Chapter 5
1Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.
2And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
3But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
4Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
5For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
6Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7Therefore do not become partners with them;
8for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
9(for the fruit of light is found in all goodness and righteousness and truth),
10and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
11Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
12For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.
13But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible,
14for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
15Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,
16making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.
17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
18And do not get drunk with wine, in which is debauchery, but be filled in the Spirit,
19addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,
20giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
21submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
4
Ephesians
Living as a New Creation: Ethical Exhortations
Ephesians 4:17-5:21
Key words in this passage
Cross-references
Study notes
The unit presses the distinction between two settled patterns of life. One proceeds from futile thinking through hardened hearts to active debauchery and alienation from God’s life. The other arises from having learned Christ, requiring the decisive putting off of the old self, ongoing renewal in the mind, and the assumption of a new self created according to God. This movement supplies the specific conduct that maturity in the body demands, directing readers from inner transformation to observable practices of truthful speech, controlled anger, honest labor, and mutual forgiveness, all framed by the call to walk in love as Christ did and to live as children of light who expose darkness rather than share in it.
What is Living as a New Creation: Ethical Exhortations about?
The unit opens with an urgent summons spoken in the Lord's name: readers must no longer walk just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind. This command follows immediately after the portrait of gifts given so that the body may reach maturity and the measure of Christ's fullness. The central tension is therefore between two settled patterns of life. One is described as darkened understanding, alienation from the life of God, and a callous giving over to impurity and greed. The other is presented as having learned Christ, putting off the old self that is being corrupted by deceitful desires, and putting on the new self created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
The passage matters at this point in the letter because it supplies the concrete conduct that the earlier call to unity and growth requires. It moves from the renewal of the mind to specific directions about speech, anger, work, and mutual relations, all framed by the fact that believers are members of one another and have been sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption. The unit ends by directing the same readers to walk in love as Christ loved them and to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, thereby linking the ethical instructions directly to the identity already given in the gospel.
Where does this passage sit in Ephesians?
This block follows directly on the description of gifts given for the body’s growth into the measure of Christ’s fullness. Where the preceding unit ends with the church reaching maturity so that it may no longer be tossed about, the present section opens by naming the concrete pattern that maturity must reject: the Gentile walk in futility of mind. The transition is marked by the repeated verb “walk,” which already appeared in 4:1 as the summons to live worthy of the calling; here the same term sharpens into a negative command that distinguishes the readers’ former manner from their present one.
The unit then moves steadily outward from inner renewal to observable conduct. Instructions about speech, anger, theft, and sexual behavior accumulate until they reach the positive call to imitate God as beloved children and to walk in love. That movement prepares for the household instructions that begin at 5:22. The same logic of mutual submission introduced in 5:21 is immediately applied to wives and husbands, showing that the ethical exhortations are not an independent list but the necessary preface to ordered relationships within the body.
Language of light and darkness, already used in 5:8 to describe the readers’ change of status, reappears in the call to expose the unfruitful works of darkness. The same contrast that structured the larger argument from death to life in chapter 2 is now pressed into daily practice. By the time the section closes with the command to be filled in the Spirit and to give thanks, the letter has shifted from the theological foundations of chapters 1–3 to the sustained ethical outworking that occupies the remainder of the book.
How is the passage structured?
The unit opens with a compact negative portrait that occupies three verses before the first major turn. Verses 17–19 establish the Gentile pattern through a chain of participles that move from mental futility to hardened hearts and finally to self-surrendered debauchery. The pivot arrives abruptly at 4:20 with the adversative “But you did not learn Christ in this way,” which halts the preceding description and redirects attention to the content of Christian instruction. That content is then set out in three coordinated infinitives (4:22–24): putting off the old self, being renewed in the spirit of the mind, and putting on the new self. The renewal clause sits at the center, functioning as the hinge between the two clothing metaphors.
A second structural marker appears at 4:25 with “Therefore,” which converts the preceding renewal into a series of specific directives. These directives run through 4:32 and are linked by repeated appeals to corporate identity (“members of one another,” “one another”). The next “Therefore” at 5:1 raises the stakes from neighborly conduct to imitation of God, immediately qualified by the model of Christ’s self-offering. The paragraph that follows (5:3–7) returns to prohibition, now framed by kingdom inheritance and the coming wrath, creating a brief delay before the argument resumes its positive trajectory.
At 5:8 the text introduces a fresh contrast—“at one time you were darkness, but now you are light”—and develops it through the imagery of exposure and visibility, interrupted only by the embedded quotation at 5:14. The final movement, beginning at 5:15, gathers the earlier threads under the rubric of wise walking and Spirit-filling. The sequence of participles in 5:19–21 moves from corporate song to continual thanksgiving and ends with the terse call to mutual submission, supplying the last concrete expression of the renewal announced at 4:23.
What is the historical background?
First-century readers in Asia Minor would have recognized the two-pattern contrast as a standard form of moral teaching. Jewish paraenesis regularly set the “way of the Gentiles” against covenant conduct, while Greco-Roman philosophers and moralists described the unreflective life as darkened or enslaved to passions. The letter’s phrasing of alienation from “the life of God” therefore draws on this shared cultural script without needing further explanation for its original audience.
The clothing imagery of putting off the old self and putting on the new echoes familiar civic and cultic practices. In both Jewish and pagan settings, a change of garments publicly marked a shift in status or allegiance, whether at baptism, manumission, or entry into a guild. The text applies that visible action to the inner renewal of the mind, a move that would have been intelligible because the physical act already carried moral weight.
Household and civic language also shapes several commands. The warning against “rotten” speech and the call to speak truth “with his neighbor” assume the tight interdependence of urban neighborhoods and trade associations, where reputation and mutual obligation governed daily exchange. Likewise, the prohibition of drunkenness at gatherings stands against the common practice of symposia and religious festivals in which wine loosened social restraints; the alternative of Spirit-filled song and thanksgiving offers a recognizable counter-practice within the same social space.
Finally, the sealing of believers “for the day of redemption” reflects the widespread use of signet rings and stamped documents to mark ownership or protection. In a world where legal and cultic seals authenticated identity, the image underscores that the community’s moral conduct is already secured by an external claim rather than left to private resolve.
What does this passage teach about God?
The passage grounds its moral directives in a prior act of divine creation. The new self is not an improved version of the old but something made according to God, bearing the very qualities of righteousness and holiness that belong to truth itself. This creation language echoes the initial summons away from Gentile patterns, where the mind remains futile because it is cut off from the life that God alone supplies. Alienation is therefore not merely moral failure but the loss of participation in God’s own vitality, a condition the text traces to hardened hearts that no longer register divine reality.
Christ functions as the concrete pattern for this new existence. Having learned him, believers are to walk in love precisely as he loved by giving himself up, an act the passage presents as a fragrant offering acceptable to God. The same Christ who supplies the model also secures the outcome: the Spirit who seals believers for the day of redemption is grieved when the old patterns persist, indicating that the divine presence remains personally invested in the moral life of the community. Wrath is correspondingly described as a settled divine response to the very behaviors that contradict this new creation, so that those who practice sexual immorality, impurity, or covetousness—explicitly labeled idolatry—stand outside the inheritance of the kingdom that belongs jointly to Christ and God.
Light functions here as both identity and diagnostic power. Those who once were darkness have become light in the Lord, and the fruit of that light consists in the concrete triad of goodness, righteousness, and truth. Exposure of hidden works is not an additional duty but the natural effect of this transformed state; what is made visible by light becomes light, suggesting that the new humanity participates in the very reality that judges and renews. Thanksgiving and Spirit-filled speech therefore arise as fitting responses to a God who has already acted in forgiveness, while mutual submission is framed as reverence directed toward Christ, the one whose self-giving defines both the pattern and the power for the life now required.
What are the interpretive difficulties?
One point left open concerns the force of the command in 4:26. The wording joins an imperative to be angry with an immediate prohibition against sinning and a deadline for ending the anger. Nothing in the surrounding sentences defines the boundary between permissible anger and the sin that must be avoided, nor does the text indicate whether the anger in view is directed at injustice inside the community or at external opposition. Readers are left to test any given instance against the larger requirement that nothing give the devil an opening.
A second question arises from the quotation in 5:14. The lines do not match any single Old Testament passage exactly, yet they are introduced with the formula “therefore it says.” The text supplies no further identification of the source, leaving open whether the words come from an early Christian hymn, a baptismal liturgy, or a loose rendering of Isaiah. Because the quotation functions inside the argument to link awakening with the shining of Christ, its precise origin does not alter the immediate claim that exposure to light produces visibility and life.
The participial sequence in 5:18-21 also invites scrutiny. After the prohibition against drunkenness, the text moves without a new main verb into a string of participles: addressing one another, singing, giving thanks, and submitting. The grammatical attachment allows these activities to be read either as the continuing result of being filled or as further independent instructions. The passage itself does not resolve the ambiguity, yet the sequence shows that whatever “being filled in the spirit” means, it issues in corporate speech, music, gratitude, and ordered relationships.
Finally, the warning in 5:5 that the covetous person has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God stands beside the earlier description of believers as already sealed for the day of redemption. The text does not reconcile the two statements by explaining how present sealing relates to future inheritance or by specifying the conditions under which the warning would apply to those already addressed as saints. The tension remains as part of the letter’s moral urgency rather than a settled doctrinal formula.
Movement by movement
The Gentile Pattern of Futility4:17-19
The description begins with the futility of mind that marks the Gentile walk, then traces its consequences through a chain of participles: minds darkened, alienation from the life of God traced to ignorance and the hardening of their heart. The sequence continues as those who have become callous deliver themselves over to debauchery aimed at every form of impurity pursued in greediness. This progression moves steadily from disordered thinking to a settled condition of the heart and finally to active self-surrender, showing how one stage feeds the next without external compulsion. The wording presents the outcome not as mere moral lapse but as separation from the life God supplies, with the heart’s hardening named as the decisive barrier. By the end of verse 19 the pattern stands complete as an enclosed description of life cut off from its source, preparing the abrupt turn that follows when the readers are told they did not learn Christ in this way.
Learning Christ and the New Self4:20-24
The sentence turns sharply at the adversative in 4:20: “But you did not learn Christ in this way.” The preceding chain of participles that traced mental futility to hardened hearts and surrendered debauchery is halted by this single clause. What follows is not a list of separate commands but three coordinated infinitives that spell out the content of that learning. The first requires putting off the old self with regard to the former way of life, a self described as still being corrupted according to the desires of deceit. The second calls for renewal in the spirit of the mind, an interior reorientation rather than an external adjustment. The third directs putting on the new self, which the text presents as already created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the truth. The sequence therefore moves from a decisive break with the prior pattern, through an ongoing mental renewal, to the assumption of a divinely originated identity whose defining marks are those same qualities the earlier Gentile walk lacked. The phrasing leaves open whether the renewal is a single past event or a continuing process, yet the overall movement makes clear that Christian instruction is not additional information but the very means by which the old pattern is displaced.
Concrete Commands After the Old Self Is Put Off4:25-32
The movement opens with the direct consequence of having put off the old self: having put off falsehood, each one must speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. This single sentence sets the pattern for what follows. A series of short, paired commands then addresses anger that must not be allowed to linger past sunset, theft replaced by honest labor that supplies others in need, and speech that builds up rather than tears down. The list reaches its sharpest theological note at the warning not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom the readers were sealed for the day of redemption. Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice are to be put away together, while goodness, compassion, and mutual forgiveness remain, modeled on God’s own forgiveness in Christ. The flow moves from concrete social acts to the inner disposition that sustains them and finally to the Spirit who registers every refusal of that disposition. Nothing in the wording resolves whether the permitted anger is limited to righteous response or includes ordinary irritation; the text simply insists that whatever anger arises must end before it opens a door to the devil.
Imitating God and Avoiding the Sins of Disobedience5:1-7
The therefore in 5:1 draws directly from the forgiveness just named in 4:32, shifting the ground of conduct from the prior contrast between old and new self to a positive pattern: readers are to become imitators of God as beloved children. That imitation takes concrete shape in the next verse as walking in love modeled on Christ’s self-giving, described as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. The text then turns sharply to prohibition. Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints, and the same exclusion extends to filthiness, foolish talk, and crude joking, which are replaced by thanksgiving. The warning gains force through an explicit identification: the covetous person is an idolater, and anyone persisting in these patterns has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Empty words that downplay the danger are to be rejected because these very things bring the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience. The movement therefore closes with the direct consequence that readers must not become partners with them.
Walking as Children of Light5:8-14
The sentence at 5:8 anchors the movement by naming an identity that has already changed: readers once were darkness itself, yet now stand as light in the Lord. That settled contrast supplies the ground for the imperative that follows immediately, to walk as children of light. The parenthetical remark in 5:9 then specifies what such walking produces, naming goodness, righteousness, and truth as the fruit that light bears. Verse 10 adds a further practical demand, that readers keep testing what pleases the Lord rather than assuming the path is already clear.
The next verses turn from positive description to active separation. The command in 5:11 forbids any share in the unfruitful works of darkness and instead requires that those works be exposed. Verse 12 supplies the reason for restraint in speech, noting that the hidden deeds are shameful even to mention. The two statements in 5:13–14 then trace the effect of light: whatever is brought into visibility by light becomes visible, and what becomes visible is itself light. The movement closes with the quoted summons that calls the sleeper to rise so that Christ may shine on him, linking the exposure of darkness to the awakening that light itself performs.
Wise Walking and Spirit-Filled Community Life5:15-21
The section opens by pressing the earlier contrast between light and darkness into a concrete demand: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise.” The participle “making the best use of the time” follows immediately, grounding the call in the recognition that “the days are evil.” This urgency leads directly to the paired imperatives that define wise conduct: refusing foolishness while grasping “what the will of the Lord is.” The negative example of drunkenness with its accompanying debauchery sets the stage for the positive alternative of being “filled in the spirit,” an ongoing state whose first expressions are mutual address in song and heartfelt melody offered to the Lord. Thanksgiving “always and for everything” in Christ’s name then flows outward into the final posture of “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The sequence therefore moves from individual vigilance to corporate practices that embody the new self already described earlier in the chapter. Each element stands in deliberate opposition to the patterns rejected at the unit’s beginning, where the mind remains futile and the heart hardened; here the renewed mind discerns the Lord’s will and the Spirit supplies the capacity for sustained communal life marked by gratitude rather than the greed or impurity named before.
Notes accompany the Anselm Project Bible, an AI translation from the original languages. Tap any verse above for the committee's word-level decisions.
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