Ephesians 4

Live in Unity

¹ I, therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live worthily of the calling with which you have been called,

Paul was seated in the heavenlies with Christ, but because of his strong Bible doctrine and positive volition application, he was a prisoner on this world. Paul had already informed the Ephesians that they were once dead men who had been made alive by the Holy Spirit and transported to heaven because of the kindness of God. Paul then reminded the Ephesians that God had called them to do some sacred service for God. The Ephesians were commanded to walk on this world in confidence (because they had the power of God), so that they could perform the work that God called them to do.

² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

In Greek culture, only slaves were to walk in humility. When the Ephesians walked on this earth by the calling of God, they were to walk humbly, gently, patiently, and they must bear one another in love. The Word of God and the satanic world system have different definitions for these terms.

Those controlled by God are never angry at the wrong time, but they are always angry at the right time. There is a righteous anger of God. Moses was meek, but he grew angry at Israel when they sinned at Mount Sinai. Christ was meek and humble in heart, but He became angry at the Temple moneychangers. 

³ making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

The Holy Spirit baptized both Jews and Gentile into one spirit. We cannot keep this unity by joining the ecumenical movement.

Paul is going to give seven ways in which a believer can keep this unity.

 

⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as you too were called to the one hope of your calling,

One body refers to the total amount of believers from Pentecost to the Rapture.

One spirit is the Holy Spirit, who baptizes all believers into the body of Christ at the moment of conversion.

One hope is the Blessed Hope, which is the return of Christ to establish His Millennial Kingdom. 

⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

One Lord refers to the deity of Christ.

One faith refers to the body of truth, called the Apostle's Doctrine. When denied, it causes divisions in the local churches.

One baptism refers to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This event happens at the moment of salvation. Water baptism is just a ritual that points to the identification of a believer with Christ. Water baptism does not save. Charismatics will claim that there are two baptisms, one at salvation and another for additional spiritual power. However, they are disagreeing with the Apostle Paul, who stated that there was only one baptism. There is more detail on this charismatic argument in 1 Corinthians 12:3. 

⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

One God and Father refers to the family relationship that God has with believers. God is not the Father of those who do not believe. Satan is the father of unbelievers. This is why Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies." (John 8:44) God the Father will not allow the devil's children into His house. Therefore, the "all" is all believers. 

⁷ But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

God is a nice God who is full of grace, or kindness. He likes to do nice things for His children. God is so nice, that He has given the believers many spiritual gifts. These gifts of the Spirit are different for each individual. At least one or more spiritual gifts are given to each believer at salvation. The purpose of these gifts is to build up the body of Christ. The gifts are not to be used for selfish purposes. Some charismatics claim that they have the gift of tongues and they only use it personally at home as a personal prayer language. The true gift of tongues disappeared around the first century. The false gift of tongues has been around for as long as Satan has been involved in human affairs. Tongues are very religious, as they were prevalent in all pagan religions. For example, satanic priests pumped up girls with drugs at the Oracle of Delphi and controlled Greek history through this religious medium. The occultic tongues movement is seeping back into the church. Gifts are not to be used personally at home. Spiritual gifts are to be used publicly to build up the body of Christ. 

⁸ Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he captured captives; he gave gifts to men.”

This is a quotation from Psalm 28:18. Christ was prophesied to be a Conqueror of Satan. After Christ conquered Satan, He will ascend to the throne and hand out plunder to His soldiers. He will distribute the spoils throughout His kingdom.

Paul knew his Old Testament and applied this psalm to Christ. Christ ascended up to heaven. Before His ascension, He went down to Hades and released the captives. He took the captives out of Paradise and escorted them all into heaven to be with Christ forever. After Christ ascended, He gave spiritual gifts to the believers on earth so that they could spread the gospel. 

⁹ Now what is the meaning of “he ascended,” except that he also descended to the lower regions, namely, the earth?

After Jesus was crucified, He went down into Paradise and preached to those who had rejected God. Christ’s message was that He died on the cross to end Satan's domain on the earth. He released the Old Testament believers and sentenced the unbelievers to the Lake of Fire.  

¹⁰ He, the very one who descended, is also the one who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things.

Jesus now ascends over all things. This includes the church. 

¹¹ It was he who gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,

Jesus chose certain men with certain gifts and gave them as a gift to the church. He gave to the church four different types of men. Apostles wrote and recorded New Testament doctrine. Prophets were the New Testament prophets who received and gave out direct revelation from God to the early church before the Scriptures were completed. Evangelists were those who took the gospel to the lost. The Greek word for "pastors and teachers" is ποιμένας καὶ διδασκάλους (poimenos kai didaskalos), meaning a shepherd-pastor. The conjunction καὶ joins these two offices into one person. The shepherd/teacher is to feed the sheep. 

¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to build up the body of Christ,

Why did Jesus give these four groups of men to the church?

The reason Jesus gave these men to the church was to equip the saints for ministry and to build the body of Christ. The apostles all died, but their written scriptures remained with us. Paul predicted that prophecies would disappear. They disappeared when the New Testament was completed. Evangelists and pastor/teachers are still active in the local churches today. Evangelists introduce the saints to the gospel message. Pastor/teachers equip the saints by teaching and explaining the Word of God.

Therefore, the method of the Holy Spirit is to use the written scriptures of the apostles, the teachings of the New Testament prophets, the spreading of the Word by the evangelists, and the teachings of the pastor/teacher to build the church. Tongues, words of knowledge, prophecies, and personal experience were not included in this list. 

¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God – a mature person, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature.

The purpose of the church is to complete itself so that it might grow up. These four groups of men help believers grow into spiritual maturity. When people claim that they are learning the Word of God by any other method, they are disagreeing with the Word of God. Some sincere believers will claim that they receive their instruction directly from the Holy Spirit. They claim that they read the text and the Holy Spirit gives them direct information. They claim that the reason that they know is because of their own personal experience.

Believers cannot accept one's personal experience as a substitute for Scripture. It is possible that believers may think that they are receiving information from the Holy Spirit, but it is also possible that the information may be human speculation, demonic, or from the sinful human nature. There are some mature Christians who can read the Scriptures and understand them at a deeper level, because they have had more experience and more learning from prior pastor-teachers.

There are many sincere believers who claim that they do not need pastor-teachers to help them understand the Scriptures because they have the Holy Spirit to guide them, lead them, and teach them. They think that all they have to do is to read the Bible, and then the Holy Spirit will illuminate them. They read through the Bible once a year for 25 years, but they do not possess a lick of Bible doctrine. This kind of Bible study is unbiblical and leads to pride.

The Bible never commands one to “read” the Scriptures. The Word of God commands that it is to be “studied” and “meditated” upon. The teaching method of the Holy Spirit is to teach through gifted pastor-teachers who have been given the spiritual gift of teaching. Those who read the Bible can read it over and over for years, but without following this Ephesians 4 study method given by the Holy Spirit, they will remain babes in Christ. They will think that they are super-saints. They will brag that they have read the Bible over 25 times. However, they will be immature Christians who desire the milk of the Word. They will find themselves in shallow churches. They will pray for the wrong things. They will not perform divine good works. They will instead perform human good works, but they will think that they are serving God. Spiritual maturity comes from STUDY of the Word of God by gifted pastor teachers, just as the Apostle Paul outlined in Ephesians 4. Paul gave this teaching to mature Ephesian believers. Therefore, mature believers need to follow the procedures given by the Apostle Paul by his apostolic authority. This is the reason why the YEBC Study Bible has been written. 

The method of the Holy Spirit is to teach through the four methods that Paul listed above by his apostolic authority. The Holy Spirit guides the believer and leads him to and through this Biblical method. Pastor-teachers can be utilized through Bible translations, grammar books, commentaries, audio recordings, or oral teachings. If a believer is studying from any English translation, then he is studying through a pastor-teacher. The Holy Spirit raised up pastor-teachers to translate the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures into the languages of the people. Pastor-teachers have also written grammar books, commentaries, devotions, and other materials in order to feed the sheep. 

¹⁴ So we are no longer to be children, tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes.

Christians are not to be crying babies running around wanting milk all of the time. They are not to be rebellious teenagers who rebel against authority figures, such as the elders of the church. Paul told the Corinthians that they were carnal and that they needed to grow up and become more mature. If baby Christians refuse to grow, then the spiritual charlatans of the world will pick them clean.

If Christians will follow this teaching method that Paul gave earlier by his apostolic authority, believers will mature and eventually attain the status of super-grace believers.   If they refuse to use this method, then they will continue to be spiritual babies. Their doctrine will be so weak, that they will be tossed around by waves, making them seasick, staggering from one false teaching to another. They will follow every wind of new false teaching. They will be tricked and deceived by crafty preachers who possess their own selfish agenda. They will bounce from church to church, trying to find that perfect pastor who will tickle their ears in just the right place. Knowledge of Bible doctrine from the entire counsel of the Word of God is the only escape from these kinds of deceptions of this satanic world system. This type of deception hits even mature Christians, like the Ephesians. This is why Paul warned the mature Ephesian believers about this kind of deception. 

¹⁵ But practicing the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head.

Christians are not to remain as little babes in Christ. They are to grow up in Christ. Believers cannot practice this truth unless they know the truth. The truth is found throughout the entire counsel of the Word of God. If believers love Christ, then we will keep His commandments. His commandments are Bible doctrine. Agape love is studying and applying Bible doctrine from the entire counsel of the Word of God. Agape love is not staying ignorant and remaining silent when unbelievers and baby Christians are being deceived. Agape love is informing the lost of their condition. Agape love is informing immature Christians of their situation. Agape love is exposing evil. Even if baby Christians call more mature Christians arrogant, the evil should be exposed and the gospel should be preached. 

¹⁶ From him the whole body grows, fitted and held together through every supporting ligament. As each one does its part, the body grows in love.

The body of Christ grows as members study the Word of God and teach it to others. Every believer has a gift. As each believer uses his gift, the body of Christ grows. The head of the body is Christ, who feeds and leads the body. 

Live in Holiness

¹⁷ So I say this, and insist in the Lord, that you no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.

The first command in the Garden of Eden was negative. The Ten Commandments were all negative. There is too much positive thinking in the world. The world is not all right, positive, and good. It has fallen with man's sin nature. The world is a satanic world system where there will be no peace until Christ returns. Paul is going to give a lot of negatives to the Ephesians, the most mature church of his day. The Gentiles of the Roman world were one of the most corrupt people on earth. The Ephesians were saved out of this group, so they did not need to live like Gentiles any longer. They were called by God to a higher office. 

¹⁸ They are darkened in their understanding, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.

The Gentiles were without Christ, so they could not understand Bible doctrine. This caused them to be dark in their insight and understanding. The Gentiles were alienated from God, because they were ignorant of the Scriptures. Their hearts were so hard, that they could not see the truth. Their only hope was intervention by The Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit refused to open their hearts, then their depraved and sinful nature would remain in a lost condition. 

¹⁹ Because they are callous, they have given themselves over to indecency for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

Those who reject Christ become hard and calloused, so that the truth is blurred to them. The calloused soul becomes even more immoral, eventually reaching the stage of homosexuality and lesbianism, as Paul explained in Romans 1. 

²⁰ But you did not learn about Christ like this,

The Ephesians did not learn of Christ through those who were immoral. 

²¹ if indeed you heard about him and were taught in him, just as the truth is in Jesus.

The Ephesians learned about Christ through the teachings of other believers who possessed the gift of teaching. 

²² You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires,

The Ephesians were commanded to strip off their filthy clothes and surround themselves with the new garment, which was Christ. 

²³ to be renewed in the spirit of your mind,

Satan controlled the old mind. Their minds were dark and depraved. The Holy Spirit had to give the Ephesians a new heart and a new mind. This is the Doctrine of Imputation. God exchanged the believer's sinful nature with Christ's perfect nature.

 

²⁴ and to put on the new man who has been created in God’s image – in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth.

The old man became the new man. The new Ephesian became a new man, created in the image of God. 

²⁵ Therefore, having laid aside falsehood, each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

All men are liars including Christians. Christians are to speak the truth. The more Bible doctrine that a Christian receives, the more able he is to speak the truth. Otherwise, he is thinking and speaking through a fragmented mind which possesses incomplete Bible doctrine. 

²⁶ Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on the cause of your anger.

Believers are commanded to not let the sun go down if sin causes them to be angry with another person. Jesus was angry at the Pharisees, because they accused Jesus of a sin when He healed on the Sabbath. Jesus was angry at their hypocrisy, He is angry at sin, but He still loves the individual. 

²⁷ Do not give the devil an opportunity.

If you sin and allow the sun to go down, then you are giving the devil and opportunity to work in your life. 

²⁸ The one who steals must steal no longer; rather he must labor, doing good with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with the one who has need.

Man not only lies, but he is a thief as well. Theft is not an honorable profession, as the world teaches. All thieves were commanded to quit stealing and begin laboring for their needs and desires. 

²⁹ You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is beneficial for the building up of the one in need, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Instead of cursing, say only things that benefit the cause of Christ. Instead of cursing, praise God for all that He has given through His kindness. 

³⁰ And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Ephesians have been sealed forever by the Holy Spirit meaning that their salvation is secure. However, when they sin, they cause the Holy Spirit to grieve, or become sad. Since the Holy Spirit can grieve, this means that He is a personality and not an active force. A believer cannot unseal the Holy Spirit, but he can grieve Him. 

³¹ You must put away every kind of bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling, and evil, slanderous talk.

Paul commanded the Ephesians to get rid of their bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling, evil, and slanderous talks. The Greek word for "put away" is an aorist imperative verb, meaning a command to immediately put away these types of sins as a onetime completed action of the past. In other words, "Put a complete stop to it now!" 

³² Instead, be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.

Instead of being angry and quarrelsome, one should be compassionate and forgiving, just as Christ forgave the Ephesians.