Ephesians 4:30 (Grieve God's Spirit?)--In Progress

Greek: καὶ μὴ λυπεῖτε τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον τοῦ θεοῦ, ἐν ᾧ ἐσφραγίσθητε εἰς ἡμέραν ἀπολυτρώσεως.

ESV: "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."

NWT 2013: "Also, do not be grieving God’s holy spirit, with which you have been sealed for a day of releasing by ransom."

Questions sometimes arise concerning the way to understand and translate Ephesians 4:30: it seems that the verse is a clear proof of the holy spirit's (Holy Spirit's) deity. Trinitarians claim that this verse proves the holy spirit is God--fully God, but is that necessarily the case?

The language of grieving God's spirit (τὸπνεῦμα τὸἅγιον τοῦ θεοῦ) originates with the Hebrew Bible. See Isaiah 63:10. Paul also warns against quenching the spirit in 1 Thessalonians 4:8; 5:19.

While commenting on Ephesians 4:30, one website claims:

When we sin, the Holy Spirit experiences grief in a manner appropriate to His deity. He cannot stand the presence of sin and hates it when we, His dwelling place, entertain transgression (Hab. 1:13). Yet even though the reality of His grief proves the Spirit’s personhood, His grief is not exactly the same as ours.

So the writer asserts that the "Holy Spirit" is masculine (or portrayed as masculine) by using the pronouns "He" and "His." This language likewise suggests that the writer believes the spirit of God is a divine person; after all, the site refers to the spirit's "deity." The claim is that the "Holy Spirit" is God and the last part of the quote explicitly identifies God's pneuma as a person and being able to grieve the spirit apparently demonstrates divine personhood in this case.

However, does grieving the spirit necessarily mean the spirit is a person? Firstly, the Hebrew Bible makes an intimate nexus between YHWH (Jehovah) and the holy spirit. In the verse from Isaiah (63:10), the prophet speaks of making "God's spirit" (i.e., the spirit belonging to God) grieved or feel hurt (saddened). Saddening God's spirit could be analogous to making a person feel sad, yet that would not mean that the spirit of the person is equally a person or personal. The Bible uses "spirit" (pneuma) to signify the dominant mental attitude of someone, whether the person is happy, sad or angry. Compare Genesis 26:35. We would not usually identify someone's spirit with the person himself/herself.

Additionally, I've often wondered if Paul was using the language of grieving in a metaphorical sense, that is, was he saying that the spirit might be saddened in a figurative manner by Christian disobedience? In any event, we often speak of defying gravity. Yet gravity is obviously impersonal--however one defines it.

One other point that I hardly see mentioned in discussions of Ephesians 4:30: we have neuter terminology in ἐν ᾧ ἐσφραγίσθητε. Most translations choose to render the construction with a masculine language ("by whom") but NWT translates by using "with which . . ." Another rendition is by S.M. Baugh: "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."

David Bentley Hart (The New Testament):  "And do not grieve the Spirit, the
Holy One of God, by which you were sealed with a seal for a day when the
fee for liberation is paid."

The relative pronoun ᾧ is neuter, and τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον is too. (Compare 1 Corinthians 6:19; Ephesians 1:12-13; 2:21; 5:18.) So why do translations then render Ephesians 4:30 with a masculine term?

I did not find an explanation in S.M. Baugh's commentary for Ephesians; A.T. Robertson (Word Pictures) simply writes: "In whom (εν ωι — en hōi). Not 'in which.'” The Anchor Bible commentary on Ephesians makes some interesting observations, but does not address this grammatical issue.

Does context or theology affect how translations render Ephesians 4:30? Which rendering might best comport with the neuter noun phrase in the verse? On the other hand, I realize the difference between grammatical gender and other ways to define gender.

J.P. Heil (Ephesians, page 200):

"There is a subtle progression then from being sealed with the Holy Spirit (1:13) to being sealed within the realm of being in union with the Holy Spirit (4:30). The Holy Spirit 'in whom' (ἐν ᾧ) you were sealed recalls that the audience who have been sealed with the Holy Spirit are now living within the dynamic realm of being 'in the Spirit' (cf. 'in one Spirit' [ἐν ἑνὶ Πνεύματι, 2:18]; 'in the Spirit' [ἐν πνεύματι, 2:22; 3:5; 5:18; 6:18]). In other words, you have not only been sealed with the Holy Spirit (1:13), but in your union with the Holy Spirit you have been sealed for the day of redemption (4:30)."