Ephesians 5:18Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"And do not be drunk with wine, in which there is debauchery." For lack of restraint in this also makes us quick-tempered and insolent, impetuous, irritable, and unbearable.

Wine was given for gladness, not for drunkenness. But now, not getting drunk is considered effeminate and ridiculous. What hope of salvation remains?

"It is ridiculous," you say, "not to get drunk." Yet drunkenness is what most deserves ridicule.

It is very good even for a private person to be free from drunkenness. It is much more so for a soldier, who deals with weapons, blood, and killings.

It is still more so for a military commander, when his anger is already inflamed by authority, command, and his constant life amid ambushes and battles.

"And do not be drunk with wine." Again he restrains anger, because excess in wine makes people angry and insolent.

That he censures excess is clear. He did not say, "Do not drink," but, "Do not be drunk." Drunkenness comes from excess, since moderate use of wine brings health, as the Apostle himself says in the Epistle to Timothy (1 Tim 5:23), and gladness, as David testifies (Ps 103:15).

Scripture also says, "Give wine to the sorrowful in soul" (Prov 31:6), that is, give joy to those in grief. For it softens grief and anguish.

Therefore God created our bodies moderate, so that they might be satisfied with little and strive toward the other life.

It is a reproach to a man to be drunk with wine. Having seen many, I have found no one like the drunkard.

Just as we cannot serve two masters, God and mammon (Mt 6:24), so we cannot at the same time be filled with the Spirit and with wine.

The one who is filled with the Spirit has prudence and meekness, modesty and purity. The one who is filled with wine has folly, rage, insolence, and lust. Indeed, I think all this can be designated by one word: incontinence.

If some people understood this, they would never have accused me of folly and heresy because, in my book on preserving virginity, I said that young men must be denied wine. Nor would they object that oil should not be thrown on fire, increasing natural fleshly heat with the hearth of lust.

Whoever is drunk with wine sways and staggers. The one intoxicated with the Spirit is rooted in Christ. Therefore the intoxication that brings sobriety of mind is praiseworthy.

The sober can rebuke with confidence, and seemly conduct inspires fear in the one who does evil. The person rebuked will be less indignant if he knows how seemly the conduct of the one rebuking him is. Where there is drunkenness, there is license, and license drives one toward shamelessness. Therefore Paul teaches them to be sober, so that examples of righteous conduct may be visible.

Having rejected harmful intoxication, the Apostle introduced spiritual intoxication in its place. This is what he meant when he said, "Be filled with the Spirit," that is, by unceasingly singing praises to God, entering deeply into yourselves, and always stirring up the thought. For the one who sings with the heart does not merely set the tongue in motion, but also rouses the mind to understand what is being said.

Why, after enjoining them to be sensible, does he immediately enjoin them to avoid drunkenness? Because drunkenness drives a person out of his mind and makes him foolish and senseless. Although many kinds of drinks produce drunkenness, the Apostle mentioned wine as producing it, since Noah, the first in the world to become drunk, was made drunk with wine. He says, "In which," that is, in wine, "there is debauchery," because the drunken commit every kind of licentiousness, every indecency, and shame. Then see how he sets one fullness over against another: "But be filled," he says, "with the Spirit." He places fullness with the gifts of the Holy Spirit in place of fullness with wine, that is, what is useful and saving in place of what is harmful and destructive.

"Do not be drunk with wine, in which is debauchery." Since the Apostle has church gatherings in view here, these words may most directly refer to the agapae (1 Cor 11:21).

The origin of debauchery from drunkenness, or its dependence upon drunkenness, is seen from this. Drunkenness first of all stirs up fleshly passions, darkens the mind, and weakens the will.

To such drunkenness the Apostle opposes being filled with the Spirit. According to Chrysostom, this also can lie within our power, if we care for the soul and cleanse it from every sin.

Yet by this censure the Apostle in no way censures wine itself, as the Encratites and certain sectarians did. Elsewhere the Apostle himself counsels the use of wine against illnesses (1 Tim 5:23).

"Be filled with the Spirit." How blessed, divine Paul, and at the same time how wondrous is the commandment you give us. "Be filled with the Spirit." Is it within our will to be filled with the Spirit?

If this treasure is so near and so accessible, why is it so rare and so unknown?

Christians, among our fellow disciples in Ephesus, to whom the teacher of the nations first gave the instruction we are considering, there was surely no one who did not understand him in this matter.

No one could have set before him our perplexities. Otherwise the God-inspired instructor would no doubt have anticipated such questions by explanation.

Thus, in those days, the thirsty knew the path once indicated by the Prophets: let them go to the water. "You who have no silver, go, buy and eat; go, buy wine and milk without silver and without price."

Now, it seems, silver is not spent for bread, and our labor is not for satiety (Isa 55:1-2). It seems to us as though the Lord values His blessings too dearly.

It seems as though it is not our arms that have grown weak for receiving, but His hand that has grown short for giving spiritual gifts. No. The Lord pours out of His Spirit without envy upon all flesh (Joel 2:28).

If we are not filled with the Spirit, it is not His gifts that are lacking for us. Rather, we are lacking for His gifts.

There was a time when the Apostles, preeminent holy temples of the Holy Spirit, did not feel the One dwelling in them. They already possessed the gift of miracles, yet they did not understand the source or notice the direction of the power acting in them.

The Spirit of love appeared in them as a spirit of wrath. Those called to the ministry of salvation were ready to bring down from heaven a fire of destruction.

Truth Himself exposed their strange ignorance of themselves: "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of" (Lk 9:55).

Afterward, the same Spirit who at first had acted in the Apostles by hidden power visited them by His solemn descent and filled them with knowledge and wisdom.

Then they knew Him so clearly and so intimately that they decisively distinguished Him both from their own spirit and from a certain common spirit.

This common spirit acts in men who are natural and not reborn by the Spirit of God. Perhaps it had once acted in them too.

"We," says one of them, "have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things given to us by God" (1 Cor 2:12).

Let us note, hearers, that the Apostle does not say, "The Spirit was given to us," but, "We have received the Spirit." It is as though he said this.

It is known that God gives His Spirit to everyone disposed to receive Him. But people for the most part become enslaved and darkened by the spirit of the world.

We have rejected the dominion of this dark spirit. By our spirit we have received the holiness-bearing influences of the Spirit who proceeds from God.

In this way there has been opened in us an active knowledge and perception of the gifts granted to us by God.

Therefore do not believe us, weak ministers of the word. Believe the chosen vessels, the envoys and evangelists of the Spirit of God.

Despite a certain independent being and freedom in man, he not only can be under the rule of one of two principles, but usually is.

He is under either the spirit of this world or the Spirit from God, according to which action he freely receives upon himself.

If you do not seem to experience this in yourselves, that does not mean that you do not know what manner of spirit you are of.

To bring these hidden relations of the human spirit to the Spirit of God as near as possible to common understanding, let us be permitted to use a parable and a riddle.

Divine truth itself often clothed itself in these forms, so that it might appear to the eyes of men who are more or less sensual.

An infant in the womb has its own soul and life. Yet its life is plunged into the mother's life, penetrated by it, and nourished by it.

Compared with the full life of a man, it can scarcely be considered life. This is an image of the state in which the natural man exists in the world.

His spirit has its own life and freedom. Nevertheless, being in the flesh, it is embraced and imperceptibly governed by the power of the world.

He thinks, but according to the elements of the world. He desires, but as he is moved by the fleshly lust, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life that cover all things in the world.

He acts, but within the narrow and low circle of the sensory. He lives, but according to the spirit of the world, in alienation from the life of God (Eph 4:18).

Yet the confinement of the infant in the womb is not the final intention of nature. It is only the means and path by which he is led to full being.

He must come forth into the light, behold the beauty of the world, taste its good things, and know its Creator. Such also is the higher calling of the human spirit, embraced by the flesh and enclosed in the world.

"You must be born from above" (Jn 3:7). You must, because according to God's intention this is not merely the accidental lot of some. It is the established law and predestination of all mankind.

All natural life serves only as preparation and transition toward this. The prisoner of the world must be led out from his prison, "to confess the name of the Lord" (Ps 141:7).

He must be enlightened by the light of Christ. He must "taste the heavenly gift" and "the powers of the age to come" (Heb 6:4-5) during the present age.

He must receive, in the world itself, the Spirit who is from God. He must begin on earth to breathe the heavenly air.

When an infant is born and is released from the mother's life, he has no labor in seeking his new life. He carries within himself the source of an activity that continually unfolds and perfects itself.

Around him, everywhere, he finds the air necessary for his breathing. So also the man drawn by grace away from the world and called to birth from above is nearer to the realm of new life than he thinks.

For we can be far from the Spirit of God, but the Spirit of God cannot be far from us.

This Spirit, according to the words of the Wise Man, "passes through all spirits" (Wis 7:23). He remains untouchable in His holiness and omnipresent in His goodness.

He pours Himself out upon every power and faculty that surrenders to His action. In the very heart of the old man He opens the spring of new life.

"He who believes in Me," said the Giver of the Spirit, "out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water" (Jn 7:38).

The beloved disciple adds, explaining the words of the heavenly Teacher: "This He said about the Spirit, whom those believing in His name were to receive" (Jn 7:39).

Finally, there is one more important difference between natural and spiritual birth. The first is attained and accomplished by the necessary course of nature. The second comes by the free striving toward God of faith in Christ.

"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water" (Jn 7:38).

Why whole rivers from one heart, when one drop from the fullness of grace is enough to bring hosts of spirits to life? It is so, as Scripture says, to reveal the boundless riches of goodness to those who receive Him.

He gives us, as it were, more than we receive. Shall we then, children of faith, fail to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst, and ask about His dominion, "Where is it?"

Even before His solemn descent into the kingdom of faith, the children of the law felt His everywhere-present power so vividly that they could nowhere hide or rest from reverent dread.

"Where shall I go from Your Spirit?" David cried (Ps 138:7).

Shall we be perplexed over how the self-acting human spirit can stand under the continual action of the almighty Spirit? Even in the days of Job they understood that "there is a spirit in men, and the breath of the Almighty teaches" (Job 32:8).

Must we also recall our own confession, so often renewed according to the voice of the Church? By it we bring ourselves into prayerful nearness to God and proclaim the everywhere-present, all-filling power of His Spirit.

"Who art everywhere present and fillest all things." He fills all things. But why, then, are not all of us filled by Him? Clearly, we must ask ourselves about this.

Can we be filled with the Spirit if the flesh, which continually wars against the spirit, finds in us no barrier to its dominion?

Can we be filled with the Spirit of God if we ourselves animate ourselves only by the spirit of this world?

Can we be filled with the Holy Spirit if we are still so full of ourselves that there is not even the smallest cleansed place within us?

There should be room for at least one drop of the all-watering water, flowing through all the length and breadth of times and places into eternal life (Jn 4:14).

Yet if it fell there, would it not be turned into mud by our self-love and sinful remnants?

Our impurity is the rampart by which we block from ourselves the streams of the Spirit of the Lord. He was sent everywhere, like the rush of spring waters, to create a new creation and renew the face of the earth (Ps 103:30).

This is not yet wrath, but only the mercy of God, that these streams do not penetrate the souls of the unworthy. For the holy and sanctifying water of life, falling upon what is impure, would blaze up as an all-consuming fire.

Therefore let those not grieve against the Spirit of the Lord who, though they reject flesh, world, and self with all their strength, and come to Christ with spiritual thirst, do not yet drink from the spring of blessings.

Nor should they grieve if they do not feel within themselves the consoling presence of sanctifying and renewing grace, or if, having felt it, they immediately lose it.

In the Gospel it is written that when Jesus Christ Himself preached about the Spirit, whom those believing in His name were to receive, "the Holy Spirit was not yet received, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (Jn 7:39).

Elsewhere He tells His disciples that even after unchanging following of Him, they must first be tested by the deprivation of His visible presence.

Only afterward must they enter into the mystical communion of the Holy Spirit. "It is to your advantage that I go away. If I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you" (Jn 16:7).

Even after His resurrection, when "all authority in heaven and on earth" had been given to Him (Mt 28:18), the Apostles needed fifty days of patience, united prayers, and supplications (Acts 1:14).

Only then could they, having withdrawn from everything, finally be filled with the one Holy Spirit and begin to live in this fullness. Only by withdrawing from everything were they counted worthy to celebrate God's great feast.

Perhaps for you also, who are zealous for the apostolic following of Christ but do not feel upon yourselves "the anointing from the Holy One" (1 Jn 2:27), the Holy Spirit is not yet, because Jesus is not yet glorified in you (Jn 7:39).

Perhaps you have received Him only as a prophet who bears the word of God in His mouth. You have not yet consecrated yourselves to Him as Priest.

In the communion of His universal sacrifice, He would raise you also wholly as an acceptable offering to His Father. You have not yet exalted Him as King, so that no desire or thought rises without His command.

Perhaps it is to your advantage also, if you understand and seek Christ more according to the flesh (2 Cor 5:16) than according to the spirit, that the desired Bridegroom be taken for a time from your souls.

The deprivation of spiritual consolations will purify your faith, elevate your love, strengthen patience, sharpen prayer, drive out dangerous self-delight, and prepare a twofold blessedness.

On the bitter earth, it is natural for man to seek enjoyments, since he cannot forget that he was created for life in Paradise. Each person seeks and finds them in his own way.

Every people and every man has his own consolations. The element that most gladdens is wine. But since it is sensory, it also gives sensory gladness.

For Christians, who are born of the Spirit, are the dwelling of the Spirit, and whose life is hidden with Christ in God, such a kind of self-gladdening is not fitting.

Joy in the Holy Spirit is proper to them. The Apostle writes to the Ephesians to avoid the first and seek the second.