Gospel of John [Joh 16:12-15]. The Doctrine of the HS, part 48. Eph 4:30; Psa 32:3-5; Rom 3:21-28.

Title: Gospel of John [JOH 16:12-15]. The Doctrine of the HS, part 48. EPH 4:30; PSA 32:3-5; ROM 3:21-28.

 

EPH 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

 

The "and" means that the grieving of the Spirit of God is bearing on the preceding injunction, which immediately is the unwholesome words, yet this is not alone in the exhortation of this passage and would include everything from verse 1 on and also following though to the end. I would venture to say with confidence that the way, as Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, of not grieving the Spirit is in chapters 4-6, which is chock full of commands.

 

Simplified by God through Paul is the fact that the old man has been laid aside at salvation and our walk in the CWL should always contain a reckoning of that fact.  

 

When we chose to attempt to put on the old man, though he is dead and laid aside through Christ we grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

 

The continued exhortation is to put away other habits of the old man with the positive command to be in the sphere of agape love towards one another in kindness, tender-heartedness, and forgiveness (vs. 32).

 

EPH 4:31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

 

Bitterness - resentfulness or harshness

Wrath - violent outbreak of anger

Anger - sinful anger

Clamor - outcry of passion, brawling

Slander - injurious speech

Malice - vicious character or quality

 

In contrast:

 

EPH 4:32 And be [become - exchange one form of thinking for another] kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

 

Kind - benevolent, gracious

Tender-hearted - compassionate

 

Forgiving [not the usual word] - to do a favor to, do something agreeable or pleasant to one, to show one's self gracious, benevolent, to forgive in the sense of treating the offending party graciously.

 

The word usually used of God's forgiveness of our sins is aphiemi. This word is charizomai, from the root word charis or "grace."

 

It was God in Christ that accomplished the plan of redemption. He planned it and executed it in suffering and reconciling. God, in love, saved us by grace and treated us graciously though we did not deserve a fraction of it. In the same way we are to be gracious, benevolent, show favor towards, and forgive just as He did.

 

"forgiven" - cari,zomai[charizomai; aorist middle indicative] = to bestow a favor unconditionally, to forgive graciously.

 

The Holy Spirit isn't going to force me to become these things in my soul apart from my agreement to allow Him to teach them to me, empower me to do them, and lead me in the ways of doing them.

 

In surrender of my will to His I pursue what is His will and suppress what is against His will, while He teaches, leads, and empowers me every step of the way.

 

Chapters five and six continue with the exhortation to live as new creatures in Christ, including the manner in which we should live in our marriages, families, and employment.

 

Grieving the Spirit is a spiritual condition characterizing the unyielded Christian.

 

The Spirit of God is holy and He is a person. His indwelling presence constitutes the body of the believer as the holy temple of God. We would state simply that the presence of sin in any form grieves the Holy Spirit.

 

"Do not grieve the Holy Spirit" is an appeal to allow nothing in the believer's life that is contrary to the holiness of the Spirit.

 

The first step may be resisting His will, refusing to allow His leading, teaching, and empowering and so quenching the Holy Spirit.

 

It is not an issue of salvation. That has been settled once and for all at the moment of faith in Christ. The issue here is the walk of the believer in time.

 

The Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit with the purpose in view that the divine life should dominate all his thoughts, actions, and feelings rather than sin, which is so foreign to the HS, indeed the very opposite and that which is furthest removed from the absolute purity and sanctity of the indwelling One. The presence of sin in the believer's life grieves the Holy Spirit. When sin is tolerated in the Christian's daily life, of necessity the Spirit must turn from His ministry through the Christian unto a pleading ministry to him. [L.S. Chafer]

 

Grieving the Spirit without recovery will turn into a bitter experience.

 

PSA 32:3 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away

Through my groaning all day long.

 

PSA 32:4 For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me;

My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer.

 

A persistent resistance of the leading of the Spirit results in further departure from the will of God.

 

The Spirit can no longer direct and bless in fullness if His ministry has been denied. In this condition, which always involves sin, the Spirit is grieved.

 

As we have seen in Eph 4, the heathen has a calloused heart. It is clearly implied that a believer who continues to walk as the heathen walks will also develop a calloused heart, which is a lack of sensitivity to the things of God. However, the positive believer is not only sensitive to the wonderful blessings of God in his soul, but it ever increasing that sensitivity. Therefore, a positive believer may readily determine that he has grieved the Holy Spirit in his experience.

 

A loss of communion with Christ and His Spirit is a temporary stagnation of fruit production.

 

Love ceases, as does joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, and self-control. He may find that he is rejoicing in unrighteousness. He may discover that he is bragging or arrogant. He may find that he has taken into his memory a wrong suffered and has contracted an emotional sin over it. He may find that he is selfish and not bearing, believing, enduring, or hoping all things with or about others. In this he becomes cynical and bitter and rejoicing with the falsehood of the world rather than with the grace and truth of God. Outwardly, he is living on the same plane of experience, of the earth and not of the life that is at the right hand of God, as the unsaved.

 

It will not take long for a believer who has a lifestyle of rejoicing in the fruit of God to recognize its sudden replacement with the filth of the sin nature and the world system.

 

It should be stated that this is not to be mistaken of one who is tired, hungry, or sick. These are not sins and they can make a believer "not feel" spiritual. But spirituality is not a feeling per se as much as it is a condition of the soul that often includes an experience. A believer should learn enough about the spiritual life to discern physical exhaustion or sickness from arrogance or reliance on self-will or acceptance of cosmic standards.  

 

The Spirit is grieved by the existence of definite sin in the soul but not by the presence of the sin nature, which every believer carries.

 

The remedy for sin was Calvary. The solution to the effects of sin in our lives is simply confession or acknowledgment of it before the Father as we lay it aside and pursue the divine will.

 

Some believers  prefer one word or the other. I like that David in the OT used both.

 

PSA 32:5 I acknowledged my sin to Thee,

And my iniquity I did not hide;

I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord";

And Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin.

 

I believe this shows that both words are the same. However, it must be noted that the policy that God demanded of His OT saints in the area of personal sin is not the same as that in the NT. One was before the cross when sin was covered.

 

ROM 3:21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,

 

ROM 3:22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;

 

ROM 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

 

ROM 3:24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;

 

ROM 3:25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over [paresis = suspended judgment] the sins previously committed;

 

ROM 3:26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

 

ROM 3:27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.

 

ROM 3:28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.

 

After the work of Christ was completed, all sin is forgiven and every believer is fully cleansed.

 

EPH 1:7

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses [paraptoma = a false step or blunder], according to the riches of His grace

 

COL 1:13-14

For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins [harmatia = to miss the mark].

 

COL 2:13

And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven [charizomai = to do a favor, benevolent, to forgive graciously] us all our transgressions [paraptoma = a false step or blunder]

 

HEB 10:14

For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

 

HEB 10:18

Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

 

1JO 2:12

I am writing to you, little children, because your sins [harmatia = missing the mark] are forgiven you for His name's sake.

 

1JO 1:9

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins [harmatia] and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

EPH 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her;

 

EPH 5:26 that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

 

EPH 5:27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.

 

HEB 10:1-2

can never by the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins?

 

What does it mean to have no consciousness of sins? It certainly doesn't mean that they are not recognized. The literal meaning of conscience is to know something with someone. A divine conscience, which is the depiction here, would know something with God. What are we to know with God concerning sin?