Ephesians 5:8–14 · WEB Classic
8 For you were once darkness, but are now 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 well pleasing to the Lord. 11 Have no fellowship with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather even reprove them. 12 For it is a shame even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things, when they are reproved, are revealed by the light, for everything that reveals is light.
14 Therefore he says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
Most of us appreciate light until it reveals something we would rather leave where it is. A clean-looking room can become rather less impressive when the curtains are opened. The dust has not suddenly arrived from outdoors. We are seeing what was there while the room was comfortable enough to pass inspection.
Paul tells these believers that they were once darkness but now are light in the Lord. He says something stronger than that they used to live among badly behaved neighbors. Their former life belonged to the darkness. Christ has changed their standing and their life, and they are to walk as children of light. Their conduct should now correspond to the Lord in whom that change has taken place.
What the light reveals
John 3:19–21 explains why the arrival of light can be unwelcome. The setting is the announcement of God’s saving love through his Son, received through faith. Yet the coming of the Son also exposes the condition of the people who encounter him.
John 3:19–21 · WEB Classic
This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and doesn’t come to the light, lest his works would be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God.”
The difficulty is not that the light has behaved badly by showing what people do. Evil has something to lose when concealment ends. The person defending a lie may resent the one who uncovers it more intensely than he resents the wrong the lie was designed to hide. Darkness offers a refuge in which he can continue the conduct without facing its true character.
John 9 gives that resistance a human setting. Jesus encounters a man blind from birth, identifies himself as the light of the world, and gives the man sight. The neighbors struggle to decide whether this really is the man they knew. He tells them who he is and what happened. A man who could not see has returned seeing, which seems a reasonably encouraging beginning to the day.
The investigation then becomes more complicated. Some Pharisees object that Jesus performed the healing on the Sabbath; others ask how a sinner could do such signs. The man’s parents confirm that he is their son and was born blind, but fear keeps them from speaking freely about Jesus. The man himself is questioned again. His testimony remains embarrassingly resistant to improvement: he was blind, and now he sees.
The questioning ends with the man being insulted and thrown out. Jesus finds him, makes himself known, and receives his faith and worship (John 9:13–38). People confident of their religious sight have resisted what God did before them, while the man formerly dependent upon others has come to recognize the Lord. The account does not permit us to identify light simply with possessing an authoritative position and pointing out everyone else’s faults. The people doing the most condemning can be the people most unwilling to be examined.
That is not a reason to stop naming wrongdoing. It is a reason to let Christ examine the person doing the naming. Paul’s readers are light “in the Lord.” They have not become independent sources of goodness whose every judgment is automatically correct. The Lord gives their new identity, and he supplies the standard by which their conduct and judgment must be tested.
Goodness as well as truth
Paul names the fruit in goodness, righteousness, and truth. Goodness seeks another person’s benefit. Righteousness acts according to God’s will. Truth makes an honest account possible. They belong together. We cannot defend a deliberately cruel exposure simply by saying that every detail was accurate, any more than we can defend concealment by saying that we wanted everyone to feel comfortable.
The WEB Classic reads “fruit of the Spirit” in verse 9. Many other translations read “fruit of the light,” reflecting a difference among Greek manuscripts rather than a different understanding of the English word. “Light” fits the immediate repetition of light and darkness especially closely and has strong early manuscript support; “Spirit” also has ancient support. The study retains the WEB Classic wording in its Scripture reading. Neither reading changes the moral qualities Paul names or the call to walk in the Lord’s light.
Proving what pleases the Lord means learning to exercise judgment under that whole standard. Suppose a supervisor asks a worker to sign an inspection record for a check nobody performed. Refusing may make the worker unpopular. It also makes visible what the false record was intended to conceal. He need not deliver a speech about his own moral superiority. He can refuse the lie, state what actually happened, and seek the correction needed to protect the people affected.
Now suppose the same worker takes every minor mistake as an opportunity to embarrass his colleagues and spends his breaks retelling their failures. His refusal to falsify the record was right. His appetite for humiliation does not become goodness because he was right about that record. Paul’s fruit requires more than possessing enough accurate information to make someone else look foolish.
The examination must also reach our own group. A church cannot defend its witness by concealing a leader’s wrongdoing or make the person harmed responsible for preserving everyone else’s comfort. Truthful exposure may be costly, but concealment preserves the conditions in which harm continues. The question is what pleases the Lord, including when the answer requires admitting that people we trust have done wrong.
Bringing darkness into the open
Paul tells believers to have no fellowship with the unfruitful deeds of darkness but rather reprove them. Refusal and exposure belong together. An honest life can make a dishonest practice visible because someone declines to participate. Direct correction may also be necessary. The aim is to bring the conduct under truthful judgment, so that what darkness protects can no longer pass unexamined.
Verse 12 says it is shameful even to speak of the things done in secret. Paul is naming wrongdoing in the course of telling the church to expose it, so he cannot mean that responsible disclosure is forbidden. Enough truth must be spoken to identify the wrong and protect those affected. That is different from turning the details into entertainment. We should ask whether the person hearing them needs the information or whether we merely enjoy having an audience.
Verse 13 explains what light does: things reproved are revealed. The WEB Classic continues, “for everything that reveals is light.” Concealment makes a practice difficult to judge; light shows its character. Exposure does not itself guarantee repentance. Some people in John 9 resisted clearer evidence with greater hostility. Paul nevertheless calls believers to bring conduct into the light because leaving it hidden protects the very life they have been told to abandon.
The summons to awake and arise then directs attention to Christ, who shines upon the sleeper. Isaiah 60 calls Zion to arise and shine because her light has come and Yahweh’s glory has risen upon her. Darkness covers the peoples, but the nations are drawn toward God’s light (60:1–3). Isaiah 26:19 also joins awakening with the raising of the dead. Paul’s wording is not an exact quotation of one of those passages, and its precise source is uncertain, but the biblical images are recognizable. The Lord brings light and life to people who cannot make themselves its source.
Paul addresses people already called light in the Lord and summons them to the wakefulness appropriate to that life. They must not settle comfortably into the conduct from which Christ has brought them. For someone who has protected a wrong, waking may begin with telling the truth he has spent so much effort avoiding. The light is not a pleasant decoration added to a room whose cupboards must remain permanently locked.