Ephesians 4 Part 2
Dogmatic: Adjective; Inclined to lay down principles as
incontrovertibly true: “he gives his opinion without trying to be dogmatic”.
Synonyms: opinionated (conceitedly assertive in one’s opinions), doctrinal
(being concerned with a belief or set of beliefs taught by a church),
peremptory (Insisting on immediate attention or obedience in a brusquely
imperious way), pragmatic (to deal with things sensibly and realistically in a
way that is based on practical (actual doing) rather than theoretical
considerations).
I laid this out for two reasons. First, I did so because the
remainder of Ephesians 4, especially its latter half, speaks directly about how
to live the new life in Christ. Paul uses definitive terms here, about what we used
to be, and what we must no longer be, and how we must walk. He has, in short,
laid down principles as incontrovertibly true, which leads to my second reason.
Did you notice the tone of the synonyms? Two of them, doctrinal and pragmatic,
are positive, even complimentary, whereas to be opinionated implies conceit,
which is arrogance, or excessive pride in one’s self, and to be peremptory
implies being rough, rude, coarse, or harsh, in a both domineering and
overbearing way. Do you suppose that anyone under the sound of his voice or
that of the one reading the letter to Ephesus
aloud applied any of those negative tones when they considered how “dogmatic”
Paul sounded?
I had cause to wonder that because when I spoke about these
things and asked questions of an ordained minister whom I deeply respect, I was
given the label of dogmatic. I heard the word 4 more times in the course of
that conversation, and it was not until I stared at the word and its meaning
that I realized beyond any doubt, despite any hope to the contrary, that it was
not at all intended as either doctrinal or pragmatic in the conversation’s
context. I understood the word to mean what most people mean when they say it
derisively; opinionated, with the darker shadings of conceited and arrogant
implied if not directly spoken.
I give thanks and praise to God for this, because despite all
suggestions to the contrary, the thing which I am standing by as
incontrovertibly true is not anything so flimsy as my opinion, but the very
Word of God itself, while the man applying the label to my forehead went on to himself
dogmatically opine at length about not Scripture, but regurgitated teaching. When
I asked for Scripture supporting his assertions--asked to be pointed in the
Bible to what he was saying to me, he simply said, “Keep reading,” and deployed
the carefully wielded stiletto of “we need to all be careful to strike a
balance between our zeal and our knowledge”, which was just about as nice an
insult, of the “you are quite the driven ignoramus” variety, as I have ever
heard, let alone actually received.
Again, I give thanks to God, because this caused me, once I got
over myself and calmed down, to carefully consider whether or not he was
actually right. Self examination confirmed that what I seek is for whatever I
believe, whatever my opinion is, to be perfectly aligned with whatever God’s
opinion is, because His opinion is the only one that matters. This is what is
at the foundation of the problem we face. The time honored teachings of men are
most often believed over “Thus it is written” where the two differ, because the
former gives the flesh we are to crucify room to breathe, while the latter contains the
teaching of Christ to utterly reject the nature of our flesh and put it visibly to death. Not everyone who
identifies themselves as brother or sister in the Lord actually believes that
what is written in the Word of God is incontrovertibly true. Each one of us has
our own particular struggle in this walk, but every one of those struggles boils
down to what James said our struggles are; we want and we don’t have, and to
boot, especially in this country, we are entitled to the pursuit of that thing,
whatever it happens to be, if it makes us happy. I encourage us each to examine
ourselves and look at what the Bible is saying, and answer what the LORD is
saying in His Word about how we are to live in Him and what it means if we are
not.
The remainder of this chapter falls under this umbrella. This is
how we live this new life in Christ—by the grace given to each one of us.
When He ascended on high,
He took prisoners into
captivity;
Now I’ve heard people say verses 8-10 mean that Jesus went into
Hell itself and took the keys of death and Hell from Satan, or just the realm
of the dead, which we understand to be “under” the Earth, but closer study
shows that this does not mean either of those things. This means, namely, the
Earth. In other words, to say the Lord ascended implies that first He had to
descend down here, from Heaven to Earth. It is what Jesus said of Himself to
Nicodemus in John 3:13; “No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven — the Son of Man.” Lower
parts is reference to the condition that Jesus came here to live among people
when He descended from Heaven; not that of a king possessed of earthly wealth
and the subjugation of nations as we know it here, but a lower station, in the
form of a slave. Paul admonishes us to assume that same attitude.
The reason for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and for
caring for and teaching the members of Christ’s body is to build up that Body.
In verse 13, that word “unity”, it’s the same one we learned about last week in
verse 3, the harmony from sharing likeness of nature with the Lord Jesus in
lieu of our own nature. The goal is to evangelize, pastor, and teach until we
all achieve harmony from sharing likeness of nature with the Lord, both in the
faith and in the knowledge gained through firsthand relationship with Jesus.
Remember, this can not be done while we are living in accordance with our own
nature. We can not be ourselves and do this. The one that lives according to
his or her own nature, following the inclinations of his or her own flesh and
thoughts, is already identified earlier in this letter to Ephesus as the child
of wrath, while the one granted grace to crucify the flesh with its passions
and lusts and instead enjoys the harmony from sharing the Lord’s nature, of
faithful obedience to His Father, is the child under this umbrella of grace
which Paul is describing. We become mature adults in Christ, then, and are no longer
gullible to trickery and outright lies as children often are.
Speaking the truth in agápē,
not brotherly love, but the love that God prefers, we are to grow in every way
into Christ, who is the head and decision maker of His body. Each portion of it
has it purpose and importance. Can each individual part of that body properly
work if it is following a nature different from that of the Lord, who is the
head—if it is following the inclinations of its own flesh and thoughts?
No. To do so is to operate as a rogue
entity, like cancer. It is the Lord’s nature that the members of His body share
in harmony with one another, not their own nature. Our own nature is to be dead;
crucified with Christ. The life we share in harmony with Him is His life. His
nature. We are therefore to walk as He walked, without excuse.
We are to walk as He did, not as “we
do”. We, our nature, is to be the past, yielded up in living sacrifice. He,
Jesus, the Master’s nature, is to be our present.
From here through the remainder of
the chapter, Paul spells the new life in Christ in detail that every person
could understand. No high concepts, just plain application.
First there is the prohibition
against walking as everyone in the world walks, and Paul calls the Lord Himself
as witness to affirm the statements he is about to make. That’s what the words
mean when he says in verse 17;
Paul is saying that the thoughts of the Gentiles are without any
meaningful, lasting purpose, that they are vain and empty.
Last week, I
said that every instance in the Bible
where God allows people to have things which do not honor Him has been cause
for those people to fall upon their faces and cry out to Him for mercy when all
is said and done. The very next day, the same sex marriage ban is stricken down
as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
When His chosen, called out people,
chose to violate God’s commands in the Old Testament, to abandon His ways in
favor of the ways and false gods of the Canaanites, and rebelled against the
son of King Solomon, Rehoboam, God showed implacable patience. They were going
to pay in blood for what they had done, just as all sin is paid for, and the
process would ultimately take generations to bear out. Rehoboam even assembled
an enormous army to force the rebelling Israel to reunify the kingdom under one
king, and God said through His prophet, send them all home, because I have done
this. The people got worse, and worse, and worse, and the LORD granted grace to
a few of David’s descendants to repent and turn the people back to God, while
most of the kings that sat on David’s throne compounded the sins of their
fathers and led the people to more and more corruption, while God let out the
noose, until the worship of another god was done even in the Temple complex
itself.
Jeremiah 15 details how God
pulled that noose tight; how completely *done* He was with His people. God is
speaking to Jeremiah;
those destined for the sword, to the sword.
Who will show sympathy toward you?
so I have
stretched out
My hand against you
The Kingdom of Judah, the last remnant of the original 12 tribes,
was about to be taken away to Babylon.
The last sight of Zedekiah, its last king, would be to watch his sons put to
death before having his own eyes cut out, and led blind through the gates of
the conquering city. Anyone that wasn’t taken captive along with the royal
family was either put to the sword or left to starve to death within Jerusalem’s walls.
Despite the warnings from the prophets, the people did not turn
from their ways. A nation that believed itself to be supreme despite its size
in the known world, filled with pride in itself, placing abomination where
worship of the Living God once took place--just like another nation I could
mention.
This took us from Ephesians a little, but it certainly bore
mentioning.
Back to it, at verse 20.
20 But that is not how you
learned about the
Messiah, 21 assuming you
heard about Him and
were taught by Him, because the
truth is in
Jesus. 22 You
took off your
former way of life, the
old self
that is corrupted by deceitful
desires;
Look at the tense of that. The former way of life, the old
corrupted self; is all past tense. You took it off. It means that you no longer
wear *you*, whatever you happen to be.
In verse 25 Paul brings out specific examples of things which
bring discord to the Body, and are therefore sin.
Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” If we speak
lies, and claim His Name as His followers, we are not acting as members of His
Body, of branches grafted into the Vine, but are rogue elements, cancer,
branches bearing fruit of the flesh and not the Spirit. Those get cut off and
burned. There is no room for struggling, for lying when it suits us. Have
mercy, LORD God. Lying was an activity put away by the one granted grace to
live in You. One lies to escape truth, and You are the Truth. We can’t be a
part of Your Body, in harmony with the nature of the One Who never ceases to
obey His Father, while doing the things Your Father said He hates, Lord Jesus.
We can’t be healthy flesh and cancer at the same time, Lord. Have mercy upon
me.
The Greek word here for “being angry”, orgizò, is defined as
positive when inspired by God, and always negative when inspired from the
flesh. The focus of sinful anger is the offender, while anger inspired by God
focuses on what was actually done and the moral implications of it.
As Cyril has said regarding this verse, this is an example of a
gift, used selfishly when the holder of the gift followed the inclinations of
his thoughts, now turns that gift to the obedience of the law of Christ once
the Lord’s nature is taken on in harmony with His people, unified within His
body.
The word for grieve, pronounced loo-peh’-o is deeply
significant. In context here it means we are not to offend the Holy Spirit, but
the word itself refers to deep, emotional pain, severe sorrow. The word
contains such intensity that it is even used to convey a mother’s childbirth
pain. It is the very word used in the Septuagint to describe in Genesis what
God tells Eve she would have to endure as a result of her part in the sin
against God.
Where the labeler of the term “dogmatic” and I differed in all
of this was in what I perceived, perhaps falsely, as his ready acceptance that
we will sin and can do nothing to prevent it in this life. And while I see the
provision of grace for our sin, I see no provision for willful sin within the
Bible other than exposure as counterfeit in the faith, and separation from God,
which is eternal death. I would very much like for us as a Fellowship to talk
about this, because Ephesians 4, and more places in the Bible than I can
presently count, leave no allowance for willful sin, let alone permit us to
accept it as a constant companion. As an Apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul was
explicit that we are not saved by our actions, desires, or efforts, but by
God’s merciful grace alone, so we can boast only in Christ, who made that grace
possible. But he also explicitly said that we can not live in sin that grace
may abound, because, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” and that
the present tense of the flesh “with its affections and lusts”, our old self,
was to be crucified with our Lord Jesus.
All of Romans 6 I offer for our consideration of this matter, to illustrate
what I mean. ESPECIALLY verse 6.
1
What
should we say then? Should
we continue in sin so that
grace may multiply? 2
Absolutely
not! How can
we who died to
sin
still live in it?
3
Or are
you unaware that all
of us who were baptized into Christ
Jesus were baptized into His
death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him by
baptism
into death, in order
that, just
as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, so we too
may walk
in a new way of
life. 5
For if
we have been joined with Him in
the likeness of His
death, we
will certainly also be in the
likeness of His resurrection. 6
For we know that our
old self, was crucified with Him in order
that sin’s dominion
over the body
may be abolished, so that we may no
longer be enslaved to
sin, 7
since a person
who has died is freed from
sin’s claims. 8 Now if
we died
with Christ, we
believe
that
we will also live with Him,
9
because
we know
that Christ, having
been raised from the dead,
will not die again. Death no longer
rules over Him. 10
For in light
of the fact that He died, He
died to sin once for
all; but in
light of the fact that He lives, He
lives to God. 11
So,
you too
consider yourselves
dead to sin but
alive to God in
Christ Jesus.
15
What then? Should
we sin
because we are not under law but under
grace? Absolutely not!
16
Don’t
you know
that if you offer
yourselves to someone as obedient slaves,
you are
slaves of that one
you obey — either of
sin
leading to death or of
obedience leading to
righteousness? 17 But
thank God that, although
you used to be slaves of
sin, you
obeyed
from the heart that
pattern of teaching you were transferred to, 18
and
having been liberated from sin,
you became enslaved to righteousness. 19
I
am using a human analogy because of the
weakness of your flesh.
For just as
you offered the parts of
yourselves as slaves to
moral impurity, and to greater and greater lawlessness, so now
offer them as
slaves to righteousness, which results
in sanctification. 20
For when
you were slaves of
sin, you were
free from allegiance to righteousness. 21
So what
fruit was produced then from the
things
you are now ashamed of? For the end of
those things is death. 22
But now, since
you have been liberated from sin and
have become enslaved to God, you
have your
fruit, which
results in sanctification — and the end is
eternal life! 23
For the
wages of sin is
death, but the
gift of God is
eternal life in
Christ Jesus our
Lord.
