Ephesians 5:1-21 presents a practical and fine aspect of Christ: the light with love for the believers’ walk. In the New Testament, light and love, like reality (truth) and grace, are a pair. Light is the source of reality, and love is the source of grace. Hence, light and love form a pair as the source of reality and grace; reality and grace form a pair as the issue of light and love. When light shines out, it becomes truth; when love is expressed, it becomes grace.
The Gospel of John reveals that when Christ came, grace and reality came with Him (1:17); grace came from divine love, and reality came from divine light. The first Epistle of John goes on to reveal that when we receive Christ, fellowship with Him, and live by grace and reality, He brings us into the fellowship with the Father; in the Father’s presence we touch His love as the source of grace and His light as the source of truth.
Love and light are actually God Himself; they are God’s being, His essence (1 John 4:8; 1:5). Grace and reality come out of God the Father, but love and light are God the Father. First, we believe in the Lord Jesus and receive grace and truth. Then by enjoying grace and truth, we are brought back to the source of grace and truth, God the Father as love and light. By staying in the fellowship with God as love and light, we become beloved children of God walking in love and light. We who seek Christ and love God should be children of light walking in love and light. Because both love and light are God, to be children of light walking in love and light is to be children of God walking in God.
In Ephesians 4:17-32 we see Christ as the reality and grace for the living of the new man, whereas in 5:1-21 we see Christ as the light with love for the believers’ walk. Christ as the light shines on the believers, and the issue of this shining is the truth, the reality. The Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind because they do not have the shining of the light (4:17-18), but we the believers have the divine light, which is God Himself, shining over us and even making us light (5:8).
In 5:13-14 we see that Christ is the light shining on the believers. “All things which are reproved are made manifest by the light; for everything that makes manifest is light. Therefore He says, Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” The Greek word rendered “reproved” in verse 13 may also be rendered “exposed” or “uncovered.” If we are being exposed or rebuked, we should simply receive the exposure, the rebuke. If we do this, we will be blessed. We will be aroused from sleep, and Christ will shine on us. Every rebuke is the shining of Christ. Whenever we are rebuked, we should say, “Lord, I worship You for Your shining. This rebuke is Your shining, and I receive it.” To receive a rebuke is to walk in light. This means that if we are not willing to accept a rebuke, we are walking in darkness. If we are truly walking in the light, we will be able to profit from any kind of rebuking.
Christ is light to the believers; Christ shines upon them and enlightens them. According to verse 14, the sleeping one who needs the exposing mentioned in verse 13 is also a dead one. He needs to awake from sleep and arise from the dead. When we expose or reprove anyone who is sleeping and in the darkness of death, Christ will shine on him. Our exposing or reproving in light is Christ’s shining.
Christ is the light making the believers light to walk as children of light in love. We the children of light should walk in love.
In verse 8 Paul says, “You were once darkness but are now light in the Lord; walk as children of light.” We were once not only dark but darkness itself. Now we are not only the children of light but light itself (Matt. 5:14). As light is God, so darkness is Satan. We were darkness because we were one with Satan. Now we are light because we are one with God in the Lord.
In Ephesians 5:8 Paul exhorts us to “walk as children of light.” As God is light, so we, the children of God, are also the children of light. Because we are now light in the Lord and the children of God, we should walk as children of light.
It is rather difficult to point out the difference between truth and light. In our experience we may often realize God as truth to us, as our reality, but sometimes when we enter into God’s presence, we sense that we are in the light. At such times, we are not only experiencing reality, but we are in the light itself. Thus, the experience of light is deeper than the experience of truth.
After commanding us to walk as children of light, Paul inserts in verse 9 a parenthetical statement regarding the fruit of the light: “The fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth.” Goodness is the nature of the fruit of the light; righteousness is the way or the procedure by which the fruit of the light is produced; and truth is the reality, the real expression (God Himself), of the fruit of the light. The fruit of the light must be good in nature, righteous in procedure, and real in expression, that God may be expressed as the reality of our daily walk.
It is significant that in speaking of the fruit of the light, Paul mentions only three things: goodness, righteousness, and truth. The reason he mentions only three things is that the fruit of the light in goodness, righteousness, and truth is related to the Triune God. Goodness refers to the nature of the fruit of light. The Lord Jesus once indicated that the only one who is good is God Himself (Matt. 19:17). Hence, goodness here denotes God the Father. God the Father as goodness is the nature of the fruit of the light. Notice that here Paul speaks not of the work of the light nor of the conduct of the light but of the fruit of the light. Fruit is a matter of life with its nature. The nature of the fruit of the light is God the Father.
Righteousness denotes the way or the procedure of the fruit of the light. Righteousness is the procedure by which the fruit of the light is produced. In the Godhead, the Son, Christ, is our righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30). He came to earth to produce certain things according to God’s procedure, which is always righteous. Righteousness is God’s way, God’s procedure. Christ came to accomplish God’s purpose according to His righteous procedure (Rom. 5:17-18, 21). Therefore, the second aspect, the way or procedure, of the fruit of the light refers to God the Son.
Truth is the expression of the fruit of the light. This fruit must be real; that is, it must be the expression of God, the shining of the hidden light. No doubt, this truth refers to the Spirit of reality, the third of the Divine Trinity (John 14:17). Therefore, the Father as the goodness, the Son as the righteousness, and the Spirit as the truth, the reality, are all related to the fruit of the light.
Ephesians 5:9 is the definition of walking as children of light. If we walk as the children of light, we will bear the fruit described in verse 9. The fruit we bear by walking as the children of the light must be in goodness, in righteousness, and in truth. The proof that we are walking as children of light is seen in the bearing of such fruit.