Ephesians 4.21c-Obedience to the Truth Corresponds to an Experiential Knowledge of Christ
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday August 26, 2025
Ephesians Series: Ephesians 4:21c-Obedience to the Truth Corresponds to an Experiential Knowledge of Christ
Lesson # 269
Ephesians 4:21 If and let us assume for the sake of argument that each and every one of you as a corporate unit in fact conformed to an experiential knowledge of Him and we all agree each one of you did. In other words, each and every one of you as a corporate unit were taught about Him through personal experience because obedience to the truth corresponds to an experiential knowledge of Jesus. (Lecturer’s translation)
Ephesians 4:21 is a protasis of a first class condition, which indicates the assumption of truth for the sake of argument and the contents of Ephesians 4:22-24 explain the contents of Ephesians 4:21 and so therefore, the contents of Ephesians 4:21-24 constitute the protasis of this first class condition.
The apodosis of this first class condition appears in Ephesians 4:20, which we noted presents a contrast with the statements in Ephesians 4:17-19, which describe the ungodly mind-set and resultant ungodly lifestyle of unregenerate Gentile humanity.
The idea of the protasis in Ephesians 4:21 is “if and let assume that it is true for the sake argument that each and every one of you as a corporate unit conformed to an experiential knowledge of Christ.”
In other words, each and every one of you as a corporate unit were taught about Him through experience because obedience to the truth corresponds to an experiential knowledge of Jesus and we all agree each one of you did.”
The apodosis asserts that “by no means whatsoever in this manner did each and every one of you as a corporate unit learn about Christ through experience.”
By means of this first class conditional statement, Paul is persuading and reminding these Gentile church age Christians that by no means whatsoever did living like unregenerate Gentile humanity cause them to learn about Christ through experience.
Specifically, it is persuading them and thus reminding them that they learned about Christ through personal experience as a result of appropriating by faith their union and identification with Christ in His crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection and session at the right hand of the Father.
Simultaneously, they were appropriating by faith their new indwelling Christ nature because the nature of Christ is utilized by the believer who is experiencing the presence of Christ in their life, which is accomplished by appropriating faith their union and identification with Christ.
Therefore, this post-justification faith enabled them to learn through personal experience Christ’s crucifixion, death, resurrection and session at the right hand of the Father and thus to experience their new indwelling Christ nature.
Now, the protasis of this first class condition contains three assertions:
(1) auton ēkousate (αὐτὸν ἠκούσατε), “each and every one of you as a corporate unit in fact conformed to Him” (Lecturer’s translation)
(2) kai en autō edidachthēte (καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐδιδάχθητε), “Specifically, each and every one of you as a corporate unit were taught about Him through personal experience” (Lecturer’s translation)
(3) estin alētheia en tō Iēsou (ἐστιν ἀλήθεια ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ), “obedience to the truth corresponds to an experiential knowledge of Jesus” (Lecturer’s translation).
Many expositors interpret the third and final assertion as a comparative clause, which means that it is being compared to the first two assertions in the verse and it states that obedience to the truth corresponds to an experiential knowledge of Jesus.
Therefore, this final assertion in Ephesians 4:21 would mark a comparison between conforming to an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ, which Paul defines as being taught about Jesus Christ through personal experience, and obedience to the truth which corresponds to an experiential knowledge of Him.
However, although interpreting this third and final clause as comparative makes sense, I interpret this third and final assertion as a causal clause, which would indicate that this final assertion explains the reason the previous two assertions are true.
Therefore, it presents the reason the recipients of this letter were conformed to an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ and specifically they were taught about Him through personal experience, namely because obedience to the truth corresponds to an experiential knowledge of Him.
This interpretation is supported by the fact that the causal use of this adverb kathōs (καθώς), which introduces this third and final assertion is the most specific semantic value of the word in this particular context.
It is the most semantic value of this word because obedience to the truth is the specific reason the believer comes to possess an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ.
The assertion that obedience to the truth corresponds to an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ defines specifically the reason the believer is conformed to an experiential knowledge of the truth and correspondingly, it is also the specific reason the believer is taught about Jesus Christ through personal experience.
Therefore, the causal use of this adverb kathōs (καθώς) is the more specific semantic value of this word in this particular context than the comparative use because obedience to the truth does in fact define the specific reason for an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ, which is mentioned in the first two assertions.
The first assertion speaks of obedience to the truth as corresponding to an experiential knowledge of Christ as conforming to an experiential knowledge of Him and the second as being taught about Him through personal experience.
Thus, to interpret the third assertion as being compared to the first two would mean comparing the same things from different perspectives or in other words, one would be comparing the same thing to itself.
The noun alētheia (ἀλήθεια) refers to Paul’s Spirit inspired apostolic teaching, which he communicated to the recipients of this epistle or in other words, it refers to His Spirit inspired apostolic teaching he communicated to every member of the Gentile Christian community.
The contents of this truth and thus Paul’s Spirit inspired teaching is concerning the Christian community’s union and identification with Jesus Christ and His nature, which resides in each member of this community.
This Spirit inspired teaching of Paul was appropriated by faith by the members of this community, which enabled them to experience not only their union and identification with Christ but also to experience their new indwelling Christ nature.
This noun alētheia (ἀλήθεια) contains the figure of metonymy which means the truth is put for obedience to truth, which results an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ, which is indicated by the fact that an experiential knowledge of Christ is the direct result of obedience to the Word of God, which manifests God’s attribute of truth.
Now, in the third and final assertion in Ephesians 4:21, the dative masculine singular form of the proper noun Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς) refers to the human nature of the incarnate Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth.
This word also contains the figure of metonymy which means that the person of Jesus of Nazareth is put for an experiential knowledge of Jesus and this interpretation is indicated by the articular construction of this word is anaphoric.
This means that it is pointing back to the intensive personal pronoun autos (αὐτός), which is indicated by the fact that they agree in number (singular) and gender (masculine) and case (dative) and this indicates that they have the same referent, which is a personal experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ.
This interpretation is also indicated by the contents of Ephesians 4:22-24, which we noted are describing the recipients living in their new indwelling Christ nature that every church age believer receives at the moment of justification through regeneration by the Holy Spirit.
Living in their new Christ nature was accomplished by experiencing their union and identification which they also received at the moment of justification through the baptism of the Spirit, which identifies them with Jesus Christ in His crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection and session at the right hand of the Father.
This interpretation is indicated by the fact that the new Christ nature and the believer’s union and identification with Christ both took place through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The new Christ nature is received through the Spirit’s ministry in regeneration while the believer’s union and identification with Christ is received through the Spirit’s work in baptism.
The proper noun Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς) functions as the object of the preposition en (ἐν), which again functions as a marker of a state or condition and so therefore, the prepositional phrase en tō Iēsou (ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ) expresses the idea of being in the state of the believer possessing an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ.
The reason Paul employs the proper noun Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς) by itself in this prepositional phrase and not together with the proper name Christos (Χριστός), “Christ” or the noun kurios (κύριος), “Lord” or all three together has perplexed expositors of this passage.
The interpretation which makes the most sense in this context is that Paul is emphasizing Jesus Christ as a human being in the sense that the Christian community is to live their lives like the incarnate Son of God did as a human being during His First Advent.
In other words, Paul’s emphasizing with the Gentile Christian community that they are to follow the example of incarnate Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ.
In the causal clause in Ephesians 4:21, the verb eimi (εἰμί) pertains to something being identical something else or in other words, it pertains to the exact correspondence of two things.
Therefore, this verb eimi (εἰμί) expresses the idea that obedience to the truth “corresponds to” or is “identical to” or “equivalent to” an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ.
The present tense of this verb eimi (εἰμί) is a gnomic present, which expresses the idea that obedience to the truth of God expressed through Paul’s Spirit inspired apostolic teaching concerning the church age believer’s union and identification with Christ as well as their indwelling nature of Christ “as an eternal spiritual truth” or a “spiritual axiom” corresponds to an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ.
