The Text: Ephesians 4:17–32
Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 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. They have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practise every kind of uncleanness.
You did not so learn Christ! — assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. Put off your old nature, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Therefore, putting away falsehood, let everyone speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another. Be angry, but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labour, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need.
Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Introduction: A Way to Life and a Way of Life
Pawson opens with a question worth sitting with: is Christianity a way of life, or a way to life? Long before the word Christianity existed, the faith was simply called the Way — a title Jesus gave himself, and which became the name of the religion he founded. When Saul the Pharisee travelled to Damascus, he carried authority to arrest any who belonged to the Way.
Pawson’s answer: both — but in a specific order. You come to Christ and find the way to life; then you work that out in a way of life. You do not try to live the Christian way of life first and hope it leads you to life. You find life first, and then you live it. The first three chapters of Ephesians deal with Christianity as a way to life — inspiring, thrilling, exciting. The second half deals with the way of life — less exciting, but far more instructive, because this is where it all has to be lived. It is no use having your head in the clouds of heaven unless your feet are on the earth.
Paul begins this passage with unusually forceful language: I affirm and testify — two strong legal words, almost an oath. His point is simple and absolute: you cannot walk two ways at once. You can’t tack the cross onto your old life; you must nail your old life to the cross. It is either/or, not both. Many Christians fail to enjoy the fullness of the new life precisely because they are still trying to walk two ways at once.
Pawson illustrates this with the swimming pool: some people dive straight in and come up gasping, delighted, calling others to join them; others creep down the steps a toe at a time, shivering at the water’s edge, miserable. Until you decide to leave the past behind and plunge in, you cannot enjoy the new life.
The New Life in Principle
Paul first lays out the principle of the new life, then from verse 25 works it out in practice. Three principles structure the first half of the passage: tradition, transposition, and transformation.
1. Tradition — What Must Be Left Behind
Paul asks his readers to leave behind the tradition — the way everybody else lives, the customs they were raised in, the way of life of their neighbours. He describes the condition of those who do not know Christ with two things: an ignorant mind and a hardened heart.
An Ignorant Mind
This does not mean an unbeliever cannot be clever. Someone may hold a string of degrees, excel brilliantly in their field, and yet be utterly ignorant about God — not even up to primary Sunday-school standard. Paul characterises this mind in three ways.
Futile — a word that means to go round in circles, like a roundabout: you get on, enjoy the ride, and get off exactly where you started, having gone nowhere. Brilliant, accomplished people can spend a whole life going round and round and arrive at the end no further on.
Darkened — as if blindfolded, unable to see. Pawson recalls a man who joked, “you’ll never get me to see the light” — an admission, without realising it, of a mind walking in shadow.
Alienated — meaning a link that once existed has been broken. This is a crucial distinction: the unbeliever’s mind is not dark because it never had light, but because it once had some light — perhaps a grandmother’s words, a sunset, a hymn drifting from a church door — and turned away from it. Alienation implies a prior connection deliberately severed.
A Hardened Heart
Behind the ignorant mind lies a hardened heart. Pawson describes the petrifying well at Knaresborough in Yorkshire, where mineral-laden water dripping onto ordinary objects — a hat, an umbrella, a handbag — slowly turns them to stone. Paul uses precisely this word for the Gentile heart: petrified, calcified — the same term used of joints that have stiffened solid.
A hardened heart is one deliberately toughened — a heart that was once tender, that God could once touch, but which said “no” and hardened itself against his call. Paul makes a remarkable observation: the more a person indulges and stimulates their own feelings, the less sensitive they become to the feelings of others. The sensual become insensitive.
This is the first principle: that former way of life — ignorant mind and hard heart — must be left behind entirely, never revisited. You cannot enjoy the new life while still returning to the old.
2. Transposition — Lifted to a Higher Key
Transposition, Pawson explains, is a musician’s term for changing key — lifting a tune higher or lower. In Christ, your whole life has been transposed to a higher key. You did not learn from Christ to have an ignorant mind or a hard heart; you learned the opposite.
This happened in two stages, both named in the text: you heard about Christ, and you were taught in him. Christianity first reaches a person through the ear — someone spoke to you about Jesus while you were far off. But having come to Christ, the teaching continues; you needed teaching before you found him, and you need teaching afterward. Everything taught in Christ points the same direction: leave the old life behind, bring none of its luggage, and he will replace it entirely.
3. Transformation — Changing Your Clothes
The third principle is the principle of changing clothes. A Christian is now in a position to put off the old and put on the new — but you cannot put on clean clothes without first taking off the dirty ones. Pawson recalls, with some amusement, once seeing a lady wearing two hats at once, having forgotten she already had one on. You cannot wear two sets of clothes in the Christian life.
This directly contradicts the common claim that human nature cannot be changed. You cannot change your old nature, no — but in Christ, you can put it off, and put on an entirely new one. A Christian has a new wardrobe.
The New Life in Practice
Having laid out the principle, Paul becomes specific. Three things in particular should characterise the Christian’s new life: truthfulness, trustworthiness, and tenderness.
Truthfulness
Truthfulness must be taught; falsehood comes naturally. You never need to teach a child to lie — they learn that on their own. There are many ways to be false: a deliberate lie is one, but simply withholding what you really think or feel is another — a kind of lived falsehood. The more sophisticated a society becomes, the more people wear a polite social veneer that hides the real person beneath. Pawson notes that he is sometimes asked to write a character reference and has to admit honestly: I’ve only ever seen this person in church, on their best behaviour — I don’t really know what they’re like on a Monday morning.
The old nature wants to hide — to plant a hedge, hang lace curtains, and be found only when ready to be found. Paul’s instruction is the opposite: speak truth with your neighbour, in conversation and in emotion, because we are members of one another. If the parts of a body do not send each other accurate signals, the body cannot function.
This includes honesty of feeling — which leads to one of Scripture’s most startling commands: “Be angry.” It is impossible to translate this away; every version has had to render it as a command, not merely a permission. The point: suppressed anger does not vanish, it smoulders, and the devil delights in people who bottle it up rather than deal with it honestly. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, or you hand the devil an opportunity to work overnight — even in your sleep.
This is not a blank cheque for losing your temper over anything. It must be the right kind of anger — the anger Jesus showed whenever children were hurt, or the poor exploited, or the defenceless attacked. Most of what makes us cross is simply our own will being thwarted, and that sort of anger belongs before God alone, to be cleansed, not vented on others.
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness follows closely on truthfulness — being someone others can genuinely rely on, first with possessions and then with words.
With possessions: it should go without saying that a Christian does not steal. But Paul’s stated motive is striking — not merely to stop taking from others, but to start giving to those in need. The old life takes what it has no right to; the new life gives to those who, by rights, have no claim on you. That is a far better way to live.
With words: to be trusted to say the right thing, at the right time, in the right way. Pawson quotes James: whoever does not say the wrong thing is a perfect man — a standard none of us has met. Corrupt or foul speech is a habit that can return even years after conversion, and Paul insists it must not be allowed back. Three tests apply to speech: the right thing (good for building up), the right time (fitting the occasion), and the right way (imparting grace to the hearer) — speech, as Paul says elsewhere, seasoned with salt. Pawson shares a small family habit: someone about to say the wrong thing at the wrong moment is signalled with the letters T-A-K-T — tact — a gentle private reminder that keeps the family honest with one another.
Tenderness
The blows of life make some people tough, and others tender — like a hard cut of steak tenderised by repeated blows of a hammer. A Christian has no easier life than anyone else, but is meant to grow more tender, not more tough, as life goes on. This tenderness runs in two directions: toward God, and toward other people.
Tenderness Toward God
Paul writes that we can grieve the Holy Spirit — knowing when we have hurt him, upset him, made him sad. Pawson notes that this is an extraordinary claim found in no other religion: that God has feelings. One line in the Book of Common Prayer states that God is “without body, parts, or passions” — two-thirds correct, Pawson says, but not the third: God does have deep feelings, and they can genuinely be hurt.
We were sealed by the Spirit for a day of redemption — stamped for a coming day of complete freedom from everything wrong in us. Each time we slip back, the Spirit who has invested himself in leading us toward that day feels something like the disappointment of a teacher watching a promising student stumble. Tenderness means being sensitive enough to notice when we have caused that grief.
Tenderness Toward One Another
No one should join a church expecting never to be hurt there — because the members are not perfect, and the closer people come together, the more likely they are to wound one another. Paul names the things that cause that hurt: bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour (shouting), slander, and malice. Against these, Christians are called to be tenderhearted and forgiving.
You will not belong to a church for long before you have something to forgive, and before someone has something to forgive in you. If forgiveness cannot be found among those who belong to Christ, where can it ever start? The reason we forgive is simple: God accepted us exactly as we were. He did not say, sort yourself out first and then I’ll forgive you — he took us as we were, and forgave us for Christ’s sake. If he can accept us as we are, we can accept one another the same way.
Closing: You Are Never Asked to Do This Alone
Pawson closes with a crucial reassurance: you will never have to live the godly life without God’s help. God does not sit in heaven telling us to climb a ladder toward him under our own strength. Instead, he has already created in us a new nature, perfectly made in righteousness and holiness — and we are simply invited to take off the old clothes and put on the new.
He draws on the imagery of baptism — after being washed clean, a person traditionally puts on new clothes, a lovely picture of exactly what Christ offers. It is as if he holds out a new nature from his own wardrobe and says: take off the old dirty clothes. Take off all your toughness, and put on this tenderness. Take off your falsehood and your social veneer, and put on this truthfulness. Take off your old untrustworthiness, and put on this trust. Wear me, and put me on.
Closing Prayer
Father, sometimes when your word is most ordinary and most sober, it seems to cut even deeper. Lord, we recognise that every one of us here needs to put on more of our new nature and put off more of the old. We pray that you will help us to do this, that we may be real and sensitive in our relationships — to yourself, and to each other as members of the same body. Teach us what it is to live the new life. May the way to life become the way of life. May we work together to work out our salvation, because you have worked it in. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
© David Pawson Ministry CIO
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© David Pawson Ministry — Transcript prepared for Koinonia.nu | koinonia.nu