Ephesians 4:21

εἴγε αὐτὸν ἠκούσατε : if indeed ye heard Him. On εἴγε, = “if so be that,” “if as I assume it to be the case,” see in Ephesians 3:2 above. In the form of a delicate supposition it takes it as certain that they did hear. The αὐτὸν ἠκούσατε is to be understood as the ἐμάθετε τὸν Χριστόν. The pronoun is placed for emphasis before its verb. The point, therefore, is this “if, as I take it to be the fact, it was He, the Christ, that was the subject and the sum of the preaching which you heard then”. καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐδιδάχθητε : and in Him were instructed. ἐν αὐτῷ is not to be reduced to “ by Him” (Arm.; also AV “taught by Him”), or “about Him,” or “in His name” (Beng.), but has its proper sense of “ in Him”. The underlying idea is that of union with Christ. The ἐδιδάχθητε, therefore, refers probably to instructions subsequent to those which were given them at their first hearing (ἠκούσατε). It was in fellowship with Christ that they received these instructions. καθώς ἐστιν ἀλήθεια ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ : even as truth is in Jesus. WH give καθώς ἐστιν ἀληθείᾳ, ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ as a marginal reading. The meaning of the clause is much disputed. That it expresses in some way the manner or standard of the instructions (ἐδιδάχθητε) is clear from the καθώς. But what the point and connection of the clause are it is by no means easy to determine. Wicl. gives “as is truth in Jesus”; AV and other old English Versions, “as the truth is in Jesus,” as if it were ἡ ἀλήθεια. Some dispose of it as a parenthesis (Bez., Rück., etc.), as if = “if ye were so instructed about Christ, that would be false” (as in Him there is only truth, moral and religious truth). Others (Grot., etc.) make it = “as it really is,” i.e., “if ye were instructed in the Gospel as it really is in Jesus”; or (Jer., Erasm., Est., etc.) they supply a οὕτως to the ἀποθέσθαι and understand the καθὼς clause to refer to Jesus as the Pattern of moral truth or holiness. Jerome's explanation, e.g., is this quomodo est veritas in Jesu sic erit et in vobis qui didicistis Christum. Somewhat similarly others, connecting it with ἀποθέσθαι, take it to mean that as moral truth is in Jesus, so they on their part are to lay aside the old man (Harl., Olsh., etc.). Or, connecting it with ἐδιδάχθητε, they understand the point to be that they were instructed in a way implying a moral change, as in Jesus there is truth and, therefore, holiness (so de Wette substantially). Meyer makes the ἀποθέσθαι dependent on the καθὼς clause, so that the sense becomes this “truth it is in Jesus that ye put off the old man”; and Abbott appealing to the use of ἀλήθεια in Ephesians 4:24 and in John 3:21, makes it = “as it is true teaching in Jesus that ye should put off,” etc. All these interpretations involve dubious constructions or impose unjustifiable senses on the ἀλήθεια. Feeling this others have adopted the bolder expedient of making Χριστός the subject of ἐστιν, the sense then becoming “as He (Christ) is truth in Jesus” (Cred., Von Soden). A better turn is given to this by WH, who would read ἀληθείᾳ and so get the sense “as He (Christ) is in Jesus in truth”. In support of this it is urged that the αὐτόν, ἐν αὐτῷ show that Christ, the Messiah, is the leading subject. But this construction means that it was not enough to be instructed in a Messiah; that they had also to recognise that Messiah in the historical Jesus, and that in Him they would see the life which signified for them a putting off of the old man. There is no indication, however, in the context or in any word of Paul's belonging to this period of a form of false Christian teaching which distinguished between Christ and Jesus, or of Gentiles professing to believe in a Messiah but not in Jesus as that Messiah. It only remains, therefore, to fall back on the interpretation “if ye were instructed according to that which is truth in Jesus”. The clause will then describe the nature or manner of the instruction, as the following clause expresses its substance. In form or character the instruction was in accordance with what was true, with what was true in Jesus, that is to say, with truth as seen embodied in Him (cf. Alf., Ell.). And instruction of that kind meant that they should put off the old man.