Benjamin Merkle's "Exegetical Gems" (A Discussion)-Part V

Chapter 6 in Merkle's Exegetical Gems covers the dative case. As should be discerned by now, Merkle likes to open chapters with a scriptural verse that's accompanied by questions. For the dative case chapter, his chosen verse is Ephesians 5:18:

καὶ μὴ μεθύσκεσθε οἴνῳ, ἐν ᾧ ἐστιν ἀσωτία, ἀλλὰ πληροῦσθε ἐν πνεύματι

Question: According to the last part of Ephesians 5:18, πληροῦσθε ἐν πνεύματι, is the holy spirit (Holy Spirit) the content of what Christians should be filled with, "or is the Spirit the means by which Christians are filled?" (page 25).

Before addressing this issue, the chapter reviews how the dative case works. It delimits verbal action by clarifying which person is involved, it makes salient the place where an action happens, the dative points to the means by which an action is done, and it has numerous functions: the datival construction may be the indirect object, there is the so-called dativus commodi and incommodi, the dative of reference/respect, possession, sphere/place, time, means, manner, agency, association, apposition, and direct object.

But what about Ephesians 5:18? Is the dative emphasizing content or means?

Merkle presents both sides of the issue, but he ultimately thinks this verse instantiates the dative of means. I have blogged about this subject and being filled with spirit here: https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2022/11/does-jehovah-god-give-holy-spirit.html

The chapter in Exegetical Gems concludes by insisting that Christians are urged to be filled by the spirit (Spirit), and Merkle reckons that the content of such filling is the fullness of the Triune God (page 28). I obviously cannot accept his conclusion, but here's the way I concluded my blog entry for Ephesians 5:18:

As with many other matters, these exegetical issues cannot be settled in a blog post, but there is good reason to answer the question in the title of the post, negatively. While I don't believe that Ephesians 5:18 depicts the Spirit/spirit as the agent doing the filling, it does appear that the agent could be either Christ or his Father, Jehovah based on the texts above. In either case, the ultimate credit for sending the spirit or giving holy spirit to the people of God goes to Jesus' Father (Acts 2:32-33). He does not give the holy spirit sparingly.

Another possibility for Ephesians 5:18 is that it might be a dative of sphere (i.e., "be filled in the spirit").