In verse 8, we come across this
little word “walk” again. The
implications of the gospel upon one’s daily life are powerful and pervasive. We are to walk in unity (4:1-16), in holiness
(4:16-32), in love (5:1-7), and now in light (5:8-14). Of course, there are overlaps between these
categories, for you cannot walk in holiness without walking in love. And light is a Biblical metaphor for both holiness
and joy. We are told that “God is light,
and in him is no darkness at all” and that “if we say that we have fellowship
with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in
the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the
blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 Jn. 1:5-7). We are also reminded that “light is sown for
the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart” (Ps. 97:11). So walking in light is walking in holiness
and in the joy that springs from a life of godliness. They do go together: “For the kingdom of God
is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost”
(Rom. 14:17). If, as Christians, we are
not happy, it could be that it is because we are not holy as we ought to
be. True holiness ought not to produce
gloomy and morose people, but people who rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no
confidence in the flesh (cf. Phil. 3:3).
The emphasis in the Ephesian
passage, however, is more upon the aspect of holiness than it is upon the
joy. Paul’s emphasis in the second half
of this epistle is that believers should live in accordance with the truths
they profess in the gospel, and this means living a life separate from the
world. After all, the purpose of God’s
electing purpose was that “we should be holy and without blame before him in
love” (Eph. 1:4). In chapter 4, we have
learned that we have been given a new nature for a new life, and are now
growing up into conformity to Christ.
In some sense, the apostle is
only repeating what he has already said.
This is just a different way of saying it. Again, we are exhorted to live in holiness. You will notice that he has used different ideas
to emphasize the necessity of holy living.
He has used the imagery of the body of Christ (4:12-16), the metaphor of
creation (4:24), and the picture of family (5:1). Now he uses the metaphor of light. The point is always the same, as he exhorts
the saints to turn from sin and to walk in ways that are consistent with
following Christ the King. It just goes
to show that we need to hear these things over and over again, even as
believers. We should beware of thinking
that we have somehow “arrived.” In my
experience as a teacher, I have come to the conclusion that the worst student
is that student who has familiarity with the topic being taught, but who never
really mastered it in the past. The
problem is that this familiarity breeds an attitude of indifference and a
consequent lack of intentionality in trying to understand the concepts being
taught. And the result is almost always
the same: failure. In the same way, we
have to guard against an attitude of familiarity with respect to the need for
holiness. We need to be reminded of it
again and again.
It’s interesting, though, how the
apostle develops this idea through the imagery of light. He shows that there are essentially three
movements in the life of the Christian, and he maps them out for us in these
verses. The first movement is the passage
from darkness to light, and the apostle deals with that in verses 8-10. The second movement is when the believer
begins to shine this light upon others, and the apostle deals with that in
verses 11-13a. The third movement is
when the light which the believer shines penetrates into the conscience and
heart of the lost or wayward, and brings others into the light as well, and the
apostle deals with that in verses 13b-14.[1] This, of course, leads to a cycle, so that
those who are now enlightened go on to shine their light on others so that the
circle of gospel influence grows wider and wider. So let us look together at these three
movements, remembering all along that if we are believers this ought to be
describing us.
First Movement: From Darkness to
Light.
One of the mottos of the
Protestant Reformation was the Latin phrase Post
Tenebras Lux (“After darkness, light”).
It underscored how the spiritual darkness that had enveloped the Middle
Ages was giving way to the light of the gospel as it was being preached again
in churches all over Europe. But this
could also be the motto of every Christian, for there was a time when we were
in darkness. And then the Lord came and
his light penetrated our hearts and we came into the light of the gospel: “For
ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children
of light” (ver. 8).
I think it is interesting that
the apostle does not say, “You were at one time in darkness.” No, he says
that “You were darkness”! And then he says that we changed from
darkness into light. It was not that our
environment changed. We changed. The problem is not that we are surrounded by
darkness, though that is true. The
problem is that the darkness was inside us; in fact, it defined us. We were the problem. People who talk about the inner light that
dwells in each of us haven’t really come to grips with the desperateness of our
situation outside of Christ. If we are
darkness, we cannot generate light. In
fact, apart from the work of the Spirit upon our hearts, we are all like black
holes that suck in light but never release it.
To the Colossians, the apostle
reminds them that they ought to give thanks “unto the Father, which hath made
us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath
delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the
kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:12-13).
We were darkness, and we were held in the grip of the power of darkness. Later in Ephesians, the apostle will talk
about how we “wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). This is consistent with the way Paul
describes our condition as dead in sin: when we walked “according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that
now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). In other words, our state of darkness was one
of spiritual death, one in which we were under the power of the Devil. It is the state of many, many people all
around us, and it was the state we were in prior to our conversion.
In that state, we walked
“according to the course of this world.”
Our walk, our habits, and the pattern of our daily behavior, was
determined by the world in rebellion against God. We joined them in it, and willingly so.
The point I want to make with all
this is that it is a mistake for us to blame our environment for our own
transgressions, as is fashionable in these days. That doesn’t mean we aren’t influenced by our
surroundings; the verses above settle that matter – we are influenced: by the
world, the flesh, and the devil. But the
reason why the surrounding darkness affects us so is because by nature we are
already darkness. The darkness without finds a ready alliance with the darkness
within.
And then another point that needs
to be made is that we need something outside of ourselves to save us. Darkness does not produce light. We are darkness, and if we want to become
light, we have to be changed by a source of light outside ourselves. And that source is the power and grace of
God. This is why the apostle says, “but
now are ye light in the Lord.” Not just that we shine our light for the
Lord, but that he is the source of the light in the first place. As our Lord himself put it, “I am the light
of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have
the light of life” (Jn. 8:12).
Now, if Christ has changed us
from darkness to light, if the Son of God has done a transformational work in
your heart, then it is simply ridiculous to think that there will be no
change. What? Shall the one who spoke the world into
existence, who said, “Let there be light!” and there was light – shall he speak
light into our souls only to leave us in darkness? Therefore, it is totally reasonable that the
apostle should go on to say, “Walk as children of light.” Don’t walk as children of disobedience, but
walk as children of light.
What does this mean? Paul elucidates in the next two verses. First, in verse 9, which though it is
parenthetical, yet helps us to understand what it means to walk in light by
giving some of its characteristics. Now,
though the KJV reads, “the fruit of Spirit,” it is fairly universally agreed
that it should read “the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and
right and true” (ESV). There is no
material difference because the light here is itself a fruit of the work of the
Spirit of God. Talking about the fruit
of something is a way of describing its effects; the fruit of the light are the
things it produces in the life of the believer.
The apostle says that light produces goodness, and righteousness, and
truth. The fruit of light is to make us
good people, and righteous people, and people who speak the truth. If we don’t exhibit this fruit in our lives, then
we need to re-examine ourselves.
Since verse 9 is parenthetical,
verse 10 attaches grammatically directly to verse 8. In other words, the way we are to walk as
children of light is by “proving what is acceptable to the Lord.” The point here is that the overriding concern
for the followers of Christ is that they please him. Those who walk according to the course of
this world lick their fingers to see which way the wind is blowing. They are more concerned about what most
people think and what is popular – that is what guides their decisions and
choices. Not so the Christian. For the Christian, the smile of Christ is
more important than all the applause of the world. The believer says of God, what Paul said,
“Whose I am, and whom I serve” (Acts 27:23).
Now how do we do this? Verse 10 is very like what Paul says to the
Romans: “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing
of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect,
will of God” (Rom. 12:2). That is, we do
it by being transformed by the renewing of our mind, which means that our
thinking becomes more and more Biblically informed and that our hearts and
affections are more and more influenced and affected by its truth. We certainly don’t do it by checking in at
the library of worldly thought.
And this is necessary, for if as
Christians we are going to influence our world, we have to be different from
it. Salt only serves as a preserving and
savoring influence in meat if it is chemically different from the meat it is
in. Christian culture can only have
transformative power as long as its culture is counter-culture, when we shine
our lights amidst the surrounding darkness.
“Be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the
midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the
world; holding forth the word of life” (Phil. 2:15-16). And that brings us to the second movement.
Second Movement: Shining the
Light
The apostle goes on write, “And
have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove
them. For it is a shame even to speak of
those things which are done of them in secret” (ver. 11-12). The Christian who is now light in the Lord
cannot help but shine that light. And
this is done negatively and positively.
Negatively, in that Christ calls us to have no fellowship with the
world. We are to live separate
lives. To not have fellowship with the
works of darkness means that we are not to participate in the kinds of talking
and doing that characterizes those who are still in darkness. Now this doesn’t mean that we have to put walls
around us and to have as little to do with the world as possible. That would be to hide our lights. No, we are to be in the world but not of
it. Note that the apostle does not say
that a believer cannot befriend an unbeliever (our Lord did that all the
time!). Rather, what he says is that we
should have no fellowship with their works. Don’t do what they do.
On the other hand, the believer
is to rebuke the works of darkness. The
word “rebuke” means to bring something to light or to expose it for what it
is. That is what people who are light
do; they expose the deeds of others for what they are. The deeds are shameful, but the world does
all it can to turn shameful things into things which are celebrated. You see this in particular in our day with
the various people in the abortion industry who call on women to celebrate
their abortions. To kill a human being
and then celebrate it! That is what sin
does to people. “Woe unto them that call
evil good, and good, evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isa. 5:20). We shine our light so that evil is shown up
for what it is.
However, we should not see in
this word “rebuke” a merely negative, censorious spirit. The purpose of this rebuke is to convince
those who are involved in the shameful behavior that it is, in fact, shameful
and wrong. And to do that, we also need
to make a positive case. That is, we not
only seek to show wrong behavior for what it is, but also to offer a better
alternative. That is what the Christian
is supposed to do. It is what Paul
exhorted Titus to do: “Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught,
that he may be able both to exhort and to convince [the same word as in Eph.
5:11] the gainsayers [those who oppose the gospel]” (Tit. 1:9).
Recently, Timothy Keller spoke at
the British Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast.
If you have not listened to his presentation, I would highly recommend
it. In it, he quotes a historian of
early Christianity who asks why so many people became Christians in the first
few centuries when there was no cultural benefit to do so. He dismisses the offer of community inherent
in the Christian church, for the simple reason that most people then already
had community. He also dismisses the
offer of miraculous healing – also for the reason that other religions offered
the same thing. What then made
Christianity different? Simply put, it
was the gospel. Every other religion
proclaimed a works-based path to bliss in the afterlife. The appeal of Christianity was that it said
that you don’t gain the favor of God by things you do but you gain God’s favor
by what he has done for you on the cross, by dying for sins in our place as our
substitute. That was the appeal of the gospel, and it is still the appeal of
the gospel. In the end, it is really the
only thing we have to offer: “But we preach Christ crucified . . . For I
determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified”
(1 Cor. 1:23; 2:2). This is the truth
that we need to convince people of.
One thing we need to remember is
that though the world may turn shameful things into things to be celebrated,
they still know in the end that what they are doing is wrong. In other words, we have their own conscience
on our sides. What they do, they often do
in “secret.” Why? Why else, than because they know it is wrong?
Because of this, people will
always want to cover up their sin. As
our Lord put it, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the
world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were
evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be
reproved” (Jn. 3:19-20). They don’t want
to come to the light, so it is the necessary job of the church to shine the
light everywhere it can. When we
“reprove” others, whether in the church or outside it, we are shining this
light. Thus the apostle goes on to say,
“But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light” (Eph.
5:13). Light makes things visible and
discovers what the world wants to hide.
That is what we do when by our lips and lives, our words and works, we
shine the light of truth and the gospel in this world.
But again, the point of this is
so that the light will chase away the darkness, that lost people and
backslidden believers will come to the light.
And that brings us to our final point.
Third Movement: The Light
Penetrating the Darkness
Before we begin considering this
final movement, there is a matter of translation that we need to deal
with. In the KJV, the last part of verse
13 (first part of ver. 14 in ESV) goes, “for whatsoever doth make manifest is
light.” Most modern translations have
the verb “manifest” as passive rather than active. Thus, it could be translated “for whatsoever
becomes manifest is light,” or, as the ESV puts it, “for anything that becomes
visible is light.” Which is correct?
The problem is not that some
manuscripts have a passive verb and others have an active. It turns out that there are some verbal forms
in Greek which can be interpreted either as an active or a passive, and it
turns out the particular form for the Greek verb behind “manifest” is one of
those. Because of this, it is
theoretically possible to translate this as an active verb, as in the KJV. However, when you look at the grammatical
evidence in the NT overall, this is not very plausible or likely. Thus, I think the translation of the ESV is
preferable: “anything that becomes visible is light.” But this being so, what is the apostle
saying?
Remember that the apostle had
previously said that in their conversion, the believers turned from being darkness to being light. Now, what he is
saying is that when the light that shines out from the witness of believers
under God penetrates the darkness of the lost, they too become light. As Charles Hodge puts it, Paul “does not say,
‘Reprove evil, for you are light;’ but, ‘Reprove evil; for evil, when reproved
by light, is manifest, and, when manifest, it is light,’ that is, it is changed
into light, or corrected.”[2] In other words, the apostle is encouraging
the believers to shine their lights because it is in this way that God brings
others to embrace the truth of the gospel and to be transformed by it truth.
This interpretation is confirmed
by the following verse: “Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” Here the lost are described as being asleep
in spiritual death. But then the light
of Christ comes upon them and they are awakened from the sleep of death. As Charles Wesley wrote: “Long my imprisoned
spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night/ Thine eye diffused a
quickening ray/ I woke, the dungeon flamed with light/ My chains fell off, my
heart set free/ I rose, went forth, and followed Thee!”
This is either a quotation from
the OT,[3]
or a quotation from an ancient hymn. It
doesn’t really matter which it is; however, I am of the opinion that this is a
loose paraphrase of Isa. 60:1, which reads, “Arise, shine; for thy light is
come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.” In both verses, you have a call that goes out
to those dead or asleep to rise and to receive the light, and a promise the
Lord will shine his light upon them.
This should remind us that it is
not in virtue of our own light that people are rescued from the darkness of sin
and wickedness. This is because our
light is a borrowed light; it is not our own.
We are like the moon which receives its light from the sun; we, too,
receive ours from the Son of God. His
light must shine upon us if we would be saved.
The light which we reflect will only penetrate the darkness when the
Lord makes it powerful to that end. The
power of the gospel does not come through our ability to convince people but to
the Lord’s faithfulness to draw out his people through the word by the power of
the Holy Spirit.
Have you been saved by the grace
of Christ out of sin and into the favor and blessing of God? Have you been translated from the kingdom of
darkness into the kingdom of light? Then
thank God, and walk as children of light!
Walk in the truth, speak and share the truth in convincing, winning
ways. And know that if you are a
Christian, you are light. You are a beacon of hope in the midst of a
dark world, no matter where you are, no matter how great or small your talents
or opportunities. Can there be any
greater calling?
On the other hand, if you feel
the darkness closing around you and in you, there is hope for you. Now I do not offer you some program of
self-improvement because neither you nor I can turn darkness into light. Only God has the power to speak light into
the darkness. So I point you to
him. Do not look to or into yourself;
look away from yourself to Christ who has the power to save. He has the power to save because he is the
Son of God; because he became a man who could represent us before God; because
he is the perfect sacrifice who gave up himself to death for us, not because he
deserved death but because he chose to die the death we in fact deserved;
because God has promised that all who believe in his Son will have the benefits
of Christ atoning death for them.
What does it mean to believe on
Christ so that we might live through him?
It means that we trust in him and rest on him entirely for the hope of
our acceptance with God. It means that
we receive him completely as he is presented to us in the Bible, as the Son of
God and Savior of the world, as our prophet to teach us, as our priest to atone
for our sins, and as our king to rule over us for our good and his glory. It means to look to him, as God through the
prophet put it, “Look unto me, and be ye saved: for I am God, and there is none
else” (Isa. 45:22).
[1] In
the ESV, ver. 13b is actually the beginning of verse 14.
[2]
Charles Hodge, Ephesians (Banner of
Truth; reprint, 1856), p. 215.
[3] In
Eph. 4:8, the exact wording precedes a quotation from Psalm 68:18.
