Ephesians 4:22 22to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,
The image of taking off the old self illustrates Paul’s key message of transformation in Jesus Christ. A change takes place when faith allows God’s grace to flow into us. Two key things happen to us at that moment. One is that our relationship with God is reconciled. We once were dead in our sins, our spirits alienated from God, our lives controlled by the power of sin. This is all received freely through faith. Second, we begin to grow in this grace through obedience to God’s commands as taught by the Holy Spirit through godly leaders and God’s word. Faith and obedience are the key factors in this transition.
The old self (literally “old man”) describes the old life we lived before coming to faith in Jesus. This old life was corrupted by desires that had been deceived and tricked by sin and Satan. The word corrupt (phtheiromenon) describes something that is ruined, destroyed, and seduced so as to cause great harm. Sin destroys people lives. They may not see it right away. In fact, temptation promises happiness and is enticing to people. This promise may be fulfilled in some situations, but only for a time for sin always has negative consequences. When we try to live our lives to please ourselves or to have good feelings without God being the center of everything, our selfishness will distort our natural instinct and cause our lives to crumble.
The desires of deceit is an awkward phrase that can be taken in several ways. The word for desires (epithymias) can be either negative or positive. In most cases in the New Testament, it is used in a negative way for the wrong kinds of desires. The desires themselves can be deceiving, especially when they appeal to our sinful nature. As an alternative, not all of our desires are necessarily bad. God has given us natural drives and instincts that will prolong our life and create new life. The problem, however, is when these God-given and blessed desires are distorted, deceived, and tricked to be used for selfish reasons. What often ends up happening is that we use other people as objects to achieve our own desires. Thus, there is a lack of love. This is what the old life under sin is like. A person can become blind to this condition, deceived into thinking that he or she is living a normal, “human” life, when actuality, this person is heading to self-destruction and, ultimately, to judgment.
This is a dangerous situation, and so Paul is reminding the Ephesians to take note of where they are on their journey. They no longer are bound by this old life because of what God is doing in them as people in Christ.
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