Pamumuhay na Karapat-dapat bilang Kristiyano Part 3
III. The Gospel transforms the way we act.
A. Stealing Dishonor the Body
Unauthorized software usage, file-shared music, and pirated videos are only the tip of the iceberg of a culture whose retail prices can be inflated by a third due to shoplifting, whose employers budget for employee theft, where corporate scandals are so regular as to bore us, and where the government taxes us on the assumption that we will hide resources. Christians are not immune to all this. We, too, can lie to landlords or employers to avoid financial responsibilities. When we feel that we have been taken advantage of, it is easy to rationalize doing personal work on company time. Yet, however soft we may be on our own sin, Paul reminds us that we dishonor the Savior whenever we steal by taking pay for time that we did not spend doing what our employers were compensating us to do.
Stealing encompasses a whole array of activities, from obvious acts like shoplifting, embezzling, fraud, and robbing banks to the subtle “borrowing” of office supplies, wasting time at work, reneging on a debt, or failing to pay a fair wage. All of these are forms of dishonesty for the sake of personal gain—some blatant, some subtle … all sinful.
That is the reasoning, that is the mentality, and it shows a complete and entire lack of respect for others and their possessions. And that is the worst thing of all, perhaps, about thieving and robbery. It is a lack of respect for others.
it also needs to be emphasised that stealing is really the desire to have without effort.
Self-centeredness says, “Take what you can get, no matter the method.”
So that ultimately the trouble with the thief, the stealer, is that he dislikes work.
No one is completely free from the temptation to steal. Many children go through a phase of thinking it is fun to steal, sometimes simply for the sake of stealing. There is a certain fleshly attraction in taking that which does not belong to us and trying to get by with it. The old self had a built-in inclination to steal, and that is one of the many characteristics of the old self that “the new self, which [is] in the likeness of God” (v. 24) puts away. The Christian is to steal [kleptō, from which comes kleptomaniac] no longer.
All of us come into the world for a brief time, and we spend most of it yelling “Pay attention to me!” We feel justified in satisfying ourselves, even at cost to others. From the time we are old enough to recognize objects, we want what the other person has—if for no other reason, so that they will not have it.
B. Diligent Work Supplies the Body
We are created to work. Work is a gift from God. Jesus put in an honest day’s work for years as a carpenter/stone mason. Paul worked throughout his ministry so that he would not be a burden on the church (
Now the word labour in the original is a very strong word; it means working to the point of fatigue.
The term agathos (good) connotes that which is good in quality, and here refers to God-honoring employment. A Christian should never be involved in a job, profession, work, or business that demands compromise of God’s standards, that dishonors Him, violates His holy commands, or misleads or harms others in any way.
Not only should our work harm no one, it should be for the specific purpose of helping them—to share with him who has need. A Christian’s desire to earn more should be for the purpose of being able to give more and help more. Beyond providing for his own and his family’s basic needs, he gains so he can give. Like the rest of his life, a Christian’s occupation—directly or indirectly—should above all else be a means of service to God and to others.
Paul’s last words to the Ephesian elders were: “I have coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothes. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my own needs and to the men who were with me. In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ ” (
I like the way John Wesley put it: “Work as hard as you can, make as much as you can, then give as much as you can.” Piper tells us there are really three options regarding work: you can steal to get, you can work to get for yourself, or you can work to get in order to give. Paul is obviously commending the third option (“The Purpose of Prosperity”).
Jesus said of such giving, “Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these, you do it unto me” (see
Conclusion:
The only reliable evidence of a person’s being saved is not a past experience of receiving Christ but a present life that reflects Christ.
Who in the New Testament met Jesus and became a radical truth teller and giver? Zacchaeus. What a remarkable story of grace in his life! He was a liar and a taker his whole life but was made into a truth teller and giver because he met Jesus (
IV. The Gospel transforms us from corrupt words to grace-giving words that glorify the Holy Spirit. (4:29-30)
Ephesians 4:29 “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth,
Speech is a wonderful gift of God. It is one of our human capacities which reflect our likeness to God. For our God speaks, and like him we also speak. Speech distinguishes us from the animal creation. Cows can moo, dogs bark, donkeys bray, pigs grunt, lambs bleat, lions roar, monkeys squeal and birds sing, but only human beings can speak.
Sapros (unwholesome) refers to that which is corrupt or foul and was used of rotten fruit, vegetables, and other spoiled food. Foul language should never proceed from the mouth of a Christian, because it is totally out of character with his newness of life. Unwholesome language should be as repulsive to us as a rotten apple or a spoiled piece of meat. Off-color jokes, profanity, dirty stories, vulgarity, double entendre, and every other form of corrupt talk should never cross our lips. “But now you also,” Paul wrote the Colossians, “put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth” (
The Greek word sapros [4550], translated “unwholesome,” was used to describe rotten fruit or putrid fish in the ancient world—in other words, the kind of stinking things that would make you say “Yuck!” Applied to language, it can refer to several kinds of speech—cursing, vulgar phrases, crude jokes, and even sarcastic, unkind, or mean-spirited remarks.
Have you ever smelled a garbage can or garbage dump on a hot summer day? I have and the smell is so foul that I can hardly breathe. I start gagging and coughing and my eyes begin to water at the stench. It is absolutely, indubitably disgusting! Nasty, icky, yucky, or pew, are adequate words to describe the stench. I have painted this picture to define the word “corrupt” in verse 29. Corrupt speech should be as repulsive as smelly, rotten garbage or a dead animal.
Cursing, profanity, off-color jokes, filthy stories, and vulgarity should not flow from our lips, beloved.
Corrupt talk does not nourish you; it makes you sick. And corrupt talk comes from a corrupt heart. Examples include, but are not limited to, lying, abusive language, vulgar references (5:4), vicious and unkind words, gossip, and slander (4:31).
Jesus said we will give an account on the final day for every careless word spoken (
The tongue is exceedingly difficult to control. It is “a fire,” James says, “the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell. For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed, and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison” (
How much a part of the old life is corrupt speech! We delight to gossip, tattle, malign, and destroy reputations and people.
How different is the apostolic instruction from our common and willing misunderstanding of grace; that is, the attitude that says, “Let me show you how well I understand grace; I can use coarse humor and profane language without feeling guilty.”
The tongue, of course, only speaks what the heart tells it to say. “The mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart,” Jesus said (
Paul went back to the fountainhead: if the heart is right, character will be right, conduct will be right, and conversation will be right. No corrupt communication will flow out.
Christians are not allowed to say whatever we desire simply by rationalizing that we do not cuss or become coarse. We are not even allowed to fall back upon some category of neutrality in rationalizing what we say, as in “It doesn’t hurt anyone, so it’s all right to say.” The apostle’s standard is that if it does not build up and benefit, then it is not worthy to be said.
We receive grace from God for salvation (chaps. 1–2) and ministry (chaps. 3–4) so that we may extend God’s grace to others.
but only such a word as is good for building up what is needed,
Thus we are to speak only what builds up and benefits others because our lives are not our own but are meant to show forth the One who indwells us.
Our speech should build up by being helpful, constructive, encouraging, instructive, and uplifting. Sometimes, of course, it must be corrective; but that, too, is edifying when done in the right spirit.
The emphasis should not be on entertaining others but on edifying them. We should avoid tearing people down and focus on building them up.
Some things—though they may be absolutely true and perfectly wholesome—are better left unsaid. Everyone admires the wisdom and virtue of those who speak less often but usually say something of benefit.
The Christian life involves the constant encouragement of others. If your disposition is cynical and critical and there is no warmth and encouragement, you will not be a good leader—in your job, in your family, or in a church (small group or large). Sam Crabtree says, “We can sin in two ways: by idolatrous commendation (the praise of men), or by failing to commend the commendable.” He goes on to say, “Generally, it is easier to practice affirmation early in a relationship and it can get harder later” (Practicing Affirmation, 13). This is probably true in a marriage or in a church.
so that it will give grace to those who hear.”
Paul has already said, the mature Christian not only speaks the truth but speaks it in love (v. 15). Raw truth is seldom appropriate and is often destructive. We have been saved in grace and we are kept in grace; therefore we are to live and speak in grace. Just as grace supremely characterizes God it should also characterize His children.
“Let your speech always be with grace,” Paul told the Colossians, “seasoned, as it were, with salt” (
Ephesians 4:30 “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,
Paul echoes the language of
Under the new covenant, the Spirit does not depart when sin is committed. Instead, the Spirit deeply grieves over it. Paul presents this as a truth that should motivate believers not to indulge their sinful desires—whether this might be filthy talk, stealing, uncontrolled anger, lying, or any other vice.
A powerful motivation for putting off unwholesome talk is that not to do so will grieve the Holy Spirit of God. All sin is painful to God, but sin in His children breaks His heart. When His children refuse to change the ways of the old life for the ways of the new, God grieves. The Holy Spirit of God weeps, as it were, when he sees Christians lying instead of speaking the truth, becoming unrighteously rather than righteously angry, stealing instead of sharing, and speaking corrupt instead of uplifting and gracious words.
Whatever violates the will of God and the holiness of the heart will grieve the third Person of the Trinity. Grieving can lead to quenching (
our sin can cause the Holy Spirit pain and distress. The word translated “grieve” (lypeō [3076]) is the same word used to describe Jesus’ agonizing distress in the garden of Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal (
But what grieves him? Since he is the ‘holy Spirit’, he is always grieved by unholiness, and since he is the ‘one Spirit’ (2:18; 4:4), disunity will also cause him grief. In fact, anything incompatible with the purity or unity of the church is incompatible with his own nature and therefore hurts him.
He hates sin, discord and falsehood, and shrinks away from them. Therefore, if we wish to avoid hurting him, we shall shrink from them too. Every Spirit-filled believer desires to bring him pleasure, not pain.
here is the biblical way of looking at this whole matter of sanctification. Not for ourselves, but for His sake! Our sanctification, our life, our conduct, is ever to be the realisation and the outcome and the outworking of what He has done for us, and of our sense of His glory and our desire to live to the praise of the glory of His grace.
The second thing which the Apostle tells us is that the Holy Spirit can be grieved. Now this, I say, is a most wonderful and astounding statement, and it sheds a flood of light upon the whole Christian doctrine of redemption. Christians are always to remember that God is eternal, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is! He is independent of everything, He exists in Himself, existed before time, before the world was, and He has no need of anything. There is a great theological term which I must use at this point because it helps to express the idea which here faces us—God is impassible; by which is meant just this, that God is not only not dependent upon us, or upon the world, or upon all the things that happen in it, but in an ultimate sense is not affected by them at all. You and I are creatures who are constantly being affected by the things that happen round and about us, and that is why we give place to anger and to wrath and the various other things with which we have been dealing; we are subject to them and we are affected by them. But God in and of Himself is outside it all. And yet we are told here by the Apostle, ‘Grieve not the holy Spirit of God’!
Now how are these two things reconciled? That is the question. In an ultimate sense we cannot reconcile them, it is a great mystery that is beyond our understanding; but we are entitled to say this, that because of the way of salvation and redemption, and as a very part of these mercies, God as it were has stooped to our level. We see it in the incarnation of the Son; He took on human nature, and therefore He knows our ignorance and our weakness and our frailty; He knew by experience what it was to hunger and to thirst and to be tired; He brought Himself within that possibility. And here we are told the same thing about the Holy Spirit, that for the purposes of redemption and of salvation, because He has come to reside and to dwell in us, it is possible for us to grieve Him. Now this is a kind of temporary condition, but it is a true one. In salvation He has put Himself into a relationship to us in which it is possible for us to hurt Him, to grieve Him, to disappoint Him.
The analogy that we must bear in our minds is obviously this, that our relationship to the Holy Spirit is a relationship of love. And this is the very essence of the Christian doctrine of salvation. We have finished with law, we are no longer under law; but we are under grace, and we must never think of ourselves in those old legal terms. When a Christian sins, what he should be most conscious of is not so much that he has done that which is wrong, or even that he has broken God’s law; what should really trouble him is this, that he has offended against love. The very term grieve establishes that. Our relationship is now a personal one. And it is because we forget this personal relationship that we get most of our troubles and problems in our Christian lives and experiences. We will persist in regarding the Holy Spirit as no more than an influence or as a kind of power. But we must realise that He is a Person! You cannot grieve an influence, you can only grieve a person. You cannot hurt a power, you can only hurt a person. He can be disappointed in us. A principle cannot be disappointed, it is only a person who can be disappointed.
Now obviously all this is only true of those who are believers; it cannot apply to a non-Christian. An unbeliever can resist the Holy Spirit, but he cannot grieve Him. The only person who can grieve Him is one who belongs to the family, and is in this personal relationship. It is in this way that I, as a Christian, must look at sanctification; not simply in terms of particular actions or happenings or experiences. I must forget all that, as it were, and realise that the Spirit is in me and is always with me. My every action is known to Him, and it is possible for me to grieve Him, to disappoint Him, to sadden Him. That is the meaning of this term grieve.
How then do we, or may we, grieve the Holy Spirit of God? And the answer is plain before us. Anything that we do which is not holy is grieving to Him.
An unworthy or an impure thought, a thought of anger, jealousy, or envy, grieves Him, hurts Him, as much as does the action. Everything is known to Him; He knows the innermost recesses of your mind and heart and being, and He is as much grieved by unworthy thoughts as by unworthy words and unworthy actions.
But these are not the only ways in which we grieve Him. There is something which I think is even worse, namely, our failure to realise His presence within us, our failure to honour Him as we ought, our failure to realise that He is always with us. Is there anything more insulting than that? Can another person insult you or hurt you more grievously than by just going on as if you were not there? by behaving and conducting himself or herself as if you were not in the room? Is there anything more humiliating? As Christians then, we are never to forget that the Holy Spirit of God is in us and with us. Do we honour Him? To fail to do so is to grieve Him!
And then another way in which we grieve the Spirit lies in our failure to respond to His promptings and His leadings and His influences, and all that He does in us and to us and upon us in order to further the work of sanctification within us.
This is Christian sanctification—a realisation that He is within us! Not, how can I get rid of this sin or that? Instead, we must think of HIM; that is incentive enough.
Another thing that grieves the Spirit, as the Apostle reminds us here, is a complete failure on our part to understand the final object of salvation. What is the final object of salvation? that my sins may be forgiven? that I may be happy all the day? that I may get rid of all the problems in my life? Not at all! These are incidentals. What is the end and object in view? It is the day of redemption!
Illustration
A man, therefore, who grieves the Spirit does not understand as he ought the whole object and purpose of redemption. Why did Christ die on the cross? Was it simply that you might not go to hell? No! Answer the question positively—that you might go to glory!
How, then, does a Christian grieve the Holy Spirit? The immediate context tells us that we grieve him when we live in the way we formerly did before coming to faith in Christ. For a Christian to lie to fellow believers brings grief to the Holy Spirit (
For your own sake, do not grieve the Spirit, because if you grieve Him it will inevitably lead to a loss of the gracious manifestations of His presence. Grieve Him and He will withdraw Himself. I mean by that, He will withdraw the manifestations of Himself. If you grieve the Spirit, you will not have a sense of God’s love to you, you will not have the joy of salvation, you will have no assurance, you will not have certainty, you will not have peace, you will not be able to say, The Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. All that is implied in the sealing; and if you grieve the Spirit the evidences of your sealing will become faint, and indeed, may altogether disappear.
But then let me add to that. If you grieve the Spirit and He withdraws His gracious influences, it means that He leaves you to the supremacy of the flesh; that is to say, you will be left with all the power of the flesh within you, and the devil making use of it to attack you. He will assault you, he will insinuate vile, foul, ugly thoughts and desires into your mind and heart. You will feel that you are living in hell and that hell is within you.
Finally, if we grieve the Spirit and He withdraws His manifestations, this does not mean that He will abandon us. He will come back; He is there the whole time, He has just withdrawn His gracious manifestations, and He will convict us, He will thunder out the law again, He will make us feel we were never saved, that we are lost, that we are damned and reprobate; He will do it in order to bring us back again to where we ought to be.
Start your day by saying, I am a child of God, and therefore the Holy Spirit of God dwells within me.
Ultimately we should never want to grieve the Spirit, not merely because of what it will mean to us, but what it will mean to him. If he has worked so energetically and so lovingly in my life, and if he is in league with our Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for my sins, and if they are doing the will of God the Father in heaven, who set his love on me before the world even came into existence, then as I realize that, surely I will see my highest calling and privilege and joy is to rejoice his heart and glorify his name in this world. Lloyd-Jones argues that we should not grieve the Spirit ‘because He is who and what He is. And that ought to be enough! He is the third Person in the blessed, holy Trinity, and He is dwelling as a guest within us, in our very bodies, “a gracious, willing Guest.” The very greatness of His Person ought to be enough for us.’ Just as we watch our language and behavior in the presence of a very holy or important person, so also when we realize that the Holy Spirit is living in us, and how great is his glory and his love for us, we will never want to offend him, but to please him and cause others to praise him because of our lives.
The Holy Spirit can be resisted (
Understanding that the Holy Spirit is a Person who experiences joy and grief through the lives of those he indwells makes possible great spiritual advance, for two reasons. First, because we are able to better see how much we are loved. As we grieve over the failures of those we love, so does the Holy Spirit over us. Spurgeon said, “For it is an inexpressibly delightful thought, that He who rules heaven and earth, and is the creator of all things, and the infinite and ever blessed God, condescends to enter into such infinite relationships with his people that his divine mind may be affected by their actions.” His great love for us makes possible his grief.
Second, we are motivated to holiness. Innumerable sons and daughters have drawn back from sin at the thought of the pain it would bring their parents, and there is a similar effect on those who fully understand that their sin will hurt the Holy Spirit.
None of us who are truly Christian wants to grieve the Holy Spirit. His loving ministry draws our hearts to him, especially when we think of what he has done. He baptized us into the Body of Christ at the moment of our salvation (
by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”
The Holy Spirit is God’s personal mark of authenticity on us, His stamp of divine approval. How can we grieve the One who is our Helper, Comforter, Teacher, Advocate, Divine Resident of our hearts, and guarantor of our eternal redemption? How can we ungraciously grieve God’s infinitely gracious Holy Spirit? He has done so much for us that, out of gratitude, we ought not to grieve Him.
The command not to show ingratitude to the Divine Spirit is based on the fact that He has secured our salvation. Paul is not saying we should avoid sin in order to keep our salvation, but rather that we should be eternally grateful to the Holy Spirit for His making it impossible for us to lose it.
Instead, Christians must be sensitive to the One who sealed us “for the day of redemption” (v. 30). Ask this question: Will what I’m about to say or do please the Spirit or grieve the Spirit?
Verse 30 reminds us that more is going on than meets the eye in relationships in the local church. Relationships involve spiritual warfare. Let us learn to walk by the Spirit and yield to Him in our conversation and attitudes, eagerly maintaining the unity of the Spirit. One of the ways we must learn to do this is by practicing the next two verses.
Paul had already told the Ephesians that the seal of the Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance (
This verse marks the incongruity of grieving the one who is proof we belong to God and are destined for his future salvation. Why live contrary to him whose ownership seal we wear and in violation of our destiny? Here eschatology is brought to bear on ethics, and once again the double focus on present (now) and future (not yet) is expressed.
Yet the apostle under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit speaks with wonderful intimacy about the nature of our God and his heart for us. Just as Christ can be touched by the feelings of our infirmities (
Ephesians 4:31 “Let all bitterness and anger and wrath and shouting and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”
The contrast between 4:31 and 4:2–3, the description of a Christian’s calling, is striking.
In contrast to the badness and malice in verse 31, verse 32 calls for goodness, which applied to humans is understood as being “kind”
Bitterness (pikria) reflects a smoldering resentment, a brooding grudge-filled attitude (see
These particular sins involve conflict between person and person—believer and unbeliever and, worse still, between believer and believer. These are the sins that break fellowship and destroy relationships, that weaken the church and mar its testimony before the world. When an unbeliever sees Christians acting just like the rest of society, the church is blemished in his eyes and he is confirmed still further in resisting the claims of the gospel.
It is not enough to confess sin in general, we must confess particular sins. It is rather a dangerous thing to confess sin in general. We bring these things home to ourselves by confessing them in particular.
Paul lists a number of attitudes and actions that reflect an unkind, unforgiving, and hateful heart (
“Let all bitterness
Bitterness is a state of the spirit. It denotes a sort of persistent sourness and an absence of amiability. It is an unloving condition. Indeed, it is a condition which never sees any good in anything, but always contrives to see something wrong, or some defect and deficiency
We are all bitter by nature when in an unregenerate state; for which reason, as Christians, we have to put it away from us. I grant that there may be genuine grievances; but what makes us bitter is that we ponder them and meditate upon them and stay with them; in other words, we nurse our grievances, we dwell on them, we pay great attention to them, and if we are tending to forget them we deliberately bring them back and allow them to work us up again into a state of bitterness.
Bitterness, then, describes the kind of life which has become sour; it is not ready to believe good of anybody or anything, but always ready to believe evil; it is always somewhat cynical, takes the glory out of everything, tries to spoil everything. When it is shown something beautiful, it does not praise the ninety-nine per cent that is beautiful but always points to the one per cent of defect.
Bitterness is something that always expresses itself in speech and in action. So after naming it, the Apostle mentions wrath and anger, as the forces frequently behind behaviour.
and anger
Usually our anger is in response to small things that do not really matter. And since anger is a choice to express our displeasure where no fear is present, anger is most often directed at the wrong people. The victims of anger are usually not its cause; they are merely people who are present and pose no threat—such as women, children, or people without power, the very people to whom we should guarantee safety.
And then a sinful anger leads to the nursing of grievances, to a desire for revenge and to have our own back; it leads us to despise people and to treat them with contempt. Sinful anger!
and wrath
wrath means violent excitement or agitation of the mind, a kind of boiling over; whereas anger is a more settled and regular state and condition of the mind.
Proverbs uses both terms in its warnings against human anger (see
The second word, ‘wrath’, is a stronger word than ‘anger’. It means exasperation, it means anger roused and nursed and nourished until it becomes a settled condition; it means hatred, bitterness of spirit, vindictiveness. It means that you are determined to get your own back, to seek vengeance and absolutely determined to get it. It is a settled condition of anger; it has become part and parcel of you; it is a mood; it is a condition which is permanent; and it is bitter and hateful and determined to get its own back.
and shouting
Clamour means a kind of brawling; it includes shouting and violence.
Bitterness and anger can eventually lead to “yelling” (κραυγή), a word that can also be translated “shouting” or “screaming.” The term was used “of people shouting back and forth in a quarrel.” All of its uses convey the idea of an intense cry or shout, such as a war cry (
and slander be put away from you,
evil speaking. And evil speaking means the cool, deliberate saying of things that are harmful to others; it includes the enjoyment linked with slandering others, deliberately saying or repeating things about others that are calculated to do them harm.
along with all malice.”
malice. Malice means wicked desires with respect to others, a determination to harm others, again a kind of settled spirit which so hates others that it thinks of ways of harming them, plots such ways, gloats over them, and then proceeds to put them into practice;
The progression ultimately leads to various forms of “malicious talk” (βλασφημία)—a word that denotes “any kind of speech that is defamatory or abusive.” Jesus claimed that this kind of denigrating speech has its roots in a heart that is corrupt (
Ephesians 4:32 “Instead, be kind to one another,
We read ‘Be ye kind’, but what he really wrote was ‘Become kind’. Not simply be kind, but become kind. In other words he is suggesting here a process of cultivation.
Instead, become! go on! You cannot suddenly get rid of the bitterness and become kind in a flash; far from it! This is again a settled condition, a process of cultivation, which results from the application of the truth which we have seen and believed.
instead of always being on the look-out for something you can find fault with, be always on the look-out for something you can praise.
Being unconditionally kind characterizes the Lord, as
tender-hearted,
Tender Hearted - This means that you are concerned about other people and that you can feel for others, that you are sympathetic towards others, and that you have got a great heart of compassion towards them; that indeed you can see so much the troubles of others that you forget your own troubles.
Tender-hearted has the idea of being compassionate, and reflects a feeling deep in the bowels, or stomach, a gnawing psychosomatic pain due to empathy for someone’s need.
Clearly this text seeks the gentleness and tolerant love that were mentioned in 4:2. At bottom the issue is hospitality, the way we receive and care for people.
graciously forgiving each other,
Look at this even as. It means that if you forgive and are kind and are tenderhearted towards others you become like God. Our Lord put the same teaching in the following words: ‘Love ye your enemies, and do good and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest, for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil’ (
are you softened in your feelings? do you feel melted? are you ready to forgive at this moment? If you are, I do not hesitate to say you are a Christian. But if bitterness is still rankling there, and if you are saying in spite of these glorious words, ‘But after all, I did nothing and I don’t deserve such treatment’, you had better go back and examine your foundations, I find it very difficult to see how such a person can be a Christian at all.
Can we who have been forgiven so much not forgive the relatively small things done against us? We, of all people, should always be eager to forgive.
Is forgiveness too wimpy? Even the secular world knows that forgiveness is one of the main features of Christianity. Two problems occur. (1) A gulf exists between our knowledge and our will. We know God’s forgiveness, but do not have the will to forgive. Christians tend to be no better than other people—in fact, they may be worse. Offense turns to bitterness, callousness, and rejection. “Christians” go for years not speaking to relatives or friends, or churches split. But refusing to forgive is hazardous. Matthew emphasizes that our forgiveness is tied to our forgiving (
Forgiveness. Forgiveness is grounded in God’s forgiving us in Christ. Yet Christians seem unwilling to forgive, as the numerous divisions and conflicts in churches and families attest. How can Christians go for years holding grudges? Even if forgiveness is granted, we keep the offense available to use in future battles. As a country song puts it: “We bury the hatchet, but leave the handle sticking out!” We are also slow to forgive because it appears to ignore justice and restitution. But most of the time, refusal to forgive does not derive from some lofty sense of justice, but from self-centeredness. How foolish! As one person put it, “He who is unwilling to forgive breaks the bridge over which he too must pass.” Moreover, standing on our rights before God is foolish, for God may then stand on his! The New Testament assures us that those who do not forgive are not forgiven.
One does not have to remove all consequences for sin (i.e., to pardon) in order to forgive. It may be just and necessary for an offender to suffer consequences for wrong, but the motive of the one imposing or requiring the consequences cannot be malicious. We are not permitted to desire the ultimate harm of the offender. The gospel always provides hope, always seeks restoration. Even when the criminal is sentenced, and we properly rejoice to see justice done, the Christian also desires to see the offender recognize the sin, repent, and know spiritual restoration. Forgiveness does not require pardon from consequences; it requires an absence of malice (i.e., no desire for the person’s spiritual harm) even in the application of those consequences. We may well desire justice, but desires for personal revenge or spiritual damage are not our right as Christians.
just as God in Christ also has graciously forgiven you.”
But the teaching is very definitely this, that the man who realises what forgiveness is, forgives! The man who realises the mercy and the kindness and the compassion that has cancelled his own great debt, says, ‘I cannot refuse.’ His heart is melted, he has a sense of compassion. ‘Even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you’! Has He done it for you? Then what God has done for you, you cannot refuse to another.
These are graces God has shown to us and they are the gracious virtues we are to show to others. God did not love us, choose us, and redeem us because we were deserving, but purely because He is gracious. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.… While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (
• kindness: acting graciously and mercifully toward others, just as God has with us (2:4–5)
• tender-heartedness: offering care and comfort to those in need, just as the Holy Spirit has come alongside us as our Helper (
The implication is obvious. If Jesus can forgive us, then there is nothing for which we should not forgive another person. Should there be consequences for actions? Sure. But we must be forgiving people.
Paul exhorts the Ephesians—and us—to rid our closets of the stained, tattered, and filthy garments of our past and to replace them with the clean, fresh wardrobe custom-tailored by the Spirit.
Of course, every one of us will inevitably fail on occasion, slipping into our old habits, reviving old vices, and repeating past sins. Yet
By forgiving we do become Christ to others. By bearing in our bodies the weight of unjust accusation, undeserved pain, and unretaliated harm, we are the Holy Spirit’s message of Jesus to others. By the practice of forgiveness we have the privilege of being a living witness to the One we most love, and who has loved us eternally and sacrificially. This is the ultimate motivation that gives us joy in our suffering, strength for obedience, and love for his commands. My life will never deserve his love, but my life can reflect his love; and because I love him, I will live for him in what I say and think and do.
Conclusion:
Awareness of our relations both with God and with other people is also the key to rejecting self-centeredness. None of the commands in this passage can be followed as long as the primary interest is oneself. Only when our attention is shifted to something greater than ourselves can we escape the prison of self-interest. If we are conscious that the Spirit is in us, marking us as belonging to God and therefore under his direction, service to self is blocked off. Similarly, awareness of oneness with other people will not permit inattention or mistreatment of them. If other people are diminished, we are diminished; if they prosper, we prosper with them.
(1) Watch your tongue. Make it speak the truth, use it to build, not to destroy.
(2) Watch your hands and feet. Make them respect property and put them to work so you can give.
(3) You are part of those in Christ. Nurture people gently. Do nothing from malice and anger.
(4) You belong to God and his Spirit is in you. Treat others as he has treated you. Forgive and love.
