Forgiven, Eph, 4:30-32
Ephesians 4:30-32 · Vern Peterman · May 22, 2005
Ephesians & Colossians, No. 66
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262326456181

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

As I was thinking about the passage this last week, and actually kind of pondering last week's passage, I was looking at passages like this, and I began to think that one of the more difficult assignments that we have around here at Holly Hills is picking songs.

Looking at this one, we don't have too many songs about stealing, you know. the unwholesome words thing. And I got to thinking, what if we did? Here's this song. And so I actually, I kind of was daydreaming and thinking about what that would be like. And I started to get this thing going in my head and I was thinking, we're not stealing, no we're not.

We're just sharing the stuff we've got. Real bad words we do deny. We say words that edify. It just doesn't work, you know. So anyway, I'm glad that even though the songs don't always fit the passage, that we have songs to pick from. Anyway. Okay, into the passage. Let's get back to it. Okay? We'll dig into it here. Alright. The passage that Hal read for us here.

We will be dividing up into three separate verses for the sake of our presentation here. But before we do that, there's a few things we want to look at kind of together with those verses. First thing is to look at each verse has an imperative. He doesn't just kind of give us some direction and then head off. But each verse has an imperative, something that must be the case or must not be the case.

He lays that out. The other thing to note is that even though he started into imperatives, things that believers must or must not do based on their position, he has not left the teaching of positions, has he? He is going to continue to lay out their position and base the things that he's telling them upon their position. It continues to underscore for us how important our position in Christ is. as he continues to weave those into these imperatives that he lays out.

Now, the King James here has, and grieve not, and the truth is that that actually better reflects than the New American Standard that I typically use, better reflects the Greek, that's what's there, and it also fits the verses there in the prior context. So we're going to put and there in the rest of the passages. But the thing to look at here is Paul is writing this as he says, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit.

It's in a context, isn't it? He didn't just start off with the thought. It's connected to the other things that he's written. He said, we're members one of another. He's made the point that that he's talking to the body of Christ about the relationship with others of the body of Christ.

Share with the one who has need. Good for edification. Building up. A word that is used twice with those in the body. To one another. To members one of another. And focusing on forgiving each other. It's body relationships he's talking about here as he's laying this out.

Now, let's take a look. and he says, and do not grieve. Here's this present active imperative, okay? It's saying that the believer, each believer, must right now continue not to be grieving the Holy Spirit. Now, it isn't some additional action. He hasn't just said, stop stealing, and the unwholesome words, they've got to quit.

But what he is spelling out is, As these things are going on, you are grieving the Holy Spirit if these are things contrary to your position in Christ. That that is something, not some additional action, but it goes along with the actions that He's told them, this must not happen. This must not take place among believers. And then He says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

Now, He's made some emphasis here that is really pointed. The Greek here has it this way, the Spirit, the Holy, and most concisely, the God, but to insert enough English to make it make sense, the Spirit, the Holy One of the God. Paul is unusually, uniquely emphatic here as he says this. He wants them to get this point.

He is talking about the Holy Spirit of God, and he is speaking to people who are by and large Gentiles in background. The Gentiles were frequently of amoral character. The gods that they had worshipped up until the time that they came to a point of belief were amoral, and as he presents this, he wants them to understand this is not just one of the gods, or a god, this is THE God. This is THE Holy Spirit of THE God. And he wants to emphasize that with them. It is the character of God that he is holy. He brings it home with specifics and absolutes in order to underscore his point.

Now, the Holy Spirit is a person and by that we don't mean a human being, but the Holy Spirit has personality. We have, in our own time, a teaching that was begun within a few centuries of the New Testament, and that's the idea that the Holy Spirit is just a force. If you have these people typically coming to your door two by two, and they're knocking at the door and they're telling you about this Watchtower magazine they want you to buy, or an awake, or something of that sort. And those folks are propounding the idea that the Holy Spirit is just an impersonal force. An impersonal force.

Today's world has lots of messages conveying impersonal spirituality. So it's not just unique to some special cult group, but we've got lots of messages coming across that way from our culture. Some of them are even very current. So we're getting that message in lots of different ways.

One of the things that he spells out here, grieving the Holy Spirit. You don't grieve a force. You don't grieve a force. He's making an explicit statement here. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, but a person. He attributes personal characteristics to the Holy Spirit.

And we find that also, Acts 5.3, Peter says to Ananias and Sapphira, you lied to the Holy Spirit.

Acts 13.2, a little later on, the Holy Spirit says, and finally 1 Corinthians 12.11, He wills. That's not an expression that you couple up with impersonal force. The Holy Spirit is indeed a person, and that's Paul's focus here.

There is a grieving of the Holy Spirit. for the believer who is acting in a way inconsistent with and not out of their position in Christ and the life of Christ. We've been told already in this chapter early on, our unity in Christ is laid in part on the oneness of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a principal basis for an aspect of our unity that we have in Christ. We're gathered here this morning not because we want to get under just the same roof or stand on the same piece of real estate, but because we have a unity in the Holy Spirit.

You have this chart in your handout, and we've had it previously, but I want to bring it forth here because it indicates the Holy Spirit has a number of ministries in our lives, and particularly one that's going to be addressed here this morning is that of sealing. To look at that, we're going to kind of go back to Ephesians 1, 13 and 14 for a few slides here.

From the standpoint, we want to look at what was Paul saying then, because what he's doing now is he's drawing back on that statement he made back in chapter 1 about their position in Christ, and now he's drawing upon it for how they act, application, right now.

He's laying it out. Not because he wants to throw in some theories. That is the basis for all these things I'm telling you here. The Holy Spirit is indeed a person. He is impacted by the things you do and don't do. And the impact is this. But the reference he makes is to sealing. Let's take a look at it. It's not this kind of seal. Not this kind of seal. This one.

This is the ring of Crown Prince Manasseh, mentioned in the Bible, and that was one of the kinds of seals that would be used. They would have a seal on a ring, they would put it in hot wax or clay, and therefore make a mark on a document or something else to be sealed up. Seals have specific meanings in scripture, and we'll take a look at that. Here is one from Baruch, it appears to be the actual scribe of the prophet Jeremiah, mentioned in several chapters in the book of Jeremiah. The use of seals is brought out from Genesis, where we find a seal is actually used as collateral. It's to be held in lieu of payment. To Revelation, where there's seven seals on the scroll, mentioned in the fourth and fifth chapters there.

Both Jews and Gentiles would understand this picture. It was not something that was particular to one group or the other. They both would understand this picture. Both of them used seals. And finally, seals were personal and unique. You didn't have just a seal that everybody used. Each person had their own, and it was their own unique mark. A seal would be designed for each individual and be that mark that they particularly had marked a document or whatever else was being sealed. Here are some of the purposes that seals had. They had protection from tampering. Several different places in scripture seals have that purpose.

Protection from tampering. The next one, protection from disclosure. This is a secret document until the seal is broken, and the seal is only to be broken by those who have valid reason to do so. It must be authorized to do it. Protection from judgment. The seal is used as a place of protection.

We see it both in the Old and New Testament here. It's a mark of authorization. You are authorized because of the mark of this seal. It is used throughout, especially the Old Testament, for that purpose. The certification of contents. We don't have an explicit reference to that in Scripture other than I'll make this point, and we studied this in Revelation 3.18, and that is that It talks about the ISAV, and one of the things that we do have from New Testament times is an ISAV seal where they would make the container and then put a seal to mark its contents and certify that this was indeed what was in the container. Ownership or possession was something spelled throughout both the Old and New Testaments, and it has reference in that Ephesians 1 passage we looked at. And then authentication. This is indeed the document that we're talking about, and the person who has stamped it, because of the unique seal.

Now, the Holy Spirit has several ministries in the life of a person when they believe. Ministries also, on top of that, as you see in the chart, but specifically here he makes reference to this sealing, as he did in chapter 1, now here in chapter 4, verse 30. sealing with the Holy Spirit of promise, the Holy Spirit who was promised.

Several places in the Gospel of John, Jesus points to the Holy Spirit being promised. So here's the reference. The Holy Spirit was indeed the one whom Jesus Christ, our Lord, promised would come. And here's the sequence that we see. After listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, so here the gospel is presented, the person who believes is then having also believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit." Okay? The holy hymn of the Holy Spirit of promise. This is the sequence that that passage laid out there. Finally, the word redemption shows up there in Ephesians 1, 13 and 14. This word redemption here, apolutrosis, okay?

It's not a disease. It was used for buying back a slave or a captive who had been taken. The idea with the captives is that you would buy a captive back, redeem them, because otherwise they'd just be killed off. So when we are redeemed by Christ, it's not just some hypothetical statement, it's you've been bought back from death. So here we see this word used in this passage here in Ephesians. Here is kind of the God's stretch or spread of redemption.

Ephesians 1.7 refers to redemption, which is the forgiveness of sins.

Ephesians 1.14, the redemption of God's own possession, that's also referenced here in Ephesians 4.30.

Ephesians 1.7 is when the believer is justified, declared righteous before God.

And Ephesians 1.14 and 4.30 is when the believer is glorified.

Richard has been glorified. And what process are we going through now? We are being sanctified. That's the middle stage that particularly he's pointing to for the believers. You are being sanctified, and because of that, you've been sealed with the Holy Spirit to that end that you will ultimately be redeemed. Alright, we have this question to ask.

Can someone be unsealed? If you can be sealed with the Holy Spirit, maybe I can lose it somehow. Sorry about that. No, the point here, can someone be unsealed? And what we see here is we look at the various passages on it. Nowhere, although we have three passages telling us that believers are sealed with the Holy Spirit, there is nobody who is said to have been unsealed, and there is not even the threat of being unsealed. When we're told you've been sealed with the Holy Spirit, That says that there is assurance. It is God's guarantee. Believers reading these words would have seen, oh, God's sealing this? God is guaranteeing my delivery to that point of redemption. Now, how good is God's guarantee of something? I'd say it's the best there is. The best there is. Better than anything man can cook up. So, being unsealed?

No. Scripture knows nothing of it. Scripture is instead pointing to sealing as the very assurance of that day of redemption. Our sealing is one of the blessings that we have, seated in the heavenlies. Then he says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, in verse 31. These are all expressions, he says, of the sin nature.

They are certainly not expressions of the life of Christ, and none of them have a logical basis in our position in Christ. Based on our position in Christ, the only logical conclusion that you can draw is that these have nothing to do with it. They are completely apart. So He says, let them be put away from you. Let's take a look at these words. This word bitterness in the Greek is pikria, bitterness, animosity, a smoldering resentment. Now, we know what bitterness tastes like, right? Some folks are particularly good at expressing what that tastes like.

But, spiritually speaking, it's a smoldering resentment. I've lived in several different places where once a fire gets put out, they don't just go away. because if there's smoldering still going on, there's still danger of it flaring back up, right? And that's the problem with the bitterness. It can flare back up. It can suddenly stir up and get far worse.

And so this is the idea. It's a smoldering resentment that continues on in the heart of the person who has this bitterness. So here's this girl. But mommy, I really wanted to eat all those candy bars, all 15 gazillion of them. And up until then, she's just really ticked. She'll let you know.

Wrath. Thumos is the Greek word there. A boiling agitation. The idea is it's volcanic, explosive rage. We had this picture here before. Let's get a little closer. There we go. To give a more human feeling to it, The mouth here is exaggerated, but the feeling isn't.

This explosive rage is what Paul's conveying. He's saying that is of the sin nature. That is to be put away. The last word on this slide, anyway, anger, orgy. Its rage is settled in a biting pattern of mind. It's a kind of anger. it's a chronic and fixed state of hostility and opposition. So the difference is the wrath is more the outward expression, the orge, the anger, is a fixed state of mind that underlies it. Orge is a little bit more like a volcano that just sits there and steams.

Underneath, you know, there's a lot of hot stuff going on. Among the next I'll give you a few words here. We have clamor, croquet, this crying out, disruptive shouting, noisy outbursts. Now, you know, a number of parents like to go out shopping. It's great to go out and do this shopping trip and look at all kinds of different things and check out prices and examine styles and make some selections, and that's all fine and well. But what they really look forward to while shopping is this, this disruptive shouting and noisy outbursts.

It doesn't take a little kid to do that, though. We've even had famous tennis stars that have done that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, we even have people in all sorts of meetings that do these kinds of things. All right. Okay. Now, then the next thing that we have here is slander.

This is a word that you probably think of, the Greek is blasphemia, you're thinking blasphemy. Well, blasphemy can indeed be speaking directly against the Lord, but the word was also used in the context of speaking ill of others, of other people. And that's particularly what he's referring here, the relationships between people. He's between believers particularly. This kind of speaking ill, damaging and abusive speech between believers is no place. It could be at some little quiet moment. It could be more in a group, speaking out, so that everybody can hear. Or maybe a little more face-to-face expression. All those can be abusive speech. All those can be damaging words. All those are the kinds of things he's pointing to. And finally, malice, cacos, bad-heartedness, the root of all these other evils mentioned. It's from bad-heartedness that these other things come. These are all stemming from the sin nature.

What does he say? That they be put away from you. Now, how do you do that? We've got a box out in the lobby and if you want, you can put it all in that box and we'll just ship it off and somebody else will have it. How about that? Maybe not, huh? No. What happens is a believer does not put these things away by saying, well, I put them away, now I'm fine.

They are put away instead by our dependence upon the Lord. They are put away by our fellowship with the Lord. They are put away by our dependence upon our position. They're put away not simply by putting them away, that leaves a vacuum, but by being entirely displaced by relationship and fellowship with the Lord.

The other point here is that He doesn't say put them away a little bit. Put them away in part. You see, one of the things that's true about believers, we don't express mixtures of the sin nature in the life of Christ. It isn't a 50-50 or 70-30 deal. It's either one or the other. It's either one or the other. Then in verse 32, he has, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. You see, in verse 31, what did he do?

He had all these negative expressions. This is the positive expression instead. So, what he's done here is to say, Because of the life of Christ and the believer, these negative things will be put away. But, instead, this is what will be expressed. It boils down to three things. Be kind to one another, be tender-hearted, and forgiving each other. Those three things. Then, he finishes off the verse by making a comparison that sets the standard for forgiveness. Standards we understand, right? That's how we measure things by. That's how we understand. We'll make comparisons with something else that says, oh, that's what you mean, okay?

And that's what he does here. He finishes off the verse, the standard is just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. He starts off verse 32 with, be kind. It's a present imperative. It doesn't say be kind eventually. Thirty years from now, be kind, okay? It isn't just a nice option. It is the only logical conclusion to be drawn from the position of the believer. When a person believes, comes to a place of belief in Christ, they have that position in Christ right then.

That's how Paul could write to these people that he was saying, hey, you who are stealing, stop it. He could start off his letter with those people saying you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. That's right. Even the ones that were stealing and using unwholesome words. Kind is Krestos, and it has the idea of graciousness and goodness in action. It's action. It's put it into action. Be kind to one another, not just hypothetically. Hypothetically, I'm being kind to you. No. This is kindness in action. This is lived out.

Then he uses this word tender-hearted, and it has the idea, it's literally, put the thing together, good guts, okay? Now, he's not referring, he's not saying I ought to have, you know, happy innards or something. What he's talking about here, he says, we kind of have an expression in our own, you know, culture of a gut feeling about something.

He's saying from the heart, okay? From a goodness of heart. That's in contrast to the badness of heart that's malice, that's kakos. In contrast to that, goodness of heart. So he's laying this out. There is a goodness of heart toward one another. Toward one another. I had nothing to do with this word vernacular, by the way. I didn't come up with that. Charizomai.

It's a verb form of charis or grace, gracing. And what this is talking about here, this is grace in action. That's what forgiving is. It's a giving of grace beyond anything deserved. It's not a grace that we earn. It is a grace that is completely undeserved, way beyond what is deserved.

And then He gives the standard, and He says, just as God and Christ has forgiven you, be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, by this standard, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. That's the standard. When I say forgive, that's what I mean. He can say that because he said already in Ephesians, and he said it in Colossians as well, that they have this forgiveness there in Christ. The King James here has for Christ's sake, but actually in is the more literal meaning there from the Greek. Now notice a difference.

If you've read through the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6. Here's Jesus. He's speaking to the Jews. He's very explicitly speaking to the Jews, by the way. That's what you can tell from the prior context. He keeps referring to the Gentiles as a group apart. The Gentiles are in contrast. In subsequent chapters, he'll send the disciples to the Jews and he'll say, don't even go to the Gentiles.

And then a few chapters later, he will say, I am only sent to the lost sheep of Israel. So he's very emphatically speaking to the Jews. He says, if you forgive others their transgressions, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Here in Ephesians 4.32, what did he say? You forgive others just as God has forgiven you.

Do you see the if there? No. Very interesting distinction. Remember last week, we looked at what's the difference between law and grace here. And we said that in law, a right action was followed by a blessing. God would bless those who carried out a right action. If you did a wrong action, you'd be cursed. Read Deuteronomy 28 if you want to get the picture there. Spells it out very clearly. We said that under grace, you are blessed And then you are called to a right action as a consequence of the blessing. And you're blessed even if a wrong action follows. You're still blessed.

Notice in this passage here, in the comparison Matthew 6 there, 14 and 15, if you forgive, you'll be forgiven. If you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven. Under grace, you are forgiven, therefore forgive. Reverse. You're already forgiven even if you don't forgive. How about that? Very different kind of situation. He says you are forgiven. That is the reason you are to forgive. Very different kind of logic here. So the question comes, alright, that's great. On what basis can I forgive as a Christian?

You know, some pretty nasty things have happened in our lives. Some awful things may have happened to us. Things we look at and say, you know, I really didn't even ask for this. Somebody else may have done it even with animosity or with negligence. You may have some serious things as believers that we encounter and be called to forgive.

First of all, forgiveness is not a matter of just kind of being empty-headed about it. It's not a matter of just sort of ignoring the wrong done. You don't have to do that. It isn't sort of amnesia. Forgiveness instead is seeing God's character and God's accomplishment. It's who God is. That's the basis of forgiveness.

You see, if we look at situations that come upon us and we look at our power and our justice and our lifetime, we're going to run into situations where we say, I can't forgive that. Why? Our power is not enough, our justice is not right, and it's not sufficient, and our lifetime is not sufficient to see things handled. But the truth is, forgiveness for the believer is depending upon his time, and his justice, and his power.

Through the sweep of all of God's sense of time, the one who brought time into existence, and His infinite justice, can He handle these things? We look at something that happened and have difficulty forgiving because we say, that wasn't just. God's justice is absolute and infinite. You think God's going to go, oh, well, okay, I guess so. No. God's absolute and infinite justice must be satisfied. and is in the full sweep of time. Every injustice will be dealt with. Everyone. God's absolute and infinite justice will not be cut short. Everything will be dealt with justly.

God also has a character of infinite mercy. That has to be satisfied. infinite love. And that has to be satisfied in infinite grace. There's something else besides God's own character. It's the life of Christ. What does that do in the believer? What he's just told us is the life of Christ forgives. I don't have to forgive based on my own strength. It's His life that does the forgiving. That's good news.

I was thinking My grandmother, as I mentioned in times past, was a missionary to Fiji Islands. And one of the things that was involved with that at the time is cannibals. She said she would go to the meat market and there would be pig meat and chicken meat and people meat. But can you imagine what it would be like when they would be working with the believers there in Fiji, and you'd go to church like this one, and you'd be sitting down next to somebody, and someone would have a hard time forgiving. They'd say, how can I sing hymns with that person?

That person ate my brother. And they'd come to a place of recognizing, yeah, I can forgive that too. Not by my own strength. Not because of my justice. My justice was going to take them out too. But God's character. That's the only basis. God will deal with every injustice of every magnitude, even the guy who ate my brother, in eternity. It'll all be dealt with. Every one dealt with.

God's justice will not be cut short. We have indeed the life of Christ, because that's not something we can come up with, is it? Those people could not be told, I know he ate your brother, but try real hard to forgive him. No. It's got to be the life of Christ. Nothing short of that's going to do.

I'll let you to look through the Ephesians expanded and explain and take a look at that yourself. As we look at this passage here, Paul, we've just finished the fourth chapter. We've got two more chapters to go in Ephesians. But he's finished this chapter at a crescendo.

This forgiveness is an immense thing. There are lots of reasons why believers can end up parting ways. But he's saying, no, the standard of forgiveness is this one. It's God in Christ has forgiven you. But He says, I don't expect you to do that on your own. I've already told you chapter after chapter. It's His doing. It's His power. It's Him. And not us.

Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage here, certainly we see how profoundly nasty the sin nature can be. And often the sin nature is not as bad as it could be. But indeed, nothing will satisfy you truly expresses who we are in you, but your very life. We thank you that it is all of you and none of us. It's your doing and not ours. What a wonderful thing for us to count upon. In Jesus' name, Amen.