The following story from author Leonard Sweet highlights the importance of valuing our relationships with other people:
“Tom Wiles served a stint as university chaplain at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. A few years ago, he picked me up at the Phoenix airport in his new Ford pickup and whisked me away to keynote a leadership conference at the university. Since I was still mourning the trade-in of my Dodge truck, we immediately bonded, sharing truck stories and laughing at the bumper-sticker truism: ‘Nothing is more beautiful than a man and his truck.’
“As I climbed into his 2002 Ranger for the ride back to the airport a day later, I noticed two big scrapes by the passenger door. ‘What happened here?’ I asked.
“‘My neighbor’s basketball post fell and left those dents and white scars,’ Tom replied with a downcast voice.
“‘You’re kidding! How awful,’ I commiserated. ‘This truck is so new I can smell it.’
“‘What’s even worse is my neighbor doesn’t feel responsible for the damage.’
“Rising to my newfound friend’s defense, I said, ‘Did you contact your insurance company? How are you going to get him to pay for it?’
“‘This has been a real spiritual journey for me,’ Tom replied. ‘After a lot of soul-searching and discussions with my wife about hiring an attorney, it came down to this: I can either be in the right, or I can be in a relationship with my neighbor. Since my neighbor will probably be with me longer than this truck, I decided that I’d rather be in a relationship than be right. Besides, trucks are meant to be banged up, so I got mine initiated into the real world a bit earlier than I expected.’”1
To “walk as children of light” means to live with an awareness of our actions before unbelievers and the world. God would have Christ and His light shine through us so that we might illuminate and show others the way to Him through His saving gospel of grace.
You Were Darkness
“For ye were sometimes darkness…” (Eph. 5:8).
Prior to trusting Christ as Savior, God’s Word states that we “were sometimes [once, formerly] darkness,” meaning spiritual darkness. Notice that this passage does not say we were IN darkness, but that we were darkness itself. We partook in the very nature of spiritual darkness and were fully identified with it.
Darkness describes the character of an unsaved person’s spirit and life. This darkness results from the absence of trust in the saving knowledge of God and of Christ. Being darkness, unbelievers are lost and wandering aimlessly as darkness, in sin, error, confusion, ignorance, depravity, and evil.
Being in their sins, unbelievers are spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1,5), or separated from the life of God. Being darkness also refers to that separation, because darkness, the absence of light, is due to the unbeliever’s spiritual separation from God, Who is light (1 Tim. 6:16; 1 John 1:5).
Satan’s kingdom is a kingdom of darkness (Col. 1:13). Unbelievers are in bondage within that kingdom and are enslaved to the prince of darkness. They are of their father the devil, and the lusts of their father they will do, John 8:44 tells us. They are ruled, influenced, and led by the power of darkness (Eph. 2:2), and they represent that dominion of darkness in their own hearts and reveal it by their actions.
Tragically, sinners love the darkness. As our Lord said, “…and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved” (John 3:19- 20). Unbelievers love darkness because they love their sinful lifestyle and evil deeds, and they don’t want this to be reproved because they do not want to change.
If one remains in this state of spiritual darkness outside of Christ, and dies in his sins, he will spend eternity in darkness in hell. As our Lord said, “And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 25:30).
You Are Light
“For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord…” (Eph. 5:8).
Paul wrote that we were formerly darkness, but when we trust Christ as our personal Savior, we are darkness no more and never again. The change is not gradual; it happens immediately at salvation. We are darkness, but then when we trust the gospel of salvation, instantly, we are light in the Lord, and we are light in Him forever. Notice in this passage how there is no in-between, gray area, or middle ground. It’s cut and dried, one or the other. You are either light or darkness, saved or lost, bound for heaven or hell.
Just as with darkness, when we were not just in darkness but were darkness itself, Paul says that, at conversion, we become light itself. When we trust “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4), that light of the knowledge of God in Christ drives the darkness out forever (v. 6), and we are “light in the Lord” at that moment (Eph. 5:8).
Christ rescues sinners from spiritual darkness. The gospel of grace “is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Rom. 1:16). It has the power to deliver sinners from the power of darkness and to transfer them into Christ’s kingdom of light (Col. 1:12-13). We do not earn or merit this instant and eternal transfer from darkness to light. It is a work of God, by His grace, done in response to our faith in His gospel of grace (1 Cor. 15:1-4).
The believer is light “in the Lord,” Ephesians 5:8 tells us. One of the focuses of the Epistle to the Ephesians is who the believer is “in Christ.” Being in Christ is a radical change of identity. Christ is “the Light of the world” (John 8:12), and when we trust in Him (Eph. 1:12-13), we who were darkness are joined in perfect union with “the Light.” We are light because the Light is within us and we are in Christ, the Light.
Just like darkness refers to separation from God, light refers to fellowship, union, and a relationship with the living God, Who “is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
When the electrical power suddenly goes out at your house and you are left in the dark, you hurry to find a source of light: a flashlight or a candle. You stumble through the house, feeling your way around, hoping on the way that you don’t run into the sharp corner of the coffee table, step on a Lego piece on the floor, or stub your toe on the leg of the couch.
You find in those types of moments that darkness is disorienting, crippling, limiting, and can be frightening. That is the state of those who are spiritual darkness and the kind of things they figuratively experience without the Lord (Prov. 4:19).
However, when the electric company fixes the problem and your house suddenly bursts with light again, the light overcomes and overwhelms darkness, and there is gladness, and you find that light affords you vision, direction, liberation, perspective, relief, and freedom from fear. That is what we experience spiritually in Christ (Prov. 4:18). And being light in the Lord, we know we are on the side of victory because light always drives the darkness away.
Walk in Light of Who You Are
“For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light” (Eph. 5:8).
The term “walk” is a biblical metaphor for practical daily living. The believer’s life is a journey, and we are to walk it, making consistent forward progress in the strength of the Spirit by faith. Our new identity in Christ calls us to a new lifestyle. In stark contrast to spiritual darkness and the darkness of the world which the believer used to walk in (Eph. 2:2; 5:3-5), God would have us now walk as children of light. Our walk now, by God’s grace, should be different from the world, as different as light and dark, day and night.
The word “children” reminds us of verse 1 of this fifth chapter, where Paul wrote that believers are “dear [beloved] children.” As God’s dear children, we are called to live as children of light in this world. It is God’s will that we walk in the light into which we have been transferred, to live according to who we are in Christ.
To walk as light, we are being called to live as a bright testimony to God’s grace and truth, to walk in a manner that reveals God and His Son to the world (Col. 1:27-28). We do this so that those who are spiritual darkness might be rescued and find light and hope in Christ. We walk as children of light to enlighten others to Christ, to Who He is and what He has done for us by His cross and resurrection, and to illumine the way to Him.
In the plans and purposes of God within His earthly, prophetic program, the nation of Israel had been the light to show the world the way to God and His salvation. In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord told Israel, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid” (Matt. 5:14). Israel was called to reveal and live out God’s truth as His people so that she might be a light and blessing to the nations, that they might come to God and be saved.
Israel, however, was temporarily set aside by God due to her unbelief and rejection of His Son, Israel’s prophesied Messiah. Today, under grace, the Church, the Body of Christ, is the people of God and His light to the world, to enlighten people to eternal life through faith alone in the gospel of the grace of God. Philippians 2:15 challenges the Church, “That ye may 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.”
Light Produces Fruit
“(For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord” (Eph. 5:9-10).
Just as sunlight produces fruit, so spiritual light produces spiritual fruit. The spiritual light of God within us can enable us to bear the Holy Spirit’s fruit of goodness, righteousness, and truth. Ephesians 5:9 could be viewed as a prism to the light of God, which separates it out into goodness, righteousness, and truth in our lives. These are the fruits of the light.
In contrast to a walk in darkness, as described in verses 3-5, which lists such sins as fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, filthiness, and foolish talking, the fruit in the life of one walking in the light is goodness, righteousness, and truth. These latter three things describe the Person and character of Jesus Christ, the Light, and they are worked out in our lives by the Spirit as we walk as children of light.
Verse 9 is parenthetical, so verse 10 is grammatically connected with verse 8. Thus, it should be interpreted as “walk as children of light…Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.” Believers are to walk as children of light, examining and regulating their conduct according to what is acceptable and well-pleasing to the Lord (Psa. 19:14; Heb. 11:6).
We do not determine what pleases the Lord by our own feelings, thoughts, or conscience. Rather, we learn and prove what is acceptable to Him by the Word of God. And we must rightly divide the Word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15) to prove what is acceptable unto the Lord during this current dispensation of grace.
In the past, under the law, Israel had different instructions to prove what was acceptable to the Lord and to function as God’s light. The instruction the Lord would have the Church, which is His Body, live by today is the message of grace that He revealed to the Apostle Paul, found in the letters of Romans through Philemon. As we grow in, apply, and serve according to this teaching for the Church, we will be enabled to shine even brighter as lights of God’s truth for His present dispensation.
Light Reveals the Deeds of Darkness
“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” (Eph. 5:11-14).
To ensure a bright testimony for Christ, Paul teaches that the “children of light” (v. 8) should refrain from joining “the children of disobedience” (v. 6) in their deeds. He exhorts the Church not to participate in or get tangled up with the unsaved in their sinful works of darkness (v. 11).
Notice that we are taught to avoid the unfruitful works of darkness, not the people who are darkness. It is the deeds of unbelievers that believers are to shun, not the unbelievers who do them. We must have contact with those who are darkness to reach them for Christ but, as children of light, we are not to join in with their sins and sinful lifestyles. Rather we are to reprove them by our consistent and godly testimony for Christ.
Paul wrote that it is shameful even to speak of the things done by unbelievers in secret (v. 12). And if it’s shameful just to speak of them, the committing of these things is even worse, which is why they are done in darkness and secret.
In verse 13, Paul stated that light, by definition, makes manifest whatever is in the darkness. Light is the means of seeing what things are. By light, we discern form, nature, and appearance. Likewise, the light of a godly walk manifests and exposes evil deeds for what they truly are. It reveals by contrast the sinfulness of unbelievers’ lives. The character and cost of sin are made clear when subjected to the light of a godly life in Christ. Evil cannot masquerade as anything else when exposed to the light of God’s goodness, righteousness, and truth.
The Church does more for the world when it is least like the world. By this light of contrast and a loving Christ-like example, unbelievers are made acutely aware of the destructiveness of darkness and sin and their need for Christ.
This is what Paul is teaching in verse 14. This verse is the child of light speaking to those who are sleeping in darkness and lying in spiritual death. The unbeliever is exposed to his sinfulness by the light with the hope that, due to the Spirit’s conviction, he “that sleepest” in spiritual darkness might awake, and he that is in spiritual death might “arise from the dead.” And in trusting the Savior, Christ will give him the spiritual light of salvation.
The life of one who walks as a child of light is always preaching a sermon and extending the invitation of verse 14 to unbelievers. If the unbeliever answers the invitation, and they trust the gospel of grace, Christ will give them light, and they will be saved.
The command to “walk as children of light” is given because it is possible for believers to not walk as children of light, and to continue walking and habitually living according to darkness and the ways of the world. This does nothing to endanger a believer’s salvation, but it does endanger others’ salvation. We are called to walk as children of light in order to reveal the light, life, and love of God so that the world may see a testimony to Christ and a representative of God’s truth in us and so find the way to Him.
Obedience to the instruction to walk as children of light is an act of love toward the unbelieving so that they might see the contrast between faith and unbelief, light and darkness, and so realize their need for salvation. Our duty as ambassadors is, as the Lord told Paul on the Damascus Road, “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins…” (Acts 26:18).
The story is told of a great fire in Edinburgh, Scotland, in which people hurried to exit the building through a passage that led to the street. They were almost safe when a rush of smoke met them, blowing into the passage from the outside. Instead of running through the smoke, they entered a door into a room that seemed safe. But soon all the oxygen was exhausted and they all suffocated. If only they had seen the light, they might have lived.2
1. “Man Chooses Relationship over Being Right,” Preaching Today, accessed July 26, 2024, https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2006/june/1060506.html.
2. John F. MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Ephesians (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1986), p. 214
