Lesson 10: Walk as New Creatures in Christ (Ephesians 4:17-24)
How should we walk? And how can we walk? (Ephesians 4:17-24)
Disciples of Jesus, those who learned about the Messiah, are to walk worthy of their calling (Ephesians 4:1). These first generation Gentile believers are called to no longer walk as they used to walk as people alienated from God, but to walk in the truth of Jesus the Messiah. They walk in the way of Jesus, not because they have the resources within themselves to do so, but because they have been created by God to be like God in authentic righteousness and holiness. We are able to walk because we have been new created to walk in the good works which God has prepared for us (Ephesians 2:10).
“Walk” is a key metaphor in Ephesians, though the literal word is obscured by most translations. Many translators believe “live” is a helpful dynamic translation for “walk,” and it does communicate the point. At the same time, it is important to recognize how Paul repeats this metaphor throughout Ephesians.
The metaphor implies a contrast. Walk this way, but not that way. There are two ways.
On the one hand, in their former lives as Gentiles alienated from God, they walked according the powers that are work among the disobedient (Ephesians 2:2) and they walked in the way of the nations like Gentiles (Ephesians 4:17). On the other hand, the Gentiles are now, as part of Israel’s commonwealth, are invited to walk in the good works that God has created us to do (Ephesians 2:10) and to walk worthy of the calling to which they have been called (Ephesians 4:1). There are two paths in which we might walk. There is the “way of the nations” (Jeremiah 10:2) and there is “the Way” of Jesus (Acts 24:22).
The ”two ways” motif is found through the narrative of Scripture.
- In the Garden of Gard, there were two ways: tree of life and the other tree.
- In Deuteronomy 30:19, there is way of blessedness and the way of cursedness.
- In Proverbs 9, there is way of wisdom and the way of foolishness.
- In the Psalm 81:13 and Psalm 82:5, we with walk in the ways of God or in darkness.
- In Psalm 1, there is the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked.
- In Matthew 7, Jesus tells the parable of the wise and foolish builder.
- In James 3, there is a wisdom that comes from above and one from below.
- In Revelation, worship God or worship the beast.
Paul employs the same strategy in Ephesians 4:17-24. He contrasts two ways. There is the way of the Gentiles, and there is the way of the Messiah. There is the way of the nations, and there is the way of the Torah.
The description of the Gentiles is Ephesians 4:17-19 is classic Jewish rhetoric. It is like Romans 1:18-32. The Gentiles, as a generalization, were soaked in ignorance, stubbornness, sexual immorality, and greed.
But, and this is the turn in the text, “That is not the way you learned from Christ!” You were not taught or discipled by Christ to walk in the way of the Gentiles. The verb “learn” is the same root as the noun Matthew uses for the disciples of Jesus; they are learners (Matthew 5:1. His disciples followed him. “Take my yoke upon you,” Jesus said, “and learn from me” (Matthew 11:29). Jesus is the truth of God, and we must learn from him.
In other words, we have learned to walk a different way. That way will be described in 4:25-5:2 with some specificity. At this point, Paul describes the basis of our ability to walk in a different way and the purpose for such a life.
The fundament teaching is describe with three infinitives (Ephesians 4:22-24):
- Put away your former way of life (ἀναστροφὴν), the old person or self.
- Be renewed in the spirit of your minds
- Put on or clothe yourself with the new person
There may be a baptismal allusion here because the practice of immersion in water involved a taking off of one’s clothes and putting on new clothes, and the waters of baptism are a means by which God renews or regenerates (John 3:5; Titus 3:5). But that point is not explicit even though it may lie in the background as all the believers in Ephesus had experience baptism (implicit from Ephesians 4:5).
The first and third infinitives are in the aorist (past) tense. Since the infinitives are dependent upon the verb “learn” in Ephesians 4:21, it is likely that these verbs refer to their conversion, that is, a moment in the past when they learned of Christ. They were converted, or, if a baptismal context, when they were baptized.
Renewal is in the present tense which perhaps indicates that renewal is always a present reality. It may have begun when they learned of Christ, but it continues in the present. Believers are always experiencing renewal or being “filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18).
This declothing, renewal, and reclothing is a divine act of creation. We were created to live a different way of life. We are created, like in the beginning in Genesis 1:26-28, to be “like God” as we were made in the image of God. Now, God has created a new people—one new human (Ephesians 2:15)—to become the likeness of God in the world, to represent God in the world. Moreover, this also entails participation in the life of God (Ephesians 4:19)—once we were alienated from that life, but now we participate in it.
The ultimate point is ethical—as new creatures, we live a different kind of life. We live in the way of the Jewish Messiah, the way of the Torah, and the way of God rather than in the way of the nations. It is a contrast between the two ways to live life. This chart in DeSilva, Commentary on Ephesians, p. 228 is a good illustration of the contrast in 4:22-24.
| Old Person | New Person |
| Take Off | Put On |
| The One Being Ruined | The One Being Created |
| In Line with the Desires | In Line with God |
| Of Deceit | Of Truth |
There are two ways. We were created for walk in one, and to walk in the other is to subvert the truth of God who created us from the beginning to be divine icons or images of God’s own life.
Now, in Ephesians 4:26-6:9, Paul will begin to explain what walking in the likeness of God looks like. What does it look like for those who were once alienated from God but now participate in the life of God to walk like God? The invitation act like God fills the rest of the letter.