Ephesians 4:18

having the understanding darkened Lit., haying been darkened in the understanding. On "the understanding" see note above on Ephesians 2:3 (where A.V., "mind"). The Gr. word may fairly be said to mean the reason (nous) in action. Here accordingly the phrase defines, so to speak, the phrase just previous; the general illusionof the reason comes out in obfuscated actsof thought. On the metaphor of darkness cp. Matthew 6:23; John 3:19; John 8:12; John 12:35; John 12:46; Acts 26:18; Colossians 1:13; 1Th 5:4-5; 1 John 1:5-6; 1 John 2:8-9; 1 John 2:11; and below, ch. Ephesians 5:8; Ephesians 5:11; Ephesians 6:12. It often combines the ideas of blindness and of secrecy; here it gives only the former.

being alienated from the life of God The words, Gr. and Eng., imply a fall from a state of union. See above on Ephesians 2:12 where "alienated" occurs in another connexion. Here, as there, the Human Soul in the abstract is viewed as having shared, in its unfallen state, the Life of God, and having lost it in the Fall. And this view is transferred from the Soul to the souls in which it is individualized. Historically, we begin our personal existence aliens; ideally, we began in union and fell from it.

" The life of God" :the word "life" occurs here only in the Epistle. The phrase here denotes the spiritual force given to the human spirit by spiritual contact with God, resulting in the action and exercise of holiness. The Christian believer finds "this life in His Son" (1 John 5:11). In John 17:3 we have at once its secret and its issue; "to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent." It is entered, from one point of view, by "justification of life" (Romans 5:18), that acceptance of the guilty in Christ which is the sine quâ nonin Divine Law. Its development is the state of glory, which is therefore very often called, in a special sense, "eternal life" (e. g.Matthew 25:46), though that phrase is also fully true of the present state of the believer (1 John 3:15; 1 John 5:13). It is plain that the word "life," in spiritual connexions, means very much more than "existence." See above on Ephesians 2:1.

through the ignorance Better, on account of, &c. They lost connexion with the Life of God, and so remain, because of their ignorance of the eternal facts about God and holiness. We have here still something of the idealization explained just above. As the Human Soul fell through guilty "ignorance" of the supreme rightand joyof absolute submission to God, so the individual soul is viewed as, ideally, losing union through the same "ignorance" of self-will. Historically, the individual begins self-willed and therefore alienated; ideally, he breaks an existing connexion. The practical aspect of the matter is that he maintains disconnexion by the ignorance of self-will. He "wills not to come that he may have life" (John 5:40), "seeing no beauty" in Christ, "that he should desire Him" in an effectual sense (Isaiah 53:2).

blindness Better, hardening (so R.V.). The word denotes failure of sensation in general. This clause is a re-statement of that just previous. What took place "on account of ignorance" took place "on account of hardening"; another aspect of the same moral state.

heart See on Ephesians 1:18; Ephesians 3:17. Much more than the seat of emotion is meant by this word in Scripture. Phrases compounded of "heart" and "harden" occur (in the Gr.) Mark 3:5; Mark 6:52; Mark 8:17; John 12:40. In 2 Corinthians 3:14 we have (Gr.) "their thoughtswere hardened."