Walk as children of light
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit [or, light] is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth). (Ephesians 5:8-9).
We once went as a family to the National Coal Mining Museum for England near Wakefield, Yorkshire. You are taken through the history of mining by men who used to be miners. To do this, you have a miner’s helmet and lamp, and descend a deep mineshaft in a cage. At the bottom of the shaft, as we grouped, our guide told us to turn off our lights. And we stood in darkness that I will never forget. I put my hand to my face to look at it, but there was only an impenetrable blackness you could almost feel. It was a relief, even after a few moments, to turn the miner’s lamp back on and for the darkness to disappear.
In Ephesians 5:8 Paul wasn’t describing physical darkness but the moral and spiritual darkness his readers once inhabited and which had inhabited them. But then God’s light shone into their hearts. They became “light in the Lord” and “the children of light”. These phrases describe our spiritual position in Christ, our standing. But we also have the privilege and responsibility of walking as the children of light. In this way, we witness to our Lord and Saviour in a world that is still in moral and spiritual darkness. This walk describes our daily lives before God, our state. There is always the danger that we may not live in the way God intends us to live. To address this danger, Paul always encouraged the people of God to walk in good works, to walk worthy of their heavenly calling, to walk in love and to walk as children of light. The word for light is at the root of the word ‘phosphorus’ – “light-bearing”.
Although our verse reads “the fruit of the Spirit”, and the Holy Spirit is the power by which we live for Christ, the reading more generally held to be accurate is “the fruit of the light”. Paul associates this fruit with all goodness, righteousness, and truth. Goodness expresses the goodness of God in the selfless actions of His children which benefit others. We are made righteous through faith in Christ. And our lives should be consistent with what we are in Christ. It is not self-righteousness but righteousness expressed by humbly seeking and obeying God’s will. David writes about God leading him in paths of righteousness. In this righteousness, we act with integrity before God, towards each other and indeed all people.
Pilate said to Jesus, “What is truth?” but didn’t wait for the answer. We live in a world that increasingly rejects absolutes. But we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who is the way, the truth and the life. In John 17, Jesus also tells us that God’s word is truth, and it sanctifies us. Through communion with Christ and obedience to the word of God, the reality of the life we have in Christ is seen.
In 2 Corinthians 4:6 we read, “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Our daily response to this is found in Philippians 2:14-15, “Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”
