Transcript Document

Hypocrites and Backsliders
Lesson 27
Spiritual Death
Spiritual Death
• This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord,
that you should no longer walk as the
Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,
18 being darkened in their understanding,
alienated from the life of God because of the
ignorance that is in them due to the hardness
of their hearts, 19 because they have become
callous and have abandoned themselves to
licentiousness for the greedy practice of
every type of impurity.
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• They must no longer behave as Gentiles,
120
for
they no longer are Gentiles.
• When this statement is analyzed it becomes clear
that two ideas are combined here: a. Lay aside your
former manner of life (cf. 2:1–3, 12; 4:14, 22); and
b. do not imitate your present evil environment.
• With reference to Gentile conduct Paul adds: in the
futility of their mind.
• The rendering “vanity” instead of “futility” is not
wrong, since the latter is one of the meanings of the
former.
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• Nevertheless, inasmuch as “vanity” also has another, very
different and yet very common, meaning, namely, excessive
pride, conceit, “futility” is to be preferred.
• The apostle emphasizes a very important point, namely, that
all those endeavors which the Gentiles put forth in order to
attain happiness end in disappointment.
• Their life is one long series of mocked expectations. It is a
pursuing and not achieving, a blossoming and not bearing
fruit. Cf. Rom. 8:20. All the rivers run into the sea, but the
sea is never filled.
• The eye is never satisfied with seeing nor the ear with
hearing.
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• All this chasing after riches, honor, mirth, etc., is nothing but
“a striving after wind” (Eccles. 1:7, 8; 3:9).
• Their mind or intellect is fruitless.
• It produces naught that can satisfy. Continued: 18, 19. being
darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of
God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the
hardness of their hearts, because they have become callous
and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness for the
greedy practice of every type of impurity.
• In order to see the entire picture of tragic hopelessness,
these two verses should be viewed as a unit.
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• It then becomes clear that the futility that characterizes the
Gentile mind is a product of darkened understanding and
estrangement from the God-given life, these two, in turn,
resulting from a type of ignorance that is by no means
excusable but is due to willful hardening and surrender to
unbridled license of every description.
• Being darkened is something that took place in the past but
has continuing effect.
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• The “understanding” or power of discursive reasoning had
been affected by sin.
• This understanding is treated here as if it were an eye that
had become blind.
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• This darkening, moreover, is far worse than physical
blindness, for the man who is physically blind knows it and
admits it, but the person who is spiritually and morally
darkened is blind even to the fact that he is blind (John 9:40,
41).
• Not only is it true that people of this kind dwell in the
darkness, but the darkness dwells in them.
• They have imbibed it, just as one day they will imbibe
(“drink”) God’s wrath (Rev. 14:10).
• Contrast these blind eyes with the “enlightened” eyes of
believers (2:18).
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• They are, moreover, alienated or estranged,
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and this not
only from “the commonwealth of Israel” as was pointed out
earlier (2:12) but also from “the life of God,” that is, from God
as the Source of eternal life.
• This darkening and alienation can be traced to their culpable
ignorance, a condition they had brought upon themselves by
hardening their hearts against the will of God.
• At one time, long, long ago their ancestors had had God’s
special revelation, but had rejected it.
• Many centuries had gone by.
• And now these distant descendants were suppressing even
the light of God’s general revelation in nature and
conscience with terrible results.
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• The picture, in all its lurid details, is drawn in Rom.
1:18–32; cf. 2:12 and 11:7.
• The very center of their being, their hearts, had
become “callous” by their own deliberate action.
• For “callous” the A.V. and A.R.V. have “past
feeling,” which is also an excellent rendering, the
root meaning of this perfect participle being “having
arrived at a condition of freedom from pain,” and
thus, in general, “having become insensible” with
reference here to the divine voice, to God’s truth.
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
•
• Some there are who over-emphasize feeling.
• Their religion never reaches any deeper than the
emotions. Their picture is drawn in Matt. 13:5, 6, 20,
21.
• They are not firmly rooted.
• They lack conviction.
• The Gentiles whom Paul here describes as a
warning example have followed the exactly opposite
course, which, if anything, is even worse.
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• By constantly saying “No” to God’s voice in conscience and
in the lessons which nature and history had provided, they
had at last become hard as stone, dead to all
responsiveness to that which is good and uplifting; not,
however, dead to all feeling and all desire.
• Now there have been many people throughout the course of
history who have taken pride in the stifling of all feeling.
• They were ashamed of shedding tears and even of revealing
any but the most indifferent reaction to any outside influence.
• Thus, for example, the Stoic’s ideal was release from every
emotion (“apatheia”).
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• Again, according to a familiar story, the Spartan youth who
had stolen a young fox and had hid it beneath his tunic,
allowed the animal to tear out his vitals, without betraying
himself by the movement of a muscle.
• In the camp of the Buddhists the best virtue is passionlessness, and heaven (“Nirvana”) has been defined as the
cessation of all natural desires.
• And among the American Indians a captured Iroquois did his
level best not to break down under torture, but instead to
react to it with perfect equanimity.
• What we have here, in 4:18, 19, however, is something far
worse.
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• The people of whom Paul was writing did not try to squelch
all feeling.
• Far from it!
• They did not oppose every type of desire. On the contrary
they suppressed only those feelings that are connected with
goodness.
• They were down on all desires that would have brought them
into closer harmony with the will of God.
• By constantly arguing with conscience, stifling its warnings
and muffling its bell, they had at last reached the point where
conscience could no longer bother them.
• It was seared (I Tim. 4:2).
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• They did have feeling and they did keep alive desire,
namely, feeling and desire for evil indulgence.
• They had abandoned themselves to vice.
• They gave themselves up to it (thus literally, in the original).
• The result of such base surrender is always this, that, if
persisted in, God gives the sinner up to suffer the full
consequences of his sin, as Exod. 8:15, 32, cf. 9:12; Rom.
1:24, 26, 28 (where the same verb, “give up,” is used as here
in Eph. 4:19) clearly teach.
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• The vice to which they abandoned themselves is called
licentiousness or “lasciviousness” (see also Rom. 13:13; II
Cor. 12:21; Gal. 5:19).
• The literature of the day was deeply immoral.
• So corrupt had the Roman world become that somewhat
later Origen states that when the people of his day
committed adultery and whoredom they did not regard
themselves as violating good manners.
• It has been remarked that it was not lava but lewdness that
buried Herculaneum.
• And the frescoes found amid the ruins of nearby Pompeii
show that this city was not any better.
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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen
• Note particularly: every type of impurity. For an
enumeration of these types see 4:25–31; 5:3–11,
15, 18; cf. Rom. 1:26–32.
•
• Hendriksen, William ; Kistemaker, Simon J.: New
Testament Commentary : Exposition of Ephesians.
Grand Rapids : Baker Book House, 1953-2001
(New Testament Commentary 7), S. 209
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Eph. 4:17-19 - Wiersbe
• The Admonition (Eph. 4:17–19)
• There are some negatives in the Christian life, and
here is one of them: “Walk not as other Gentiles
walk.”
• The Christian is not to imitate the life of the unsaved
people around him.
• They are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1),
while he has been raised from the dead and been
given eternal life in Christ.
• Paul explains the differences between the saved
and the unsaved.
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Spiritual Death
• Hebrews 8:10 (AMP)
• 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the
house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will
imprint My laws upon their minds, even upon their
innermost thoughts and understanding, and
engrave them upon their hearts; and I will be their
God, and they shall be My people.
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Eph. 4:17-19 - Wiersbe
•
• To begin with, Christians think differently from unsaved
people.
• Note the emphasis here on thinking: mind (Eph. 4:17, 23),
understanding (Eph. 4:18), ignorance (Eph. 4:18), “learned
Christ” (Eph. 4:20).
• Salvation begins with repentance, which is a change of
mind. The whole outlook of a person changes when he trusts
Christ, including his values, goals, and interpretation of life.
• What is wrong with the mind of the unsaved person? For one
thing, his thinking is “vain” (futile). It leads to no substantial
purpose.
• Since he does not know God, he cannot truly understand the
world around him, nor can he understand himself.
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Eph. 4:17-19 - Wiersbe
• The sad story is told in Romans 1:21–25.
• Our world today possesses a great deal of knowledge, but
very little wisdom.
• Thoreau put it beautifully when he said that we have
“improved means to unimproved ends.”
• The unsaved man’s thinking is futile because it is darkened.
• He thinks he is enlightened because he rejects the Bible and
believes the latest philosophies, when in reality he is in the
dark.
• “Professing themselves to be wise, they become fools”
(Rom. 1:22).
• But they think they are wise.
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Eph. 4:17-19 - Wiersbe
• Satan has blinded the minds of the unsaved (2 Cor.
4:3–6) because he does not want them to see the
truth in Jesus Christ.
• It is not simply that their eyes are blinded so they
cannot see, but that their minds are darkened so
that they cannot think straight about spiritual
matters.
• Of course, the unsaved man is dead because of this
spiritual ignorance.
• The truth and the life go together.
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Eph. 4:17-19 - Wiersbe
• If you believe God’s truth, then you receive God’s
life.
• But you would think that the unbeliever would do his
utmost to get out of his terrible spiritual plight.
• Alas, the hardness of his heart enslaves him. He is
“past feeling” because he has so given himself over
to sin that sin controls him. Read Romans 1:18–32
for a vivid expansion of these three brief verses.
• Wiersbe, Warren W.: The Bible Exposition
Commentary. Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1996,
c1989, S. Eph 4:17
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Eph. 4:17-19 - Liefeld
• Futility is a vacuum of accomplishment. The
promise of meaningful purpose and fulfillment
can be a powerful incentive to become a
Christian believer. But this motivation is not
effective among the Gentiles described here,
because these very people are devoid of
understanding and hard of heart. The futility
of their thinking perhaps serves therefore as
a stronger motivation to believers not to
return to that way of life than to those who
have not been converted.
•
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Eph. 4:17-19 - Liefeld
• The understanding that is darkened (v. 18) is the
dianoia, the mind. It is sometimes associated with the
heart. We are to love God with our heart, soul and
mind (Mt 22:37; compare Mk 12:30; Lk 10:27).
Hebrews 10:16 quotes the following from Jeremiah
31:33: “I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will
write them on their minds.” The biblical use of heart is
not mainly as the source of emotion, but as the
center of the whole personality. Mind denotes
understanding, but its meaning also overlaps with
that of heart.
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Eph. 4:17-19 - Liefeld
• The reader of verse 18 may think that there is a touch
of unfairness in people’s being separated from the life
of God because of ignorance and darkened …
understanding. But to think this is to miss the
sequence of the wording and the thrust of the
passage. These Gentile unbelievers do not have the
life of God because of (dia, “on account of”) the
ignorance that (in turn) is due to (again, dia) the
hardening of their hearts. Therefore it is their own
hardness against God that perpetuates their
alienation from God’s life.
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Eph. 4:17-19 - Liefeld
• Given this condition, there is a lack of
sensitivity (v. 19)
* that precludes any
response to God’s word.
• They are callous, beyond feeling.
• Further, there is a self-induced moral
degeneration that is unending, since there is
a continual lust for more.
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Eph. 4:17-19 - Liefeld
• The difference noted above between God’s giving the
Gentiles over to moral degeneration and the Gentiles’
giving themselves over to such impurity is
comparable to the situation of the Egyptian pharaoh
described in Exodus. The biblical text says both that
Pharaoh hardened his heart against God (Ex 8:15,
32; 9:34) and that God hardened his heart (Ex 9:12;
10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:8; compare Rom 9:17–18).
• Liefeld, Walter L.: Ephesians. Downers Grove,
Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 1997 (The IVP New
Testament Commentary Series 10), S. Eph 4:20
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Spiritual Death - Mechanics
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Vanity (Vacuum) of the Mind
Understanding (Appraisal Process) Darkened
Alienated from the Life from God
Ignorance in them
Heart Hardened
Past Feeling
Lascivious
Unclean
Greedy
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Spiritual Death: Eph 4:17-19
• 17So this I say, and affirm together with the
Lord, that you walk no longer just as the
Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,
18being darkened in their understanding,
excluded from the life of God because of the
ignorance that is in them, because of the
hardness of their heart; 19and they, having
become callous, have given themselves over
to sensuality for the practice of every kind of
impurity with greediness.
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"that you walk no longer just as the
Gentiles also walk"
• “Walk” is peripateō “to conduct one’s self,
order one’s behavior.”
• It includes all the manifestations of life, inner
and outer, seen and unseen. (Hodge)
• But here the walk which the apostle tells us to
avoid is, first, the inner life which characterize
the Gentiles, which the outer actions reveal.
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"in the vanity of their mind"
• In emptiness [mataios) of their intellect [nous]).
• "futility: In the 
LXX
this word
[191]
denoted the
futility of idol-worship as well as the emptiness of
human endeavours which sought to bring lasting
satisfaction" • O'Brien, Peter Thomas: The Letter to the
Ephesians. Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1999 (The Pillar New Testament
Commentary), S. 320
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Spiritual Death: Eph 4:18
• 18being darkened in their understanding,
alienated from the life of God because of the
ignorance that is in them, because of the
hardness of their heart;
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"being darkened in their
understanding"
•
•
•
•
darkened - σκοτοω
perfect passive participle of σκοτοω [skotoō],
In their understanding (διανοιᾳ - Locative case).
The Appraisal Process is δισνοια.
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"being darkened in their
understanding"
• σκοτόω, 

obscurity, darkness.

• The whole range of meaning may be understood
in terms of the basic sense: darkness, not in
connection with its optical effect,
9
but experienced
as an enveloping sphere and described in its
significance for existence, i.e., as a hindrance to
movement and action, to foresight, as the sphere
of objective peril and subjective anxiety.
(Kittell)
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Eph 4:18 (Darkness)
• For the Greek sight is quite simply the possibility
of life and self-orientation in it.
• This helps us to understand the transition from a
literal to a transferred use in the case of …
σκότος:
• 1. Darkness is concealment, obscurity, secrecy,
deception;
it is the obscurity of a thing or a
speaker;
and it is a lack of knowledge or insight.
• Darkness denotes the whole range of what is
harmful, or evil-in the sense of the threat to life, of
what is bad for me, as well as in that of moral evil,
or fatal.
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Eph 4:18 (Darkness)
•
•
•
•
captivity (Ps. 107:10 ff.),
evil (Ps. 44:19; Job 19:8; 22:10 f.; 30:26), and
wickedness (Ps. 10:7 ff.; 11:2; 74:20; 82:5).
It is also characterised as the supreme terror, especially as
darkness represents something dreadful for the Israelites.
• (4:18) “Darkened” is the perfect participle of skotoō “to
darken or blind the mind.”
• The perfect tense speaks of a process completed in past
time having present results to show the finished and
permanent result of the blinding of the mind by sin.
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Eph 4:18 - Darkness
• Darkened: Periphrastic σκοτιζω = darkened
= blackout.
• Perfect tense means this is permanent.
• Passive voice, this is received because of
the ignorance in them.
• The Unbeliever who rejects God has a
permanent blackout which causes him to be
disoriented to the grace of God.
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Eph 4:18 - Darkness
• "Darkness" is the "shadow of Death"
• Matthew 4:16 (AMP) The people who sat
(dwelt enveloped) in darkness have seen a
great Light, and for those who sat in the land
and shadow of death Light has dawned.
• Luke 1:79 (AMP) To shine upon and give
light to those who sit in darkness and in the
shadow of death, to direct and guide our feet
in a straight line into the way of peace.
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Eph 4:18 - Darkness
• Ephesians 1:18 (AMP)
• 18 By having the eyes of your heart flooded
with light, so that you can know and
understand the hope to which He has called
you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance
in the saints (His set-apart ones),
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"understanding"
• 18 Their understanding, their Appraisal Process (dianoia)
is darkened (skotao) and their reasoning is beclouded .
• [They are] alienated (estranged, self-banished) from the life
of God [with no share in it]
• because of the ignorance (the want of knowledge and
perception, the willful blindness)
• that is deep-seated in them,
• due to their hardness (porosis) of heart (Kardia)
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Eph 4:18 - Understanding
• The thinking part of the mind is going to be
definitely hurt by the vacuum.
• The Vacuum of the Soul has only one "inlet"
from which to suck information - The Sin,
the Sin Nature, residing in the Human Flesh.
• Having the understanding darkened.
Διανοια = thinking through, understanding.
• This refers to the conscious part of the mind
where you do your actual thinking.
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Understanding O'Brien
• The desperate condition of Gentiles outside
of Christ is now depicted in terms of their
being darkened in their understanding.
• It is noteworthy that the apostle goes out of
his way to emphasize the perceptive and
mental dimension in the human
estrangement from God.
•
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Understanding - O'Brien
• The Gentiles’ mind-set has been drastically
affected (
v.
17b), their thinking
193
has become
darkened so that they are blind to the truth, and
their alienation from God is because of the
ignorance within them.
• This darkness in their thinking was not some
temporary condition; as the emphatic periphrastic
expression
194
indicates, the light of their
understanding had gone out so that they were now
in a state of being incapable of grasping the truth
of God and his gospel.
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Understanding - O'Brien
• As noted above, this description of the Gentiles’
spiritual darkness is akin to the apostle’s earlier
words in Romans 1:21, ‘their foolish hearts were
darkened’, although here in Ephesians 4, as befits
an exhortation, there is greater stress on their own
responsibility for their abandonment to sin (see
on 
v.
19).
195
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Understanding - O'Brien
• In sharp contrast, Paul’s Christian readers,
through the enabling power of ‘the Spirit of
wisdom and revelation’ given to them, are
able to know God better and to understand
the truth of his purposes (Eph. 1:17–18).
• O'Brien, Peter Thomas: The Letter to the
Ephesians. Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999 (The Pillar
New Testament Commentary), S. 320
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Eph 4:18 - alienated
• They are described as being alienated,
described by απατριολα = to be alienated
from an ultimate source; to be estranged.
• It means also, “to shut out from one’s
fellowship and intimacy.”
• Expositors says: “Being in a state of moral
darkness, they also become alienated from
the true life.” The life of God is the life that
God provides.
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Eph 4:18 - Alienated
• Not only are Gentiles darkened in their
understanding; they are also separated from
the life of God,
196
that life which God
possesses in himself and bestows on his
children.
• Gentiles who do not belong to Christ are
‘dead’ through their trespasses and sins
(2:1, 5), and have no relationship at all with
the living God (2:12).
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Ignorance - O'Brien
• Their state of alienation
197
from his life was
because of the ignorance that is in them.
• Paul’s view of knowledge and ignorance is largely
determined by the Old Testament.
• To know God means to be in a close personal
relationship with him.
• Knowledge has to do with an obedient and grateful
response of the whole person, not simply
intellectual assent.
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Ignorance - O'Brien
• Likewise, ‘ignorance’
198
is a failure to be grateful
and obedient. It describes someone’s total stance,
and this includes emotions, will, and action, not
just one’s mental response.
• Not to know the Lord is to ignore him, to say ‘no’ to
his demands.
• Such ignorance is culpable.
• It is not an excuse for sin, though it is often
understood this way in contemporary thought.
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Ignorance - O'Brien
• The Gentiles’ inability to understand the light of
God’s truth is no excuse for their broken
relationship with him.
• Indeed, the additional words, ‘[the ignorance] that
is in them’, show that the responsibility is not
finally due to external factors.
199
• The blame falls squarely on their shoulders.
• O'Brien, Peter Thomas: The Letter to the
Ephesians. Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1999 (The Pillar New Testament
Commentary), S. 321
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Eph 4:18 - Alienated
• John 3:3,5,6 (YLT) If any one may not be
born from above, he is not able to see the
Kingdom-reign of God;
• 5 he is not able to enter into the Kingdomreign of God;
• 6 that which hath been born of the flesh is
flesh, and that which hath been born of the
Spirit is spirit.
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