Ephesians 4:30 (ESV) … “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”
4:30 “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God”—Comments—Benny Hinn explains that if the Holy Spirit can be grieved and “quenched,” as stated in 1 Thessalonians 4:1–9, then so can the Holy Spirit be honored by us. This means that as we honor the Holy Spirit, we invite Him into our presence and enable him to work in our lives.
Note that the context of this passage of Scripture is about sin in the life of the believer. Grieving the Holy Spirit is done by sins of commission, that is, things that we do that are sinful. Galatians 5:19–21 calls these acts the “works of the flesh.” Within the context of these verses, Paul is explaining how to put off the works of the old man and walk in the new man. The next verse in Ephesians 4:31 lists some of these sins of the “old man” that grieve the Holy Spirit while Ephesians 4:32 lists actions that are done by someone who is walking in the “new man.”
Illustration—In Genesis 6, God was grieved in His heart at man’s sinfulness.
Genesis 6:3, “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”
Genesis 6:6, “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”
When the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years, the Lord became grieved with their sins.
Psalms 95:10, “Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:”
Note these words from Frances J. Roberts:
“Go not into the path of folly, for My heart goeth with thee wheresoever thou goest; and I grieve over thee when thou art turned aside. Ye may not be going in the opposite direction. Ye may even be on a road that lies quite parallel with the one upon which I would have thee travel. But to be almost in the perfect will of God is to miss it completely. Check your course. Chart it by My Word, and hold to it with rigid determination and be not led aside by the other little ships. For, as the Scripture says: ‘There were with them other little ships’—but Jesus was in only one. Be sure you are in the boat with Him if ye hope to make it safe to shore in spite of the storms. For there shall be storms; but ye shall be safe if ye abide close with Me.”
In contrast, quenching the Holy Spirit would be sins of omission, as compared to grieving the Holy Spirit with sins of commission in this verse. This would be our failure to do what the Holy Spirit was leading us to do.
1 Thessalonians 5:19, “Quench not the Spirit.”
“by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”—Word Study on “sealed”—Strong says the Greek word “sealed” (σφραγίζω) (S 4972) means, “to stamp (with a signet or private mark).” Zodhiates says it literally means, “to seal, close up and make fast with a seal signet such as letters or books so that they may not be read,” and more generally, it means, “to set a seal or mark upon a thing as a token of its authenticity or approvedness.”
Comments—The day of redemption refers to the time when we enter heaven are clothed with an immortal body (Rom 8:23).
Romans 8:23, “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”[1]
[1] Everett, G. H. (2011). The Epistle of Ephesians (pp. 121–123). Gary Everett.