Ephesians: Part 3 - Ch. 4

Power of The Spirit

As Paul progresses through his letter to the Ephesians, we come to chapter 4, where Paul puts a strong emphasis on the Holy Spirit. If you were with us in our last post on chapter 3, you remember how Paul just got done explaining the mystery of Christ, which was that all people can be saved through Him, not just the Israelites. This next chapter builds off of this concept perfectly because what Paul is stressing here is that no matter who you are, if you have been saved by Christ, you have His Spirit in you. As John Piper so beautifully puts it, “Having the Holy Spirit marks one off as a Christian. You can’t be a Christian if you don’t have the Spirit. There are no Christians who don’t have the Holy Spirit.” If we have indeed been born again, we have the Holy Spirit. Now we can always pray that the Holy Spirit would lead us to be more passionate or to fill us up with more of Christ and less of ourselves, but make no mistake about it, if you are saved, you have God’s Spirit in you. This is why, as Paul talks about unity and being a new man in Christ throughout this chapter, you will see that we cannot read far before coming into contact with the Holy Spirit. The reason for this is that we cannot achieve unity or live as a new man with the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives in the first place. So with all of this in mind, let’s break down this chapter to see what Paul has to communicate to other believers about the power of the Spirit in their own lives. 

Unity In The Spirit

To begin, Paul breaks down what it means to be living in unity of the Spirit. At the beginning of this chapter, Paul is explaining to the Ephesians how they are supposed to live in unity since they all serve the same God. Paul clarifies this in Ephesians 4:3-6 when he says, “being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you also were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” Paul is absolutely clear that if we are to be unified as a body of believers, we must all agree that there is one body of believers, with one Holy Spirit, and the only hope we have of salvation is Jesus Christ. Paul makes this clear because the Christian faith is not polytheistic. We cannot just say that the god I serve is a little different from yours and still be considered Christ-followers. Either we serve the same God, who never changes, whose way of salvation is built through Christ, or we don’t. Anyone who attempts to be baptized in a different name, claims that they serve a different lord, or who places their hope in anyone other than Christ, cannot be considered a brother or sister. 

This is why Paul goes deeper in this chapter about how the Holy Spirit builds up believers for the edification of the Church. Paul teaches exactly what the goal of unity through the Spirit is right after this in Ephesians 4:13-15 where he says, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledgeof the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is, Christ,” We are all led by the Spirit, not just so that we may be unified, but so that we may grow into the fullness of Christ. The goal of the Holy Spirit is to lead us to Christ more and more, to sanctify us more and more, so that we may become more and more like Christ and less and less like ourselves. This is how we become unified in one Spirit: by being sanctified over time to become like Christ. 

The New Man

This whole breakdown of how the Holy Spirit unifies us and leads us to sanctification is exactly what Paul needed to explain in order to dive into the last part of this chapter. Within the last few verses of chapter 4, Paul explains how we are to put on our new selves and live the life that our Lord has marked out for us. Paul again discusses how we should be living our lives since we all have the same Spirit, and he does so using powerful language. As he closes the chapter, Paul reminds us that our flesh is against the Spirit and that we must be led by the Spirit, lest we give the devil an opportunity to lead us back into sin. The most practical breakdown we see of putting on this new man is found in Epehsians 4:21-24 where Paul says, “if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former way of life, you are to rid yourselves of the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” If we have indeed followed Jesus’ teachings and have repented and believed in His gospel, then we are to put off our old selves, which are being corrupted. This is some strong, yet necessary language that Paul decides to use here. It’s not enough for one to just believe that Jesus is real and is the Son of God; we must show it in our lives by being led by the Spirit to repentance. Once this takes place, we can live in confidence knowing that we have the Holy Spirit and that He will seek to unify us to the body of Christ for the rest of our lives. I hope and pray that as you read through this letter and more specifically this chapter, you would understand the power that the Holy Spirit has in your life and that you would seek to put off your old self and come alive in Christ as the Spirit sanctifies you to become more and more like Jesus. May this chapter always be a reminder to us to strive for unity amongst believers and to have humility as we continually die to our old way of living and become sanctified by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

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Sources

[1] Blue Letter Bible. (n.d.). Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/

[2] (https://www.facebook.com/JohnPiper, “How Do I Know If the Holy Spirit Is in Me?”)