Our generation will be remembered in history as the one which was the most consumed with morally dissecting every part of human sexuality. In our broadminded liberal world, nothing says progressive like openly evaluating your sexuality or gender in your safe space or bragging about how many abortions you’ve had. The heralds of the sexual revolt continue to spew their ethical demands with an expectation that we’ll affirm them while waving their flags. Christians are more than at any other time in antiquity forced to think through their worldview on sex, the nature of a man and a woman and especially how exactly to react to the endless confrontations. The influence of the sexual-rights movement has left the borders of academia and entered into the world of government, corporations and in an unfortunate growing trend into the church. While the church previously needed to respond faithfully to the ethical challenges brought by the free-sex revolutionaries and feminists on promiscuous sex, condoms and abortions, today they’ve been handed further items in the pot-pourri of sexual ethics such as gay marriage, pronouns and male menstruation. These are of course blatantly in opposition to God’s creation account and an attempt to taint the sexual ethics of God’ Kingdom as some kind of far gone stone aged ethos. What’s worst, is that to not affirm their pious commands to accept their ideologies, means you don’t have a right to exist in this world and which makes me thankful for the Lord’s exhortation on the gates of hell (Matthew 16:18).
While the church is under constant bombardment from these sexual anarchists, there is a real danger on the other side of the proverbial coin that could be ignored. Sometimes we need to lay aside these external distractions and focus upon internal problems with sexual ethics which, quite frankly, can do far more damage to the testimony of the Ekklesia than the LGBTQ onslaughts. God has not only laid out in scripture sexual design, but also how to keep ourselves and our house clean when it comes to sins of sensuality. Churches have problems in this department. Adultery, fornication, sexual abuse and porn addictions are not absent from God’s people, and they require a lot of observation, consideration and action to purify her. Being conscientious of these things and learning how to deal with them is not a want but a must. These next verses in Ephesians, while not exhaustive, deal with how to act and think in God’s sexual order:
The Text
Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them. (Ephesians 5:1-7 NKJV)
Divine Mimickers
Before delving into sexual behaviours, we need to establish a foundational principle on living that will help us in our fight against these sins, both personal and corporate. In this text, Paul continues his dialect on the contrast between behaviours and the outflow of those behaviours when they interact within the Christian Community. In this first verse, there is a call to Christians in Ephesus and in our churches today to be imitators of God. We are called to follow God in that we are to strive to mimic his holy character. Christians are to strive to be perfect as He is perfect (Matthew 5:48) or merciful as God is merciful (Luke 6:36). Just prior to this text, the Ephesians were called to forgive as Christ has forgiven (Ephesians 4:32). God is the ultimate example that we must endeavor to achieve. Notice that this is in contrast to man. It is also in distinction to their former gods whose worship demanded sex with the temple prostitutes. To be an imitator, we’ll need to know Him and how to imitate His character. We will love what God loves and hate what God hates. We will interact with others in mercy, longsuffering, purity and holiness. What we are to imitate is the walk in love. If we are to be called “Beloved Children”, then there are certain characteristics and behaviours that need to be lived because of the new birth.
The Sweet Smell of the Christian Walk
To be imitators of God, our lives as children of God must be lived with the same love Christ exhibited. This is the very definition of love and the standard of love that Paul will even set for a husband to love his wife. But walking in love isn’t based upon some fluffy imbalanced emotion that either is diminished to a simple feeling or an excessive empathy. This love is the be the same love that God has shown in Christ. Paul defines God’s love in a more personal sense to the Galatians (2:20), but this time he refers to the collective body, the church! Christ demonstrated His love in an act of dying love and sacrifice. This was in accordance with God giving Him up as a sacrifice (Romans 8:32) so that the purposes of God are shown to be aligned together between the two persons. He willingly offered Himself in the giving of His life for the sake of others. So, the expectation for a Christian is to do the same.
We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3:16)
We are to gladly give our lives for our brothers & sisters in love for them. But sacrificing isn’t just forfeiting something for another, it needs to be an offering to God. So, it is meant to do good to the extent of giving up your valuable time and your money towards the well-being of a brother or sister in need but all with glorifying God in mind. When we are focused upon this type of love towards others and pleasing God, we won’t be thinking so much about self-gratification.
The result of Christ’s sacrifice was that it pleased God, as a fragrant aroma. Under the OT sacrifices, the smoke of the burnt offering was a “soothing aroma” (Exodus 29:18; Leviticus 1:9) as was other offerings including the sin-offering (Leviticus 4:31). Our lives fashioned as Christ’s before God are pleasing to the Father in the exact same way. If we walk in love as Christ walked, we will become this sweet aroma to the Lord, pleasing to Him.
Sex & Dirty Jokes
We’re now confronted with a list of desires that are in opposition to the love walk of the child of God and the life of sacrifice of the new man. The first is “sexual immorality” (πορνεια). The term “porneia” is where we get our expression “porn” but the word itself is more wide-ranging. It includes fornication (having sex before marriage), adultery (having sex with someone outside of your spouse while married) and other illicit sexual behaviours such as watching pornography, homosexual sex and others that we won’t mention. In Paul’s day, it included temple prostitution, whether Christian men participating in a sort of sex worship, or Christian women becoming temple prostitutes. Christians should never participate or be associated with these even in our day no matter how accepted they’ve become (1 Corinthians 6:18; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:13). In the same way, impurity should never be mentioned amongst us. When the flesh (old man) is showing his ugly head, one means is through impurity. This impurity is generally associated with sexual impurity (Romans 1:24; 6:19; 1 Thessalonians 4:7 etc). No matter how much your sexologist argues about the morality of various sexualities, they are impure if they go against what God has laid out as pure. Even sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman is tainted sex and Christian communities has to stop being silent about this type of behaviour.
Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. (Hebrews 13:4)
The third in this list is greed or better rendered “covetousness”. It is to desire something with passion that belongs to another such as their belongings, their lifestyle, or their wife/husband. While we mentioned pornography earlier, it could fall under the category of covetousness as well. This might also include a man, or a woman making every effort possible to have a person of the opposite sex covet them through their flirtatious side or wearing clothing to draw the eye. All of these have one thing in common, they are meant to place an emphasis upon self rather than God. In Christ, we are to work towards the benefit of others with things that are Godly. This type of sexual self-emphasis promotes a sexual idolatry. All of these are not to be named among you meaning that there should never be any accusations against a saint or a church in regard to these items.
In verse 4, we now move to types of forbidden speech. They are filthiness (or obscenity), silly talk and coarse jesting. One of the challenges in defining these terms are that they’re only used here in the whole bible. Most scholars have interpreted these as perverted talk or dirty jokes. Since the context has been mainly on sexual ethics, we believe that this makes sense. These types of speech were not “fitting” or “appropriate” for the testimony of the Christian community.
The opposite speech that they should engage within their community was giving thanks. While this may not seem to fit the narrative, it is an enormously significant way in dealing with sexual sins and dirty jokes. When a Christian is thankful for what he/she has in Christ, there is no need for desiring sexual immorality or impurity or to covet. If they are giving thanks with their speech with purity, there is little room for raunchy talk.
Contra Regnum
There is one thing that Paul determines that they would know for certain. It was unquestionable that the individual(s) who practices the aforementioned sins of sexual immorality, impurity and covetousness will not have an inheritance in the kingdom of God and His Christ. Paul adds to the previous list that of the idolater. This is the very same argument he made in his epistle to the Colossians (3:5). When these sexual cravings and practices become more fervent for them than the things of God, they become idols. In their former life as Gentiles, there was an equation between sex and worship. The possession of the inheritance in the kingdom here is in the present tense not future. It wasn’t that those who practiced these sins wouldn’t have an inheritance in the future but that they presently had none. A similar warning in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Galatians 5:20-21 seems to be in the future tense and focuses upon entering the kingdom rather than an inheritance within it.
We should pause for a moment just to say that for Paul to give such warnings over and over again, the churches in Asia Minor undoubtedly struggled with the temptation of these sins. These temptations are still around even in 2025 and the message is still pertinent to heed.
But the fact that they still have to be warned against such vices shows how strong, in a pagan environment, was the temptation to indulge in them even after conversion.[1]
The kingdom is said to be the possession of both God and Christ. There is a parallel expression in Revelation 11:15 of the kingdom of the Lord and His Christ. This is the same Kingdom that Christ currently reigns and will be delivered to God the Father in the future (1 Corinthians 15:24). Our world exhibits two kingdoms, the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of the Son (Colossians 1:13). When someone is a part of the latter, he needs to leave the lifestyle within the dark kingdom behind and live his/her life as citizens of the new.
Barren Talk
Paul follows-up these commands with two stern warning to not be misled and not partake in the debauchery of those around them. This is still very relevant today! The first warning is a call not to be deceived by empty words. They are not to be taken by opinions, teachings, or traditions contrary to living the life of the kingdom. In Colossians, Paul seems to expand on the definition:
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. (Colossians 3:8)
This would also include all the woke mantras about human sexuality or their permissible sexual behaviour that has flooded our society for decades. The fact that Paul calls them “empty” means that they are without any sort of substance. It is our view that one day in the distant future, people will look back at this generation and see the emptiness of its philosophies and sexual ethics. We need to take this seriously since, as Paul reiterates, these things will bring about the wrath of God. These are called “the sons of disobedience” which was who they formerly were (Ephesians 2:2). They don’t live their lives as children of God or as imitators of God but walk in disobedience. The wrath that comes is in the present tense so this isn’t necessarily something that will only come on judgment day, but a present reality (John 3:36; Romans 1:18). This doesn’t mean that it comes upon these children of wrath all of a sudden. God is patient but when His judgment comes, it comes with righteous anger.
The 2nd warning is to not be partakers with them. They are not to share in these various immoralities or promote these anti-Kingdom ideologies. This warning should be enough to sway any desire to join in their lusts. These should never be permitted in a Christian’s life but just as importantly, in the church since whatever you permit, you promote.
[1] New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Epistle to the Colossians, to Philemon and to the Ephesians, F.F. Bruce, 1984, Page 371
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