In Ephesians,
Paul has an interesting turn of phrase when he speaks of ‘learning’ (manthanō)
Christ and being ‘taught’ (didaskō) ‘in’ Him:
Ephesians 4.20-24 "But
that is not the way you be learned Christ!— 21assuming
that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in
Jesus, 22to put off your old self, which belongs to
your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God
in true righteousness and holiness."
The power of Paul’s language
can be better appreciated when we see how he is using it over against the
alternative in Greek philosophy. When Paul speaks of learning
Christ, his concern is ethical. His ethical concern involves not
only what the righteous and holy life should involve; it also concerns how a
corrupt person with deceitful desires might be renewed and put on the new
self. Thus, his topic, as Greek philosophers would say, is, ‘How can
we be taught virtue?’
The near-contemporary of
Paul, the Greek philosopher and author, Plutarch (born before 50, died after
120), wrote a work entitled ‘That Virtue May Be Taught’. Plutarch’s
language is more natural than Paul’s: we learn and are taught subjects,
such as philosophy. Paul, on the other hand, speaks of learning a person,
Christ. Thus, the subject matter of education is radically
different.
Furthermore, both
Plutarch and Paul are interested in how people might overcome certain obstacles
to learn virtue. They even phrase the obstacles
similarly. Paul speaks of corrupt ‘deceitful desires’, and Plutarch
speaks of ‘bad passions and affections.’ Yet they understand the
obstacle of desires or passions differently. The difference lies in
Plutarch’s philosophy versus Paul’s Christian faith.
Plutarch's 'Middle Platonist'
philosophy interacted with other philosophical systems, including
Stoicism. The core belief of Stoicism was that people should live
according to nature. If so, then one may well ask why one would have
to be taught to do something that came naturally. Plutarch, however,
observes that people learn all sorts of things that they cannot do
naturally. Such learning makes sense. Yet he then asks,
should not the ‘skill of ordering one’s life well’ also be taught? There
appear to be two reasons that a philosopher such as Plutarch argues that virtue
can and must be taught. First, somewhat challenging Stoic thought,
he argues that ‘so many things of a foreign nature’ have been mixed with nature
that they have to be sorted. Second, agreeing with the Stoics, he
argues that, if virtue has to do with the right ordering of one’s life, then
one of the other core convictions of Stoics also comes into play: reason is
essential for the well-ordered life. Plutarch says that, when
prudence ‘is the governess, ranking all things in due place and order,
everything is assigned to become useful.’ Reason, or prudence, needs
to rule or order the passions of the soul and the appetites of the body.
How would Paul respond to
this understanding of the human condition? He would agree that there
is confusion in understanding, although he would say that the problem has a
deeper and more sinister dimension to it than the poorly ordered
self. He can speak of the need for the renewal of the spirit of the
mind (v. 23), yet, as he had earlier stated in Romans 1.28, the problem is a
‘depraved mind’. While the philosopher can affirm that there are
obstacles to virtue because human lives need to be ordered by reason; Paul
presses deeper to the spiritual level.
Over against
philosophy, Paul explains from the Old Testament that the human condition
of sin is so dire that it requires a divine work of forgiveness and
transformation. Moral depravity cannot be overcome by living
according to the outward Law of nature revealed in creation. On
this, Paul and Plutarch are agreed (cf. Romans 1.18-32). Nor can the
depraved mind be overcome by living according to a conscience attuned to
the inward Law of God in our hearts as, I would argue, he says in
Romans 2.1-16. Nor can it be overcome by obedience to the revealed Law
of God in Scripture, as Paul says in Romans 2.17-3.8. Thus, it
cannot be overcome by learning the principles of philosophy (Colossians
2.8). Nor can ‘self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the
body’ overcome ‘the indulgence of the flesh’ (Colossians
2.21-23). This is because righteousness cannot be taught at the
level of transformation, only at the level of information (Romans 3.20).
What Paul argues through
the first eleven chapters of Romans is that God has provided the solution to
the human condition. Thus, his solution is not, as Plutarch’s, to
teach virtue but to be ‘transformed by the renewing of your minds’ because of
the mercies of God (Romans 12.1-2). Only God can bring about the
transformation of the sinful mind. And so, as Paul says in this
Ephesians passage, we must learn not a philosophy for virtue but ‘learn
Christ’. In this way, he says, we can be renewed in the spirit of our
minds (Ephesians 4.23).
The philosophers, then,
underestimated the problem humans faced because they saw it as the disordered
life, where passions and affections held sway over reason. They also
overestimated the power of reason to set things right. Paul follows
Jewish teaching from Scripture that the problem is the sinful heart and the
solution is God’s provision of redemption to deal with sins and to bring change
(as Isaiah 59 already stated and as Paul argues, I believe, using this text, in
Romans 3.9-26).
To ‘learn Christ,’ then,
is not only a curriculum but also a relationship. Much of what 'right
living' entails for Paul in Ephesians 4.20-6.9 would be affirmed by
Plutarch. Where they differ most, and fundamentally, is Paul's relational solution
to the human condition. The solution that Paul offers is the person,
Jesus Christ, whose life brought transformation to those ‘in Him.’ Jesus
was no great man of history, a kind of Hercules who accomplished great things
and sets the example for others. He was, as Matthew puts it, God with us
(Matthew 1.23). Only God could accomplish what sinful humans never could:
the removal of sin and the transformation of human minds. The
believer does not simply follow Christ’s example; He participates in the power
of transformation that Christ’s life—His death, resurrection, exaltation, and
return (Paul unpacks what he says in the Ephesians passage in Colossians
2.20-3.4)--provides. Each key stage of Christ’s life involves
transforming power to put off the old self and to put on the new self.
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