Grieving the Holy Spirit – A Serious Matter

God/Jesus Christ

30Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

– Ephesians 4:30
(NASB® © 2020)

The Holy Spirit is the divine Person Who descended from heaven on the day of Pentecost after the Lord Jesus had accomplished the work of redemption through His death on the cross and, having been raised from the dead by the glory of the Father ascended to heaven, and sat down at the right hand of His Father.

The Holy Spirit is not just a sensation or a feeling or merely a power. He is, like the Father and the Son, a divine Person. He speaks, sends out laborers to proclaim the gospel (Acts 13:2, 4), and convicts the world of sin (John 16:8). He comforts and refreshes believers by taking from the things of Christ and giving them to them. He encourages and guides them (Jn. 16:13-15; Rom. 8:14).

But He is also grieved when the children of God do not walk in holiness since He is the Holy Spirit. He dwells in every true believer and takes note of every word we speak. He knows every thought that arises in us. He sees everything we do. That is why the apostle admonishes us: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.”

This does not mean that the Holy Spirit will leave us if we sadly grieve Him, for He dwells in the believer forever, as the Lord Jesus said: “He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever” (John 14:16).

This is the blessed privilege of New Testament believers. David of old had to pray: “Do not take the spirit of your holiness from me” (Ps 51:13). In the present dispensation of grace. However, such a prayer is out of place, for the true Christian is sealed by the Holy Spirit of God for the day of redemption.

The Holy Spirit dwells in the true believer; He will never leave or forsake him, but He will be grieved if we do not walk in holiness according to the word of God. This is also why so many have lost the joy and happiness flowing from the precious fellowship with the Lord.

When we walk in holiness and faithfulness to the Lord, the Holy Spirit fills our hearts with joy and takes from and gives to us what belongs to Christ. In the first chapter of Ephesians, the apostle said: “In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the pledge of our inheritance, unto the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:13, 14). In chapter 4, the apostle returns to this blessed truth that we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit “for the day of redemption.”

Here, we are not talking about the redemption of the soul, the forgiveness of sins, as in chapter 1:7, but about the redemption of our body at the coming of the Lord Jesus to take His bride home: “Who shall transform our lowly body into conformity to His glorious body, according to the working of the power by which He is able to subdue all things” (Phil. 3:21). When the Lord Jesus comes, He will take every true believer with Him; not a single one will remain here. For every true Christian is a member of the one body, and it is utterly impossible that the body should be in glory and lack one of its members, even the weakest or least.

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