Hypocrites and BackslidersLesson 30

Spiritual Death Mechanics

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Mechanics - ｹ ώρωσις• Romans 1:28 And, according as they did not

approve of having God in knowledge, God gave them up to a disapproved mind, to do the things not seemly;

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Mechanics - ｹ ώρωσις - O'Brien

• Although the term rendered hardening has been interpreted to mean ‘blindness’201 (cf. AV; and note Calvin), in the New Testament it consistently refers to ‘stubbornness’, and here it signifies that ‘pagan immorality is … wilful and culpable . . . , the result of their deliberate refusal of the moral light available to them in their own thought and conscience’.202

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Mechanics - ｹ ώρωσις - O'Brien

• And an obstinate rejection of the truth of God is the beginning of the terrible downward path of evil.

• O'Brien, Peter Thomas: The Letter to the Ephesians. Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999 (The Pillar New Testament Commentary), S. 322

•

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Mechanics - ｹ ώρωσις - O'Brien

• As if to underscore the point, Paul adds that their delusion is ‘due to hardness of heart’.

• This second causal clause is subordinate to the first,200 rather than coordinate or parallel with it: the Gentiles’ culpable ignorance arose out of their obstinate rejection of God’s truth.

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Stubborn - Internal

Ignorance

Alienated

Darkened

Futility

Stubborn

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Spiritual Death: Eph 4:19• 19 who, having become callous, have given

themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

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Eph 4:19 - Who

• (4:19) “Who” is hoitines (οu7985 τu953 νu949 ς), a relative and indefinite pronoun showing character or nature, “who are of such a nature that.”

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Mechanics - ἀπαλγέω• Ephesians 4:19

• 19who, having ceased to feel,

• ἀπαλγέω: to cease to feel pain for

• verb, perfect, active, participle, masculine, plural, nominative

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Insensitive - O'Brien

• The recital of the Gentiles’ lifestyle concludes with a brief but stark sketch of the moral depravity into which they have sunk.

• The thought of hardening their hearts (v. 18) continues203 in the statement that they have ‘lost all sensitivity’, a vivid classical term204 which literally could refer to skin that had become callous and no longer felt pain.

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Insensitive - O'Brien• Here it means to ‘lose the capacity to feel shame

or embarrassment’,205 while the perfect tense describes a state of affairs that led to (or else accompanied) the loss of all self-control.206

• Because of their lack of moral feeling and discernment there were no restraints to their plunging into all kinds of degrading activities [coming up in verse 19].

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Insensitive - O'Brien• They abandoned themselves to

debauchery, impurity, and covetousness. • According to Romans 1, the element of

divine retribution is emphasized: God delivered humanity over (vv. 24, 26, 28) to their own desires, especially to unnatural vices (vv. 24–32), because they refused to accept his self-revelation.

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Eph 4:19 - Callous

• “Being past feeling” is apalgeō, a participle in the perfect tense.

• The word means, “to cease to feel pain or grief, to become callous, insensible, apathetic.”

• Perfect tense = in a past time with ongoing results

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Eph 4:17-19 - Hendriksen

• The very center of their being, their hearts, had become “callous” by their own deliberate action.

• For “callous” the A.V. and A.R.V. have “past feeling,” which is also an excellent rendering, the root meaning of this perfect participle being “having arrived at a condition of freedom from pain,” and thus, in general, “having become insensible” with reference here to the divine voice, to God’s truth.

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Mechanics - ｹ αραδίδωμι• themselves did give up ｹ αραδίδωμι:

• to hand over, to give or deliver up

• verb, third person, plural, aorist, active, indicative

• To give or do something which one should in fulfillment of an obligation or expectation."

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Mechanics - ἀσέλγεια• to the lasciviousness,ἀσέλγεια:

• licentiousness, wantonness

• noun, feminine, singular, dative

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Eph 4:19 - Lasciviousness• ἀσέλγεια (aselgeia)• unrestrained in moral attitudes and behaviors•

• Swanson, James: Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains : Greek (New Testament). electronic ed. Oak Harbor : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, S. GGK816

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"licentiousness"- O'Brien• The three evils to which pagans have given

themselves, namely, debauchery [licentiousness], impurity [uncleanness], and covetousness, frequently appear in catalogues of vices.208

• 'licentiousness or ‘Debauchery’, which according to Galatians 5:19 is one of the works of the flesh, is that vice which ‘throws off all restraint and flaunts itself, “unawed by shame or fear,” without regard for self respect, for the rights and feelings of others, or for public decency’.209

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Eph 4:19 - Lasciviousness• “Lasciviousness” is aselgeia (ἀu963 εu955 γu949

ιu945 ), “wanton lawless insolence.” The aselgeia (ἀu963 εu955 γu949 ιu945 ) person is one who acknowledges no restraints, who dares whatsoever his caprice and wanton petulance may suggest. “Wantonness” is the best word to describe it. The word speaks of a complete surrender of self.

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Eph 4:19 - Lasciviousness• ἀσέλγεια] Vg. impudicitia. Cf. Gal. 5:20 πορνεία ἀκαθαρσία

ἀσέλγεια, on which Lightfoot remarks: “a man may be ἀκάθαρτος and hide his sin; he does not become ἀσελγής, until he shocks public decency.”

•

• Swete, Henry Barclay (Hrsg.): The Gospel According to St. Mark. The Greek Text With Introduction, Notes and Indices. London; New York : MacMillan and co., limited; The MacMillan company, 1898, S. 154

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Mechanics - ἐργασία• for the working ἐργασία:

• work (noun)

• noun, feminine, singular, accusative

• to make a business of something.

• When you get into lasciviousness, you have made a profession of uncleanness, leaving your work for all to see.

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Mechanics - ἀκαθαρσία• unto all uncleanness ἀκαθαρσία:

• uncleanness

• noun, feminine, singular, genitive• The eis, ‘unto,’ is very forcible.” • “All uncleanness” is akatharsias pasē, “every kind of

uncleanness,” moral uncleanness in the widest sense.

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Mechanics - ｹ λεονεξία• in greediness; ｹ λεονεξία:

• advantage, covetousness

• noun, feminine, singular, dative

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Eph 4:19 - Greediness• The Frantic search for happiness, which comes up

next: with greediness, which is πληονιζια = an insatiable, unsatisfied desire or lust.

• one who always wants more• This means more and more for me at any cost (cf.

Col. 3:5). • Humans live only for themselves, for the moment. • This is the curse of the Fall of Genesis 3

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"greediness" - O'Brien

• Finally, [greediness] ‘covetousness’211 appears as the climax of the list (cf. the similar position in Eph. 5:5; and Col. 3:5, where it is emphatically stressed because of its close relationship to idolatry).

• Although it is possible to understand ‘greed’ as a third vice, alongside debauchery and impurity, the prepositional expression ‘with covetousness’ suggests that the indecent conduct already described was practised with a continual lust for more.

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"greediness" - O'Brien

• The pagan way of life was characterized by an insatiable desire to participate in more and more forms of immorality.

• ‘Ultimately, it becomes a vicious circle because new perversions must be sought to replace the old’.212

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Greedy

Unclean

Lascivious

Greedy

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Greediness and HAM's

Materialism

Power

Approbation

Religious

Chemical

Sexual

Greedy

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Summary Resource - Liefeld• These Gentile unbelievers do not have the life of God

because of (dia, “on account of”) the ignorance that (in turn) is due to (again, dia) the hardening of their hearts. Therefore it is their own hardness against God that perpetuates their alienation from God’s life.

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Summary Resource - Liefeld•• They are callous, beyond feeling. • Further, there is a self-induced moral

degeneration that is unending, since there is a continual lust for more.

• Given this condition, there is a lack of sensitivity (v. 19)* that precludes any response to God’s word.

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Summary Resource - Wiersbe• Note the emphasis here on thinking: mind (Eph. 4:17, 23),

understanding (Eph. 4:18), ignorance (Eph. 4:18), “learned Christ” (Eph. 4:20).

• Salvation begins with repentance, which is a change of mind. The whole outlook of a person changes when he trusts Christ, including his values, goals, and interpretation of life.

• What is wrong with the mind of the unsaved person? For one thing, his thinking is “vain” (futile). It leads to no substantial purpose.

• Since he does not know God, he cannot truly understand the world around him, nor can he understand himself.

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Summary Resource - O'Brien• The Gentiles’ mind-set has been drastically

affected (v. 17b), their thinking193 has become darkened so that they are blind to the truth, and their alienation from God is because of the ignorance within them.

• This darkness in their thinking was not some temporary condition; as the emphatic periphrastic expression194 indicates, the light of their understanding had gone out so that they were now in a state of being incapable of grasping the truth of God and his gospel.

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Summary Resource

• It then becomes clear that the futility that characterizes the Gentile mind is a product of darkened understanding and estrangement from the God-given life, these two, in turn, resulting from a type of ignorance that is inexcusable because it is due to willful hardening of their Volition, resulting in surrender to unbridled license of every description.

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The Inside Out Translation• Ephesians 4:17-18 Because Unbelievers

stubbornly rejected God's initiatives (hardness of heart), the inward results were that they lost the input of God's viewpoint of life (ignorance) and were disassociated (alienated) from Him, which resulted in an incomplete and direful (darkened) Appraisal Process (understanding) which offered only one-sided, unfulfilling and purposeless (Futility) life choices (walk). [direful = Foreshadowing evil or disaster; ominous.]

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The Inside Out Translation• Ephesians 4:19 Outwardly, because they

stubbornly refused to choose God's options in their Heart, they became insensitive and did as would be expected and once and for all flung themselves at the only empty hope of happiness remaining - the insatiable (greedy) life of unrestrained (lascivious) Human Badness (uncleanness).

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Stubborn - Internal

Ignorance

Alienated

Darkened

Vanity

Stubborn

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Hardness Cycle

Stubbornness

IgnoranceAlienation

Darkened

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Futility

4. Darkened Understanding3. Alienation2. Ignorance1. Stubbornness

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Internal Futility Cycle

1. Stubbornness

2. Ignorance3. Alienation

4. Darkness

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From the Inside Out

InsatiabilityDarkened UnderstandingAlienationIgnoranceStubbornness

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The Stubbornness Result Cycle1. Stubbornness

2. Insensitivity

3. Unrestraint4. Uncleanness

5. Insatiability

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The Result Cycle and Futility

x

1. Stubbornness

2. Insensitivity

3. Unrestraint

4. Uncleanness

5. Insatiability

6. Futility

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The Inner Results of Stubbornness

Stubborn

IgnoranceDarkened

Understanding

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The Inner and Outer Effects

Stubbornness

Insensitivity Unrestraint Uncleanness Insatiability

Ignorance

Alienation Darkness

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The Inner Feeds the Outer

Stubbornness

Ignorance Alienation Darkness

Unrestraint UncleannessGreediness or

Insatiability

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End

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