And grieve not the holy Spirit. — This verse refers to all the practical commands given above. The four cardinal sins forbidden are regarded as “grieving the Holy Spirit of God.” In that expression, even more than in the cognate expressions of “quenching the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and “resisting the Holy Ghost” (Acts 7:51), there is implied a personal relation to a Divine Person, capable of being “grieved” by our transgressions, partly as sins against His perfect holiness, partly as suicidal rejections of His unfailing love. In the description of this effect of sin we have the needful complement to the view hitherto taken of its effect, as marring our unity with men; for that unity is always in God, through the Holy Spirit working out in each soul the image of Christ. “There is one Body” only because “there is one Spirit.” Sin vexes the one, but grieves the other.
Whereby ye are sealed. — Properly, in whom ye were sealed. See the fuller expression of the same truth in Ephesians 1:13-14, and the Notes there. The reference to it is here emphatic. The “sealing unto the day of redemption” reminds us of the glorious consummation to which we are destined, and from which every sin is a falling off. The very thought of this perfection, with all its associations of purity and love, should shame us from sin.
This general exhortation seems fitly to close the warning against the series of typical sins, which is itself exhaustive of the general sins against men. In the passage which follows (Ephesians 4:31 to Ephesians 5:21) St. Paul does not indeed traverse new ground, but dwells with special emphasis on some of these sins, which especially beset the society to which he wrote, viz.: (in Ephesians 4:31 to Ephesians 5:2) bitterness, (in Ephesians 5:3-14) impurity, (in Ephesians 5:15-21) reckless excess.