(1) The light produces good fruit. It produces benevolence, righteousness and truth. Benevolence (agathōsunē) is a certain generosity of spirit. The Greeks themselves defined righteousness (dikaiosunē) as ‘giving to men and to God that which is their due’. Truth (alētheia) is not in New Testament thought simply an intellectual thing to be grasped with the mind; it is moral truth, not only something to be known but something to be done. The light which Christ brings makes us useful citizens of this world; it makes us men and women who never fail in duty, human or divine; it makes us strong to do what we know is true.

(2) The light enables us to discriminate between what is well-pleasing and what is not pleasing to God. It is in the light of Christ that all motives and all actions must be tested. In the bazaars of the middle east, the shops are often simply little covered enclosures with no windows. Someone might want to buy a piece of silk or an article of beaten brass. Before buying it, the buyer takes it out to the street and holds it up to the sun, so that the light might reveal any flaws which happen to be in it. It is the Christian’s duty to expose every action, every decision and every motive to the light of Christ.

(3) The light exposes whatever is evil. The best way to rid the world of any evil is to drag it into the light. As long as something is being done in secret, it goes on; but when it is taken into the light of day, it dies a natural death. The surest way to cleanse the depths of our own hearts and the practices of any society in which we happen to be involved is to expose them to the light of Christ.

(4) Finally, Paul says: ‘Everything which is illuminated becomes light.’ What he seems to mean is that light has in itself a cleansing quality. In our own time, we know that many diseases have been conquered simply by letting the sunlight in. The light of Christ is like that. We must never think of the light of Christ as only condemnatory; it is a healing thing too.

(1) The light produces good fruit. It produces benevolence, righteousness and truth. Benevolence (agathōsunē) is a certain generosity of spirit. The Greeks themselves defined righteousness (dikaiosunē) as ‘giving to men and to God that which is their due’. Truth (alētheia) is not in New Testament thought simply an intellectual thing to be grasped with the mind; it is moral truth, not only something to be known but something to be done. The light which Christ brings makes us useful citizens of this world; it makes us men and women who never fail in duty, human or divine; it makes us strong to do what we know is true.

(2) The light enables us to discriminate between what is well-pleasing and what is not pleasing to God. It is in the light of Christ that all motives and all actions must be tested. In the bazaars of the middle east, the shops are often simply little covered enclosures with no windows. Someone might want to buy a piece of silk or an article of beaten brass. Before buying it, the buyer takes it out to the street and holds it up to the sun, so that the light might reveal any flaws which happen to be in it. It is the Christian’s duty to expose every action, every decision and every motive to the light of Christ.

(3) The light exposes whatever is evil. The best way to rid the world of any evil is to drag it into the light. As long as something is being done in secret, it goes on; but when it is taken into the light of day, it dies a natural death. The surest way to cleanse the depths of our own hearts and the practices of any society in which we happen to be involved is to expose them to the light of Christ.

(4) Finally, Paul says: ‘Everything which is illuminated becomes light.’ What he seems to mean is that light has in itself a cleansing quality. In our own time, we know that many diseases have been conquered simply by letting the sunlight in. The light of Christ is like that. We must never think of the light of Christ as only condemnatory; it is a healing thing too.

Paul concludes this passage with a quotation in poetry. In James Moffatt’s translation, it runs:

Wake up, O sleeper, and rise from the dead;

So Christ will shine upon you.

Paul introduces the quotation as if everybody knew it, but no one now knows where it came from. There are certain interesting suggestions.

Almost certainly, being in the form of poetry, it is a fragment of an early Christian hymn. It may well have been part of a baptismal hymn. In the early Church, nearly all baptisms were of adults, confessing their faith as they came out of the old religion into Christianity. Perhaps these were the lines which were sung as they rose out of the water, to symbolize the passage from the dark sleep of the past life to the awakened life of the Christian way.

Alternatively, it has been suggested that these lines are part of a hymn, which was supposed to give the summons of the archangel when the last trumpet sounded over the earth. Then would come the great awakening when men and women rose from the sleep of death to receive the eternal life of Christ.

These things are speculations; but it seems certain that, when we read these lines, we are reading a fragment of one of the first hymns the Christian Church ever sang.

THE CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP

Ephesians 5:15–21

Be very careful how you live. Do not live like unwise men, but like wise men. Use your time with all economy, for these are evil days. That is the reason why you must not be senseless, but you must understand what the will of God is. Do not get drunk with wine—that is profligacy—but be filled with the Spirit. Speak to each other in psalms and hymns and songs the Spirit teaches you. Let the words and the music of your praise to God come from your heart. Give thanks for all things at all times to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be subject to one another because you reverence Christ.

PAUL’S general appeal finishes with an exhortation to his converts to live like the wise. The times in which they are living are evil; they must rescue as much time as they can from the evil uses of the world.

He goes on to draw a contrast between a typical gathering in a society that worshipped the gods of Greece and Rome and a Christian gathering. The first gathering is apt to be a drunken revel. It is significant that we still use the word symposium for a discussion of a subject by a number of people; the Greek word sumposion literally means a drinking-party. A certain preacher was preaching on the text: ‘Be filled with the Spirit.’ He began with one startling sentence: ‘You’ve got to fill a man with something.’ Those who were not Christians found their happiness in filling themselves with wine and with worldly pleasures; Christians found their happiness in being filled with the Spirit.