The Fruit Of The Light

“For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. 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. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” —Ephesians 5:8–14

This section immediately follows the exhortation to personal purity. We have seen that those who have been redeemed to God by the precious blood of His beloved Son are called to be clean in thought, in word, and in deed. And remember, that message was addressed to a people who were living in an impure and vicious environment such as we know very little of in our day. We may shrink with horror from conditions prevailing about us, but remember, nineteen centuries of Gospel testimony have made men very much ashamed of many things which they once did shamelessly. In the days when the apostle wrote, things were practiced openly which now go on only in private. If Paul could write to Christians in his day exhorting to that purity which we have seen should characterize them, then how much more should you and I today, who confess the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, flee everything that has to do with uncleanness or immorality of any kind.

The clear light of God’s holiness is to be our standard. “Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.” Do you notice that he does not say, “Ye were sometimes in the dark,” but, “Ye were darkness.” Darkness is ignorance of God, and we were once, in our unconverted days, in ignorance of God and therefore said to be “darkness.” We did not have the Light of life. Every natural man is in that condition. Job asked the question, “Can a man by searching find out God?” and the answer is in the negative for all philosophizing or reasoning about divine things ends in confusion because men in their natural state are darkness.

“The natural man understandeth not the things of God because they are foolishness unto him.” They are spiritually discerned. We were once in that condition, and when in that darkened state, we walked in darkness and practiced things of which we are now ashamed. But having become children of the light, being born of God and made light in the Lord, we are to walk as becometh children of the light. You remember what is said of our Lord in the first chapter of John, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” Did you ever stop to meditate upon those words? In our Lord Jesus Christ, divine life was fully manifested for He was “that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested” unto men. Now John says, “The life was the light of men,” or, as he puts it in another place, “That was the true light which coming into the world casts light on every man” (Lit. Trans.). Even if He uttered not a word, His pure and holy life, ever in subjection to the Father, was in itself the condemnation of all sinful men. “The life was the light.” You and I are children of the light, and we possess that same life which our Lord Jesus Christ is. He is the eternal life and He has communicated eternal life to us. That life is now to be manifested as light.

A lady said to me some time ago, mentioning a certain servant of Christ, “Did you ever know Mr. So and So?” “Oh, yes,” I said, “I knew him well.” “Well,” she said, “you know, we had him in our home for a month and his very presence there seemed to change everything for us. Why, there was such godliness about it, piety without long-facedness, holiness without morbidity. Our children simply loved him, and yet there was such intense godliness that soon the little things that they used to do and say carelessly dropped away. They did not like to say in his presence what they would when he was not there, they did not like to do when he was looking the things that ordinarily they would do with utter indifference. The effect of his presence in our home was simply wonderful and yet he never reproved anybody by word of mouth for anything they did or said, but he manifested the life and the life was the light.” We have known the other kind also. I have had the privilege of having in our home all sorts and conditions of preachers and Christians and we have had some of them that our children fairly loved and were always glad to welcome because of their Christlikeness and devotedness, and I have had others who have made the boys gnash their teeth when they came up the walk. I can recall now one good man who seemed to think it was his business to run the house when he was there. If a child was a little slow to obey or a bit pert as children sometimes are, instead of leaving the discipline to his parents, he would exclaim, “That child ought to be spanked!” You can imagine the effect on the children, you can imagine how they loved to hear a man like that preach, how they would want to see him as a visitor in our home! It is not the person who goes around constantly finding fault with other people who accomplishes the best results. He only stirs up the flesh, arouses the enmity of the natural heart to things that are pure and good. But the man who lives Christ, the woman who manifests life eternal in the home, among friends, in the church, these are the people whose testimonies really count for God. “The life is the light.”

You remember how the apostle Peter emphasizes that when he addresses wives who have unconverted husbands. He says to them in 1 Peter 3:1–4, “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” I wonder if our sisters these days have ever noticed this passage. Here is a woman who has been brought to Christ and her husband is still in paganism, or in Judaism, as the case may be, and she is deeply interested in his conversion. What is to be her attitude? Constantly nagging and talking and reproving? Oh, no, but her behavior is to be so sweet and Christlike and gracious that as he looks upon her, he will said, “Well, my wife has something now she did not have before. She used to be so ready to speak up and answer back and now she is so sweet and gracious. I wonder what it is that she now possesses that is so contrary to what characterized her by nature.”

“If any obey not the Word”—“They may without the word be won.” In the first clause, it is the Word of God that is meant. In the second instance, it means, without speech, without nagging. It might be paraphrased thus: “Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands that if any obey not the Word of God they also may, without nagging, be won by the good behavior of the wives.” And the same principle applies to every one of us. It is not merely something for our sisters to consider but those of us who are men are called upon to manifest the truth we profess, not by constant finding fault with people, not by criticizing and trying to set everybody and everything right by word of mouth but by manifesting the life of Christ, the purity of Christ, the love of Christ in our lives. This is to walk as children of the light.

“For the fruit of the light (in our version it is “the fruit of the Spirit,” but in the Revised, it reads, “light”) “is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.” Here then are the graces that should characterize those who are children of the light. It is not enough to profess to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to submit to Christian baptism, to take the Communion at the Lord’s Table, to be members of some Christian assembly or congregation, but we are required to manifest the fruit of the light in our lives. Where there is life there is fruit. Where there is only a dead profession, you will not find fruit; but where people are truly born of God, there will be fruit. “By their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20). “Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right” (Proverbs 20:11). Children who have taken the name of Christ upon them are responsible to produce the fruit of the light and if they act in a willful or wayward manner, they should immediately go to the blessed Lord and confess it. Their lives should be different from the lives of other children who have not yet accepted Christ. Whether young or old, we are to manifest the fruit of the light.

What is this fruit of the light? “For the fruit of the light is in all goodness.” The word literally means “benevolence,” “kindly consideration for other people.” If you are really born of God, you possess a new and divine nature, you will follow the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of Him we read, “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). “He laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). Have we ever thought of that? “We ought.” That is a word that speaks of duty. “To lay down our lives for the brethren.” That is the opposite of selfishness. The world says, “Number one first.” But we are called to be considerate of others first. Someone has well said that heavenly grammar is different from worldly grammar. In ordinary grammar, you take the persons: first person, I; second person, you; third person, he or she. But in Christianity it is: first person, he or she; second person, you; and third person, I. In Christianity I come in last, I am not to put myself first. When I am thinking of comforts, I am to think of others first. But how different it is with many of us. We are content if we do a little from time to time for somebody else in wretched circumstances whereas we are called to live for Christ daily and to manifest the fruit of the light continually which is in all goodness.

And then in the second place, “The fruit of the light is in all righteousness.” Now righteousness is simply doing right. What an amazing exemplification of the unrighteousness of the human heart we have seen within the last few years. Trusted officials in banks, big businessmen who were looked up to and thought to be absolutely reliable have, in many instances, proved to be unrighteous men handling other people’s money dishonestly, unfaithful to their trust. What a lot of suicides have followed our bank failures. How fast our penitentiaries are filling up with men who, a short while ago, were looked upon as perfectly dependable, and yet our modern theologians are still dreaming that human nature is not corrupt and that “every fall is a fall upward.”

A friend of mine riding the street car handed the conductor a Gospel tract. When the conductor’s busy time was over, he walked down the aisle of the car to my friend and said, “You handed me this?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you give it to me? I have no interest in these things.”

“But that is a Gospel message.”

“I do not need the Gospel. It is for sinners but I do not believe in sin and I do not believe that man is a fallen creature.”

“That is peculiar,” my friend said, “why have you that machine at the door of the car?”

“Oh, that is to count the money.”

“But why do they need it for men like you in whom there is no sin?”

Theologians can talk about an improved race and a sinless race and deny the fall of man, but businessmen know differently. The rule today is, “Do not trust anyone until he proves that he is not a rogue.” Christian, be careful about attempting to witness for Christ by word of mouth if you are not manifesting the fruit of the light in your ways. Be sure that behind your testimony there is a righteous life.

The third thing. “The fruit of the light is in truth.” Righteousness, as we have seen, has to do with your actions toward others. Truth has to do with your own inward sincerity. “Thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom” (Psalm 51:6). Years ago, when I was a young Salvation Army officer, on one occasion, our Colonel came to address us. Quite a group had come in from all over the state for an officers’ council. I have never forgotten through all these years the faithful word of the Colonel. He said, “Now, remember comrades—Men will forgive you if you are not educated, they will forgive you if your culture is not up to the highest standards, if you are not eloquent, if you cannot sing charmingly, but they will never forgive you if they find out that you are not sincere, that you are pretending to be what you are not.” When Christ dwells in us, we will be real, we will be genuine in our dealings with God and with men.

“Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.” In other words, “Testing what is acceptable unto the Lord.” Not so ready to say, “I think this is all right; I do not see any harm in that,” and run off to do as we will, but considering first, “I am a Christian and am indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. Is this thing what Christ would have, will this bring glory to my blessed Lord? If I say this, if I do that, if I go here, will I really be honoring my Saviour?” In that way, we “test what is acceptable unto the Lord.”

And then on the other hand, “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” As we have already seen, we are really proved by the lives we live. The Christian cannot expect to be kept from contamination of sin and evil if he goes on in fellowship with iniquity; you might as well expect a child to play about in the filth and slime of the streets and not be contaminated as to expect a Christian to go on in fellowship with wickedness and not be affected by it.

This is one of the Scriptures together with many others that have exercised my own conscience through the years and kept me from a great many associations into which I would otherwise naturally have gone. When, years ago, such questions arose as to whether I would affiliate myself with certain secret societies and lodges of various kinds, the question at once arose, are they composed of born again people? If I do join them, will it mean fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness? Will I be walking in the path laid down for me by Christ? For the Lord has said, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate. . .and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters” (2 Corinthians 6:17–18). That Scripture kept me out of many things. But I have gained immensely, for the time I would have spent in some of those associations I have been permitted to spend with people of God or over the Word of God. Do not be afraid that you will ever lose by obedience to the Book.

The strength of the Christian is in his separation from the world and his devotion to Christ.

Verses 13 and 14 are intimately linked together. “But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” He has said, “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” That he does not mean mere faultfinding is evident from the words, “All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light.” That is what is needed. Just turn on the light and it will show up everything that is contrary to it. In other words, you live the pure, holy, Christlike, godly, devoted life, and that, in itself, will be reproof enough of the iniquity abounding upon every hand. “All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” John tells us in his epistle, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Light is the very nature of God and the moment one comes into the presence of God he is made manifest as a sinner, but he sees there in the presence of God the precious blood upon the Mercy Seat which tells of the sin question settled and sin put away, and thus he enjoys peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so he walks in the light unafraid because he is in Christ.

The danger is that one may accept all this in the head only. “Wherefore he said, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee” (R.V.). It is not possible to find any one Old Testament Scripture that contains these words in their exactness. They are rather a free rendering of Isaiah 60:1. There the Spirit of the Lord speaking through the prophet says, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.” The apostle takes that word “arise” to mean, “wake up out of your sleep,” as when you go into the boy’s room in the morning and say, “Tom, it is time to arise!” Many who profess to be Christians are like people sleeping in a cemetery, sleeping among the dead with their heads pillowed upon the gravestones! You who are children of the light (this is not a message for the unsaved but for those who are saved but have gone to sleep): “Awake, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” “Come out from among them and be ye separate.” Show by your life that you are different to the unsaved worldlings about you.

You want blessing; you want a sense of the light of His face shining upon your life? Do not tolerate any hidden wrong;—put it right, make confession. Maybe it is a letter you ought to write, maybe an acknowledgment you ought to make, maybe some money you ought to return. Do you say, “I can’t afford it”? But it is not yours, you know. You had better put things right and then trust God for the rest. Righteousness first and then other things will follow. “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.”