Ephesians 4.26-Command to Practice Church Discipline Immediately When Required
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Saturday October 4, 2025
Ephesians Series: Ephesians 4:26-Command to Practice Church Discipline Immediately When Required
Lesson # 286
Ephesians 4:26 Each and every one of you as a corporate unit must continue to make it your habit of permitting yourselves to be justifiably angry with the result that each and every one of you as a corporate unit continue to make it your habit of not committing sin. Each and every one of you as a corporate unit must continue to make it your habit of not letting the sun go down when justifiably angered. (Lecturer’s translation)
Ephesians 4:26 is composed of the following:
(1) command: orgizesthe (ὀργίζεσθε), “Each and every one of you as a corporate unit must continue to make it your habit of permitting yourselves to be justifiably angry” (Lecturer’s translation).
(2) prohibition: mē hamartanete (μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε), “each and every one of you as a corporate unit continue to make it your habit of not committing sin” (Lecturer’s translation).
(3) prohibition: ho hēlios mē epidyetō epi tō parorgismō hymōn (ὁ ἥλιος μὴ ἐπιδυέτω ἐπὶ τῷ παροργισμῷ ὑμῶν), “Each and every one of you as a corporate unit must continue to make it your habit of not letting the sun go down when justifiably angered.” (Lecturer’s translation)
The command and the two prohibitions, which follow it, are all used in relation to church discipline.
This means that they are all related to the Gentile Christian community in the Roman province of Asias, who are the recipients of this letter, administering church discipline immediately with regards to those in their community who are guilty of unrepentant sinful behavior.
The command required that the recipients of this epistle must continue to make it their habit of permitting themselves to be justifiably angry because of the unrepentant sinful activity of a member of their community.
The first prohibition presents the result of obedience to the command and required that they must continue to make it their habit of not sinning by not administering church discipline immediately to those in the Christian community who are guilty of unrepentant sinful behavior.
The second prohibition required that they continue to make it their habit of not letting the sun go down when justifiably angered by those in the Christian community who are guilty of unrepentant sinful behavior.
This prohibition is figurative language for not procrastinating when administering church discipline.
Now, Ephesians 4:26 is referring to the first stage of church discipline, which the Lord Jesus Christ taught in Matthew 18:15, which required a member of the Christian community to confront the guilty party with their sin in private.
Paul alludes to this stage in Galatians 6:1.
If the guilty party does not confess it and stop committing the sin, then the guilty party must be confronted by two or more witnesses to their sinful activity.
The Lord taught this stage of church discipline in Matthew 18:16.
If the guilty party does not repent by confessing their sin and stop committing this sin, then the next stage was to have the entire Christian community confront them.
This third stage is taught by the Lord in Matthew 18:17.
If the guilty party does repent, then they were to be removed from the fellowship of the church.
They can only be restored to the fellowship of the church if they confess to the sin and stop committing it (1 Cor. 2).
That Paul is alluding to the first stage of church discipline in Ephesians 4:26-27 is indicated by the fact that he commands the Gentile Christian community in the Roman province of Asia to express righteous indignation or justified anger.
There is no explanation for this command unless it is a command to express justified anger because of the sinful activities of a member of this community.
Also, the command to not let the sun go down on their anger would only makes sense if this command is related to church discipline.
This command makes perfect sense if by this command Paul does not want the Christian community to procrastinate but to address the problem immediately regarding unrepentant sinful activity in their community.
This interpretation is supported by the fact that in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul severely rebukes the Corinthian Christian community for not confronting a member of their community who was cohabitating with his father’s wife.
He calls them proud for not confronting him and disciplining him and said they should have been sorrowful and removed him from the fellowship of the Christian community.
The implication is that they should be angry with this man’s unrepentant sinful behavior because God the Holy Spirit was because they did not confront the guilty party.
God hates sin and is angry with it as evidence by the fact that the entire human race is condemned by Him (Rom. 1:18-3:18).
However, He sent His Son to suffer His wrath or righteous indignation with regards to the sinful activities of the human race so that the latter would not have to suffer His wrath for all of eternity in the lake of fire.
2 Corinthians 2 reveals that eventually the guilty party repented and Paul instructed them to restore him to fellowship with the rest of the community.
Furthermore, the command in Ephesians 4:27 also supports this interpretation that Paul is alluding to church discipline in Ephesians 4:26 because the former contains a prohibition, which required that the recipients of this epistle not give the devil an opportunity.
The implication being that if they don’t address immediately the problem of unrepentant sinful behavior in their community, then they would be allowing Satan to destroy their testimony before the world and bring about the physical death of the guilty party, i.e., the sin unto death (cf. 1 Cor. 11: 11:30; 1 John 5:16).
Thus, the need for the second prohibition in verse 26, which required the Christian community to not let the sun go down on the cause of their anger.
This prohibition is only understandable if it is addressing the problem of unrepentant sinful behavior in the Christian community.
The implication of this prohibition is to address this problem immediately so that he would no longer be required to obey the command to be justifiably anger regarding unrepentant sinful conduct in their community.
Thus, the only explanation that makes sense of the command and the two prohibitions in Ephesians 4:26 is that Paul is using shorthand for the practice of church discipline and specifically, the first stage.
Lastly, further indicating that Paul is referring to church discipline in Ephesians 4:26-27 is that he is quoting from Psalm 4, which expresses David’s distress because the citizens of Israel practiced idolatry.
In fact, the Lord asserts in Deuteronomy 32:21, “They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols.”
David was angry with this unrepentant idolatry in his nation and thus it was apropos that Paul quotes from this Psalm in Ephesians 4:26.
In fact, in Ephesians 5:5, Paul asserts “For you can be confident of this one thing: that no person who is immoral, impure, or greedy (such a person is an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” (NET)
Paul was concerned with idolatry in the Gentile Christian community because prior to their conversion, they were immersed in pagan idolatry unlike the Jewish Christian community.
Therefore, I am in total agreement with Dan Wallace that the orgizomai (ὀργίζομαι) in Ephesians 4:26 is “shorthand expression for church discipline.”
