by the explanatory phrase which follows: “The hardness of their heart.”

Verse 19 Only after describing the pagan mind as a willful rejection of relationship with God involving a mental futility and hardness of heart does Paul turn to the resultant behavioral consequences. The darkness of the pagan mind and its exclusion from the life of God leads to a moral callousness that results in men giving themselves over to all kinds of lust and sin. The pattern here is the same as in Romans 1.

“For the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.” Having become callous, pagans no longer feels any shame or embarrassment. There are no internal restraints. Therefore, pagans keep on pressing further and further into every imaginable kind of impurity and sin.

“With greediness,” or better (as NIV) “with a continual lust for more.” Man’s insatiable desire for sin becomes a vicious circle. New perversions must be sought to replace the old.

(2) Verses 20-24 - description of the new man

“But you did not learn Christ in this way.” Verse 20 provides the rationale for the command in v. 17 to no longer walk as the Gentiles walk. We must no longer follow our former way of life as pagans because it is inconsistent with our having learned Christ. Now what does it mean to “learn Christ”? Notice Paul doesn’t say, “you did not learn about Christ in this way” but “you did not learn Christ himself in this way.” Learning Christ means welcoming him as a living person and having one’s whole being shaped by union with his death and resurrection.

Paul fleshes out what it means that we have learned Christ in v. 21. “If indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him, just as the truth is in Jesus” - the truth as it is embodied in Jesus. Jesus himself is the standard of the new life. Paul sets the futility of mind, the hardness of heart, and the callous practice of impurity, that characterized the Gentile way of life - all of that, is placed in the left hand column and juxtaposed with what on the right is the total embodiment of truth in Jesus Christ himself. The falsehood and vanity of pagan life versus the solidity of truth as it is in Jesus.

Verses 22-24. The content of what the Ephesian Christians were taught when they heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and its ethical implications is now spelled out in more detail in the next three verses (vv. 22-24). Each verse begins with a verb in the infinitive form Verse 22: to put off the old man Verse 23: to be renewed in the spirit of your mind Verse 24: to put on the new man. These three verbs describe a definitive break with the past that has occurred in Christ. They are not imperatives, as if we are being commanded to put off the old man and put on the new. They are indicatives stating the fact that in Christ the old man has been put off once for all and the new man has been put on.

Furthermore, the two verbs to put off and to put on are aorist infinitives which means that the action is being viewed as a one-time event rather than a continuous or progressive action on our part.

And yet, there is a sense in which the passage is calling us to do something. This is clear from the thrust of the whole context going back to verse 17. Don’t live the way you formerly lived when you were pagans. That’s not who you are any more. You have put off the old man. You are no longer in Adam. You are now in Christ. You have put on the new man. Live, therefore, as the new creation in Christ that you are. This imperative aspect of the text is stated in v. 23. Sandwiched between the two aorist infinitives describing the indicative of our having put off fallen Adam and our having put on the new Adam, is a present indicative: “to be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” Thus, we are to have our thinking constantly renewed. Mind renewal is a continuous, progressive thing. We must be renewed in the spirit of our minds in continually reckoning the reality of our new identity as partakers of the life of the second Adam, as those who have been remade in the image of Christ.

This phrase “the Spirit of your mind” is significant. It refers to the regenerate mind made conscious of union with Christ, a mind made regenerate by the indwelling Spirit of Christ.

Read Eph. 1:17-18 and 3:16-19 In vv. 17-19 the futile and darkened mind of the Gentiles is what was responsible for their evil behavior and impure practices. In vv. 20-24 the mind renewed and enlightened by the Holy Spirit of believers is what is responsible for our Christ-like behavior and purity of life.

Adam -> the pagan mind -> unrighteousness Christ -> the Christian mind -> righteousness. The mind leads the way to action. If the pattern, motivation, and direction of our thinking is renewed so as to believe that we have in fact put off the old man and have put on the new in Christ, it will affect our concrete behavior and actions so that our lives become increasingly conformed to and reflective of our true identity under the covenant headship of Christ the new Adam.

If heathen degradation is due to the aimless vanity of the unbeliever’s darkened mind, then Christian righteousness depends on the constant, intentional, Christ-directed, Spirit-filled renewing of our minds. Just as the pagans lived in accordance with the futility of their minds and the sinful desires of the flesh, so Christians are to live in accordance with the permanence and fullness of the revelation that is embodied in the person of Christ incarnate, dead, risen, and ascended.

Conclusion

No higher authority is conceivable. No greater ethical obligation can be laid upon us than the obligation of our relationship to Jesus Christ. Our old task master who enslaved us was sin under the old covenant headship of Adam. We have been transferred from one covenant head to another, from Adam to Christ. Jesus is our new covenant head. It is him whom we must serve.