Let all bitterness, and heat of passion, and wrath, and clamour, and injurious language, be removed from you, with all malice;
Paul has just told the Ephesians not to grieve the Holy Spirit. Now he names what grieves Him: six things that start in the heart and end on the tongue. The list runs from settled sourness to open abuse, and it closes with the root of them all — malice.
The Six Words
One writer traces how each item grows out of the one before it, from an inward mood to the words that carry it:
To take them one by one: "all bitterness," I think, means every form of the sharp, unsparing mood which drives souls away instead of winning them. It makes the most of the real or imagined faults of others. The "wrath and anger" that follow are the outburst of passion, and the more settled vindictive resentment, which indulged sourness gives rise to. "Clamour and evil speaking" are their matching counterparts in words. All of them flow from the deep-seated fountain of "all malice," which the verse condemns last.
The word behind "evil speaking" — the ESV renders it "slander" — is the same one used for speaking against God:
In Scripture this does not always refer to speaking evil of God, though today the word is used only in that sense. The same Greek word is translated 'railing' in 1 Timothy 6:4 and Jude 9, and 'evil speaking' in Ephesians 4:31. It could well be translated that way in other places too.
Why This Grieves the Spirit
Verse 31 belongs with verse 30. These tempers wound the very Spirit who marks believers out as God's own:
In the first part of the chapter the call to a worthy walk flows from a great truth: believers together are the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. Here we are reminded that each of us is sealed by the Spirit. God has marked us out as His own in view of the day of redemption by giving us the Spirit. We are to beware of grieving the Holy Spirit by allowing bitterness, the heat of passion, wrath and noisy clamour, injurious language and malice.
No Room for Excuses
A short temper is often explained away as weakness. One writer refuses that excuse:
Verse 31 speaks of the things that result from nursing bad feeling in the heart — bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking, together with malice. These sinful attitudes and practices are to be judged without sparing, and firmly put away. There is no place for them among the saints of God. We must not allow ourselves the slightest excuse for such things breaking out. They come from sin, not from weakness.
What Tolerating Them Costs
The damage does not stop with the person who holds them:
Where such things as these are allowed — and to some extent they are found everywhere among saints — how can the comfort of the Spirit be known? Allowing such things paralyses all spiritual perception. We no longer see how serious it is to have given the flesh such a loose rein, and discord and division take the place of harmony.
How They Are Put Away
One writer shows what each of these cannot survive beside, and then answers the question of method:
No one whose heart is fed on the love of Christ can think or speak with bitterness. Nor can we noisily seek our own if we stay mindful of the kind of calling we have. Malice dies out when faith is strong. Who can be malicious if he remembers how it was that, when we were enemies, God reconciled us to Himself? Still, all these things are contrary to the new man, and our conscience condemns them without hesitation. Even so, we do not escape them without effort. We are told to put them away. And if it is asked how we may best do this — the answer is, by practising the opposite virtues in the energy of the Spirit.
The Pattern Is God's Own Treatment of Us
The verse does not stand alone. It leads directly into kindness and forgiveness, and the standard for both is how God has already dealt with the reader:
As brought to God, I have learned what God is in His ways of grace... Did God come and clamour against you in justice? He sent His Son to give Himself for you, and has forgiven you. There is a man who wronged me. I am going to forgive him, as God forgave me — and, if I am near enough to God to do it, to show out what we have been learning as the joy of our souls.
Summary
- Root — Malice is the fountain. Inside it becomes bitterness, wrath and anger; out loud it becomes clamour and slander.
- Grief — These tempers wound the Spirit who sealed believers for the day of redemption. Verse 31 spells out verse 30.
- No excuse — They come from sin, not weakness. Judge them without sparing instead of explaining them away.
- Cost — Tolerated, they dull spiritual perception and turn harmony into discord and division.
- Cure — Effort is needed. Put them away by practising the opposite virtues, and forgive as God forgave you.