The Letter to the Ephesians (Pillar New Testament Commentary) by O'Brien Peter T

Author:O'Brien, Peter T. [O'Brien, Peter T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eerdmans Publishing Co - A
Published: 1999-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Paul has depicted in the strongest possible terms the contrast between the readers’ previous way of life in the society of his day and their present existence in Christ. The standards presented in this passage are very different from the lifestyle of the surrounding world. This is not to say that some moralists would have disagreed with the apostle’s assessment and given contrary advice. Some would have concurred with him at a number of points. Virtue and vice lists, and negative and positive injunctions of a kind similar to Paul’s can be found in the Graeco-Roman and Hellenistic-Jewish literature of the day. But it is ‘the framework of motivations supplied by his gospel’ that makes his ‘ethical teaching coherent and distinctly Christian’.1352 Particularly significant is the motivation not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom they were sealed until the day of redemption (v. 30). God has stamped the readers with his own character and guaranteed to protect them until the final day. How ungrateful they would be if they now behaved in a manner which grieved the very Spirit by whom God had marked them as his own. Further, they are to forgive others just as God in Christ forgave them (v. 32), and they are to be imitators of God by walking in love. The model and ground for such a life of love is Christ’s love so signally demonstrated in the cross. Ultimately, then, to imitate God is to imitate Christ, and costly, sacrificial love is to characterize believers in their relationships with one another.

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