The Summation of All Things in Christ

Studies in Ephesians with a Local Church Emphasis

Lesson 97 : Our New Identity in Christ (4:20-24)

Fitting vv. 20-24 into the context  –  Structure  –  Emphatic: the Christian is different than the unbeliever  –  Unusual phrase: we are not to learn a subject but we are to learn a Person!  –  We have a living Saviour  –  ‘Assuming you have heard’ does not imply doubt but confident assumption  –  ‘To hear’ implies intelligence and obedience  –  Paul assumes believers will continue to learn  –  Happens at the moment of our salvation  –  Knowledge of God is inconsistent with sin  –  Paul’s only used of ‘Jesus’ in Ephesians  –  These three infinitives are not purely commands  –  How Paul uses ‘put off / put on’ in other passages  –  Common metaphor of clothing  –  Is Paul making reference to our baptism?  –  The ‘old man’ : out position and our condition  –  What is the ‘new man’?  –  What does it mean to ‘die to ourselves’?  –  The deception of sin  –  ‘To be renewed’ is a continual process in our thinking, an on-going process  –  All people are in a state of either continual corruption in sin or continual renewal  –  ‘In the spirit of your mind’ a reference to the human spirit or the Holy Spirit?  –  This argues against legalism  –  ‘created’ is passive, a work of God  –  Man as man should have been