The Secret of His Purpose

Chapter 13: Walk in Love...Light...Wisdom

Paul now leaves the subject of the functioning of the assembly and embarks upon some general and very practical exhortations on the believer's walk. This occupies the remainder of chapter four and the first twenty-one verses of chapter five.

In vs. 17-24 we have a contrast between the old life and the new life in Christ. The old, unregenerate life is based on the 'vanity' of the mind (v. 17) and it is from this hard core of conceit that the most blatant evils which Paul enumerates in the following two verses are produced. The vanity of human nature will stop at nothing to gratify self. It will stoop to the very lowest in order to have its own way. We must flee vanity as the plague. Nor were the mature Ephesians beyond the need of such an exhortation. Paul recognised that it applied also to himself, and that the surrender of a moment to self-gratification could put an abrupt end to his years of fruitful service and leave him but a castaway. This is the force of his words to the Corinthians, "But I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage; lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected" (I Corinthians 9:27). Vanity, pride and self-pleasing are from the source of the old, unregenerate nature, and compromise with it in any degree will lead to ultimate disaster. Pride goeth before destruction. A little indulgence may lead to a great fall. A little stone can start an avalanche.

"Ye did not so learn Christ" (v. 20). The life of Christ is the exact opposite, a complete denial of the 'former manner of life, the old man' (v. 22) and a choosing of the new. "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind" (v. 23), is the key to the Christian walk. Spiritual renewal, as we have already seen, does not consist merely of one dynamic experience, but is a constant process whereby our spiritual lives are kept vital and active, just as the vitality of the human body is dependent upon the remarkable process of renewal which goes on within it. Spiritual renewal, however, demands the unceasing exercise of the will. The power of choice is never withheld from God's people. We enter into fellowship with God only when we will that it should continue. The spiritual life is a life of daily denying the world and choosing Christ. Otherwise, what would be the point of Paul's urge in v. 24, 'Put on the new man'? Were not the Ephesians already part of the new creation? Had they not already put on the new man? Had they not been fused together in the body of Christ? Yes, indeed, but constantly they had to reaffirm the fact, "Today, I still choose Christ. I deny the world."

Paul further confirms this in his writing to the Romans. "Be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2). As Christians we have to accept a completely new set of standards, a set of standards which will inevitably come into conflict with the world around, and which will continuously confront us with a choice between the worldly and the divine. The choosing of Christ is the way of spiritual renewal, and as the verse also tells us, is the way of being kept in the assurance of the will of God. Let the urgency of this exhortation sink into our hearts. We are living as strangers and pilgrims in a foreign world, enveloped in an alien atmosphere, and surrounded by alien practices. In the trials and temptations of the circumstances with which we are daily confronted, are we ever ready to accept the way of Christ? Can we commence each day with the affirmation, "I deny the world. I choose Him"? Our Lord Himself supplies for us the example of steadfastness. The cross was faced unflinchingly. The world was denied. The choice was made. "The Lord God will help me: therefore have I not been confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed" (Isaiah 50:7).

The remaining verses of the chapter (vs. 25-32) leave us with some very plain and pointed words of advice and warning.' Putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbour: for we are members one of another," writes Paul (v. 25). Falsehood consists not only in the spoken word of untruth, but maybe even more often in an attitude or an evasive answer. The standard of truth in Christ is a standard of transparent honesty. "But let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: and whatsoever is more than these is of the evil one," are the words of our Lord (Matthew 5:37). The atmosphere of the world around us is charged with meaningless words, and glib and meaningless promises. Alas, how much of the world may be in the church. Where would we be today if the Lord had not meant exactly what He said, if the Word of God were undependable? Yet so often we expect the assembly to prosper and the work of God to grow although we, as children of God, have not learnt the elementary lesson of being dependable and of meaning just what we speak. How important this is in our relationship in God's family. When members of a family wish to hide things from one another, are evasive and not straightforward, it is unavoidable that disharmony should result. The church is no exception to this rule.

The Lord is 'slow to anger' says the Psalmist (Psalm 103:8) yet the whole of Scripture is a testimony to the indignation of God against sin, a wrath which, nevertheless, is revealed in love. Anger without sin (v. 26) is a revelation of the character of God, for in the world anger and sin practically always go together. Verse 26 is based on Psalm 4:4, "Be ye angry and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still." For a child of God to stand in the presence of sin unmoved and unconcerned is a denial of the holiness of the new life into which he has been born, but every observation of sin should be an incentive to examine his own heart. If he stands victorious, it is because of the grace of God, and the same grace is able to triumph over the sin which is justly the object of His anger. But the anger is constructive. Its aim is the destruction of the sin and the preservation of the person who has been its prey. "Let not the sun go down upon your provocation." Here we see the great difference between divine wrath and human anger. God forgives and forgets. Man harbours his anger in resentment. The wrath of God, having accomplished its purpose, is over and gone forever, and it is this type of indignation against sin which alone has any place in the life of the believer. To be otherwise, as Paul goes on to point out in the following verse, is simply to 'give place to the devil.'

Resentment is of the flesh. Its basis is pride. Its instigator is the devil. Here something of the insidiousness of Satan's wiles can be seen. He would use the very hatred of sin which is a mark of the Christ life, as a means to producing a spirit of resentment which breeds darkness and death. How we need to be aware of the ways in which the enemy attacks. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7).

Paul still further pursues the contrast between the old life and the new in v. 28. The old man steals for self, the new man works 'that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need.' This is but another example of the grace which should be an intrinsic part of the life of the assembly. God's people have been carried far beyond the realm of self, and the very work they do should not be simply for their own comfort, but for the good of the whole household of faith.

Verse 29 is a warning against gossip, one of the most prevalent of all sins, and maybe also one of the most deadly. "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt," writes Paul to the Colossians (Colossians 4:6). Is our conversation seasoned with the vitality of the Spirit, which makes what we have to say palatable and edifying? Does it minister grace? Or does it minister resentment, distrust and suspicion, these most effective destroyers of assembly life?

A refusal of these straightforward exhortations is a grief to the Holy Spirit and a denial of His power. He has sealed us unto the day of redemption (v. 30) and is, therefore, with us to grant every needed strength and grace to overcome. Paul sums up what he has been saying by drawing a final contrast between the maliciousness of the world and the grace of Christ (vs. 31-32). If we are asked to bestow grace upon one another, it is because grace has first been bestowed upon us. In all, Christ is our supreme example. For our Lord to reveal His holiness meant humbling Himself to become a man, it meant suffering unto the death of the cross, but He suffered rather than deny Himself. To do that would have been impossible. What is the price we are willing to pay that the life of Christ might be revealed in us? Are we willing to pay the price of our pride, the price of our ease? God demands no less. This is the cost of the glory in the church.

Chapter five opens with Paul's stressing the Lord's pre-eminence as our supreme example. "Be ye therefore imitators of God as beloved children" (v. 1). Children are great imitators. They are also hero-worshippers, but this latter is a trait which Paul does not commend. The Lord is our example, not man. True, the Scripture contains many exhortations to a godly life which may be an example to others, but the example is still and only Christ, whether His life be clothed with the body of one of His people, or be known through the account we read of His life in His Word. To fail to look beyond a man to Christ who is his life brings many snares. "Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ," wrote Paul to the Corinthians (I Corinthians 11:1) and we may add, "And not one inch further." If we see Christ in a brother, let us follow him, but let us be looking only for Christ. The most godly men fail, and many are the people who make the weaknesses of another an excuse for their own low standard, on the pretext of following a godly example. They have not looked beyond the man to the example of Christ.

When an assembly is dependent upon a man instead of upon the Lord, the same dangers present themselves. When the man, the example, falls away from the standard of Christ, the assembly follows suit. When the man is taken away, the assembly flounders. God's people have not looked beyond the example of the man to Christ. All of us have received great blessing through different servants of God, but the time will come when our faith will be put to the test as to whether it rests upon God or upon man.

This time of testing came to Israel on the death of Moses. The editor of the book of Deuteronomy tells us, "There hath not risen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face" (Deuteronomy 34:10). This outstanding man was removed from Israel just at the point, it would seem, where he was needed most. How could the people go on without him? "Moses my servant is dead," said the Lord, "Now therefore arise; go over this Jordan" (Joshua 1:2). God was leading them. Even Moses was not indispensable.

Our example is Christ, and in the three aspects of our walk which Paul enumerates in the following verses, He is there to show us the way: a walk in love (vs. 2-7), a walk in light (vs. 8-14), and a walk in wisdom (vs. 15-21).

We have already noticed how our Lord's life was characterised by grace and truth (John 1:14) which are the practical expressions of love and holiness. Holiness is inseparable from love, for unholiness causes damage and destruction, while love builds up. Christ's love for us meant the giving of Himself as a holy sacrifice for us (v. 2). Likewise, our walk in love before our brethren and before the world, if it is to be a testimony to Christ, must also be a walk of holiness, denying the world and everything that would be a means of stumbling. All the vices which Paul lists in vs. 3-5 can be the product of small, selfish beginnings, of a lack of concern, of a lack of thought, of a lack of love. They produce ultimately in others a lack of holiness and God's judgement. The walk of love is a walk of carefulness wherein the criterion of our actions is not their effect upon us, but their effect upon our brethren.

Christ is our light. "I am the light of the world," He said (John 8:12). Yet, "Ye are the light of the world," we read in Matthew 5:14. Christ is the light of the world through His people. "Walk as children of light," says Paul (v. 8). That is to say, walk in the standard of Christ, deviating from it neither to the right nor to the left. The standard of Christ is an absolute standard. Our Christian walk is not to be affected by how we think it might react on the world around us. While our walk must be without offence to the people of God, it can never be without offence to the world, for holiness is an offence to sin. We can never accommodate the life of Christ to the demands of the unregenerate. The life of heaven cannot be put on a par with the life of earth. There can be no compromise. The life of Christ is meant to be a reproof to the life of the world (v. 11). The standard of the world is variable; the standard of Christ is settled and absolute.

"The fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness, and truth" (v. 9). The purpose of this fruit is not to placate the conscience of the world, but to be a testimony to a higher and different life, and to convict. "All things when they are convicted are made manifest by the light" (v. 13). This is our commission, one of the reasons God, in His grace, has awakened us out of the sleep of death (v. 14) that we should walk as a witness in this world of the light which is Christ.

The third aspect of our walk mentioned by Paul is really the first in importance. The walk of love and of light stems directly from the walk 'not as unwise but as wise' (v. 17). The Psalmist tells us, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all they that do thereafter" (Psalm 111:10). The wisdom which must characterise our walk is not the wisdom of the flesh, but simply and plainly the respect of the Lord which leaves us subject to Him in everything. In the realm of the Spirit there is no other wisdom. Christ again is our example as He subjected Himself completely to the will of the Father, and through His subjection brought to light all the will of God in His great plan of eternal redemption. Being subject to Christ means seeking Him, for we can hardly come under the rule of a person whom we completely ignore, and seeking Him means finding Him (v. 17). Our Lord Himself had need to cultivate the life in the secret place with His Father. We can do no better than to follow Him, 'buying up the opportunity' (v. 16) of entering into a discernment of the will of God, for such discernment comes in no other manner. Here then is the source of our walk in light and in love. Who can come out of God's council chamber to walk without the dignity of the one whose presence he has enjoyed, or without the divine imperative burning in his soul to love as he has been loved?

"Be filled in spirit," urges Paul (v. 18), to commune with one another and with the Lord in a thanksgiving which embraces all things (vs. 19-20). Having emerged from an audience with a king, will not what we have seen and heard fill our hearts and our conversation? Will not every trial, and every sorrow, and every disagreement be drowned in our thanksgiving that it should ever have been made possible for us to approach the throne? But more than this, will the greatness of the privilege we have enjoyed not unite us together in respect and awe that He, God, should have allowed us to approach Him, and should even have drawn us into the confidence of His will? Will we not lament our own unworthiness, and long that we might become more worthy of the One whose we are? But how can this be? By 'subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ,' says Paul. See Christ in one another and learn from Him.

The majesty of His presence has taught us that not one has whereof he can boast. What little we know, through the grace of His indwelling, we will share, but we want to learn more. We are each one but the very least of all His servants. We will vie not for the highest place, the place of authority, but for the lowest, the place where we can sit at the feet of Christ revealed in our brethren and learn more of Him. This is the walk of wisdom.

Next: Chapter 14: Nor Spot, Nor Wrinkle