The new birth places us in a new family where we are God’s beloved children. The family of God is the idea of the family raised to the superlative. The world knows nothing about this kind of bond. The world has lodges and fraternities, but it cannot weld people together in families. The family is God’s idea. Satan hates the family and has designed and put into operation many forces that can destroy the family.

In applying his doctrines, Paul now for the third time used the term for “walk” (peripateō, trans. “live” in the NIV; 4:1, 17; 5:2). This is thus the third section in his discussion on the conduct of believers. God’s children are to walk (live) in unity, in holiness, and in love.

God’s example of forgiveness in 4:32 forms the basis of Paul’s exhortation here. The connection is this: God in Christ has forgiven you. Now be imitators of God in forgiving one another. A special motive is appended in the words, as dear children. In natural life, children bear the family likeness and should seek to uphold the family name. In spiritual life, we should manifest our Father to the world and seek to walk worthy of our dignity as His beloved children.

Each Christian should be an imitator of God because he is God’s child. As a child imitates his parents, so ought a believer to imitate God (cf. Matt. 5:48; Luke 6:36)

Another way in which we should resemble the Lord is by walking in love. The rest of the verse explains that to walk in love means to give ourselves for others. This is what Christ, our perfect Example, did. Amazing fact! He loved us. The proof of His love is that He gave Himself for us in death at Calvary.

In verses 3 and 4 the apostle reverts to the topic of sexual sins and decisively calls for saintly separation from them. First, he mentions various forms of sexual immorality:

Fornication. Whenever it is mentioned in the same verse as adultery, fornication means illicit intercourse among unmarried persons. However, when, as here, the word is not distinguished from adultery, it probably refers to any form of sexual immorality, and the NKJV usually so translates it. (Our word “pornography,” literally, “whore-writing,” is related to the word translated fornication.)

Uncleanness. This too may mean immoral acts, but perhaps it can also include impure pictures, obscene books, and other suggestive materials that go along with lives of indecency and that feed the fires of passion.

Covetousness. While we generally think of this as meaning the lust for money, here it refers to sensual desire—the insatiable greed to satisfy one’s sexual appetite outside the bounds of marriage. (See Ex. 20:17: “You shall not covet … your neighbor’s wife.…”)

These things should not even be named among Christians. It goes without saying that they should never have to be named as having been committed by believers. They should not even be discussed in any way that might lessen their sinful and shameful character. There is always the greatest danger in speaking lightly of them, making excuses for them, or even discussing them familiarly and continually. Paul accents his exhortation with the phrase, as is fitting for saints. Believers have been separated from the corruption that is in the world; now they should live in practical separation from dark passion, both in deed and word.

5:4 Their speech should also be free from every trace of:

Filthiness. This refers to dirty stories, suggestive jokes with a sexual coloring, and all forms of obscenity and indecency.

Foolish talking. This means empty conversation that is worthy of a moron. Here it may include gutter language.

Coarse jesting. This means jokes or talk with unsavory, hidden meanings. To talk about something, to joke about it, to make it a frequent subject of conversation is to introduce it into your mind, and to bring you closer to actually doing it.

It is always dangerous to joke about sin. Instead of using his tongue for such unworthy and unbecoming talk, the Christian should deliberately cultivate the practice of expressing thanks to God for all the blessings and mercies of life. This is pleasing to the Lord, a good example to others, and beneficial to one’s own soul.

5:5 There is no room for doubt as to God’s attitude toward immoral persons: they have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. This verdict is in sharp contrast to the world’s current attitude that sex offenders are sick and need psychiatric treatment. Men say immorality is a sickness; God calls it sin. Men condone it; God condemns it. Men say the answer is psychoanalysis; God says the answer is regeneration.

Three offenders are specified, the same three found in verse 3—the fornicator, the unclean person, and the covetous man. Here the thought is added that a covetous person is an idolater. One reason he is an idolater is that he has a false impression of what God is like: his concept of God is a Being who approves sensual greed, otherwise, he would not dare be covetous. Another reason why covetousness is idolatry is that it puts the person’s own will above the will of God. A third reason is that it results in the worship of the creature rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:25).

When Paul says that such persons have no inheritance in the kingdom, he means precisely that. People whose lives are characterized by these sins are lost, are in their sins, and are on the way to hell. They are not in the invisible kingdom at the present time; they will not be in the kingdom when Christ returns to reign; and they will be forever shut out from the everlasting kingdom in heaven. The apostle is not saying these are people who, though they are in the kingdom, will suffer loss at the Judgment Seat of Christ. The subject is salvation, not rewards. They may profess to be Christians, but they prove by their lives that they were never saved. They can be saved, of course, by repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. But if they are genuinely converted, they will no longer practice these sins.

Notice that the deity of Christ is implied in the expression, the kingdom of Christ and God. Christ is put on an equal level with God the Father as Ruler in the kingdom.

5:6 Many people of the world adopt an increasingly lenient and tolerant attitude toward sexual immorality. They say the gratification of bodily appetites is needful and beneficial, and that their repression produces warped, inhibited personalities. They say morals are entirely a matter of the culture in which we live, and that since “pre-marital,” “extra-marital,” and “gay” sex (which God’s word condemns as fornication, adultery, and perversion) are accepted in our culture, they ought to be legalized. Surprisingly enough, some of the leading spokesmen in favor of making sexual sins acceptable are men who hold high positions in the professing church. Thus, the laymen who always thought immorality was immoral are now being assured by prominent clergymen that such an attitude is passé.

Christians should not be hoodwinked by such double talk. Because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. The Lord’s attitude toward such sins as fornication and adultery was seen in Numbers 25:1–9: twenty-four thousand Israelites were slain because they sinned with the women of Moab. The Lord’s attitude toward homosexuality was displayed when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by brimstone and fire from heaven (Gen. 19:24, 28).

But God’s wrath is displayed not only in such supernatural acts of punishment. Those who practice sexual sins experience His judgment in other ways. There are physical effects, such as venereal disease and AIDS. There are mental, nervous, and emotional disorders arising from a sense of guilt. There are changes in the personality—the effeminate often becomes even more so (Rom. 1:27). And of course there will be the final, eternal judgment of God on fornicators and adulterers (Heb. 13:4). No mercy will be shown to sons of disobedience—to those who are descended from disobedient Adam and who willfully follow him in disobeying God (Rev. 21:8).

5:7 Believers are solemnly warned to have no part in such ungodly behavior. To do so is to dishonor the name of Christ, to wreck other lives, to ruin one’s own testimony, and to invite a torrent of retribution.

a. Love Is to Be Enthroned (5:1–2)

(1) The Exhortation (5:1)

“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.”

The new birth places us in a new family where we are God’s beloved children. The family of God is the idea of the family raised to the superlative. The world knows nothing about this kind of bond. The world has lodges and fraternities, but it cannot weld people together in families. The family is God’s idea. Satan hates the family and has designed and put into operation many forces that can destroy the family.

In the family of God we are to be followers of God. The Greek word translated “followers” here can also be translated “imitators.” Just as children in a human family often imitate their parents, so in God’s family we are to imitate God. He is our model. Since God is love, we must imitate Him and express love to those in the family of faith and to the lost world outside.

A friend of mind copastors a large church. Thousands attend its services and participate in its ministries. Every Sunday the aisles are filled with people coming forward for salvation, rededication, and church membership. Years ago I asked him what the secret of success was. He replied, “Our people love God, our people love each other, and our people love the lost.” No wonder people flock to that church.

In writing to the successful church at Ephesus, Paul reminded the Christians there that love is to be enthroned and exhorted them to imitate God.

(2) The Example (5:2)

“Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”

Paul generally used the word walk to describe a person’s outward life, the life that other people see. The word depicts progress in the Christian life because the Christian life never stands still. It is a life of movement. As Christians, we are either moving forward or sliding backward. We are becoming more like Christ or we are slipping back into our old ways.

We must keep Calvary before us and make Calvary love the goal toward which we walk. The Lord Jesus is the supreme example of love. At Calvary He expressed His love for us and His love for God.

Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Paul added, “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The love that took the Son of God from the heights of Heaven and the throne of the universe to that cross of shame and woe, on a skull-shaped hill called Calvary, to die on our behalf is “more than tongue can tell.”

Calvary expressed the Lord’s love for His Father too. There was a burnt-offering aspect to the cross (Leviticus 1). In Old Testament times the burnt offering was the highest expression of love for God. Its unique feature was that it was all for God. The burnt offering was one of the three sweet-savor offerings, and there were different grades of burnt offerings ranging from a turtledove to a full-grown bullock. The size of the offering indicated the measure of one’s appreciation and love.

When the offering was a turtledove or a pigeon, the priest helped, thus indicating that while the expression of appreciation and love was acceptable and pleasing to God, it was so feeble that a more mature believer needed to help make it known. When the offering was a bullock, the offerer was still considered unable to comprehend all that Calvary meant. But a full-grown bullock represented a mature, virile appreciation and love for God.

All of the full-grown bullock was burnt on the altar except the skin. The skin was given to the priest. Here again the symbolism is significant. The priest represents the fulltime minister of the gospel, the person whose whole life is given to the ministry. Sacred themes occupy his thoughts daily and continually, while secular matters play a minimum part in his life. Reserving the skin for the priest was God’s Old Testament way of saying that not even the most consecrated believer can fully understand the devotion of Christ to His Father as expressed in offering Himself on the cross; he cannot get beyond the surface. Yet the goal of our lives is still to love as Christ loved.

b. Lust Is to Be Dethroned (5:3–7)

(1) God’s Demands Are Not to Be Underestimated (5:3–5)

(a) The Principle Is Underlined (5:3–4)

i. The Holy Spirit States His Antipathy to Lust (5:3–4a)

a. Immorality in Our Walk (5:3)

“Fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints.”

The expression translated “not be once named” can be rendered “not be even named.” In other words, such sins are unthinkable for a child of God.

In Romans 1:24 Paul linked uncleanness with dishonoring the body through carnal sin. In Paul’s day, as in ours, sexual promiscuity was taken for granted. Everybody indulged in it; it was an acceptable lifestyle. Many of Paul’s heathen converts had been brought up in a permissive atmosphere where it was common for a man to keep a mistress, frequent houses of ill repute, gratify his lusts in casual liaisons, or accept a partner without bothering with the formality of marriage. These practices were considered natural, not immoral. Yet the Holy Spirit says that such behavior must not even be mentioned in Christian circles. They are the antithesis of genuine Christianity. Moreover, covetousness itself—the root sin from which sexual sins are often the fruit—must be banished from our accepted moral code.

Our society may be tolerant of these sins. Governments may pass laws legitimizing behavior that a generation ago would have brought a prison sentence. The Holy Spirit, however, will not tolerate such immorality. The conduct of a Christian is controlled not by a heathen society, but by the Holy Spirit.

b. Impurity in Our Talk (5:4a)

“Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient [befitting].”

Just as offensive to the Holy Spirit and just as destructive of spiritual life as immorality in our walk is impurity in our talk.

“Filthiness” comes from the word aischrotēs, which signifies something shameful or obscene. A Christian should not tell dirty jokes or talk about things that make other people blush. In our day, open talk about intimate matters is acceptable. Nothing is sacred. The language of the gutter is freely used in books and broadcasts. Vulgar talk that would have been considered pornography a generation ago is now hard to avoid. The tendency is for us Christians to lower our standards also. The world is always trying to pour us into its mold, but the Holy Spirit brings us back to the gold standard of Christlike behavior; He takes us away from the worthless paper currency of the world’s immoral ways.

“Foolish talking” is silly talk. The original Greek is rendered “buffoonery” in the lexicons. “Clowning” would be the more modern word. The trouble with flippant talk is that it degenerates into worse talk. After a serious meeting we often allow Satan to snatch away the seed by foolish talking. Often when a person is facing eternal issues, someone will inject a flippant word and the moment of decision disappears. Flippancy in conversation can become a habit with some people and it is almost impossible to have a serious conversation with them. They turn everything into a joke or a pun.

“Jesting” is ribaldry. This word is used in classical writings to describe cultured insolence. Although some people think it is clever to make cutting remarks, the Holy Spirit expresses His personal antipathy to such ego-building, hurtful words. They are not to be used by God’s people.

ii. The Holy Spirit States His Antidote to Lust (5:4b)

“But rather giving of thanks.”

Since we have to talk about something, let us elevate our conversation to a higher plane. Let us use our tongues to express gratitude to God for all that He has done for us and use our conversational skills to encourage others to think seriously about spiritual things.

(b) The Penalty Is Underlined (5:5)

“No whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”

Paul bluntly wrote that a person who is guilty of non-Christian practices cannot expect to have any share in the kingdom of God. These practices prove that he is not in the kingdom of God; they betray the presence of an unregenerated heart. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

A cheap form of Christianity is in circulation today. It is not really Christianity at all, just a popular counterfeit. People make professions of faith that entail no repentance, no genuine conversion, no regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and no dynamic new life in Christ. Such people can be deceived into thinking that they are Christians, but they see no need—and feel no impulse from an indwelling Holy Spirit—to give up sinful practices or resist them. It is “business as usual,” the same old dirty business as before. Such people are as lost as they were before they went through the meaningless motions of professing to believe, being baptized, and joining local churches. Their penalty is devastating. Hell awaits them. Their lives reveal that their professions of faith were only lies.

Let us make sure we understand that lust is to be dethroned. God’s demands are not to be underestimated.

(2) God’s Demands Are Not to Be Undermined (5:6–7)

(a) We Are to Recognize Deception (5:6)

“Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.”

Paul challenged the notion that people can be saved and still habitually commit the gross and grievous sins he was denouncing. He contradicted the notion that the penalty for such sins in the lives of Christians is simply exclusion from the coming millennial kingdom. There may indeed be millennial loss for negligent Christians, but people who indulge in the vices Paul was describing are not Christians.

“Let no man deceive you,” says the Holy Spirit. Those whose teaching undermines God’s absolutes in the realm of personal morality are speaking vain words. The word translated “vain” in Ephesians 5:6 literally means “hollow, empty.” Teaching that lacks substance and divine authority is deceptive.

We know that people who practice immorality are not Christians because the Holy Spirit calls them “children of disobedience.” The expression is also used in Ephesians 2:2 to describe lost people.

In Romans 1:18–32 Paul wrote that the wrath of God is to be poured out on the ungodly. God’s parental discipline will assuredly visit His own children who fall into moral sin, as David discovered. But His wrath is reserved for the unsaved who sin habitually. God will not pour out His wrath on those whom He has saved from wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:9).

(b) We Are to Repudiate Deception (5:7)

“Be not ye therefore partakers with them.”

No true child of God can compromise when tempted to take part in immoral behavior. God demands that we make a clean break with the ungodly lifestyle of our unregenerate days. Such a deliberate break with our past sins is proof that we not only profess Christianity, but we also possess Christ.

7. A Convicting Dist