Ephesians 4

Ephesians 4:1

II. THE BELIEVER’S PRACTICE IN THE LORD (Chaps. 4-6) A. Appeal for Unity in the Christian Fellowship (4:1-6) 4:1 There is a major break at this point in Ephesians. The previous chapters have dealt with the Christian’s calling. In the last three chapters, he is urged to walk worthy of his calling. The position into which grace has lifted us was the dominant theme up to now. From here on it will be the practical outworking of that position. Our exalted standing in Christ calls for corresponding godly conduct.

So it is true that Ephesians moves from the heavenlies in chapters 1-3, to the local church, to the home, and to general society in chapters 4-6. As Stott has pointed out, these closing chapters teach that we must cultivate unity in the church, purity in our personal lives, harmony in our homes and stability in our combat with the powers of evil.For the second time Paul refers to himself as a prisonerthis time as a prisoner of the Lord. Theodoret comments: What the world counted ignominy, he counts the highest honor, and he glories in his bonds for Christ, more than a king in his diadem.As one who was imprisoned as a result of faithfulness and obedience to the Lord, Paul exhorts his readers to walk worthy of their calling. He does not command or direct. With tenderness and gentleness he appeals to them in the language of grace. The word, walk, is found seven times in this Letter (Eph_2:2, Eph_2:10; Eph_4:1, Eph_4:17; Eph_5:2, Eph_5:8, Eph_5:15); it describes a person’s entire lifestyle. A worthy walk is one that is consistent with a Christian’s dignified position as a member of the Body of Christ. 4:2 In every sphere of life, it is important to show a Christlike spirit. This consists of: Lowlinessa genuine humility that comes from association with the Lord Jesus. Lowliness makes us conscious of our own nothingness and enables us to esteem others better than ourselves. It is the opposite of conceit and arrogance. Gentlenessthe attitude that submits to God’s dealings without rebellion, and to man’s unkindness without retaliation. It is best seen in the life of Him who said, I am gentle and lowly in heart. Wright comments: What an astonishingly wonderful statement! The One who made the worlds, who flung the stars into space and calls them by name, who preserves the innumerable constellations in their courses, who weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance, who takes up the isles as a very little thing, who holds the waters of the ocean in the hollow of His hand, before whom the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers, when He comes into human life finds Himself as essentially meek and lowly in heart. It is not that He erected a perfect human ideal and accommodated Himself to it; He was that. Longsufferingan even disposition and a spirit of patience under prolonged provocation. This has been illustrated as follows: Imagine a puppy and a big dog together. As the puppy barks at the big dog, worrying and attacking him, the big dog, who could snap up the puppy with one bite, patiently puts up with the puppy’s impertinence. Bearing with one another in lovethat is, making allowance for the faults and failures of others, or differing personalities, abilities, and temperaments. And it is not a question of maintaining a fae7ade of courtesy while inwardly seething with resentment. It means positive love to those who irritate, disturb, or embarrass. 4:3 Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. In forming the church, God had eliminated the greatest division that had ever existed among human beingsthe rift between Jews and Gentiles. In Christ Jesus these distinctions were abolished. But how would it work out in their life together? Would there still be lingering antagonisms? Would there be a tendency to form a Jewish Church of Christ and a Church for the Nations? To guard against any divisions or smoldering animosities, Paul now pleads for unity among Christians. They should give diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit has made all true believers one in Christ; the Body is indwelt by one Spirit. This is a basic unity that nothing can destroy. But by quarreling and bickering, believers can act as if it were not so. To keep the unity of the Spirit means to live at peace with one another. Peace is the ligament which binds the members of the Body together in spite of their wide natural differences.

A common reaction when differences arise is to divide and start another party. The spiritual reaction is this: In essentials, unity. In doubtful questions, liberty. In all things, charity. There is enough of the flesh in every one of us to wreck any local church or any other work of God. Therefore, we must submerge our own petty, personal whims and attitudes, and work together in peace for the glory of God and for common blessing. 4:4 Instead of magnifying differences, we should think of the seven positive realities which form the basis of true Christian unity. One body. In spite of differences in race, color, nationality, culture, language, and temperament, there is only one body, made up of all true believers from Pentecost to the Rapture. Denominations, sects, and parties hinder the outworking of this truth. All such man-made divisions will be swept away when the Savior returns. Therefore, our watchword at the present time should be, Let names and sects and parties fall, and Jesus Christ be all in all.One Spirit. The same Holy Spirit who indwells each believer individually (1Co_6:19) also indwells the Body of Christ (1Co_3:16). One hope. Every member of the church is called to one destinyto be with Christ, to be like Him, and to share His glory endlessly. The one hope includes all that awaits the saints at the Return of the Lord Jesus and thereafter. 4:5 One Lord. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is one God, … and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live (1Co_8:5-6; see also 1Co_1:2.) One faith. This is the Christian faith, the body of doctrine once for all delivered to the saints (Jud_1:3), and preserved for us in the NT. One baptism. There is a twofold sense in which this is true. First, there is one baptism by the Spirit, by which those who trust Christ are placed in the body (1Co_12:13). Then there is one baptism by which converts confess their identification with Christ in death, burial, and resurrection. Though there are different modes of baptism today, the NT recognizes one believers’ baptism, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. By being baptized, disciples express allegiance to Christ, the burial of their old self, and a determination to walk in newness of life. 4:6 One God. Every child of God recognizes one God and Father of all the redeemed, who is: Above allHe is the supreme Sovereign of the universe. Through allHe acts through all, using everything to accomplish His purposes. In you allHe dwells in all believers, and is present in all places at one and the same time.

Ephesians 4:7

B. Program for Proper Functioning of the Members of the Body (4:7-16) 4:7 The doctrine of the unity of the Body of Christ has a twin truth, namely, the diversity of its members. Each member has a particular role assigned. No two members are alike, and no two have exactly the same function. The part to be played by each one is assigned according to the measure of Christ’s gift, that is, He does it as He sees fit. If Christ’s gift here means the Holy Spirit (Joh_14:16-17; Act_2:38-39), then the thought is that the Holy Spirit is the One who assigns some gift to every saint, and who also gives the ability to exercise that gift. As each member fulfills his appointed work, the Body of Christ grows both spiritually and numerically. 4:8 In order to assist each child of God to find and fulfill his function, the Lord has given some special gifts of ministry, or service to the church. These should not be confused with the gifts mentioned in the previous verse. Every believer has some gift (v. 7), but not everyone is one of the gifts named in verse 11: these are special gifts designed for the growth of the body. First, we find that the Giver of those special gifts is the risen, ascended, glorified Lord Jesus Christ. Paul quotes Psa_68:18 as a prophecy that the Messiah would ascend to heaven, would conquer His foes and lead them captive, and, as a reward for His victory, would receive gifts for men. 4:9 But this raises a problem! How could the Messiah ascend to heaven? Had He not lived in heaven with God the Father from all eternity? Obviously, if He was to ascend to heaven, He must first come down from heaven. The prophecy of His Ascension in Psa_68:18 implies a prior descent. So we might paraphrase verse 9 as follows: Now when it says in Psalms 68 He ascendedwhat does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth.

We know that this is exactly what happened. The Lord Jesus descended to Bethlehem’s manger, to the death of the cross, and to the grave. The lower parts of the earth have sometimes been taken to refer to hades or hell. But that would not fit in with the argument here: His Ascension necessitated a previous descent to earth but not to hell. In addition, the Scriptures indicate that Christ’s spirit went to heaven, not hell, when He died (Luk_23:43, Luk_23:46). The New English Bible translates this verse: Now the word ascended implies that he also descended to the lowest level, down to the very earth.4:10 The prophecy of Psa_68:18 and the descent implied in the prophecy were exactly fulfilled by the Incarnation, death, and burial of the Lord Jesus. The One who descended from heaven is also the One who conquered sin, Satan, demons, and death, and who ascended far above the atmosphere and stellar heavens, that He might fill all things. He does fill all things in the sense that He is the source of all blessing, the sum of all virtues, and the supreme Sovereign over all. There is not a place between the depth of the cross and the height of the glory which He has not occupied, writes F. W. Grant. The central thought in verses 8-10 is that the Giver of the gifts is the ascended Christ. There were no such gifts before He went back to heaven. This lends further support to the contention that the church did not exist in the OT; for if it did, it was a church without gifts. 4:11 The names of the gifts are now given. To our surprise we find they are men, not natural endowments or talents. He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. Apostles were men who were directly commissioned by the Lord to preach the word and to plant churches. They were men who had seen Christ in resurrection (Act_1:22). They had power to perform miracles (2Co_12:12) as a means of confirming the message they preached (Heb_2:4). Together with NT prophets, their ministry was primarily concerned with the foundation of the church (Eph_2:20). The apostles referred to in this passage mean only those who were apostles after the Ascension of Christ. Prophets were spokesmen or mouthpieces of God. They received direct revelations from the Lord and passed them on to the church. What they spoke by the Holy Spirit was the word of God. In the primary sense we no longer have apostles and prophets. Their ministry ended when the foundation of the church was laid, and when the NT canon was completed. We have already emphasized that Paul is speaking here of NT prophets; they were given by Christ after His Ascension. To think of them as OT prophets introduces difficulties and absurdities into the passage. Evangelists are those who preach the good news of salvation. They are divinely equipped to win the lost to Christ. They have special ability to diagnose a sinner’s condition, probe the conscience, answer objections, encourage decisions for Christ, and help the convert find assurance through the word. Evangelists should go out from a local church, preach to the world, then lead their converts to a local church where they will be fed and encouraged. Pastors are men who serve as under shepherds of the sheep of Christ. They guide and feed the flock. Theirs is a ministry of wise counsel, correction, encouragement, and consolation. The work of pastors is closely related to that of elders in a local church, the principal difference being that a pastor is a gift whereas the elder is an office. The NT pictures a number of pastors in a local church (Act_20:17, Act_20:28; 1Pe_5:1-2) rather than one pastor or presiding elder. Teachers are men who are divinely empowered to explain what the Bible says, interpret what it means, and apply it to the hearts and consciences of the saints. Whereas an evangelist may preach the gospel from a passage out of context, the teacher seeks to show how the passage fits into the context. Because pastors and teachers are linked in this verse, some conclude only one gift is intended, that it should read pastor-teachers. But this is not necessarily so. A man may be a teacher without having the heart of a shepherd. And a pastor may be able to use the word without having the distinctive gift of teaching. If pastors and teachers are the same persons here in verse 11, then, by the same rule of grammar, so are apostles and prophets in Eph_2:20. One final word. We should be careful to distinguish between divine gifts and natural talents. No unsaved person, however talented, could be an evangelist, pastor, or teacher in the NT sense. Neither could a Christian, for that matter, unless he has received that particular gift. The gifts of the Spirit are supernatural. They enable a man to do what would be humanly impossible for him. 4:12 We come now to the function or purpose of the gifts. It is for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. The process is this:

1. The gifts equip the saints.
2. The saints then serve.
3. The body is then built up. The ministry is not a specialized occupation limited to men with professional training. The word simply means service. It includes every form of spiritual service. And what this verse teaches is that every believer should be in the ministry.The gifts are given to perfect or equip all Christians to serve the Lord, and thus to build up the body of Christ. Vance Havner explains in his inimitable way: Every Christian is commissioned, for every Christian is a missionary. It has been said that the Gospel is not merely something to come to church to hear but something to go from the church to telland we are all appointed to tell it. It has also been said, Christianity began as a company of lay witnesses; it has become a professional pulpitism, financed by lay spectators! Nowadays we hire a church staff to do full-time Christian work, and we sit in church on Sunday to watch them do it. Every Christian is meant to be in full-time Christian service … There is indeed a special ministry of pastors, teachers and evangelistsbut for what? … For the perfecting of the saints for their ministry. These divinely given men should not serve in such a way as to make people perpetually dependent on them. Instead, they should work toward the day when the saints will be able to carry on by themselves. We might illustrate this as follows: The circle in the center depicts, let us say, the gift of a teacher. He ministers to those in the circle around him so that they are equipped, that is, built up in the faith. Then they go forth and minister to others according to the gifts God has given them. In this way the church grows and expands. It is the divine method of producing growth in the body of Christ, both in size and spirituality. Limitation of Christian service to a select class of men hinders the development of God’s people, stifles the cause of world evangelism, and stunts the growth of the church. The distinction between clergy and laity is unscriptural and perhaps the greatest single hindrance to the spread of the gospel. 4:13 Verse 13 answers the question, How long will this growth process continue? The answer is till we all come to a state of unity, maturity, and conformity. Unity. When the Lord takes His church home to heaven, we will all arrive at the unity of the faith. Now we see in a mirror dimly with regard to many matters. We have differences of opinion on a host of subjects. Then we will all be fully agreed. And we will reach the unity of … the knowledge of the Son of God. Here we have individual views of the Lord, of what He is like, of the implications of His teachings. Then we will see Him as He is, and know as we are known. Maturity. At the Rapture we will also reach full growth or maturity. Both as individuals and as the Body of Christ, we will achieve perfection of spiritual development. Conformity. And we will be conformed to Him. Everyone will be morally like Christ. And the universal church will be a full-grown Body, perfectly suited to its glorious Head. The fulness of Christ is the Church itself, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all (FWG). The measure of the stature of the church means its complete development, the fulfillment of God’s plan for its growth. 4:14 When the gifts operate in their God-appointed manner, and the saints are active in service for the Lord, three dangers are avoidedimmaturity, instability, and gullibility. Immaturity. Believers who never become involved in aggressive service for Christ never emerge from being spiritual children. They are undeveloped through lack of exercise. It was to such that the writer to the Hebrews said, For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again. (Heb_5:12). Instability. Another danger is spiritual fickleness. Immature Christians are susceptible to the grotesque novelties and fads of professional quacks. They become religious gypsies, moving to and fro from one appealing fantasy to another. Gullibility. Most serious of all is the danger of deception. Those who are babes are unskillful in the word of righteousness, their senses are not exercised to discern between good and evil (Heb_5:13-14). They inevitably meet some false cultist who impresses them by his zeal and apparent sincerity. Because he uses religious words, they think he must be a true Christian. If they had studied the Bible for themselves, they would be able to see through his deceitful juggling of words. But now they are carried about by his wind of doctrine and led by unprincipled cunning into a form of systematized error. 4:15 The last two verses in the paragraph describe the proper process of growth in the Body of Christ. First, there is the necessity of doctrinal adherence: but, speaking the truth. … There can be no compromise as to the fundamentals of the faith. Second, there must be a right spirit: but, speaking the truth in love. If it is spoken in any other way, the result is a one-sided testimony. Blaikie admonishes: Truth is the element in which we are to live, move, and have our being. … But truth must be inseparably married to love; good tidings spoken harshly are not good tidings. The charm of the message is destroyed by the discordant spirit of the messenger. Then as the gifts equip the saints, and as the saints engage in active service, they grow up in all things into Christ. Christ is the aim and object of their growth, and the sphere of growth is in all things. In every area of their lives they become more like Him. As the Head has His way in the church, His Body will give an ever more accurate representation of Him to the world! 4:16 The Lord Jesus is not only the goal of growth, He is the source of growth as well. From Him the whole body is involved in the growth process. The marvelous integration of the members of the Body is described by the phrase, joined and knit together. This means that every member is exactly designed for his own place and function, and perfectly joined to every other member so as to make a complete, living organism. The importance, yes, the indispensability of every member is next indicated: joined and knit together by what every joint supplies. The human body consists primarily of bones, organs, and flesh.

The bones are bound together by joints and ligaments, and the organs also are attached by ligaments. Each joint and ligament fulfills a role in the growth and usefulness of the body. So it is in the body of Christ. No member is superficial; even the most humble believer is necessary. As each believer fulfills his proper role, the body grows as a harmonious, well-articulated unit. In a very real sense, the body causes growth of the body, paradoxical as it sounds. This simply means that growth is stimulated by the body itself as the members feed on the Bible, pray, worship, and witness for Christ. As Chafer said, The Church, like the human body, is self-developing. In addition to growth in size, there is a building up of itself in love. This speaks of the mutual concern of the members for one another. As Christians abide in Christ and fulfill their proper function in the church, they grow closer to one another in love and unity.

Ephesians 4:17

C. Appeal for a New Morality (4:17-5:21) 4:17 Here begins the apostle’s eloquent appeal for a new morality, an appeal which extends to 5:21. Testifying in the Lord, that is, by authority of the Lord and by divine inspiration, he urges the Christians to put off every trace of their past life, as if it were a muddy coat, and to put on the virtues and excellencies of the Lord Jesus Christ. You should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk. They were no longer Gentiles; they were Christians. There should be a corresponding change in their lives. Paul saw the Christless world of the nations sunk in ignorance and degradation. Seven terrible things characterized them. They were: Aimless. They walked in the futility of their mind. Their life was empty, purposeless, and fruitless. There was great activity but no progress. They chased bubbles and shadows, and neglected the great realities of life. 4:18 Blind. They live blindfold in a world of illusion (JBP). Their understanding was darkened. First, they had a native incapacity to understand spiritual truths, and then, because of their rejection of the knowledge of the true God, they suffered blindness as a judgment from the Lord. Ungodly. They were alienated from the life of God, or at a great distance from Him. This was brought about by their willful, deep-seated ignorance and by the hardness of their hearts. They had rejected the light of God in creation and in conscience, and had turned to idolatry. Thereafter they had plunged farther and farther from God. 4:19 Shameless. They were past feeling. W. C. Wright explains: Moule translates it: having got over the pain. How expressive! When conscience is at first denied, there is a twinge of pain; there is a protest that can be heard. But if the voice is silenced, presently the voice becomes less clear and clamant; the protest is smothered; the twinge is less acute, until at last it is possible to get over the pain.Sordid. They consciously gave themselves over to lewdness, that is, to vile forms of behavior. The cardinal sin of the Gentiles was and still is sexual immorality. They descended to unparalleled depths of depravity; the walls of Pompeii tell the story of shame and lost decency. The same sins characterize the Gentile world today. Indecent. In their sexual sin, they worked all uncleanness. There is a suggestion here that they gave themselves up to every kind of uncleanness as if they were carrying on a trade or business in lewdness. Insatiable. With greediness. They were never satisfied. They never had enough. Their sin created an enormous appetite for more of the same thing. 4:20 How different all this was from the Christ whom the Ephesians had come to know and love! He was the personification of purity and chastity. He knew no sin, He did no sin, there was no sin in Him. 4:21 The if in if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him is not meant to cast doubt on the conversion of the Ephesians. It simply emphasizes that all those who had heard Christ and had been taught by Him had come to know Him as the essence of holiness and godliness. To have heard Christ means to have heard Him with the hearing of faithto have accepted Him as Lord and Savior. The expression, taught by Him, refers to the instruction the Ephesians received as they walked in fellowship with Him subsequent to their conversion. Blaikie remarks: 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.

As the truth is in Jesus. He not only teaches the truth; He is truth incarnate (Joh_14:6). The name Jesus takes us back to His life on earth, since that is His name in Incarnation. In that spotless life which He lived as a Man in this world, we see the very antithesis of the walk of the Gentiles which Paul has just described. 4:22 In the school of Christ we learn that at the time of conversion we put away our old man which grows corrupt through deceitful lusts. The old man means all that a person was before his conversion, all that he was as a child of Adam. It is corrupted as a result of giving in to deceitful, evil cravings which are pleasant and promising in anticipation but hideous and disappointing in retrospect. As far as his position in Christ is concerned, the believer’s old man was crucified and buried with Christ. In practice, the believer should reckon it to be dead. Here Paul is emphasizing the positional side of the truthwe have put off the old man once for all. 4:23 A second lesson the Ephesians learned at the feet of Jesus was that they were being renewed in the spirit of their mind. This points to a complete about-face in their thinking, a change from mental impurity to holiness. The Spirit of God influences the thought processes to reason from God’s standpoint, not from that of unsaved men. 4:24 The third lesson is that they had put on the new man once for all. The new man is what a believer is in Christ. It is the new creation, in which old things have passed away and all things have become new (2Co_5:17). This new kind of man is according to God, that is, created in His likeness. And it manifests itself in true righteousness and holiness. Righteousness means right conduct toward others. Holiness is piety towards God, which puts Him in His place, as F. W. Grant defines it. 4:25 Paul now moves from the believer’s standing to their state. Because they have put off the old man and have put on the new man through their union with Christ, they should demonstrate this startling reversal in their everyday lives. They can do this, first, by putting away lying and putting on truthfulness. Lying here includes every form of dishonesty, whether it is shading of the truth, exaggeration, cheating, failure to keep promises, betrayal of confidence, flattery, or fudging on income taxes. The Christian’s word should be absolutely trustworthy. His yes should mean yes, and his no, no. The life of a Christian becomes a libel rather than a Bible when he stoops to any form of tampering with truthfulness. Truth is a debt we owe to all men. However, when Paul uses the word, neighbor, here, he is thinking particularly of our fellow believers. This is clear from the motive given: for we are members of one another (cf. Rom_12:5; 1Co_12:12-27). It is as unthinkable for one Christian to lie to another as it would be for a nerve in the body to deliberately send a false message to the brain, or for the eye to deceive the rest of the body when danger is approaching. 4:26 A second area for practical renewal in our lives is in connection with sinful wrath and righteous anger. There are times when a believer may be righteously angry, for instance, when the character of God is impugned. In such cases anger is commanded: Be angry. Anger against evil can be righteous. But there are other times when anger is sinful. When it is an emotion of malice, jealousy, resentment, vindictiveness, or hatred because of personal wrongs, it is forbidden.

Aristotle said, Anybody can become angrythat is easy; but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right waythat is not easy.If a believer gives way to unrighteous wrath, he should confess and forsake it quickly. Confession should be made both to God and to the victim of his anger. There should be no nursing of grudges, no harboring of resentments, no carrying over of irritations. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. Anything that mars fellowship with God or with our brethren should immediately be made right. 4:27 Unconfessed sins of temper provide the devil with a foothold or a base of operations. He is capable of finding plenty of these without our deliberately helping him. Therefore, we must not excuse malice, wrath, envy, hatred, or passion in our lives. These sins discredit the Christian testimony, stumble the unsaved, offend believers, and harm ourselves spiritually and physically. 4:28 Now Paul turns his attention to the contrasting behavior patterns of stealing and sharing. The old man steals; the new man shares. Put off the old; put on the new! The fact that Paul would ever address such instruction as Let him who stole steal no longer to believers disproves any notion that Christians are sinlessly perfect. They still have the old, evil, selfish nature that must be reckoned dead in daily experience. Stealing may take many formsall the way from grand larceny to nonpayment of debts, to witnessing for Christ on the employer’s time, to plagiarism, to the use of false measurements, and to falsifying expense accounts.

Of course, this prohibition against stealing is not new. The Law of Moses forbade theft (Exo_20:15). It is what follows that makes the passage distinctively Christian. Not only should we refrain from stealing, we should actually labor in an honorable occupation in order to be able to share with others who are less fortunate. Grace, not law, is the power of holiness. Only the positive power of grace can turn a thief into a philanthropist. This is radical and revolutionary. The natural approach is for men to work for the supply of their own needs and desires. When their income rises, their standard of living rises. Everything in their lives revolves around self. This verse suggests a nobler, more exalted view of secular employment. It is a means of supplying a modest standard of living for one’s family, but also of alleviating human need, spiritual and temporal, at home and abroad. And how vast that need is! 4:29 The apostle now turns to the subject of speech, and contrasts that which is worthless with that which edifies. Corrupt speech generally means conversation that is filthy and suggestive; this would include off-color jokes, profanity, and dirty stories. But here it probably has the wider sense of any form of conversation that is frivolous, empty, idle, and worthless. Paul deals with obscene and vile language in Eph_5:4; here he is telling us to abandon profitless speech and substitute constructive conversation. The Christian’s speech should be: Edifying. It should result in building up the hearers. Appropriate. It should be suitable to the occasion. Gracious. It should impart grace to the hearers. 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. If this is taken in connection with the preceding verse, it means that worthless talk grieves the Spirit. It may also be linked to verses 25-28 to indicate that lying, unrighteous anger, and stealing also hurt Him. Or in a still wider sense, it may be saying that we should abstain from anything and everything that grieves Him. Three powerful reasons are suggested:

1. He is the Holy Spirit. Anything that is not holy is distasteful to Him.
2. He is the Holy Spirit of God, a member of the blessed Trinity.
3. We were sealed by Him for the day of redemption. As mentioned previously, a seal speaks of ownership and security. He is the seal that guarantees our preservation until Christ returns for us and our salvation is complete. Interestingly enough, Paul here uses the eternal security of the believer as one of the strongest reasons why we should not sin. The fact that He can be grieved shows that the Holy Spirit is a Person, not a mere influence. It also means He loves us, because only a person who loves can be grieved. The favorite ministry of God’s Spirit is to glorify Christ and to change the believer into His likeness (2Co_3:18). When a Christian sins, He has to turn from this ministry to one of restoration. It grieves Him to see the believer’s spiritual progress interrupted by sin. He must then lead the Christian to the place of repentance and confession of sin. 4:31 All sins of temper and tongue should be put away. The apostle lists several of them. Though it is not possible to distinguish each one precisely, the overall meaning is clear: BitternessSmoldering resentment, unwillingness to forgive, harsh feeling. WrathBursts of rage, violent passion, temper tantrums. AngerGrouchiness, animosity, hostility. ClamorLoud outcries of anger, bawling, angry bickering, shouting down of opponents. Evil speakingInsulting language, slander, abusive speech. MaliceWishing evil on others, spite, meanness. 4:32 The foregoing sins of temper should be terminated, but the vacuum must be filled by the cultivation of Christlike qualities. The former are natural vices; the following are supernatural virtues: KindnessAn unselfish concern for the welfare of others, and a desire to be helpful even at great personal sacrifice. TenderheartednessA sympathetic, affectionate, and compassionate interest in others, and a willingness to bear their burden. ForgivenessA readiness to pardon offenses, to overlook personal wrongs against oneself, and to harbor no desire for retaliation. The greatest example of One who forgives is God Himself. The basis of His forgiveness is the work of Christ at Calvary. And we are the unworthy objects. God could not forgive sin without proper satisfaction being made. In His love He provided the satisfaction which His righteousness demanded. In Christ, that is, in His Person and work, God found a righteous basis on which He could forgive us. Since He forgave us when we were in debt millions of dollars, we ought to forgive others when they owe us a few dollars (Mat_18:23-28. JBP). Lenski counsels: The moment a man wrongs me I must forgive him. Then my soul is free. If I hold the wrong against him I sin against God and against him and jeopardize my forgiveness with God. Whether the man repents, makes amends, asks my pardon or not, makes no difference. I have instantly forgiven him. He must face God with the wrong he has done; but that is his affair and God’s and not mine save that I should help him according to Mat_18:15, etc. But whether this succeeds or not and before this even begins, I must forgive him.