7 Characteristics of the Old Man

“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ” (Eph 4:17-20)

You might’ve noticed in these passages that Paul gives a list. We’re not supposed to walk like other Gentiles walk and he lists 7 examples of how Gentiles walk.

1. Vanity of Mind
2. Understanding Darkened
3. Alienated from the Life of God
4. Ignorance
5. Blindness of Heart
6. Being Past Feeling
7. Given Over to Lasciviousness

Later, in vs. 22, he says, That ye put off concerning the former conversation (the old manner of living of) the old man. What was that former conversation? What was the old man’s old manner of living? Context! He’s talking about the 7 characteristics listed in vs 17-19.

Not only that, but we can identify in this list a distinct progression of spiritual decline being in that state of unbelief in two specific ways.

1. A Shift from Internal-to-External: The list begins entirely inside the mind and heart (Vanity of Mind -> Darkened Understanding -> A Blind Heart) and ends with external, physical behavior (Lasciviousness -> Greedy Uncleanness). Outward sin begins with a corrupt thought life.
2. A Progressive Loss of Sensitivity: There is a scary progression from “blindness” to being “past feeling.” This suggests a hardening or numbing effect because of sin and unbelief. When one walks in unbelief, they are able to feel moral convictions about many of their actions.

This list is not about behavior-first. It’s belief → condition → conduct.

The lost person doesn’t sin because he behaves wrongly— he behaves wrongly because his entire inner man is disconnected from truth and the life of God. Paul isn’t just warning us about sin — he’s exposing its root cause, which is unbelief, which parallels the same things the Lord was telling His disciples before His arrest. It all starts with unbelief in the mind – futile vain thinking that leads to a darkened understanding that leads to a hardened heart and ends with a life that has given itself over to sin without restraint.

Let’s dive into these 7 attributes.

1 – Vanity of Mind

The first attribute is that the Gentiles walk “in the vanity of their mind.” Everything in this list starts with the mind. The mind is where you find the root problem of the lost condition.

There is vanity going on in that mind. What does that mean exactly? He’s not really talking about pride and ego, although there’s certainly a lot of that in unbelievers. He’s talking about futility of thought. He’s talking about emptiness, futility, worthlessness. It’s not that unbelievers don’t think — it’s that their thinking goes nowhere. It’s futile thinking. It’s motion without meaning. Activity without outcome. It’s a life driven by ideas that can never arrive at the truth and therefore cannot produce a spiritual life or the life of God.

So the problem first is how they think. Everything else in vs 18 – 19 flows out of the vanity of the mind or futile thinking of unbelievers. You get a darkened understanding, ignorance, a hardness of heart, moral numbness, and eventually a life given over to sin.

Vanity is the root — everything else is fruit. Paul is laying out a progression: empty thinking leads to a darkened understanding, which leads to separation from the life of God, which hardens the heart, which numbs the conscience, and then results in a lifestyle consumed with sin.

Thus, vanity of their mind isn’t the end of the problem — it’s the beginning of all their problems. The mind of the unbeliever is like a high-performance engine that isn’t connected to anything. It’s running. It’s active. It’s even impressive at times — but it’s not producing anything of eternal value. There’s a kind of mechanical futility — heat, noise, motion, but no good works, no eternal value. People can think and think somewhat deeply. They can plan, build, achieve stuff — and yet, from the standpoint of eternity, the result is waste. The tragedy is not a lack of intelligence—it’s a lack of connection to God.

2 – Understanding Darkened

Then we have in vs 18, “having the understanding darkened.” If verse 17 gave us the root—the vanity of the mind—now Paul shows us what that bad root produces. The problem is no longer just what the mind is thinking, but how rejecting God corrupts their perception of reality. Understanding speaks of the reasoning faculty — the ability to connect reality with truth, to draw conclusions, and to make sense of the world. In other words, this is the CPU of the soul – you understanding reality. Your whole system that processes reality has become darkened because you’re disconnected from the life of God.

That word “darkened” is powerful, too. It means obscured, covered over, deprived of light. Not that light doesn’t exist — but that the ability to understand it, to process it, has become impaired. You’ve become corrupted from within being in that state of unbelief. It’s like an eclipse. The sun is still shining, but something has come between the light and the observer. Your understanding hasn’t simply gone dim on its own — it has become darkened because of the mind. When truth is rejected, then darkness just moves in.

And then a person is left trying to reason about life, God, and eternity… but they’re in the dark. You cannot reason your way to truth if the very organ of reasoning is cut off from God’s light That’s why Paul says in Ephesians 1:18 that the eyes of your understanding must be enlightened. Without divine illumination, a person can be intellectually active and yet spiritually blind.

And notice how this fits perfectly with the flow from vs 17. First, the mind is filled with vanity — empty, futile thinking. Then the understanding becomes darkened — now perception itself is distorted. The unbeliever doesn’t just lack information — he misperceives reality. His inner CPU is running, but it’s just broken. So the empty input from the mind leads to distorted processing in the soul, which leads to alienation from the life of God, which hardens the heart and produces a life of sin and unrighteous living.

3 – Alienated from the Life of God

Then Paul says in vs 18 that the Gentiles are “alienated from the life of God.” This is the third step in a downward spiral he’s been describing. (First, the mind is wasted — vanity. Second, their understanding is darkened — the ability to perceive truth and reality is impaired. And now third, the result: their relationship is severed from God.)

That word alienated is also powerful. It carries the idea of being a stranger, an outsider, someone who no longer belongs. It’s not just that they are far from God — they are cut off from God, cut off from participation in the blessings He provides. You could think of it like losing one’s citizenship. We were created to be “at home” with God, but because of sin and unbelief, we were cast out like Adam and Eve in the Garden. And the language here suggests a settled condition. This is a state of being. They are alive but functionally disconnected from the life source of their existence.

Notice also that Paul doesn’t just say they are alienated from God — he says they are alienated from the life of God. There’s a distinction. It’s not that God Himself is unavailable to Him. He hasn’t totally turned His back on people. It’s not like He doesn’t know they exist. But they’re cut off from the life He offers until they are reconciled to Him by faith in the gospel. It’s not like they are not lacking in biological life. What they are lacking is the life of God – His eternal life. They’re cut off from the eternal resurrection life that originates in God, that flows from God and gives meaning and purpose and eternal reward to your existence here on Earth. It’s like a perfectly built lamp that isn’t plugged in. The structure is there, the wiring is there — but there is no current flowing through it. The life of God is the power source, and they are unplugged.

If your understanding is darkened, you cannot see where His life is. You cannot walk to a door you can’t see. Because the understanding is darkened, the soul naturally drifts away from God – it’s lost. If you’re cut off from His light, you’re lost in darkness and alienation is the natural result of being in darkness cut off from God.

When truth and faith is rejected, they lose access to His life. And, of course, herein lies the paradox — you can be physically active and spiritually dead at the same time. You can be running hard in life and still be completely disconnected from the only life that truly matters. This is why everything else in this old man list progressively deteriorates. Once a person is cut off from the life of God, the heart begins to harden, the conscience begins to numb, and sin begins to abound in their lives. And Paul tells us why this happens: “through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” Their alienation is sustained by their spiritual condition within.

4 – Ignorance

Then he says vs 18 they are alienated from the life of God “through the ignorance that is in them.” This is the engine driving the whole condition. That word “through” tells you this is the cause. He’s not just describing what has happened — he is now explaining why this state of being continues to exist. There is something operating inside the unbeliever that keeps them cut off, and Paul calls it ignorance, except this is not the kind of ignorance we usually think of. This is not someone who hasn’t been told the truth. This is a settled condition of willfully not knowing truth because it comes from God. It’s not that truth isn’t available — it’s that truth is not being accepted and allowed to transform them from within.

This is a willful unknowing — a condition where the mind has already decided it doesn’t want what God has to say. And this fits perfectly into the progression Paul has been building. The mind is empty — vanity. The understanding is darkened — distorted perception of reality. Now ignorance settles in — truth is no longer functioning as it should in their souls. As a result, they are alienated from the life of God. Vanity leads to darkness, darkness produces ignorance, and ignorance results in alienation. And then alienation feeds right back into more darkness.

This is why simply giving people more information doesn’t solve the problem. You can present truth clearly, logically, even passionately—and nothing changes. The light can shine, but if it’s resisted, the darkness remains in them. And as long as that ignorance stays in place, they will not have the life of God — not because it isn’t offered, but because it’s not received.

5 – Blindness of Heart

Then Paul says in vs 18 “because of the blindness of their heart.” Everything he has said up to this point — vanity of mind, darkened understanding, alienation from the life of God — now gets traced back to another root issue – the blindness of their heart. If those earlier phrases describe the symptoms, this is the disease. This again returns to the root of it all.

I had read that the word “blindness” in the KJV is actually much stronger than it sounds. It carries the idea of hardness, callousness—even petrification. It’s the picture of something that has become so callused, petrified, it’s lost all feeling of sensation.

Paul isn’t just saying they can’t see — he’s also saying they can’t feel either. Their heart has become like stone. Just like skin that’s been calloused over time loses sensitivity, the heart can become so darkened and hardened that it hates the light.

This is reinforced in Heb. 3:13, which is a verse that haunts me. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. There is a hardening character to sin. It’s not just that sin hardens the heart but the deceitfulness of sin hardens the heart. When you buy into the lies you tell yourself when you justifying sinning – believing those lies will harden your heart.

This is why Paul points to the heart. The thinking heart is the center of the inner man. It’s where the will operates, where affections are formed, where moral decisions are made. So when the heart becomes hardened, it shuts down your whole inner life.

This is where the connection to ignorance becomes so important. Paul says they are alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. Through ignorance because of blindness. That means the vanity of the mind is cause for blindness of the heart, which darkens your inner life, and you’re operating in a state of willful ignorance, and the result is alienation from God. The mind rejects truth. The heart refuses the light, and just like a cataract over the eye preventing vision, a corrupt hardened heart is living without and truth vision. So ignorance isn’t just a lack of information — it’s the byproduct of a heart that has become unresponsive to truth.

6 – Being Past Feeling

Then in vs 19, Paul says, “who being past feeling.” Up to this point, he has been describing the internal condition of the soul — the mind, the understanding, the heart. Now we see where it all leads. This phrase marks the moment where the internal breakdown becomes their new reality. This is where this spiritual problem / condition takes you – to a place where you are past feeling.

The phrase “past feeling” means to have lost the ability to feel pain. He’s not talking about physical pain or even emotional pain. He’s talking about a conscience that has been so ignored, so resisted, so cauterized, so hardened, so silenced over time that it no longer responds at all. One could say that physical pain is a gift in that it warns you something is wrong. But here, the loss of a conscience — conviction, guilt, the prick of truth — is meant to alert the soul of wrongdoing. But Paul is describing a person whose spiritual nerve endings are all dead. The alarm system has been shut off.

This connects back to what he said in verse 18 about the blindness of the heart. That hardness, that callousness, forms over time. And once that callus is thick enough, it produces numbness. If you have a thick callus on your hand, you can hold something hot and not feel the burn. Spiritually, that means a person can engage in sin, impurity, and greed — and feel no inner resistance, no sting, no conviction about it. What once would have troubled them now doesn’t even register.

Once a person reaches that point, something shifts dramatically. Paul says they “have given themselves over.” That’s the natural result of being past feeling. When the conscience no longer restrains, the will begins to surrender to the sin in the flesh. They are no longer stumbling into sin — they are offering themselves up to it. There is no internal brake system left. Sin is no longer resisted — it is embraced.

7- Given Over to Lasciviousness

Now we’ve reached the final stage of this spiritual decline. Everything up to this point has been internal—the mind, the understanding, the heart, the conscience. But now, it spills outward into a life fully surrendered to sin. He says, “who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” This is the terminal stage of spiritual ruin for an unbeliever.

He says, they “have given themselves over.” This carries the idea of a judicial act, almost like a lawyer arguing for premeditation of murder. This is deliberate. This is voluntary. They have reached a point where the conscience is silent, all inner resistance is gone, and now the will surrenders to the lusts of the flesh. They are no longer fighting sin—they are yielding to it.

What they give themselves over to is “lasciviousness.” Webster calls this irregular indulgence of animal desires, wantonness, lustfulness. This is sin without shame. This is unrestrained, open, shameless, indulgence of sin. If being “past feeling” is the loss of internal shame, then lasciviousness is the loss of external shame. They don’t just sin — they flaunt it.

Paul then describes the lifestyle that flows out of this: “to work all uncleanness.” The word “work” is important — it implies practice, occupation, even industry. Sin is no longer occasional—it becomes one’s stock in trade. They are producing uncleanness as a way of life. And “all uncleanness” means there are no boundaries left. The entire life becomes saturated with corruption and sin.

However, the most revealing phrase may be the last two words in vs 19: “with greediness.” This tells you what’s driving it all. This is not just indulgence — it’s greediness, an insatiable desire for uncleanness. The more they pursue sin, the more they want it. This is the vicious cycle — sin promises satisfaction but produces more hunger. The person is chasing fulfillment, but they never find it because they are alienated from the life of God. So they keep working, keep pursuing, keep indulging—and yet remain empty.

The Progression of Spiritual Ruin (Eph. 4:17–19):

1. Vanity of mind → empty thinking
2. Darkened understanding → distorted perception
3. Alienation → cut off from His life
4. Ignorance → truth rejected
5. Blindness of heart → hardness
6. Past feeling → no conviction
7. Given over → total surrender to sin

But Ye

But then we get this great pivot in vs 20 when Paul says “But ye.” When he says, “But ye have not so learned Christ,” he executes one of the most dramatic pivots in the entire passage. After walking us step-by-step through the collapse of the Gentile life—vanity, darkness, alienation, hardness, numbness, and surrender to sin—he now stops the whole descent with two simple words: “But ye.”

This is the stop-loss of the soul. This is where everything changes. He’s saying, “That progression I just described—that’s not your lineage anymore.” This connects all the way back to verse 1—the calling, the vocation, the identity. You don’t just walk differently because you’re trying harder — you walk differently because you are different.

Then Paul says something really great: “ye have not so learned Christ.” Not learned about Christ. Not learned doctrines. Not learned principles. He says, learned Christ. That means you learned the nature and character of Christ Himself. He is both the subject and the substance of your new life in God. This is not information transfer — it’s transformation of attributes – from His life to yours. Where the Gentile mind is vain — learning Christ fills that vacuum with the fullness of Him in all His glory.