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We have seen the exhibition of the new man and the inhibition of the new man. Now we come to the prohibition of the new man. There is the negative side of the believer’s life, which I think is important for us to see. There is not enough emphasis on it. We talk about “new morality” which is nothing in the world but old sin. There is a liberty in Christ, but it is not a license to sin.

Scriptural prohibitions for the new man are different from some of the prohibitions that people set up. I can’t find, for example, where it says that women should not wear makeup. I know a group who for years judged the spirituality of women by the amount of makeup they wore. I’ve also seen young girls who thought they were spiritual because they had disheveled hair and no makeup on, and actually they looked like walking zombies. Christians should do the best they can with what they have. That doesn’t mean, of course, that they should be painted up like a barber pole. However, some Christians insist upon a number of these man-made prohibitions which are not found in Scripture.

God’s prohibitions for the new man are the negatives of His Word. We have had too much on the power of positive thinking today. We need a little of the power of negative thinking. Have you ever thought that in the Garden of Eden the primary command was a negative command? “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). Then you come to the Ten Commandments. They are very negative but also very good. Now here in Ephesians we see some negative thinking, some prohibitions for the child of God. We are not to walk “as other Gentiles walk.” This is the negative side.

Paul returns at this juncture to the practical aspect of the believer’s walk. He had introduced it in verses 1–3, but he was detoured by the introduction of the subject of the unity of the church. Now he gives a picture of the lives of Gentiles and the lives of the Ephesians before their conversion. Remember in chapter 2, verses 11–12, he told how they had been far off, strangers without hope and without God, living in sin. That was their picture.

This is still a graphic picture of the lost man today. Paul gives four aspects of the walk of the Gentiles which illustrate the absolute futility and insane purpose of the life of the lost man.

“In the vanity of their mind” means the empty illusion of the life that thinks there is satisfaction in sin. Oh, how many people walk that way! I feel so sorry for these young people who have been taken in by the promoters of immorality as a life style. A girl told me that she had had two abortions—murdered two babies, and was not married—what a life! That is not the life of happiness that God has planned for His children, my friend. It is the walk of a lost person, walking in the vanity of the mind. It is an empty illusion of life.

Drinking cocktails is another illusion. Alcoholism takes its toll. An alcoholic woman has started listening to our Bible teaching program and is now fighting a battle to be delivered from alcohol. She says, “Oh, it seemed so smart, so sophisticated to drink cocktails!” How tragic.

“Having the understanding darkened” means that the lost man has lost his perception of moral values. That is exactly what is being promoted in our day—a loss of perception of moral values.

“Being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them” is a picture of all mankind without Christ. It is the rebellion of Adam which is inherited by all his children. What a picture it is of a man today. He thinks he is living. One man told me he spent a week’s wages for one evening in a nightclub. What for? To try to have a good time. That’s an expensive way to try to have fun. He was alienated from the life of God; he had no communication with God: he was dead in trespasses and sin. Such a man is ignorant of the inestimable advantage of a relationship with God. The result is a hardening of the heart.

“Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness [which is uncleanness], to work all uncleanness with greediness [or covetousness].” Their continuance in this state of moral ineptitude brings them down to the level where they have no feeling of wrongdoing. There are a lot of folk like that today. They are apathetic. The resultant condition is to plunge further into immorality and lasciviousness. This vicious cycle leads to a desire to go even deeper into sin. If you paint the town red tonight, you have to have a bigger bucket and a bigger brush for tomorrow night. The meaning here is to covet the very depths of immorality. Men in sin are never satisfied with sin. They become abandoned to sin. This is what it means in chapter 1 of Romans that God gave them up to all uncleanness through their own lusts. You can reach the place, my friend, where you are an abandoned sinner.

McGee, J. Vernon: Thru the Bible Commentary. electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1981, S. 5:256-257