Walking is an apt illustration for thinking about the Christian life. Walking implies the presence of life. As Christians, we are in possession of spiritual life — life abundant and life everlasting. Walking suggests steady progress a step at a time, as opposed to movement by riding or flying. As Christians, our progress in Christlikeness is not instantaneous, but gradual. The Bible refers to this theologically as sanctification. Last week we thought about walking worthily, based on the first half of Ephesians 4.
This week we begin looking at the Christian life as walking differently, based on the last half of Ephesians 4. The first of two measuring sticks of a life that is different is that we are to walk differently from unconverted outsiders. The second half of Ephesians 4 begins with verse 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.” Two implications are immediately apparent. At one time we Christians did walk as do unconverted outsiders for we too were unconverted. The further implication, which is more than an implication but a direct statement, is that we should no longer live as non-Christians are living. Hence we are to be walking differently.
First century Gentile life
The measuring stick for gauging how differently we are living is given in terms of several descriptive phrases about the unconverted life. These phrases offer a cross-section of first century Gentile life. The picture is a composite of various aspects of an unconverted life. Each of the five may not have been equally true of any one person but found in varying degrees from one person to the next. A somewhat similar cross-section could be taken of 21st century society.
The first descriptor about outsiders holds that they are futile in their thinking (Eph. 4:17). Without God, a person’s thoughts may be lofty and ambitious in the world’s eyes but aimless and empty so far as pleasing God and gaining His acceptance are concerned. Unconverted persons might be brilliant intellectuals, but at the end of their way they will be without God and without hope of eternal life.
Living without the light of God
Related to this is the declaration that they are “darkened in their understanding” (Eph. 4:18a). The unsaved outsider is living without the light of the knowledge of God that comes through a personal relationship with Him. Since such is no longer true of us as Christians, we are to walk differently, knowing God and being known by Him.
Furthermore the person who has never come into a personal relationship with God through faith in Christ is living in separation from the life of God. What an unconverted world may describe as “living it up” is really dying spiritually. Such a plight is attributed in part to ignorance and in part to hardness of heart (Eph. 4:18b). Walking differently means that we demonstrate daily a personal relationship with God within which we are getting to know Him better and better.
The unconverted world in any century gives evidence of people living in sensuality, impurity and lust (Eph. 4:19). Christian living is not to be characterized by such behavior. We are to be walking differently, according to Ephesians 4:20–21, “But that is not the way you learned Christ — assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus.”
More next week about walking differently for a further look at the doctrine of the Christian life as one lived in contrast to an unsaved world.
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