Ephesians 4.21d-The Gentile Christian Community's Experiential Knowledge of Christ
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday August 28, 2025
Ephesians Series: Ephesians 4:21d-The Gentile Christian Community’s Experiential Knowledge of Christ
Lesson # 270
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. 20 On the contrary, by no means whatsoever in this manner did each and every one of you as a corporate unit learn about the one and only Christ through experience. 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)
In Ephesians 4:20-21, Paul is teaching the recipients of this epistle, who we noted were Gentile church age believers, about an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ.
This would require them to be experiencing fellowship with God, which is accomplished by learning and obeying the teaching of the Word of God.
Consequently, they would also be experiencing their sanctification, salvation and eternal life.
Experiencing sanctification is experiencing fellowship with God from the perspective of experiencing being set apart to serve God exclusively.
Experiencing salvation is experiencing fellowship with God from the perspective of experiencing one’s deliverance from sin and Satan.
Experiencing eternal life is experiencing fellowship with God from the perspective of personally encountering God through the process of learning and obeying His Word, which results in acquiring more of the character of Christ and spiritual wisdom.
This interpretation of experiencing eternal life is indicated by Jesus Christ’s teaching in John 17:3 where He defines eternal life as knowing the Father experientially (ginōskō).
The believer knows the Father experientially by knowing the Son experientially since the Son is the mediator between the God the Father and the sinner.
Only regenerate sinners who have trusted in the Son as their Savior can possess an experiential knowledge of the triune God.
John 17:2 “even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 This is eternal life, that they may know (ginosko, “to know experientially”) You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (NASB95)
Eternal life is knowing the Father and the Son experientially in the sense of personally encountering them through the process of fellowship as They are revealed in the pages of Scripture and prayer by God the Holy Spirit and being affected by this encounter with the Father and the Son resulting in the gaining of practical spiritual wisdom and more of the character of Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ who is the eternal, incarnate Word God came into the world in order that He might give eternal life to men and He did this so that men could enjoy and experience fellowship with God (John 1:1-4; 1 Tim. 6:12; 1 John 1:1-4; 3:16; 5:11-12, 20).
Eternal life is received as a gift through faith alone in Christ alone and is appropriated after justification by the believer who obeys the Spirit of life who reveals the will of the Father through the communication of the Word of life.
The believer experiences eternal life in time and thus experiences fellowship with God in time by obeying the will of the Father of life, which is revealed to the believer by the Spirit of life through the communication of the Word of life.
Eternal life is an attribute of all three members of the Trinity: (1) God the Father (Jo. 5:26; 6:57; 1 Th. 1:9). (2) Son of God (Jn. 5:26, 6:35 Phlp. 2:16; 1 Jo. 1:1) (3) Holy Spirit (Jn. 6:63; Rm. 8:2).
Therefore, all three members of the Trinity are involved in the mechanics of experiencing fellowship with God: (1) The Father of life has provided the believer the Spirit of life and the Word of life as the means of experiencing fellowship with Him. (2) The Word of the Son is eternal life. (3) The Spirit of life inspires the Word of life.
The Holy Spirit through the communication of the Gospel reveals the Father’s will to the unbeliever that he must believe in His Son in order to receive eternal life.
The Holy Spirit through the communication of the Word of God reveals the Father’s will to the believer after salvation that he is to become like Christ.
The believer who is obedient to the Father’s will, which is revealed by the Holy Spirit through the communication of the Word of God will live in eternal life and thus experience fellowship with God.
So therefore, the church age believer can manifest the eternal life of God by personally encountering the triune God by obeying the Spirit inspired Scriptures since as we noted the Lord defined eternal life in John 17:3 as knowing the Father experientially, which is in fact personally encountering Him through experiencing fellowship with Him.
Thus, like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have a personal experiential knowledge of each other so the believer can possess an experiential knowledge of the triune God.
However, there is a caveat, namely that the knowledge of each member of the Trinity for each is exhaustive.
Such is not the case for the believer because they received the nature of God at justification but are not beings who are eternal by nature like the members of the Trinity.
Therefore, an experiential knowledge of the person of Jesus Christ speaks of the church age believer personally encountering the person of Jesus Christ and also being affected by this encounter in that they gain more practical wisdom and as a result they mature with regards to Christian character.
The child of God personally encounters the person of Jesus Christ by exercising faith in the Spirit inspired Scriptures, which are truth, and being affected by this encounter in that they gain a practical wisdom and more of the character of Christ.
So therefore, an “experiential knowledge” of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ involves the believer personally encountering Him through the process of fellowship as He is revealed by the Holy Spirit in the pages of Scripture and prayer and being affected by this encounter with the Lord.
So therefore, the church age believer’s union and identification with Christ is inextricably tied to their new indwelling Christ nature.
The latter means that the believer is under the headship of Christ whereas prior to their justification they were under the headship of the first Adam and thus they have the nature of the first Adam indwelling in them.
The believer’s union and identification with Christ means that the Father looks at them as He does His Son and specifically that they have been crucified, died, buried, raised and seated with His Son at His right hand.
Consequently, when the believer appropriates by faith their union and identification with Christ they are living in their new indwelling Christ nature because appropriating by faith this union and identification enables them to experience their deliverance from their old indwelling Adamic nature.
Simultaneously, this post-justification enables the church age believer to experience fellowship with God, which is synonymous with experiencing their sanctification and salvation and righteousness of God.
Lastly, this post-justification faith results in an experiential knowledge of Christ since it can be defined as the believer experiencing their new Christ nature, union and identification with Christ as well as fellowship with Him and their sanctification, salvation and the righteousness of God.
Now, as we noted in our study of Ephesians 4:20, in Ephesians 4:13, Paul has addressed the subject of the recipients of this epistle possessing an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ, which he teaches is related to their spiritual growth into Christ-likeness.
In Ephesians 4:13, the noun epignōsis (ἐπίγνωσις) refers to an “experiential knowledge” of the Lord Jesus Christ in the sense of personally encountering Him through the process of fellowship as He is revealed by the Holy Spirit in the pages of Scripture and prayer and being affected by this encounter with the Lord.
In Ephesians 3:14-21, Paul prayed that the recipients of this epistle would know experientially the four dimensions of Christ’s love for them, which was manifested through His becoming a human being and fulfilling perfectly the Law for them and suffering for them at the cross the consequences of not fulfilling the Law perfectly.
