Ephesians 5:5 Commentary and Bible Study

God has no favourites on earth for whose sake he is prepared to relax his holy standards. These things always have been sin and they always will be sin. Heaven will be kept pure, come what may, and God is inflexibly against those who do such things. We may be used to manipulating and corrupting each other on earth in the interests of getting our own way and creating room for our own wickedness, but God cannot be corrupted. He is implacable and he must be in order to deal with sin. Sin too is implacable and if God did not meet it with strong resolution, it would try to worm its way around even his perfect law. Only such resolution on his behalf is able to confront wickedness and warn sinful human beings that they must change or perish. This drives out all secret hankering after sin. The Ephesians had this knowledge and it did them good. It also did them good to be reminded that they knew this; they must act on their knowledge. For it is possible for the Christian to forget what he knows in the sense that he does not make sure his knowledge informs all his decisions.Inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God is what we should long for and strive for. This is the great goal of our lives, the bright hope which beckons us forward, even though the valley of the shadow of death lies between us and our goal. Forsaking these sinful practices we come with confidence to God, trusting in the shed blood of Christ and knowing that his Spirit has been at work in us changing us to be like Christ and prepare us for heaven. This inheritance is an eternal inheritance which does not fade away but is reserved for us by God. Though we lose all on earth we must not and will not lose this. This makes all suffering worthwhile for Christ’s sake.