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Eph_5:18. Καί ] and in particular, to mention a single vice, which would belong to ἀφροσύνη .
μὴ μεθύσκ . οἴνῳ ] become not drunken through wine, which stands opposed to the allowable use of wine, without our having on that account to seek here a reference to Montanism (Schwegler). To conclude, however, from Eph_5:19 that excess at the Agapae is meant (1Co_11:21), as Koppe and Holzhausen maintain (comp. also de Wette), is quite arbitrary; inasmuch as neither in the preceding nor following context is there any mention made of the Agapae, and this special abuse, the traces of which in the N.T. are, moreover, only to be found in Corinth, would have called for a special censure.
ἐν ᾧ ἐστιν ἀσωτία ] deterring remark. ἐν ᾧ does not apply to οἴνῳ alone, as Schoettgen holds (whose Rabbinical passages therefore, as Bammidb. rabba, f. 206, Ephesians 3 : “ubicunque est vinum, ibi est immunditia,” are not to the point here), but to the μεθύσκεσθαι οἴνῳ : wherein is contained debauchery, dissolute behaviour. A vivid description of the grosser and more refined ἀσωτία may be seen in Cicero, de Fin. ii. 8. On the word itself (in its literal sense unsaveableness), see Tittmann, Synon. p. 152; Lobeck, Paralip. I. p. 559. A more precise limitation of the sense (Jerome understands lascivious excess, as also Hammond, who thinks of the Bacchanalia) is without warrant in the text.
ἀλλὰ πληροῦσθε ἐν πνεύματι ] but become full by the Spirit. The imperative passive finds its explanation in the possibility of resistance to the Holy Spirit and of the opposite fleshly endeavour; and ἐν is instrumental, as at Eph_1:23; Php_4:19. The contrast lies not in οἶνος and πνεῦμα (Grotius, Harless, Olshausen, and others), because otherwise the text must have run μὴ οἴνῳ μεθύσκ ., ἀλλʼ ἐν πνεύματι πληρ ., but in the two states—that of intoxication and that of inspiration. This opposition is only in appearance strange (in opposition to de Wette), and has its sufficient ground in the excitement of the person inspired and its utterances (comp. Act_2:13).