Ephesians 5.9-The Fruit Bearing Metaphor in Scripture
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday March 19, 2026
Ephesians Series: Ephesians 5:9-The Fruit Bearing Metaphor in Scripture
Lesson # 335
Ephesians 5:6 Continue to make it your habit to never let absolutely anyone cause any one of you to be deceived by means of words devoid of truth because these things are the reason why the one and only God’s wrath is and will be exercised for His own glory against those members of the human race characterized by disobedience. 7 Therefore, each and every one of you as a corporate unit for your own benefit must continue to not make it your habit of conducting your lives as fellow partakers with them. 8 For each and every one of you as a corporate unity formerly were characterized by spiritual darkness. However, each and every one of you as a corporate unit now at the present time are characterized by spiritual light. Like enlightened children, each and every one of you as a corporate unit must continue to make it your habit of living your lives. 9 For the fruit, which is unique to the light and produced by the light, exists in the state of being characterized by the fullest expression of the practice of goodness, which is divine in quality and character, resulting in the practice of a righteousness, which is divine in quality and character, resulting in the practice of truth, which is divine in quality and character. (Lecturer’s translation)
In Ephesians 5:9, Paul is instructing the recipients of this letter to continue to make it their habit of experiencing their sanctification because this will reflect the holy character of their heavenly Father.
In other words, they must live in a manner which is consistent with the fact that they have been sanctified in a positional sense at the moment of justification through the baptism of the Spirit.
The fact that they are sanctified means that they have been set apart to serve God exclusively, which took place at justification through the baptism of the Spirit, which placed them in union with Jesus Christ and identified with them with Him in His crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection and session at the right hand of the Father.
The positional aspect of their sanctification guarantees that they will experience this sanctification in a perfective sense when they receive their resurrection bodies at the rapture of the church.
It also sets up the potential to experience their sanctification.
It is only a potential because it is contingent upon them obeying this command in Ephesians 5:9 as well as all the commands and prohibitions he issued them in Ephesians 4:17-5:9.
To obey these commands and prohibitions would require them to appropriate by faith their union and identification with Jesus Christ in His crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection and session at the right hand of the Father.
This would be accomplished by considering themselves as dead to the sin nature (cf. Rom. 6:1-12; Col. 3:1-5), the cosmic system of Satan (Gal. 6:14) and alive to God or in other words, appropriating by faith their union and identification with Jesus Christ would require adopting God’s view of themselves.
This will result in them living in a manner which is consistent with what God has done for them at the moment of justification through the baptism of the Spirit and in addition what God will do for them in the future at the rapture or resurrection of the church.
This post-justification faith would enable the recipients of this letter to obey the various commands and prohibitions in Ephesians 4:17-5:9.
This obedience would result in greater spiritual growth and ultimately resulting in receiving rewards from the Lord Jesus Christ at the Bema Seat Evaluation of the church, which immediately follows the rapture (Rom. 14:10-12; 1 Cor. 3:11-15; 2 Cor. 5:10).
Ephesians 5:9 is one of many places in Paul’s writings in which he uses the fruit bearing metaphor.
Colossians 1:3 We continue making it our habit of giving thanks to God namely the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we make it our habit of occupying ourselves with praying on behalf of each one of you as a corporate unit. 4 We do this because we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and in addition your love which you continue to regularly demonstrate for the benefit of each one of the saints. 5 All of you do this because of the confident expectation which is reserved in the heavens for all of you. All of you heard this by means of the teaching, which is the truth, namely the proclamation of the gospel 6 which all of you continue to appropriate for the benefit of all of you. Just as in fact throughout the entire world, it continues to produce fruit as well as spread so also it continues to produce fruit as well as spread among all of you from the day all of you obeyed. Consequently, all of you acquired an objective experiential knowledge of the grace originating from God by means of the truth. 7 Just as all of you learned the truth from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-servant who is faithfully serving the Christ on behalf of each one of us. 8 The one who also revealed to us your divine-love by means of the Spirit’s power. 9 For this reason also, from the day we ourselves heard about all of you, we never permit ourselves to cease making it our habit of occupying ourselves with praying on behalf of each one of you. Specifically, we make it our habit of occupying ourselves with making urgent requests that (God) would cause all of you to be filled with that which is knowing His will experientially by means of a wisdom which is absolute resulting in a discernment which is spiritual. 10 The purpose would be all of you living your lives in a manner worthy of the Lord so as to be fully pleasing to Him. This would result in all of you bearing fruit by means of each and every kind of action which is divine good in quality and character and in addition increasing in knowing experientially God the Father. (Lecturer’s translation)
After communicating this two-fold purpose for interceding in prayer for the Colossians, Paul then presents a two-fold result of the Colossians fulfilling this purpose.
The first is that they would bear fruit by means of each and every kind of action which is divine good in quality and character and the second is increasing in knowing experientially the Father.
Bearing fruit speaks of performing actions which are the result of the Colossians obeying the Spirit’s commands and prohibitions in the Word of God which express the will of the Father and are a manifestation of the life and character of Jesus Christ.
When Paul speaks of actions which are divine good in quality and character, he is referring to actions performed by the Christian while in fellowship with God and are produced by the Holy Spirit through him when they exercise faith in the Word of God.
This faith results in obedience to the will of the Father, which is revealed by the Spirit in the Word of God.
It speaks of the works or actions that the Holy Spirit performs through the Christian as a result of the Christian’s obedience to the commands and prohibitions in the Word of God, which are inspired by the Holy Spirit.
These actions are good in the sense that they are divine in quality and character because they are in accordance with the Father’s will because they are the direct result of a person being influenced by the Spirit.
They are good because they are intrinsically valuable, intrinsically good, inherently good in quality but with the idea of good which is also profitable, useful, benefiting others, benevolent because they are based upon and motivated by the teaching of the Spirit in the Word of God.
These actions are intrinsically valuable, intrinsically good, inherently good in quality but with the idea of good which is also profitable, useful, benefiting others.
Christ-like character is described in Scripture as the “fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the Light, the fruit of righteousness.”
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (NASB95)
Philippians 1:9 Now, this I make it a habit to pray that your divine-love might continue to flourish yet more and more by means of a total discerning experiential knowledge 10 so that all of you might continue to choose the essentials in order that all of you might be sincere and without offense for the day of Christ 11 by all of you being filled with the fruit produced by righteousness, which is by means of the nature of Jesus who is the Christ for the ultimate purpose of glorifying and praising God. (Lecturer’s translation)
Hebrews 12:11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (NASB95)
James 3:18 And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (NASB95)
The Vine and the Branches Metaphor in John 15 illustrates the importance of fruit bearing.
John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. (NASB95)
“Fruit” refers to the production of Christ-like character, which is accomplished by the Holy Spirit in the believer who is obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ’s command to love and serve his fellow believer self-sacrificially as the Lord loved and served the believer self-sacrificially at the Cross.
John 15:3 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. 9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. 11 “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. 17 This I command you, that you love one another. (NASB95)
