Darkness & Light

Ephesians 5:7–14 NASB95

7 Therefore do not be partakers with them; 8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light 9 (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), 10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; 12 for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. 14 For this reason it says, “Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you.”

Contrasting Darkness & Light

As you will remember - we’ve been discussing how we can be “imitators of God” in this section of Ephesians chapter 5. And we’ve seen what we shouldn’t do, what we should do, and why we should do it.

But now, we come to another explanation of the “why” behind Paul’s directive of what we should and should not be involved in.

And he makes it very plain and clear for us to see.

He contrasts darkness and light.

There is probably no better contrast in the spiritual life than darkness and light. It is emblematic of every aspect of the spiritual change that takes place within the believer.

But we can’t give Paul all the credit here, because obviously this originated in the mind of God and Jesus taught it during His earthly ministry - so we’d do well to give credit where credit is due.

Paul is giving us a very valid reason why we as believers are to be different than those who only “profess” but don’t “possess”. And he says it all comes down to darkness and light.

Ephesians Ver. 8

II. THE WORDS ARE USED AS SYMBOLS. 1. Light a good thing; needful for our bodily health; needful for our sustenance by the fruits of the earth; without light we could not live. 2. Without light we could not work. We may put forth strength, but cannot direct it. 3. Darkness a bad thing—hurtful if continued, and destructive to animal and vegetable life. In the night crimes of violence are committed; it is their congenial home.

v.7) Define the “them”

The “them” referred to here are the people that Paul was referring to in this church in Ephesus who were teaching and encouraging these acts of immorality. They were teaching that a person could be justified by faith but live however they wanted to, and that their conduct had no bearing on their spiritual condition. We know that to be false. As we said in previous weeks - God doesn’t justify those whom He doesn’t sanctify. In other words, the presence of sanctification is proof of the justification. Without some proof of sanctification - there’s good cause to question the justification.

This is very straightforward here, but don’t miss this. Don’t become partners with anyone of these people that are in the church that profess to be believers, but their conduct and character prove that they are anything but believers. It says “partners”, “partakers” which means to take part in an act or to be “in cahoots” with someone.

This greek word here means to be “yoked” together. This does not say that we aren’t friends with this group of people. We need to be friends with them, but likely we don’t need to be BEST friends, or business partners, or married to one of these people that Paul is describing here. He is not saying have nothing to do with these people, but he is saying that we need to be careful how close we are to these people.

v.8) Formerly darkness, but now light

You WERE, You ARE

The contrast of darkness and light are such opposites that it makes for a great comparison from what we once were to what we are now.

Darkness represents unbelief, spiritual deadness. It represents the sinful state of man, the unregenerate person, the rebellious unconverted person that lives apart from God and His ways.

Light represents life. It represents new spiritual life where there was darkness before. Light represents the redemptive blood of Christ having washed over someone and made them clean. Light represents purity and holiness. Light gives life.

John 8:12 NASB 2020

12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; the one who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

John 12:46 NASB 2020

46 I have come as Light into the world, so that no one who believes in Me will remain in darkness.

2 Corinthians 4:6 NASB 2020

6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Acts 26:18 NASB 2020

18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’

Light represents life. It represents something new taking place of the old. This is a great verse, this sums it up perfectly.

Psalm 36:9 NASB 2020

9 For the fountain of life is with You; In Your light we see light.

It is only because God shines His light upon us that we are able to understand anything spiritually. Do you realize that? Do you realize that without God enabling us to see the light spiritually that we would have no spiritual sight at all? No matter how intellectual a person is or how wise they may be - if God hasn’t enabled them to see - they are spiritually blind. The can read the Bible and they can know certain things about the Bible and about God, but they will not KNOW God. The won’t be able to understand the deep things of God, they won’t be able to understand grace. By the way, I’m always perplexed by a Christian who has an unforgiving spirit and says that they don’t know how someone could forgive someone if they did a certain thing to them… it’s because they don’t understand their NEED of grace. Once you understand your NEED of grace, it makes you so much more free to dispense of it doesn’t it?

WERE Darkness, ARE Light

Notice it doesn’t say that we were “in the darkness”. We were “in the darkness”, but more clearly - the “darkness was in us”. We WERE darkness in totality. We were complete darkness before our salvation.

But now, we ARE light. We are “in the light”, but again - better described “the light is in us”! Aren’t you thankful that the light is in you! Aren’t you thankful that you can’t just walk out of the light anytime you want? I think that’s an important distinction to make here.