Ephesians 4:30 NKJV
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
The idea that God is Three-in-One and One-in-Three will most likely always be a mystery to me …and I’m guessing to many other people as well. It’s a little helpful when I consider how much bigger God is than we humans are and, because of that, He doesn’t easily fit into the logical boxes we construct to try and understand things. To be honest, I’m glad I can’t completely understand God! If I could, I’m not sure He would be such a big God. And even though I know He is much more than a Father, Son and Holy Spirit, these familiar names are helpful to me to get some kind of idea of what He’s like.
Toward the end of Ephesians 4, which speaks mostly about keeping unity in the Body of Christ, Paul makes an interesting command. He says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.”
What? The Holy Spirit of God can grieve? How is that possible? And we have the power to grieve the Holy Spirit? Oh no! That sounds like something we should really look into. Surely no one really sets out to grieve the Holy Spirit. But if we can, then apparently sometimes we do, and if that is true, then what does it mean, how do we do it and how can we not do it?
Before looking into this, there are a couple of other commands in the Bible that seem related to how we can affect the Spirit of God: do not quench the Holy Spirit (1Thessalonians 5:19) and do not blaspheme the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:29). So we can grieve, quench and blaspheme the Holy Spirit. I think these are topics we would do well to look into.
To grieve someone means to cause them sorrow. An online definition of the word I found on helpguide.org states, “Grieving is the natural response to loss.” If the Holy Spirit is responding to a loss of some kind, what kind of loss is it? I’m thinking it’s most likely a loss of closeness to us or a rift between us in some way. Could it be that the Holy Spirit loves nothing more than to be close and connected to us? God expresses His love for his creation when He says in Genesis 2, He created light and it was good; He created the earth and all its natural movements and He called it good; He created light and oceans and animals and humans; and He called them all very good. God is love and He loves all His creation.
Throughout the Old and New Testaments we see God’s love at work in various ways: He provides for us, He liberates us, He teaches us, He guides us and He warns us of dangers to us and to those around us. It’s no wonder He is often represented as the good father (though He could also be, and sometimes is, represented as the good mother.) So if God loves us so much, it would make sense that He would grieve over anything that would disrupt our relationship with Him.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he mentions some of the things that can grieve God’s Spirit: being ignorant of God and having a hard heart, being greedy, impure in thought and deed, lying, allowing our anger to go unchecked, stealing, speaking ungraciously, holding bitterness, squabbling or fighting, slandering, and acting maliciously in any way.
And why does God hate these things? Because in practicing these things we disrupt our relationships with other people…the very people He loves! And in doing so, we injure our own souls as well. This is the opposite of what the Spirit wants for us. So He grieves. But He doesn’t just say to not do these things. He also shows us the ways that please Him: speak the truth in love, build up one another, grow in Jesus, be renewed in your mind, be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another. Be imitators of God, live in love. This is our new self, mirroring God’s love back to Him, as well as to others and to ourselves.
I mentioned that the Bible also notes that we can quench the Holy Spirit. In 1Thessalonians 5:14-22, Paul admonishes us to encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak and be patient. He says not to repay evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. He exhorts us to rejoice always, to pray without ceasing and to give thanks in all circumstances. Hold fast to what is good. Do not quench the Holy Spirit.
The ideas of quenching and grieving are really very similar, but they offer different images: grieving is to cause sorrow to someone; quenching is a word used when talking about putting out a fire. The Bible often refers to the Holy Spirit as fire. Remember the “tongues of fire” appearing over the disciples at Pentecost in Acts 2? Or the burning bush that spoke to Moses in the desert in Exodus 3? The Spirit is like a fire in our souls, giving us warmth and energy that never burns out. Apparently Paul is wanting to say that, although we can never diminish the Holy Spirit Himself, we can certainly diminish the fire within our souls by making ourselves insensitive to the grace and power of the Spirit that is within us.
It seems to me, the most serious of all admonitions in the Bible is Jesus warning that “anyone who speaks a word against (blasphemes) the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, in this age or in the age to come.” (Matthew 12:32) What can this mean? How very sobering! Commentators have said that the difference between “blaspheming” as mentioned by Jesus in Matthew and “grieving or quenching” as mentioned by Paul, is that Jesus is referring to someone who forever and ever despises the Spirit of God, despises all things good, and set their hearts to do evil constantly. Grieving and quenching are simply the results of our ignorance or weak humanity, but with someone whose true desire is to follow God and be like God, in other words, a person directed by love.
God is love. His love never fails. We are the ones who can distance ourselves from Him and His love by our thoughts, attitudes and behaviors. Thankfully, knowledge of this reality is mentioned in the Bible all the way through by the Prophets, in the Psalms and Proverbs, by the Apostles and by Jesus Himself. Love gives wisdom and knowledge. Love warns. Love forgives when we mess up “seventy times seven times.” And Love gives us the power and strength to live a life that builds up, instead of diminishes, our relationship with our good God. Thank you, Jesus!
About the Author
John lives in Pleasant Hill with his dog, Gunnar, and a multitude of guests who enjoy the peace and beauty of the Cascade foothills. With three children and three grandchildren all living in Oregon, he is continually blessed with their company and the good food that always accompanies their get-togethers!