Ephesians Chapter 4 verse 18 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 18. - Being darkened in their understanding (second point of difference), and thus blind to all that is most vital - ignorant of God, of the way of salvation, of the love of Christ. Even at best the natural understanding cannot discover these things, and when it is not only imperfect but darkened - made more obscure than ever by sin (see after) - its guidance is altogether defective. It has been said truly that the youngest scholar in a Sunday school that has been taught the elements of the gospel has more light than the wisest of the heathen. Alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart (third point of difference). Two causes are given for their alienation, viz. ignorance, and hardness of heart, this last being the ultimate cause. Through worldly living, their hearts have become hard, callous, insensible to spiritual influences, perceiving no beauty in Divine things, no preciousness in Divine promises, no excellence in the Divine image; this makes them ignorant, careless, foolish; and such being their state of heart, they are alienated from the life of God, can't bear vital religion, hate the very idea of spiritual and holy service.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(18) Having the understanding darkened.--Of this vanity the first result noted is the intellectual. They are "darkened in the understanding," and so, "by the ignorance in them alienated from the life of God." The phrase "the life of God" is unique. It may, however, be interpreted by a similar phrase, the "righteousness of God" (Romans 1:7), i.e., the righteousness given by God. What the life given by God is, we know by our Lord's own words (John 17:3), "This is the life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent." So far as the understanding is concerned, this alienation signifies the loss of the central light of Truth in God, and with it the loss, partial or complete, of the vision of other truths in their right proportion and harmony.But the second result is moral. St. Paul attributes the alienation from God, or (possibly, though less probably) "the ignorance which is in them," to the hardness of their heart--for the marginal reading is correct; the word used signifies, almost technically, "callousness" and insensibility. To make his meaning clearer still he adds, "who (or, inasmuch as they) being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness." There is precisely a similar current of thought (noting, however, the characteristic difference referred to above) in Romans 1:24-32, where St. Paul draws out, as consequences of the same vanity, first lusts of uncleanness, next unnatural sin, and at last breaks out into a fearful enumeration of the signs of the reprobate mind. On this side, therefore, "the alienation from the life of God" is the loss of the grace by which He dwells in the soul, and by indwelling gives it the moral and spiritual life.