Ephesians 4:20
20 But [de] ye [humeis] have [manthano] not [ou] so [houto] learned [manthano] Christ; [Christos] KJV-Interlinear
20 But
you did not learn Christ in this way, NASB
In what way?
You have not learned
about Christ by means of the vanity or empty mindedness, or by means of your
pursuit of sin, whether criminal or social, or by means of the ignorance by
which this world promotes life.
In other words, you do not
learn about God or Christ or doctrine or anything of a spiritual nature, by
means of the sin nature which is in all people, and of which absorbs the lives
of all who pursue life through its tendencies.
We all have two possible
sides to us. The sin nature side, later
called the old man in this passage, and the other side is the spiritual side,
also called the new man later in this passage.
All things of a spiritual
nature, come only from spiritual sources.
All things sinful come
only from the sin nature side of man.
Mans volition decides
which side is in control of his life from moment to moment.
When you were born into
this world, you were born spiritually dead, although physically alive. The Holy Spirit stood in the gap to make the
spiritual information regarding salvation, clear and lucid in your mind, 2 Cor.
2:14, Jn. 16:7-11. Thus the spiritual comes
from the spiritual.
Once you have believed in
Christ, then a human spirit is created instantly in you. Your human spirit houses your third life
component of eternal life, and thus your spiritual life is created and you are
born all over again, but this time spiritually, not physically.
Now you have two sides
within you. The sin nature, and the spiritual life.
The sin nature is
ingrained within your genetic physical self.
In Adam all die. As a descendant
of Adam, being human, you possess the genetics of the sin nature. It remains behind when you die as it remains
in the decay of the corpse in which is resides.
The sin nature does not go to heaven.
Only your soul and spirit move on to the next life. The sin nature is
passed down from generation to generation by the man. The woman does not pass along the sin nature. The Bible does not say, in Eve all die.
Jesus had no human father
and thus was not born with the sin nature.
The virgin birth excluded the sin nature from his life, just as Adam was
not created with a sin nature. Adam
obtained the sin nature when he committed the first sin. Jesus never sinned. The purpose of the virgin birth was to
exclude the sin nature from Jesus.
So, when you learn things
of a spiritual nature, you first learned them by means of the Holy Spirit, and then
after you were saved, then your human spirit stands in the gap to receive spiritual
information. However, all things
spiritual are provided by the Holy Spirit.
Your human spirit, now being in place, serves as the conduit of
spiritual food, into the soul.
Without the human spirit,
you have no mechanism for receiving spiritual food, into the soul. The Holy Spirit only serves as a temporary
conduit for the gospel and salvation.
Therefore, you do not
learn of Christ, you do not learn of doctrine, from the source of the sin
nature side of life. If that were true
then man would not need God in any fashion in order to gain access to, or be
equal with God. That would imply that
man has a means of achieving some semblance of the spiritual life, based on his
own effort. And he does not. You do not.
To presume that you can learn on your own or advance spiritually on your
own, is an application of ones arrogance.
In order to learn doctrine,
you must be in the spiritual side of your life, which, after you are saved, is
acquired through confession, which places you in fellowship. The term fellowship is a term that means functioning
in the spiritual side of life, 1 Jn. 1:9.
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