This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind,…….(20) But you have not so learned Christ, (21) if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: (22) that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, (23) and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, (24) and that you put on the new man which was created, according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
The letter to the Ephesians was written by the apostle Paul. In our verses today Paul tells us the faithful are called to no longer live as unbelievers live; in the futility of their mind. They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God – ignorant of God in their hardness of heart. An unsaved man/woman lives contrary to every divine direction until he/she loses the capacity to feel shame or embarrassment. Sound doctrine about God, man, sin, salvation and every area of life is the foundation for spiritual understanding and light. We are not to be what we once were. We are told to put off our old nature; our corrupt sinful life, alienated and separated from the life of God and His truth with no fear of consequences. “The old man” refers to the unregenerated nature of man – the spirit of delusion. The blindness of themselves and their souls is a gradual sinking into spiritual decay which must become spiritual death. We are called to put off the “old man” and the works of darkness. We are to put in the new man, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to be changed and not merely just our acts.
In Christ, we are to live in the righteousness and holiness of a new person, renewed in the spirit of our mind and righteous in our behavior toward others. The Christian life begins when we receive eternal life from God through faith in Christ Jesus. We are taught from the standpoint of this new relationship with Christ. Saved in Jesus means saved not by a philosophy of redemption but saved by an historic person, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God. The truth of the gospel is rooted in history. True biblical change must not bypass the mind; decisions based in emotion will not last. Noteworthy is Paul’s emphasis on the intellectual factor in everybody’s way of life. Scripture is the testimony of the power of ignorance and error to corrupt, and the power of the truth to liberate.
We are to behave as we believe. We are not to live as an unbeliever – our walk is our way of life.
Don’t live as if God did not exist. Don’t live as if Christ hadn’t died for your sins. Don’t live as if there were no judgment or no heaven or hell. Don’t live in the futility of your mind.