Ephesians 4:17-24 (Created After the Likeness of God)

(Eph 4:17-24 ESV) 17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ! — 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

We tend to study passages like this one microscopically — taking each verse and each phrase and dissecting it under a lens. And that’s not wrong. But sometimes it misses the point. And the point of these verses is at the end: “created after the likeness of God.”

Paul’s point is to contrast the Gentiles “in the futility of their minds” (v 17) with citizens of God’s Kingdom, who’ve been re-created to be like God. That’s a big thought! And this is the theme sentence of the rest of the book. The rest of Ephesians is all about being like God —

(Eph 4:23-24 ESV) be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

(Eph 4:32 ESV) 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

(Eph 5:1 ESV) Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.

(Eph 5:23 ESV) 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

And, of course, we can only be like God because we’ve been re-created by God for this purpose —

(Eph 2:10 ESV) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

(Eph 2:14-16 ESV) 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

God “created all things.” (Eph 3:9). He uses the same word to refer to his re-creation of individual Christians (2:10; 4:24) and his re-creation of the Kingdom (2:15) by opening the kingdom to the Gentiles by the grace that comes from Christ Jesus.

You see, in Paul’s mind, the miracle that allows Gentiles to be saved by grace is just as great and mighty as the miracle that created the heavens and the earth. It’s not just the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus, it’s also the miracle of transforming us — “his workmanship” — by the power of the Spirit when we are saved.

Renewal is another theme of Ephesians —

(Eph 2:14-16 ESV) 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

(Eph 4:23-24 ESV) be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Again, newness is attributed both to the Kingdom (2:15) and the individual Christian (4:23-24), and in both cases, the renewal is by the power of God. The Kingdom is made new by the admission of the Gentiles, ending hostility between Jew and Gentile, not to mention the hostility among the nations against each other. The renewal of the individual Christian is the restoration of the individual to right relationship with God, and so to become like God.

As is always true in Christianity, God’s redemptive work is at two levels — individual redemption into a redeemed community; individual renewal into a renewed community; restoration of the individual into the image of God and the restoration of the church into the image of God. It’s always both/and individual and Kingdom. It’s never just about the individual being saved. It’s always saved into community in order to become like God and so participate in his mission.

Now, of course, all this is in contrast to the behavior of the Gentiles in the surrounding culture. The pagan world was capable of unspeakable debauchery — and that’s not changed. Paul’s argument is, therefore, counter-cultural for the Gentile readers. They cannot participate in the normal life of a First Century Greek and must give up certain things to be like God. Our God is not like their gods!