Ephesians 4:30

A reference to Ephesians 4:30 may be helpful — "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption." The Holy Spirit is sometimes called the Third Person of the Trinity, but we must be careful to avoid any thought of inequality in the Godhead. The Holy Spirit is God — a blessed Person. We must not think of Him merely as an influence (great as His influence undoubtedly is) — one cannot grieve an influence!

In what way can the Spirit be grieved? Every allowance of the flesh in the walk and ways of the believer grieves the Spirit. The verses around this passage show that we grieve the Spirit mostly through our tongues. The tongue lets out what is inside. So Scripture warns us against corrupt words from our mouths, and against bitterness, wrath, anger, shouting, evil speaking and malice. The believer must put these things far away. It is when we find the flesh in others that we so quickly find the flesh rising in ourselves.

Here we are exhorted on the settled ground of our being "sealed." He does not say, "Grieve not the Spirit, lest you be eternally lost." Such would not be in keeping with the true character of divine exhortation. We "are sealed," not as long as we behave ourselves, but "until the day of redemption." It is absolutely done, and this is the powerful reason why we are not to grieve the Holy Spirit.

He comes to redeem the bodies of His saints, and redemption is never a question of human faithfulness, but of the power and grace of God. We have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of God "to the day of redemption" (Eph. 4:30). Every true believer is sealed with that great day in view. Our faithfulness, or lack of it, will greatly affect our place in the coming kingdom, but redemption lies on another plane altogether.

He will never withdraw Himself from the one sealed; that would be to falsify the whole truth of redemption. But when He is grieved, He does withdraw joy and power from the Christian's life. That lasts until the man confesses the fault and judges the state of mind that let the old nature act again. A Christian out of communion is wretched inside, even if he looks calm outside. The reason is not that the Spirit has abandoned him. It is that He will not abandon him, and so He must take away his happiness until the man returns to his Lord in broken confession.

It is important to see that the exhortation does not refer to any conduct of the individual believer towards the Spirit who dwells in him; as, for instance, when it is said in Ephesians 4:30, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption." But it refers to anything that, whether by human arrangement or the like, would interfere with His operation in gift in the Church.

What answers to this glory of Christ is the presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and sealing us for the day of redemption, when we shall be like Him and bear His image. So grieving the Spirit, not breaking the law, becomes the other measure of right and wrong for us.