Peter Barnes | Ephesians 5:3-7
SERMON NOTES
Love and its Counterfeit
(Ephesians 5:3-7)
– Seneca in the first century said that innocence was not rare, but non-existent.
1. Put off all immorality, impurity and covetousness.
– 5:3-4; these are not to be named (cf. Ex.23:13)
– Calvin: ‘there are a hundred times more dangers within us than we see around us.’
2. Put on thanksgiving.
– 5:4; Calvin broadens this to ‘grace in all things’.
– the ungrateful become the degraded (Rom.1:21, 26-27)
– the Pharisee thinks God owes him something (Luke 18:10-12), but the Christian praises the glorious grace of the triune God (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14).
3. Our motives ought to be to live as saints and to fear God’s judgment.
– 5:3, 7
– 5:5-6; Christ and God are the same person (Charles Hodge); more likely to refer to the double aspect of the kingdom.
– the deceived are the judged.