Ephesians 4 Devotional
by Pastor Lawrence

If you remember, in the first chapter of Ephesians Paul doesn’t really tell us to do anything other than to listen and to believe.  He wants us to know that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ in the heavenly realms, that we have been chosen by God, predestined to be adopted as his sons, that we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and forgiven of our sins, that we have had the mystery of Christ revealed to us, that we have had the Holy Spirit given to us as a seal of our inheritance, and that He has given us abundant grace that we might give him all the glory.  Then Paul prays for us that we might know God better and that we might know the hope of our calling and God’s incomparably great power for those who believe.

Then, in chapter two he reminds us of what we were before Christ called us, how we were dead in our transgressions and sins, slaves to this world and to Satan, how we were objects of God’s wrath, but out of God’s free grace he gave us faith as a gift that we might be saved and that we might do good works since we were created for that purpose.  He also tells us how we as Gentiles were separated from Christ, excluded from the kingdom of God, strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world, but how we have been brought near through the blood of Christ.  In addition, he tells us how Christ has destroyed the barrier between the Jews and Gentiles and how we are now one new man in Christ that we might both have access to the Father through the one spirit.

Then in ch.3 he tells us that he is in prison for this very purpose, to make the gospel known to the Gentiles and to tell of the mystery of God’s church that it includes both Jews and Gentiles on equal standing.  Afterward, he prays for the church again for strength, and love, and the filling of the Spirit assuring us that God is able to answer our prayers, working with his great power for the glory of the church and the glory of Christ both now and forevermore.  He wants us to know these things and he prays that we would know and reflect on these truths in our lives.

But beginning in chapter four there is clearly a change in Paul’s writing.  He moves from primarily teaching doctrine to teaching our duty.  The Westminster Shorter catechism question asks, “What do the Scriptures teach?”  The answer is: “the Scriptures teach what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man.” Perhaps you’ve noticed that in the first half of this epistle Paul has only been teaching us what we are to believe concerning God and his works.  But now in the rest of the letter he is teaching us what our duty is in light of God’s work.  These two emphases are sometimes expressed as the indicative and the imperative or what is and what must be.  It also is referred to as the credenda and the agenda, what we are to believe and what we are to do.

This change of emphasis is usually expressed in our English translations with the word “therefore,” or “then.”  For instance in the first 11 chapters of Romans Paul taught about God’s gracious election and mercy, but he begins ch.12 saying, “therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.”  And the rest of that epistle he focuses on the duties that are required of them.  Similarly in the first four chapters of Galatians Paul talks about the believer’s freedom from the condemnation of the law and then in ch.5 he says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, “then,” and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  In the first two chapters of Colossians Paul speaks of the supremacy of Christ and the believer’s identification with Christ in his life, death and resurrection.  But in ch.3 Paul says, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God….Put to death, therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature.”

Many of Paul’s epistles are structured in this way, and Ephesians is no exception.  For, after Paul has described our glorious calling by God in the first three chapters, he begins ch.4 saying, “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”  This is a very important statement by Paul and we cannot afford to rush past it for it gives us the foundation and the motivation for living a godly life in Christ Jesus.

The foundation for living a godly life, according to v.1, is our calling by God.  For “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”  We did not choose him, but he chose us that we might go and bear much fruit.  And he has not only called us to this new life in Christ, he has given us the power and the spirit and the promises and the benedictions to make sure we live up to it.

That’s what the apostle means when he tells us to live a life worthy of the calling we have received.  He is not suggesting that we can somehow earn our salvation or earn God’s favor by somehow living worthily of him.  Only Christ, the perfect, divine man was able to live in such a way.  We will never please God by trying to keep the law in our own strength, for we will always fall short of his glory or his standards of worth.  Rather, Paul is saying that we have already been given a high status of worth by God, we have been declared righteous in his sight, holy and blameless.  We are called his saints, his precious ones, his sons and daughters, the apple of his eye.  We are not trying to become worthy in that way.  We are not trying to become acceptable before God.  He has already made us worthy and acceptable in his sight.  But now that we are worthy and have been called by God we should live up to our calling and live a life worthy of that calling.

It’s interesting; our word “worthy” actually comes from the Greek word “axios,” which signifies weight.  When we are first called Christians, there seems to be no weight behind it, for we do not look like Christians at all, but overtime we should be gaining weight, the weight of the glory and holiness, that is.  We actually get our English word “axiom” from this Greek word, which means to be of equal weight.  It has the root meaning of balancing the scales.  What is on one side of the scales should be equal in weight to what is on the other side.  In a math equation, the axiom indicates doing something to each side of the equation so that it remains true.  Paul is saying we should commit ourselves to living lives equal to our calling.  We have been called Christians and saints, and now we are called to act as such but only by the power of Christ as we walk in the Spirit.  The rest of the epistle, then, is showing us how to move up to the next weight class so that we can fight the good fight.