Ephesians 4:17-19 - It's All Broken

Chad Werkhoven
Jun 19
3 min read

Total depravity requires total repentance.

Cracked background with bold text: "TOTAL DEPRAVITY" and below, "INTELLECT," "EMOTIONS," "VOLITION." Dark, somber mood.

Ephesians 4:17-19 (NIV)

17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

Canons of Dordt

Point 1 - God's Unconditional Election

Point 2 - Limited Atonement

Point 3 - Total Depravity

Article 1: The Effect of the Fall on Human Nature

Human beings were originally created in the image of God
1. and were furnished
  1. in mind with a true and sound knowledge of the Creator and things spiritual,
  2. in will and heart with righteousness,
  3. and in all emotions with purity;
2. indeed, the whole human being was holy.
However, rebelling against God
1. at the devil’s instigation
2. and by their own free will,
3. they deprived themselves of these outstanding gifts.
4. Rather, in their place they brought upon themselves
  1. blindness, terrible darkness, futility, and distortion of judgment in their minds;
  2. perversity, defiance, and hardness in their hearts and wills;
  3. and finally impurity in all their emotions.

Summary

One of the primary themes of Paul's letter to the Ephesians is the transforming power of God's grace, which enables us to live harmoniously with our families and the Christian community around us. Yet these renewed relationships don't just fall down from heaven, so to speak, but they result from an even more significant work of the Spirit: His restoring our ability to properly think.

This is why Paul is so insistent as he begins this passage. All of the strife and disunity that Gentiles experience is a product of their futile thinking (Gentiles here doesn't mean people who aren't Jewish, but all people who live outside of God's Law). Their understanding is darkened - in other words, they're blindly stumbling through life. In fact, they're not just stumbling, they've completely wandered off and separated themselves from the life of God.

So as you look at the relational messes all around you - which you so often get sucked into - it all stems from the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. The NIV translates the next phrase well: having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality. In other words, rather than thinking their way through decisions, challenges and problems, people simply do what feels right in the moment.

But if you have any life experience at all, you already know that so often what feels right rarely is right. So indulging sensuality always leads to a devolving pursuit of impurity. What's so tragic is that sin creates an insatiable appetite that causes a continual lust for more and more impurity.

Dig Deeper

In theology, we call this broken reality that surrounds us the noetic effect of sin. We use the strange word noetic because it comes from the Greek word nous, meaning “mind,” “intellect,” or “understanding.” Today's passage uses a bunch of words that all stem from this same root: thinking, understanding and ignorance.

Simply put, the noetic effect of sin inhibits people's ability to think straight. But it goes deeper than that. Your nous is who you are at the deepest levels; it's not just your intellect, but your emotions and volition as well. The Bible often uses the word heart to refer to these three aspects as Paul does here. All of our problems stem from the hardening of our hearts.

This is what we mean when we state that our depravity is total. The Canons remind us what it is that we've sinfully brought upon ourselves:

blindness, terrible darkness, futility, and distortion of judgment in our minds;
perversity, defiance, and hardness in our hearts and wills;
and finally impurity in all our emotions.

This is why Jesus' core message to sinners is REPENT. The Greek word is meta-noeō which literally means change your nous: the way you think, feel and act. God's grace, delivered to you through the faith given to you by the Holy Spirit, totally changes every aspect of you which had been affected by sin.

AAA Prayer (About)

ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who through His Spirit, softens your hardened heart;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you will do the hard work of continually repenting in every aspect of your life: intellectually, emotionally, and volitionally (will);
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: