The Pulpit Commentary on Ephesians 4:21

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

If so be that ye heard him. A word of caution. We are not to assume too readily that we are in a right relation to Christ. We must look within and make sure of that. To hear him, here, is to hear him as his sheep hear his voice and follow him, recognizing the voice of the Shepherd, a voice to be implicitly obeyed.

And were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. The peculiar force of this clause is the double ἐν, not given in the first clause in A.V., thereby obscuring the sense, which is, that all teaching and all truth acquires a different hue and a different character when there is a personal relation to Jesus.

Truth apart from the person of Christ has little power; abstract doctrines have little influence; the very atonement may be a barren dogma. But the atonement taught "in Jesus," in connection with the living, loving, dying, risen Savior tells; the blood of redemption in connection with the Son of God incarnate thus loving us, and meekly, patiently suffering the agonies of the cross in our room, is not only a power, but the greatest moral power that can move the heart.

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