Ephesians 4:1

I. IN CHURCHLY RELATIONS AND OBLIGATIONS, Ephesians 4:1 to Ephesians 5:21.

1. To be a holy and efficient Church, 1-16.

a. In holy unity of spirit, Ephesians 4:1-6 .

1. I St. Paul’s powerful Ego again. Note Ephesians 3:1.

Therefore In view of this sublime divine side of your redeemed churchdom.

Walk worthy… vocation… called Had he been addressing sinners he would have exhorted them to enter by faith into the number of God’s elect, and by obedience to the divine call to be numbered among the called. But this they have done. They are elect and the called. He can, therefore, only exhort them to walk worthy of the vocation (and vocation signifies calling) wherewith they were called. They are called as once Gentiles into the spiritual Israel, and called as once sinners into the elect Church. Perseverance and not apostasy, perfectness and not defectiveness, is their now high and holy obligation. Walk here implies Christian activity; just as in Ephesians 2:2 it designates energetic, depraved activity. Dr. Clarke suggests a contrast between the apostles’ confinement to passive duty in prison and their freedom to walk in active Christian life. The antithesis is beautiful, but was imagined by the commentator, not by the apostle. Dr. Eadie’s calling the suggestion “a stroke of very miserable wit” is a “stroke” of very uncandid criticism. The simple-hearted and great-hearted Adam Clarke had not the slightest intention of “wit,” but of beautiful practical reflection.