[112] "The persons here denounced," says Lightfoot on Phil. iii. 18, "are not the Judaizing teachers, but the antinomian reactionists.... The stress of Paul's grief lies in the fact that they degraded the true doctrine of liberty, so as to minister to their profligate and worldly living." Comp. 1 Peter iv. 3, 4; 2 Peter ii. 18-22.
[113] Comp. Col. ii. 20-iii. 4; Gal. vi. 14, 15.
[114] _Phaeao_: § xxxv.
[115] See p. 129.
[116] "When human life to view lay foully prostrate upon earth, crushed down under the weight of religion, who showed her head from the quarters of heaven with hideous aspect lowering upon mortals, a man of Greece ventured first to lift up his mortal eyes to her face and first to withstand her to her face" (Munro).
[117] 1 Thess. iv. 5; 2 Thess. i. 8; Gal. iv. 8, 9.
"But ye did not so learn the Christ; if so be that ye heard Him, and were taught in Him, even as truth is in Jesus: that ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, which waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit; and that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth."--EPH. iv. 20-24.
_But as for you!_--The apostle points us from heathendom to Christendom. From the men of blinded understanding and impure life he turns to the cleansed and instructed. "Not thus did _you_ learn the Christ"--not to remain in the darkness and filth of your Gentile state.
The phrase is highly condensed. The apostle, in this letter so exuberant in expression, yet on occasion is as concise as in Galatians. One is tempted, as Beza suggested[118] and Hofmann insists, to put a stop at this point and to read: "But with you it is not so:[119] you learned the Christ!" In spite of its abruptness, this construction would be necessary, if it were only "the Gentiles" of verse 17 with whose "walk" St Paul means to contrast that of his readers. But, as we have seen, he has before his eye a third class of men, unprincipled Christian teachers (ver. 14), men who had in some sense learnt of Christ and yet walked in Gentile ways and were leading others back to them.[120] Verse 20, after all, forms a coherent clause. It points an antithesis of solemn import. There are genuine, and there are supposed conversions; there are true and false ways of learning Christ.
Strictly speaking, it is not _Christ_, but _the Christ_ whom St Paul presumes his readers to have duly learnt.[121] The words imply a comprehending faith, that knows who and what Christ is and what believing in Him means, that has mastered His great lessons. To such a faith, which views Christ in the scope and breadth of His redemption, this epistle throughout appeals; for its impartation and increase St Paul prayed the wonderful prayer of the third chapter. When he writes not simply, "You have believed in Christ," but "You have _learned the Christ_," he puts their faith upon a high level; it is the faith of approved disciples in Christ's school. For such men the "philosophy and vain deceit" of Colossae and the plausibilities of the new "scheme of error" will have no charm. They have found the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are hidden in Christ.
The apostle's confidence in the Christian knowledge of his readers is, however, qualified in verse 21 in a somewhat remarkable way: "If verily it is He whom you heard, and in Him that you were taught, as truth is in Jesus." We noted at the outset the bearing of this sentence on the destination of the letter. It would never occur to St Paul to question whether the _Ephesian_ Christians were taught Christ's true doctrine. If there were any believers in the world who, beyond a doubt, had heard the truth as in Jesus in its certainty and fulness, it was those amongst whom the apostle had "taught publicly and from house to house," "not shunning to declare all the counsel of God" and "for three years night and day unceasingly with tears admonishing each single one" (Acts xx. 18-35). To suppose these words written in irony, or in a modest affectation, is to credit St Paul with something like an ineptitude. Doubt was really possible as to whether all his readers had heard of Christ aright, and understood the obligations of their faith. Supposing, as we have done, that the epistle was designed for the Christians of the province of Asia generally, this qualification is natural and intelligible.