Confront Them With The Gospel Series

Commentary on the Book of Ephesians

By: Tom Lowe Date: 11/8/17

Lesson 22: Confront them with the Gospel (Ephesians 5:8-14)

Ephesians 5:8-14 (KJV)

8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)

10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.

11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

Introduction

Paul’s readers are urgently instructed not to become partners in sin with those upon whom the wrath of God must inevitably fall. If they recoil from partnership in their punishment, let them also recoil from partnership in their sins.

In this passage, we are told of yet another way in which we are to imitate God—we are to be “light.” Once the believers were “darkness,” but now they were “light in the Lord.”

Commentary

8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

According to these words dictated by the Holy Spirit and written down by the Apostle Paul, it is utterly impossible for any person to be saved and not know it. Sinners are darkness . . . they are blacked out, they are in the dark. In their unconverted state, ignorance and sin had so penetrated their being that they were not merely in the dark; they were the very embodiment of darkness. Conversely, in their converted state the light of the gospel had so penetrated them that they were themselves light. In them the light had become visible and was the dominant trait of their character. The meaning of the verse is brought out in its contrasts—“SOMETIMES” (better, “once”) and “NOW”; “DARKNESS” and “LIGHT.” The emphasis however rests upon the word “WERE,” which in the Greek is the first word of its clause. To say that the readers were DARKNESS is to imply that deeds of darkness are now behind them. Such things are no longer in harmony with their character, and they must not revert to them.

To be IN THE LORD is to belong to a new world, to inhabit a new kingdom in which we become new men and women. In this new kingdom, new powers are at work in us—the powers of the Spirit of the crucified, risen, ascended, reigning and returning Christ. Once we were in the DARKNESS; what’s worse, the DARKNESS was in us—we were DARKNESS. Now we have been drawn into the LIGHT, illuminated and aided by Christ the LIGHT of the world. What’s more, we have been invaded and transformed by Christ the LIGHT. In the Lord we are LIGHT!

When we are saved we are transformed out of DARKNESS into LIGHT. To be converted from sin to salvation is just like walking out of a dark room into a room where a thousand-watt bulb is blazing light. It is impossible, to shut your eyes and open them and not know the difference, if you are in the sunlight at noontime. You can close your eyes, and it becomes dark; you open your eyes and it is light. “Sinners are in DARKNESS . . . Christians are in LIGHT.” When the Spirit comes in, we become the “CHILDREN OF LIGHT,” and we walk in the LIGHT. The Spirit substantiates the things that are acceptable unto God.

“LIGHT” is one of the great universal religious symbols which Christianity has appropriated, so that we talk of “seeing the light” (conversion). Christians “are light” because they live in the dawning of God’s new era, the Kingdom of God, and serve a Lord who is “the Light of the world.” Because they “are light” in that Lord, they must behave as “CHILDREN OF LIGHT.”

Three responsibilities are rooted in this concept of believers being “LIGHT IN THE LORD.” First, they are to “WALK AS CHILDREN OF LIGHT.” Their conduct must conform to that which is most essential in their character. The second responsibility is found in verse nine and the third in verses 11-14.

9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)

The parenthesis of verse nine explains that such light is to be known by its moral fruit. In other words, truly converted people must manifest GOODNESS, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND TRUTH in their lives. This is the second responsibility of believers: they are to produce “THE FRUIT OF THE LIGHT” (Spirit).