I. We have here distinctly affirmed that the living voice of Christ Himself is our teacher. "Ye have heard Him" says Paul. Remember that the New Testament everywhere represents Christ as still working and teaching in the world; remember that He Himself promised the prolongation of His great work of declaring the Father beyond the limits of His earthly life, and that no more in proverbs, but plainly; remember that He has pledged Himself to send the teaching Spirit of truth, in whose coming Christ Himself comes, and all whose illuminations and communications are showing and imparting to us the things of Christ. Every living soul may have, and every Christian soul does have, direct access for himself to the living Lord, the eternal Word.
II. Those who are in Christ receive continuous instruction from Him: "and have been taught by Him." These words seem to imply the conditions of the gradual process of Christ's schooling. His teaching is not one act, but a long, loving; patient discipline. The first feeble motion of faith enrols us as disciples, and then there follows through all the years the "teaching to observe all things whatsoever He has commanded."
III. This gradualness and slowness of instruction is brought out still more distinctly if we look at the third idea which is contained in these words: as to the substance of the instruction. The theme of the teaching is the Teacher: "Ye have not so learned Christ." Then our lesson is not thoughts about the Lord, but the living Lord Himself, not the doctrine of Christianity only, but Christ, the theme as well as the Teacher.
A. Maclaren, Sermons in Manchester,2nd series, p. 61.
I. Let us glance at the truth in Jesus. (1) The life of Jesus opposed and contradicted that which was false and wrong, and in this respect the truth was in Jesus. (2) Jesus embodied the truth of truth's symbols. (3) Jesus spake truth, that which, on account of its importance to man, is the truth.His truth is eternal, universal, new.
II. Let us show what cannot be learned by those who have only heard and been taught by Christ. (1) Nothing childish can be learned of Christ. (2) A shifting and accommodating creed is not learned of Christ. (3) Pious frauds are not learned of Christ. (4) A literal and carnal interpretation of Christ's laws is not learned of Christ. (5) Truth framed according to system is not learned of Christ. (6) Nothing contrary to the Godlike can be learned of Christ.
S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Sermons,3rd series, p. 81.
References: Ephesians 4:20; Ephesians 4:21. D. Rhys Jenkins, The Eternal Life,p. 365; J. Vaughan, Sermons,14th series, p. 61.
I. When the phrase, "the truth as it is in Jesus," is used, it is probably almost always intended to imply, if nothing more, at least this: the great doctrine of human sin and of the redemption of mankind by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we should separate these two things which God has graciously joined together and take by itself that truth which the Old Testament contains, viz., the truth that man has fallen under the wrath of God, we should have a truth, but a truth emphatically as it is not in Jesus Christ; we should have the truth as it appears in its coldness and blackness and wretchedness, apart from that which has lightened it up and made it tolerable, even the smiles of Him who was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
II. It would be giving a somewhat different view of the matter, though it would after all be substantially the same, if we were to say that the truth as it is in Jesus ought to be taken as our expression of that belief concerning the Lord Jesus Christ which is contained in the Apostles' Creed. To this general view of the truth as it is in Jesus many persons would be disposed to make several additions. They would be disposed to include within the limits of this truth, not only the knowledge of what God has done for us, but the knowledge of what we must, on our part, do in order to apprehend Christ and make our calling and election sure. Right views of faith and the saving, justifying power of faith would enter largely into this conception of the truth as it is in Jesus, or of what may be called Gospel truth. The manner in which we are to avail ourselves of the love of God is of course infinitely important; yet, after all, it is nothing as compared with the love itself. Christ is the foundation; Christ is the Truth; and the manner in which we build upon the foundation is, in the very nature of things, second to the fact of our having a foundation whereon to build.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,5th series, p. 290.
The Christian Method of Moral Regeneration.
I. A complete moral revolution is not accomplished either by one supreme effort of our will, or by any momentary shock of Divine power. It must be carried through in detail by a long, laborious, and sometimes painful process of self-discipline. The process lasts as long as life lasts. For with the changing years there are changing forms of moral evil which have to be resisted and put away from us. The earlier triumphs make the later triumphs easier, but do not release us from the hard necessities of battle. (1) Self-examination is necessary. Our moral habits must be compared, one by one, with the commandments of Christ, and their conformity to the genius and spirit of Christian ethics must be patiently and honestly tested. (2) There must be self-discipline as well as self-examination. We must put away our old self. The whole structure of our former moral character and habits must be demolished, and the ruins cleared away, that the building may be recommenced from its very foundation.
II. The truth which the Apostle assumes had been taught to the Ephesian Christians required them to be renewed in the spirit of their mind. The "spirit," which is that element of our life which comes to us direct from God, and by which we are akin to God, restores to the mind its soundness and health, the clearness of its vision, and its practical force and authority. In this high region of our nature Paul finds the springs of moral regeneration. It is by the discovery of the invisible kingdom of God that we learn the laws by which we are to be governed in the external and accidental relations of this transitory world. Regeneration must be followed by renewal. The Divine life given in the new birth must be fed from its eternal springs, or the stream will soon run shallow, will cease to flow, will at last disappear altogether. We must be renewed in the spirit of our mind.
R. W. Dale, Lectures on the Ephesians,p. 308.
References: Ephesians 4:20-24 Homilist,1st series, vol. v., p. 326; 3rd series, vol. v., p. 241; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 331.