Ephesians 4.19a-Unregenerate Gentiles Have Given Themselves Over to Self-Indulgence
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday June 17, 2025
Ephesians Series: Ephesians 4:19a-Unregenerate Gentiles Have Given Themselves Over to Self-Indulgence
Lesson # 260
Ephesians 4:17 Therefore, at this particular time I am communicating, specifically, at this particular time I am solemnly and earnestly making a request on the basis of the Lord’s sovereign authority. Namely, that each and every one of you as a corporate unit continue to no longer make it your habit of conducting your lives as in fact the Gentiles are conducting their lives by means of the futility produced by their thinking. 18 Specifically, because they are darkened with respect to their understanding (of the three-fold revelation of the triune God). Consequently, they are alienated from the life, which originates uniquely in the character and nature of the one and only God because of the ignorance, which is a characteristic within them because of the hardness, which is produced by the function unique to their hearts. 19 Because they are characterized as insensitive (to God and His will and ways), each and every one of them as a corporate unit have given themselves over to self-indulgence for the purpose of practicing every type of sexual immorality in an inordinate and insatiable manner. (Lecturer’s translation)
Ephesians 4:19 continues Paul’s thought from Ephesians 4:17-18, in which he describes the ungodly thinking and resultant lifestyle of unregenerate Gentile members of the human race who are enslaved to their indwelling Adamic sin nature as well as Satan and his cosmic world system.
Ephesians 4:19 is composed of the following:
(1) causal participial clause: hoitines apēlgēkotes (οἵτινες ἀπηλγηκότες), “Because they are characterized as insensitive (to God and His will and ways)” (Lecturer’s translation)
(2) declarative statement: heautous paredōkan tē aselgeia (ἑαυτοὺς παρέδωκαν τῇ ἀσελγείᾳ), “each and every one of them as a corporate unit have given themselves over to self-indulgence” (Lecturer’s translation)
(3) prepositional phrase: eis ergasian akatharsias pasēs (εἰς ἐργασίαν ἀκαθαρσίας πάσης), “for the purpose of practicing every type of sexual immorality” (Author’s translation)
(4) prepositional phrase: en pleonexia (ἐν πλεονεξίᾳ), “in an inordinate and insatiable manner” (Author’s translation)
The causal participial clause hoitines apēlgēkotes (οἵτινες ἀπηλγηκότες), “Because they are characterized as insensitive (to God and His will and ways)” modifies the declarative statement heautous paredōkan tē aselgeia (ἑαυτοὺς παρέδωκαν τῇ ἀσελγείᾳ), “each and every one of them as a corporate unit have given themselves over to self-indulgence.”
It also presents the reason for this declarative statement.
Therefore, together they assert that the unregenerate Gentile members of the human race have given themselves over to self-indulgence because they are characterized as insensitive to God and specifically, insensitive to His holy character, will and ways.
The prepositional phrase eis ergasian akatharsias pasēs (εἰς ἐργασίαν ἀκαθαρσίας πάσης), “for the purpose of practicing every type of sexual immorality” presents the purpose of the declarative statement and the causal clause, which modifies it.
Therefore, all together, they assert that the unregenerate Gentile members of the human race have given themselves over to self-indulgence because they are characterized as insensitive to God and specifically, His holy character, will and ways for the purpose of practicing every type of sexual immorality.
Lastly, the prepositional phrase en pleonexia (ἐν πλεονεξίᾳ), “in an inordinate and insatiable manner” presents the manner in which the previous prepositional phrase is accomplished and so therefore, this asserts that the unregenerate Gentiles practice every type of sexual immorality in an inordinate and insatiable manner.
The declarative statement contains the verb paradidōmi (παραδίδωμι), which expresses the idea of the unregenerate Gentile members of the human race “giving” themselves over to indecency for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
They gave themselves over to indecency in the sense that they made the volitional decision to please the desires of their old indwelling Adamic sin nature rather than pleasing God and obeying His will.
The active voice of this verb is a reflexive active, which indicates that these unregenerate Gentile members of the human race are volitionally responsible for the insensitive state of their hearts with respect to God’s will.
The reflexive pronoun heautou (ἑαυτοῦ) is fronted in this declarative statement in Ephesians 4:19 in order to emphasize the volitional responsibility of unregenerate Gentile humanity.
In other words, it emphasizes the action of these unregenerate Gentile members of the human race giving themselves over to self-indulgence for the practice of every kind of sexual impurity in an inordinate and insatiable manner.
In Romans 1:18-32, Paul employs the verb paradidōmi (παραδίδωμι) to teach the Roman Christian community that this volitional decision on the part of unregenerate Gentile humanity to reject God’s three-fold revelation of Himself and the resultant ungodly thought process and lifestyle is the judgement of God.
As we noted in our study of Ephesians 4:18, God giving unregenerate Gentile humanity over to a depraved mind and all types of sexual immorality is described in Scripture as God hardening their hearts.
Unregenerate Gentile members of the human race are culpable for being darkened in their understanding of the revelation of the triune God.
They are also volitionally responsible for being alienated from the life God because in both instances, their volition was involved.
As we noted, the heart contains volition and thus through the function of their volition these unregenerate Gentile members of the human race rejected God’s three-fold revelation of Himself.
They are darkened in their understanding of this revelation and are thus alienated from the life of God.
In other words, they don’t possess eternal life because of rejecting this three-fold revelation and specifically, in Paul’s day, because they rejected Jesus Christ as their Savior.
This “hardening” of an unregenerate person’s heart is familiar Old Testament motif with the most well-known of being the “hardening” of Pharaoh’s heart.
The Scriptures teach that God hardened Pharaoh (Exodus 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:8).
There were prophecies that God would do this to Pharaoh (Exodus 4:21; 7:3).
However, the Scriptures also teach that Pharaoh would harden himself (Exodus 7:13, 14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 34, 35).
God’s hardening of Pharaoh is the result of Pharaoh first hardening himself in the sense of rejecting over and again God’s command to release the nation of Israel from her bondage to him in Egypt.
God permitted Pharaoh to exercise his volition repeatedly to reject His command to release the nation of Israel from her bondage in Egypt.
Pharaoh was responsible for his evil actions.
God’s hardening was His response to Pharaoh’s hardening or in other words, it was in response to Pharaoh repeatedly rejecting His command to release the nation of Israel from her bondage in Egypt.
Thus, God’s hardening is a manifestation of His wrath, i.e., righteous indignation towards sin and is an expression of His holiness.
God used Pharaoh’s evil actions and negative volition to glorify Himself in the sense that through Pharaoh’s disobedience to His commands, God manifested His omnipotence in delivering Israel from her bondage to Pharaoh’s Egypt.
Repeated sinning as in Pharaoh’s case hardens the conscience so that it becomes “seared” like scar tissue (1 Timothy 4:2).
To continually reject God’s truth as Pharaoh did causes the conscience to become progressively calloused, hardened and less sensitive to sin, as if covered with layers of unspiritual scar tissue.
In Romans 9:18, Paul uses this example of God hardening Pharaoh because in context in Romans 9-11 he is speaking of the nation of Israel’s rejection of Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah in his day and is defending God’s righteousness in rejecting the nation for rejecting Jesus Christ.
In Paul’s day God had hardened unregenerate Israel for her rejection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, as their Messiah just as He hardened Pharaoh’s heart for Pharaoh rejecting His revelation of Himself and command to release the nation of Israel.
In Ephesians 4:19, the noun aselgeia (ἀσέλγεια), “self-indulgence” pertains to sinful abandonment to the desires of the indwelling old Adamic sin nature in the sense of indulging oneself with regards to unrestrained sensual pleasure, which is against the will of God.
The articular construction of this word is kataphoric or proleptic which means that it defines self-indulgence as the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
The noun aselgeia (ἀσέλγεια) is used by Paul in Romans 13:13 for licentiousness or blatant sexual immorality.
In this passage, he exhorts the Roman Christian community to reject this sin.
Romans 13:13 Let us for the duration continue to conduct our lives properly as those who, as an eternal spiritual truth, exist in the state of being in the day, not by means of drunken parties, not by means of licentious promiscuity, not by means of jealous contention. (Lecturer’s translation)
