Ephesians 5:3 Commentary and Bible Study

The Christian cannot live in this world without engaging in the negative work of vigorously putting away sin. We dare not neglect this negative side to the Christian life and to be constantly mortifying the flesh. Fornication here includes all unfaithfulness and adultery. Uncleanness is lust in all its forms: all uncleanness in the mind and heart, in act and in word. Covetousness covers all desire for gain, like the children of Israel delivered from Egypt, but they still wanted the things of Egypt, and the foods of Egypt, and the lifestyle of Egypt. Covetousness is located here right alongside fornication and uncleanness. In Colossians, in the parallel passage, it is called idolatry. ‘Let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints.’ This means two things: that the fornicators and the habitually unclean person and the habitually covetous person should not be allowed to continue in the membership of the Church of Christ, and secondly it means this that these sins are entirely avoidable. It is not of every sin about which the Scripture says, ‘let it not be once named among you’, but it tells us here that these three things are so avoidable. The person who commits these sins, has already fallen before they commit them in some shape or form. Other sins we will find it harder to be completely rid of: pride, self-consideration, laziness, and we must battle against them to the last day of life, but fornication and all uncleanness and covetousness must be stopped immediately. Some of those Paul wrote to had no doubt been in the grip of these sins before they believed in Christ, but at the new birth, their bondage to these sins was broken, and they received a new power against them. He says, let them not even be named among God’s people. What is forbidden is to mention these things with approval or without condemning them in the same breath. Christians must speak about these things, but only to warn against the danger of them and to forbid any involvement with them.Christians are to have a sense of their calling which impresses upon them the fact that they are called to be different from the world. They are a holy community on earth, living in the midst of a corrupt generation. They must be distinct and different from the world otherwise the salt has lost its saltiness and is fit for nothing.