Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ephesians 5:9
(For the fruit of the Spirit [is] in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
9. for ] The suppressed link of thought is, “Walk in a path wholly unlike that of the disobedient; for the path of the light must be such.”
the fruit of the Spirit ] Cp. Gal 5:22. But the literary evidence here supports the reading the fruit of the light. The metaphor “fruit” (found here only in the Epistle) gives the idea not only of result but of natural and congenial result; growth rather than elaboration. Christian virtue is, in its true essence, grace having its way.
is in ] Consists in, comes out in.
all ] Observe here, as continually, the absoluteness in idea of the Christian character. It is an unsinning character. “Whosoever is born of God, doth not commit sin” (1Jn 3:9). The Christian, as a Christian, sins not: a truth at once humiliating and stimulating.
goodness ] The Gr. word occurs besides, Rom 15:14; Gal 5:22 ; 2Th 1:11. The Gr. word like the English, while properly meaning the whole quality opposite to evil, tends to mean specially the goodness of beneficence, or at least benevolence. Such, on the whole, is the evidence of the LXX. usage. But the context here favours the wider and more original reference; all that is anti-vicious.
St Chrysostom sees in it here a special antithesis to anger; but this is surely too narrow a reference. See further on the word, Trench, N.T. Synonyms, 1.
righteousness ] See above on Eph 4:24. And cp. Tit 2:12. The special reference here doubtless is to the observance of God’s Law in regard of the rights of others, in things of honesty and purity.
truth ] The deep, entire reality which is the opposite to the state of “the simular of virtue that is incestuous” ( King Lear, iii. 3).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For the fruit of the Spirit – That is, since the Holy Spirit through the gospel produces goodness, righteousness, and truth, see that you exhibit these in your lives, and thus show that you are the children of light. On the fruits of the Spirit, see the notes on Gal 5:22-23.
Is in all goodness – Is seen in producing all kinds of goodness. He who is not good is not a Christian.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Eph 5:9
For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.
The fruit of the Spirit
1. The author, the Holy Spirit.
2. The fruits of His sanctifying operations enumerated, All goodness, and righteousness, and truth.
This is the conversation that may be called Walking as children of the light.
1. The apostle, for examples sake, mentioneth some parts of the holy life, not to exclude, but imply the rest; for there is a secret and such like understood. When he saith, This is the fruit of the Spirit, you must not think it is all. When we bring a sample of a commodity we bring a little to show the quality of the rest, not as if that were all we had to sell: so these graces are mentioned, but not to exclude the rest.
2. He instanceth in such cases as concern the second table, kindness, justice, and fidelity, as is usual in such cases. The world is most capable of knowing and approving these things, but they suppose higher graces; for all our goodness, justice, and truth must come from love and obedience to God, and faith in Christ, as their true and proper principle, or else they are but moral virtues, not Christian graces (Job 1:1; Luk 23:50).
3. These are spoken of as in combination. We must not so follow after one as to neglect the other.
4. I observe that there is a note of universality joined to the word goodness. All goodness, to show this is of chief regard, and that we must not be good in one sort or kind only, but fruitful in every good work (Col 1:10). A Christian should he made up of goodness; his very constitution and trade must be goodness.
5. I observe that these are called fruit, not only by a Hebraism, who are wont to express the works of a man by the term fruit; for man is, or should be, a tree of righteousness; but there is a distinction: Gal 5:19; Gal 5:22, now the works of the flesh are manifest, but the fruit of the Spirit; so also here compare the text with verse 11, Unfruitful works of darkness. But why is it called fruit? Partly to show it is the native and genuine product of the Spirit in our hearts, as fruit groweth on a tree; and partly to show that sin is an unprofitable drudgery, but holiness is fruit.
6. All these graces, and duties consequent, are fruits of the Spirit.
7. He speaks of habits, not of acts. When the soul is thus constituted it is hard to do otherwise.
8. These are ascribed to the Spirit for two reasons.
(1) Partly because of mans incapacity to produce these things of himself.
(2) And partly because all the effects carry such a resemblance with the Spirit.
(9) This Spirit God has sent us by the preaching of the gospel. We receive the Spirit more plentifully by the gospel than by the law, and we receive it by faith in Christ.
Having made this way, I come now to propound a particular point.
1. That the Spirit which we receive by the gospel worketh all goodness in the hearts of believers.
I. What is goodness? I answer–Goodness is either moral or beneficial.
1. Moral goodness is our whole duty required by the law of God, whatever is just and equal for us to perform (Deu 30:15).
2. There is beneficial goodness, which is a branch of the former, and implieth a readiness to do good to others to the utmost of our capacity; for all good is communicative of itself (Heb 13:16).
II. That this is the fruit and product of the Spirit by the gospel.
First: What the gospel doth to promote this goodness in the world.
1. By the laws and precepts of it, or the duties it requireth; it requireth us to be good and to do good.
(1) To be good; for we are first made good before we can do good (Luk 6:45).
(2) To do good, both as to God and men.
(a) As to God, the great duty is love; that we should love Him, and obey Him as our rightful Lord and chief good and happiness.
(b) To do good to men (Gal 6:10). We cannot take delight in all, for some are an offence to the new nature which is in us; but we must do good to all, and seek their happiness. We cannot take pleasure in sinners, but yet must do them good. Suppose they have disobliged us, yet enemies are not excepted (Mat 5:44).
2. By the discoveries it maketh. The greatest, truest, and fullest prospect of Gods goodness to mankind we have in the gospel. There the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man appeared (Tit 3:4).
3. The examples it propoundeth to our imitation, not mean and blemished ones, such as we may find among our fellow creatures, but the high and glorious examples of God and Christ Himself.
4. The arguments by which it enforceth this goodness, or the rewards and encouragements which it offereth, which is the supreme blessedness or the chief good.
Secondly: Upon what grounds we may expect the Spirit to cooperate herewith.
1. Because God worketh congruously, as with respect to the subject upon which He worketh, so with respect to the object by which He worketh. The subject is the heart of man, and therefore He draweth us with the cords of a man (Hos 11:4). The object is the gospel, a good word, or the good knowledge of God, and therefore a suitable means to work goodness in us. There we have good precepts and good promises, and an account of Gods wonderful goodness and love in Christ; and therefore the fruit of His Spirit is in all goodness.
2. The Spirit produceth this effect as a witness of the truth of the gospel, which being a supernatural doctrine, needed to be attested from heaven, that the truth of it might be known by the mighty power of God which doth accompany it, working in our hearts effects suitable to the tenor of the word. Whatever doctrine can change the soul of man, and convert it to God, is of God, and owned by God.
3. That thereby God may signify His peculiar and elective love to His people. When He worketh all goodness in their hearts by His Spirit, they come to discern that He loveth them by a special love.
4. God maketh an offer of His grace to invite us to seriousness in attending on this gospel. He excludeth none in the offer, and therefore we must not exclude ourselves. That one choice fruit of the Spirit wrought in the children of light is righteousness.
I. What is righteousness? Sometimes it is taken as largely as holiness, for that grace which doth incline us to perform our duty to God and man; for there is a righteousness even in godliness, or giving God His due honour and worship (Mat 22:21). More strictly it is taken for that grace which doth dispose and incline us to give everyone his due, and is a branch of that love and charity which is the sum of the whole second table (Rom 13:7-8). To evidence which–First: What is the office and part of justice and righteousness? To seek the peace and welfare of the several communities and societies in which we live, or in preferring the public good before our own.
2. To give to every man his due; to use faithful dealing in all the duties we owe to others, or in all actions wherein we are employed and entrusted by others.
3. Fidelity in our relations is another part of justice; for all these relations imply a right which is due to others. So we must be just to superiors and inferiors.
Secondly: To what a height Christianity advanceth these things.
1. Because it deduceth things from a higher principle, the fixed principle of a nature renewed by Christ. There are in it three things —
(1) Another nature put into us, a fixed principle;
(2) And this by the Spirits operation, and so it is a supernatural principle;
(3) This working after a kindly manner, by faith in Christ, and love to God in Christ, and so it is a forcible principle.
2. Because it measureth and directeth things by a more perfect rule than the law of nature. Our rule is Gods Word, which is a more pure and perfect rule than so much of the law as remaineth written upon mans heart after the Fall.
3. Because it referreth them to a more noble end, which is the glory of God (1Co 10:31).
II. That this is one of the fruits of the Spirit. It must needs be so, because it suiteth with His office and personal operations. The Spirit is to be our guide, sanctifier, and comforter. As our guide, He doth direct and enlighten our minds; as our sanctifier, He doth change our hearts; and as our comforter, He doth pacify and clear and quiet our consciences. Now this fruit of righteousness is conducible to all these ends, or agreeable with these offices.
III. It is a choice fruit of the Spirit.
1. Because it conduceth so much to the good of human society.
2. Because of the many promises of God, both as to the world to come and the present life.
3. That to make a Christian complete in his carriage towards men, to goodness and righteousness there must be added truth. Let me inquire here–
(1) What is truth.
(2) That it must be made conscience of by the children of light.
(3) Why truth must be added to goodness and righteousness.
I. What is meant by truth? Sincerity or uprightness in all our speeches and dealings with men. But because integrity of life, and uprightness in our commerce and dealings with others, is a great branch of righteousness, therefore here we must consider it as an opposite to falsehood or a lie in speech; yet not excluding either godly sincerity, which is the root of it: Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts (Psa 2:6); or internal integrity and righteousness (Jer 5:1). The matter of a lie is falsehood, the formality of it is an intention to deceive; the outward sign is speech. Gestures are a sign by which we discover our mind, but an imperfect sign; the special instrument of human commerce is speech. Now there is a two-fold lying–a lying to God, and a lying to men.
II. Why must it be made conscience of by the children of light, or those who are light in the Lord? I answer For these reasons:
1. Because it is a sin most contrary to the nature of God, who is truth itself; it is not only contrary to His will but to His nature: Tit 1:2, In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began. He can do all things, but He cannot lie.
2. Because when God was incarnate, and came not only to represent the goodness of the Divine nature, but also the holiness of it as a pattern for our imitation, Jesus Christ, this God incarnate, was eminent for this part of holiness, for sincerity and truth (1Pe 2:22).
3. Nothing maketh us more like the devil, who is a liar from the beginning, and the father of lies (Joh 8:44).
4. It is a sin most contrary to the new nature wrought in the saints, and seemeth to offer more violence to it than other sins.
5. It is a sin most contrary to human society.
6. Lying is a sin very hateful to God, and against which He hath expressed much of His displeasure. A lying tongue is reckoned among those six things which God hateth (Pro 6:17).
7. It is a sin shameful and odious in the eyes of men. The more common honesty any man hath, the further he is from it, especially the more he hath of the spirit of grace (Pro 13:5).
III. Why this must be added to goodness and righteousness.
1. Because they cannot be preserved without it.
2. The life of goodness and righteousness lieth in truth, and so they cannot be thoroughly exercised unless truth be added. Sincerity runs through all the graces. (T. Manton, D. D.)
The connection between a gracious state and a holy life
The scope of the text is to show that there is a necessary connection betwixt a gracious state and a holy life; which are so joined by the appointment of God, and the nature of things, that they cannot be put asunder. The reasoning is founded on that fundamental maxim of practical Christianity, that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Light, abides, acts, and produceth fruit in all the children of light, in all those who are light in the Lord. It is by the communion of His Spirit that we receive of His influences to make us fruitful. The Spirit uniting the soul to Christ, the fountain of light and life, it immediately partakes of the light and life, as a candle is lighted by a burning lamp touching it; but the candle, separated from the lamp, would continue to burn, as having in itself that which feeds the flame. But the creature is empty in itself, and therefore must be fed continually from Jesus Christ, by the communion of His Spirit maintaining the bond of union betwixt Christ and the soul, and taking of Christ and giving to it. So that if it were possible that the Spirit should once totally depart from the child of light, and the union be broken, that moment he would return to his former darkness. Now the fruit of the Spirit, thus abiding and acting in the children of light, is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth; therefore it necessarily follows, that they that are light in the Lord, will walk as children of light. We are now–
2. To consider what is said of this fruit of the Spirit. It is in all goodness, etc. There is an ellipsis here of the copulating. Our translators supply the word, is. Some versions supply the word, consists. Whatever be supplied, that seems to be the sense, namely, that the fruit of the Spirit consists in all goodness, etc. Thus we read (Col 1:10) of being fruitful in every good work. The fruit of the Spirit is not only in some goodness, righteousness, and truth–though many deceive themselves with parcels and shreds of these things–but it is in all goodness in ones self and to his neighbour; in all righteousness towards man; in all truth with respect to God, our neighbour, and ourselves. And these things are interwoven one with another, in the fruit of the Spirit. The goodness is true, and jostles out no sort of righteousness or justice, communicative nor distributive, remunerative nor punitive. The righteousness is true and good; from right principles, motives, and ends. So is the truth, as it is here distinguished, proceeding from a good principle. Meanwhile, this extent of the fruit of the Spirit is to be understood not in a legal, but an evangelical sense; of a perfection of parts, not of degrees.
Lastly. Let us show how these are the fruit of the Holy Ghost in the children of light. They are so in three respects.
1. He implants them in the soul, giving it a good, righteous, and true inclination and propensity, agreeable to the holy law, according to that, I will, saith the Lord, put My law into their minds, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people.
2. He preserves these graces when implanted (1Pe 1:5), without which they would die out. And–
3. He excites, quickens, and brings them forth to action, in the heart and life of the children of light (Son 4:16). (T. Boston, D. D.)
The fruits of the Spirit, the same with moral virtues
I shall briefly explain the importance of these three words, goodness, and righteousness, and truth; and then proceed to make some observations from the text.
I. Goodness. And what that is, the apostle takes it for granted that everybody knows; he does not go about to define it or explain it, but appeals to every mans mind and conscience to tell him what it is. It is not anything that is disputed and controverted among men, which some call good, and others evil; but that which mankind is agreed in, and which is universally approved by the light of nature, by heathens as well as Christians; it is that which is substantially good, and that which is unquestionably so. It consists in the following particulars, viz., obedience to our superiors and governors, and a conscientious care of the duties of our several relations; sincere love and charity, compassion, humility, peace and unity, abstaining from wrath and revenge, and rendering good for evil; these are unquestionable instances of goodness, and pass for current among all mankind, are on all hands agreed to be good, and have an universal approbation among all parties and professions, how wide soever their differences may be in other matters. The other two fruits of the Spirit which are added in the text, righteousness and truth, which respect likewise our conversation with men, more especially in the way of commerce, are rather parts or branches of goodness, than really distinct from it. I now proceed to make some observations.
1. That the fruits of the Spirit are real and sensible effects, appearing in the dispositions and lives of men. The apostle here speaks of what is visible in the lives and conversations of men; for he exhorts Christians to walk as children of the light; now walking is a metaphor which signifies the outward conversation and actions of men. For religion is not an invisible thing, consisting in mere belief, in height of speculation, and niceties of opinion, or in abstruseness of mystery. The Scripture does not place it in things remote from the sight and observation of men, but in real and visible effects; such as may be plainly discerned, and even felt, in the conversation of men; not in abstracted notions, but in substantial virtues, and in a sensible power and efficacy upon the lives of men, in all the instances of piety and virtue, of holy and excellent actions.
2. That these fruits of the Spirit, here mentioned, goodness, and righteousness, and truth, are of an eternal and immutable nature, and of perpetual and indispensable obligation.
3. That moral virtues are the graces and fruits of the Spirit. So that grace and virtue are but two names that signify the same thing. Virtue signifies the absolute nature and goodness of these things; grace denotes the cause and principle by which these virtues are wrought and produced, and are preserved and increased in us; namely, by the free gift of Gods Holy Spirit to us.
4. That since these very things which are called moral virtues, are in their nature the very same with the graces and fruits of the Spirit, therefore they are by no means to be slighted as low and mean attainments in religion, but to be looked upon and esteemed as a main and substantial part of Christianity. They are called the fruits of the Spirit; that is, the natural and genuine effects of that Divine power and influence upon the hearts and lives of men, which accompanies the Christian religion; or the happy effects of the Christian religion wrought in men by the immediate operation and assistance of the Holy Spirit of God, which is conferred upon all Christians in their baptism, and does continually dwell and reside in them, if by wilful sins they do not grieve Him, and drive Him away, and provoke Him to withdraw Himself from them. (Archbishop Tillotson.)
Righteousness in all things
Just as the quality of life may be as perfect in the minutest animalculae, of which there may be millions in a cubic inch, and generations may die in an hour–just as perfect in the smallest insect as in behemoth, biggest born of earth; so righteousness may be as completely embodied, as perfectly set forth, as fully operative in the tiniest action that I can do as in the largest that an immortal spirit can be set to perform. The circle that is in a gnats eye is as true a circle as the one that holds within its sweep all the stars; and the sphere that a dewdrop makes is as perfect a sphere as that of the world. All duties are the same which are done from the same motive; all acts which are not so done are alike sins. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 9. For the fruit of the Spirit] Instead of Spirit, , ABD*EFG, the Syriac, Coptic, Sahidic, AEthiopic, Armenian, Vulgate, and Itala, together with several of the fathers, read , light, which is supposed by most critics to be the true reading, because there is no mention made of the Spirit in any part of the context. As light, Eph 5:8, not only means the Divine influence upon the soul, but also the Gospel, with great propriety it may be said: The fruit of the light, i.e. of the Gospel, is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth. Goodness, , in the principle and disposition; righteousness, , the exercise of that goodness in the whole conduct of life; truth, , the director of that principle, and its exercise, to the glorification of God and the good of mankind.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The fruit of the Spirit; either in the fruit or work of the new nature, or of the Holy Ghost, by whom we are made light in the Lord: see Gal 5:22.
In all goodness; either a general virtue in opposition to wickedness, or benignity and bounty.
Righteousness; in opposition to injustice, by covetousness, fraud, &c.
Truth; in opposition to error, lies, hypocrisy. He shows what it is to walk as children of light.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
9. fruit of the Spirittakenby transcribers from Ga 5:22.The true reading is that of the oldest manuscripts, “The fruitof THE LIGHT”; incontrast with “the unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph5:11). This verse is parenthetic. Walk as children of light, thatis, in all good works and words, “FOR the fruit of the light is[borne] in [ALFORD; butBENGEL, ‘consists in’] allgoodness [opposed to ‘malice,’ Eph4:31], righteousness [opposed to ‘covetousness,’ Eph5:3] and truth [opposed to ‘lying,’ Eph4:25].”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For the fruit of the Spirit,…. Either of the spirit of man, as renewed, or rather of the Spirit of God; the allusion is to fruits of trees: the believer is a tree of righteousness; Christ is his root; the Spirit is the sap, which supports and nourishes; and good works, under the influence of his grace, are the fruit: the Alexandrian copy, and some others, and the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions, read “the fruit of light”; which agrees with the preceding words: and the genuine fruit of internal grace, or light,
[is] in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth; the fruit of “goodness”, lies in sympathizing with persons in distress; in assisting such according to the abilities men have in a readiness to forgive offences and injuries; and in using meekness and candour in admonishing others: “righteousness” lies in living in obedience to the law of God; in attending the worship and service of him; and in discharging our duty to our fellow creatures; and this as goodness, is very imperfect, and not to be boasted of, or trusted to, nor is salvation to be expected from it: “truth” is opposed to lying, to hypocrisy, to error and falsehood; and where the Spirit of God, and the work of grace are, there will be more or less an appearance of these fruits.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The fruit of light ( ). Two metaphors (fruit, light) combined. See Ga 5:22 for “the fruit of the Spirit.” The late MSS. have “spirit” here in place of “light.”
Goodness (). Late and rare word from . See 2Thess 1:11; Gal 5:22.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Is in. Consists in. The verse is parenthetical.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For the fruit of the Spirit” (ho gar karpos tou photos) ” For the fruit of the light” the fruit of Jesus Christ, the true light of every believer, Joh 1:9; Joh 8:12; 2Ti 1:10. The term “fruit” (karpos) is figuratively used to reflect what the moral results of walking in the Light of Christ should be, Mat 3:8; Php_1:11; Gal 5:22.
2) “Is in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (en pase agathosune kai dikaiosune kai aletheia) Is in all goodness and righteousness and truth,” 2Co 6:14; Rom 10:10. Or exists in these fruits of Divine light, active goodness in sincerity and integrity of profession and conduct, as opposed to falsehood and hypocrisy, Joh 3:21; 1Co 5:8; Php_1:18. Here Christian morality is expressed in three forms: 1) justice, 2) mercy, and 3) truth.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
9. For the fruit of the light. (157) This parenthesis is introduced, to point out the road in which the children of light ought to walk. A complete description is not given, but a few parts of a holy and pious life are introduced by way of example. To give them a general view of duty, their attention is again directed to the will of God. Whoever desires to live in a proper and safe manner, let him resolve to obey God, and to take his will as the rule. To regulate life entirely by his command is, as he says in another Epistle, a reasonable service, (Rom 12:1,) or, as another inspired man expresses it, To obey is better than sacrifice. (1Sa 15:22.) I wonder how the word Spirit ( πνεὐματος) has crept into many Greek manuscripts, as the other reading is more consistent, — the fruit of the light Paul’s meaning indeed is not affected; for in either case it will be this, that believers must walk in the light, because they are “children of the light.” This is done, when they do not live according to their own will, but devote themselves entirely to obedience to God, — when they undertake nothing but by his command. Besides, such obedience is testified by its fruits, such as goodness, righteousness, and truth.
(157) The English version reads, The fruit of the Spirit; Calvin’s, The fruit of light. Without attempting, in a brief note, to balance the various readings, it may be proper to mention, that, instead of πνεύματος, ( of the Spirit,) many Greek manuscripts have θωτὸς, ( of the light,) and the latter reading has been adopted by Griesbach. — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(9) For the fruit . . .The true reading is, of the Light, for which the easier phrase, the fruit of the Spirit, has been substituted, to the great detriment of the force and coherency of the whole passage. Light has its fruits; darkness (see Eph. 5:11) is unfruitful. The metaphor is striking, but literally correct, inasmuch as light is the necessary condition of that vegetative life which grows and yields fruit, while darkness is the destruction, if not of life, at any rate of fruit-bearing perfection.
Goodness and righteousness and truth.These are practical exhibitions of the being true in love, described in Eph. 4:15 as the characteristic of the Christ-like soul. For goodness is love in practical benevolence, forming, in Gal. 5:22, a climax to longsuffering and kindness, and, in 2Th. 1:11, distinguished as practical from the faith which underlies practice. The other two qualities, righteousness and truththat is, probably, truthfulness-are both parts of the great principle of being true.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9. Fruit Spirit A better reading substitutes light for Spirit. The graces produced by the power of the true Christian light, namely, goodness, opposed to all the sins of appetite and lust; righteousness, to all unjust and dishonest dealing to men; and truth, to all insincerity, and falseness to God or man.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Eph 5:9 . Parenthetic incitement to the observance of the preceding summons, by holding forth the glorious fruit which the Christian illumination bears; is then (Eph 5:10 ) accompanying definition to , and the , Eph 5:11 , continues the imperative form of address. For taking the participle of Eph 5:10 as grammatically incorrect in the sense of the imperative (Bleek, following Koppe) there is absolutely no ground.
] for , not the merely explanatory namely , which introduces into the whole paraenetic chain of the discourse something feeble and alien.
] indicates in a figurative manner the aggregate of the moral effects ( collective, as in Mat 3:8 ; Phi 1:11 ) which the Christian enlightenment has as its result. Comp. on Gal 5:22 . [260]
] sc . , so that every kind of probity ( ., see on Rom 15:14 ; Gal 5:22 ), etc., is thought of as that, in which the fruit is contained (consists). Comp. Matthiae, p. 1342.
] moral rectitude , Rom 6:13 ; Rom 14:17 . See on Phi 1:11 . [261]
] moral truth , opposed to hypocrisy as ethical , 1Co 5:8 ; Phi 1:18 ; Phi 4:8 ; Joh 3:21 . The general nature of these three words, which together embrace the whole of Christian morality, and that under the three different points of view “good, right, true,” forbids the assumption of more special contrasts, as e.g. in Chrysostom: . is opposed to wrath, . to seduction and deceit, . to lying. Others present the matter otherwise; see Theophylact, Erasmus, Grotius.
[260] Where what is here termed . is called . . Not as though and were one and the same thing (Delitzsch, Bibl. Psychol . p. 390), but the Spirit, through whom God and Christ dwell in the heart. Rom 8:9 , produces the in the heart (2Co 4:6 ; Eph 1:17 f.), so that the fruit of the Spirit is also the fruit of the light , and vice vers. Nor is the fruit of the word sown upon the good ground anything different.
[261] According to Phi 1:11 , the Christian moral rectitude has again its in the several Christian virtues, which are the expressions of its life.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 2117
PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY
Eph 5:9. The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth.
THERE is in the minds of many a prejudice against the writings of St. Paul, as though they contained nothing but dissertations about predestination and election, and were calculated rather to drive people to despondence than to improve their morals. But there are no writings in the whole sacred volume more practical than his. True it is, that he unfolds the whole mystery of godliness more fully and more deeply than others: and he seems to have been raised up of God for that very end, that the theory of religion might be more distinctly known: but, in all his epistles, he has an especial respect to the interests of morality; the standard of which he elevates to an extent unknown before, and for the practice of which he adduces motives which never till that time were duly appreciated. In no one of his epistles does he maintain more strongly those doctrines which are thought so objectionable, than in this: yet is one half of the epistle occupied with exhortations to holiness, in all its different bearings and relations.
In the words before us we have, what I may call, a compendium, or summary, of Christian morals.
And, that we may know what practical Christianity really is, I will,
I.
Mark it in its offices
Sanctification, both in heart and life, is the great end of the Gospel, and a most essential part of that redemption which is there revealed to us. It is here set forth as including,
1.
Goodness
[Goodness is the one all-comprehensive character of the Deity, it shines forth in all his works: it meets us whereever we turn our eyes: The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord [Note: Psa 33:5.]. The effect of the Gospel is, to transform us into his image: and this it does; creating it in our hearts, and calling it forth in our lives. Under the influence of this divine principle, we shall seek to promote the happiness of all around us. Whatever is amiable, and lovely, and of good report, in the spirit and temper of the mind, we shall cultivate it to the uttermost, and exercise it on all occasions. There will be no trouble which we shall not labour to alleviate; no want which we shall not endeavour to supply. To be good, and do good, even like God himself [Note: Psa 119:68.], will be the summit of our ambition, and the very end of our lives.]
2.
Righteousness
[Whilst goodness is spontaneous, and acts irrespective of any particular claim which men may have upon us, righteousness has respect to the obligations which we lie under to render unto all their dues. This, also, the Gospel forms within us; stirring us up, both in word and deed, to act towards others as we, In a change of circumstances, should think it right for them to do unto us. There is in the heart of man a selfishness, which disposes him to see every thing with partial eyes; magnifying his own rights, and overlooking the rights of others. This disposition the Gospel will subdue and mortify; and, in its place, it will establish a principle of universal equity, that will weigh the claims of others with exactness, and prompt us, under all circumstances, rather to suffer wrong than to do wrong [Note: 1Co 6:7-8.].]
3.
Truth
[This is the perfection of Christian morals, or the bond which keeps all the other graces in their place [Note: Eph 6:14.]. Where the Gospel has had its perfect work, there will be a spirit that is without guile [Note: Joh 1:47.]. The Christian is a pellucid character: he appears as he is, and is what he appears.
You will perceive, that, in immediate connexion with our text, the Apostle says, Walk as children of the light: for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth. Now, here the three graces mentioned in the text are represented as constituting light, or, at least, as comprehending all that is contained in that image. Now, of all things in the whole creation, light is the most pure (for it is incapable of defilement); the most innocent (for it injures nothing, which has not, through its own weakness, an aversion to its rays); and the most beneficial (for there is not a thing in the universe, possessed of animal or vegetable life, which is not nourished and refreshed by it). Invert the order of these words, and you behold how light beams forth in our text; embodying all the purity of truth, the innocence of righteousness, and the beneficence of active goodness.]
But, to understand practical Christianity aright, we must,
II.
Trace it to its source
It springs not from natures stock: the natural man cannot attain unto it. It is the fruit of the Spirit, even of that very Spirit who raised up our Lord Jesus Christ himself from the dead [Note: Eph 1:19-20.].
1.
It is the Spirit who alone infuses life into us
[We are by nature dead in trespasses and sins: and it is the Spirit who quickens us, that we may live unto our God [Note: Eph 2:1.]. True indeed, having been baptized into Christ, we are become, by profession, branches of the living vine. But then we are only as dead and withered branches, that can produce no fruit; and will shortly be broken off, and cast into the fire [Note: Joh 15:2; Joh 15:6.]. It is the Spirit alone who engrafts us into Christ, as living branches; and causes us to receive from Christ that divine energy, whereby we are enabled to bring forth fruit to his glory. Christ came that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly [Note: Joh 10:10.]: but it is by the operation of his Spirit that we receive it; and by the mighty working of that Spirit in our souls that we display its energies [Note: Col 1:29.].]
2.
It is the Spirit who suggests to our minds those motives which alone can stimulate us to exertion
[He reveals the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts [Note: Gal 1:15-16.]. He glorifies Christ within us; taking of the things that are his, and shewing them unto us [Note: Joh 16:14.] He sheds abroad in our hearts that love of Christ [Note: Rom 5:5.], which alone can constrain us to devote ourselves unreservedly to him [Note: 2Co 5:14.]. Till we receive this impulse, we are satisfied with formal services, and a partial obedience: but, when we are enabled thus to comprehend somewhat of the unbounded love of Christ, we can rest in nothing, till we are filled with all the fulness of God [Note: Eph 3:18-19.].]
3.
It is the Spirit who assists us in all our endeavours
[Whatever we may have attained, we still have no sufficiency in ourselves. We shall indeed put our hands to the work: but we shall accomplish nothing, till the Holy Spirit strengthens us with might in our inward man [Note: Col 1:11.]; and, taking hold, as it were, of one end of our burthen, to bear it with us, helpeth our infirmities, and lends us his own effectual aid [Note: Rom 8:26.]. Hence these graces are properly called the fruit of the Spirit; since they cannot be produced without him, and are invariably the result of his agency in our souls. It is he who, as our Church well expresses it, worketh in us, that we may have a good will; and worketh with us when we have that good will [Note: Tenth Article.].]
Yet, as it must be confessed that there is a semblance of this holiness found in those who have not the Holy Spirit, it will be proper to,
III.
Distinguish it from all counterfeits
It must be confessed, that in many natural men there are found virtues very nearly resembling the graces before spoken of. There is in many a very diffusive benevolence, a strict regard to equity, and a high sense of integrity: and you will reasonably ask, How are these to be distinguished from those things which we have described as the fruit of the Spirit? I answer: To us, who can only see the outward act, it may frequently be difficult to discern the difference between them; but to God, who sees the heart, they are as different from each other as light from darkness. For of these counterfeits I must say,
1.
They proceed from man, and from man alone
[Man needs no particular communication of the Spirit to enable him to perform them. The light of reason points out those virtues as commendable; and the strength of a mans own resolution is sufficient for the performance of them. Hence the persons of whom we speak never pray to God for his Spirit, nor feel any desire after supernatural aid. But the graces mentioned in our text are the fruits of the Spirit; and never were, nor ever can be, produced, but by his Almighty agency.]
2.
They have respect to man, and to man alone
[The worldling, however virtuous, acts not to God, nor has any distinct desire to fulfil the will of God. He considers, that, as a member of society, he has duties to perform; and therefore he performs them, as far as he sees occasion for them, in the relation in which he stands. He has no other view of them than what an intelligent heathen might have. But the Christian aims at all goodness, righteousness, and truth. He views these duties in reference to the eternal, as well as the temporal, interests of men. He views them as the Lord Jesus Christ did; and makes the outward discharge of them subservient to higher and nobler ends. As a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, he has to advance his interests in the salvation of men: and he will account it a small matter to exercise kindness to men in a temporal view, if he may not also, according to his ability, promote their spiritual and eternal welfare.]
3.
They are done for man, and for man alone
[A worldling seeks only to please man and to establish a good character amongst his fellow-creatures. If he attain this object, he is satisfied. To stand high in his own esteem, and in the esteem of others, is the height of his ambition. But the Christian desires that God, and God only, may be glorified. He seeks not applause from man: he cherishes no fond conceits of his own superior excellence: much less does he go about to establish a righteousness of his own, wherein to stand before God. Instead of admiring himself for his own attainments, he will trace them all to their proper source, and give God the glory of them: yea, the more he is enabled to do for God, the more he feels himself indebted to God. He dares not to sacrifice to his own net, or to burn incense to his own drag; but accounts himself, after all, an unprofitable servant; and says, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the praise.
Now, whether we can discern the difference, or not, in others, we may easily detect it in ourselves; and, consequently, may easily discern whose we are, and whom we serve. And I cannot but recommend it to all, to be jealous over themselves, lest they mistake the virtues of the flesh for the graces of the Spirit; and lest, having a name to live, they prove really dead [Note: Rev 3:1.].]
For an improvement of this subject, observe,
1.
How excellent a religion is ours!
[They form a very erroneous idea of Christianity, who view it as a system of doctrines merely, irrespective of the effects to be produced by them. I will readily grant, that mysteries, however grand, are of little value, if they operate no sanctifying change within us. But let any person contemplate the change wrought by the Spirit on the heart and life of a believer; let him see poor selfish creatures transformed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus, and walking in the world as he walked; let him go into the world, the family, the closet, and see the dispositions and habits of the true Christian; will any one obtain even a glance of this, and not admire the religion from whence it flows? I charge you, brethren, rest not in partial views of Christianity: satisfy not yourselves with looking at it as a system of mysterious doctrines, propounded for speculation only. No; view it in all its practical efficiency; and then you will acknowledge that it is worthy of all possible honour, respect, and love.]
2.
How easily may we ascertain our state before God!
[We may surely, without any great difficulty, find what our tempers and dispositions are; and whether we are in the daily habit of imploring help from God for the improvement of them. There is a great difference in the natural constitutions of men; so that we cannot absolutely say, that a person, comparatively moral, is therefore a spiritual man. This must be learned rather from the conflicts he maintains, and the victories he achieves, under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And, at all events, we may be sure, that where there is no delight in doing good to the souls of men; where, in our conduct towards others, there is any wilful deviation from the line which we should think right to be observed towards us; and where there is any want of simplicity and godly sincerity in our motives and principles; whatever we may imagine, we are not Christians indeed. I pray you to take this touchstone, whereby to try yourselves [Note: 2Co 13:5.]; and beg of God also to search and try you, that there may be nothing found at last to disappoint your hopes [Note: Psa 139:23-24.].]
3.
How delightful is the path assigned us!
[I say not that there are no seasons for humiliation: for no doubt there are, even for the best of men. But, for the daily course of your lives, yon need only look to my text. See the Christian in his daily walk: goodness, righteousness, and truth, are embodied in him; and, like the combined action of the solar rays, he diffuses light and happiness around him. This is to walk in the light, as God is in the light: this is to honour God; this is to adorn the Gospel: this is to fulfil the ends for which Christ himself came into the world: this is to possess a meetness for the heavenly inheritance. Let those who know not what religion is, condemn it, if they will: but sure I am, that, if viewed aright, its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
Ver. 9. For the fruit of the Spirit ] Why grace is called fruit, see note: See Trapp on “ Gal 5:22 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Eph 5:9 . [ ]: for the fruit of the Spirit [ the light ]. The reading of the TR, , which is that of such uncials as [540] 3 [541] [542] , most cursives, Syr.-P., Chrys., etc., must give place to , which is supported by [543] [544] [545] [546] * [547] [548] , 67 2 , Vulg., Goth., Boh., Arm., Orig., etc. The is probably a correction from Gal 5:22 . The whole verse is in effect a parenthesis, and is printed as such by the RV. But it is a parenthesis with a purpose, the being at once explanatory and confirmatory. It gives a reason for the previous injunction and an enforcement of it; the point being this “Walk as I charge you; for anything else would be out of keeping with what is proper to the light and is produced by it”. , fruit , a figurative term for the moral results of the light, its products as a whole; cf. Mat 3:8 ; Phi 1:11 , etc. In the corresponding statement in Gal 5:22 , where the is contrasted with , the singular term may also suggest the idea of the unity of the life and character resulting from the Spirit. : is in all goodness . , is, consists , is left unexpressed after . The here again has the force of “every form of,” in goodness in all its forms. The noun appears again in Rom 16:14 ; Gal 5:22 ; 2Th 1:11 . Thus it occurs only four times in the Pauline writings. It is used in the LXX, but appears not to belong to classical Greek. It varies somewhat in sense. In the OT it means sometimes good as opposed to evil (Psa 38:20 ; Psa 52:3 ), sometimes enjoyment (Ecc 4:8 ), sometimes benevolence , the bountiful goodness of God (Neh 9:25 ). Here and in the other Pauline passages it is taken by some in the sense of uprightness , but appears rather to mean active goodness, beneficence ; cf. Trench, Syn. , p. 218. : and righteousness . here has the sense of rectitude, probity , freedom from the morally wrong or imperfect, as in Mat 3:15 ; Mat 5:6 ; Mat 5:10 ; Mat 5:20 , etc., and as also in such Pauline passages as Rom 6:13 ; Rom 6:16 ; Rom 6:18-20 ; Rom 8:10 ; 2Co 6:7 ; 2Co 6:14 , etc. : and truth . here in the subjective sense of moral truth, sincerity and integrity as opposed to falsehood, hypocrisy and the like; cf. Joh 3:21 ; 1Co 5:8 ; Phi 1:18 , etc. Here, then, Christian morality is given in its three great forms of the good , the just , the true . Abbott compares the “justice, mercy, and truth” of the Gospels and Butler’s “justice, truth, and regard to the common good”.
[540] Codex Claromontanus (sc. vi.), a Grco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.
[541] Codex Mosquensis (sc. ix.), edited by Matthi in 1782.
[542] Codex Angelicus (sc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.
[543] Codex Vaticanus (sc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.
[544] Codex Sinaiticus (sc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.
[545] Codex Alexandrinus (sc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).
[546] Codex Claromontanus (sc. vi.), a Grco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.
[547] Codex Boernerianus (sc. ix.), a Grco-Latin MS., at Dresden, edited by Matthi in 1791. Written by an Irish scribe, it once formed part of the same volume as Codex Sangallensis ( ) of the Gospels. The Latin text, g, is based on the O.L. translation.
[548] Codex Porphyrianus (sc. ix.), at St. Petersburg, collated by Tischendorf. Its text is deficient for chap. Eph 2:13-16 .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
EPHESIANS
THE FRUIT OF THE LIGHT
Eph 5:9
This is one of the cases in which the Revised Version has done service by giving currency to an unmistakably accurate and improved reading. That which stands in our Authorised Version, ‘the fruit of the Spirit’ seems to have been a correction made by some one who took offence at the violent metaphor, as he conceived it, that ‘light’ should bear ‘fruit’ and desired to tinker the text so as to bring it into verbal correspondence with another passage in the Epistle to the Galatians, where ‘the fruits of the Spirit’ are enumerated. But the reading, ‘the fruit of the light,’ has not only the preponderance of manuscript authority in its favour, but is preferable because it preserves a striking image, and is in harmony with the whole context.
The Apostle has just been exhorting his Ephesian friends to walk as ‘children of the light’ and before he goes on to expand and explain that injunction he interjects this parenthetical remark, as if he would say, To be true to the light that is in you is the sum of duty, and the condition of perfectness, ‘for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth’ That connection is entirely destroyed by the substitution of ‘spirit.’ The whole context, both before and after my text, is full of references to the light as working in the life; and a couple of verses after it we read about ‘the unfruitful works of darkness’ an expression which evidently looks back to my text.
So please do understand that our text in this sermon is-’The fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth.’
I. Now, first of all, I have just a word to say about this light which is fruitful.
Note-for it is, I think, not without significance-a minute variation in the Apostle’s language in this verse and in the context. He has been speaking of ‘light,’ now he speaks of ‘the light’; and that, I think, is not accidental. The expression, ‘walk as children of light,’ is more general and vague. The expression, ‘the fruit of the light,’ points to some specific source from which all light flows. And observe, also, that we have in the previous context, ‘Ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord,’ which evidently implies that the light of which my text speaks is not natural to men, but is the result of the entrance into their darkness of a new element.
Now I do not suppose that we should be entitled to say that Paul here is formally anticipating the deep teaching of the Apostle John that Jesus Christ is ‘the Light of men,’ and especially of Christian men. But he is distinctly asserting, I think, that the light which blesses and hallows humanity is no diffused glow, but is all gathered and concentrated into one blazing centre, from which it floods the hearts of men. Or, to put away the metaphor, he is here asserting that the only way by which any man can cease to be, in the doleful depths of his nature, darkness in its saddest sense is by opening his heart through faith, that into it there may rush, as the light ever does where an opening-be it only a single tiny cranny-is made, the light which is Christ, and without whom is darkness.
I know, of course, that, apart altogether from the exercise of faith in Jesus Christ, there do shine in men’s hearts rays of the light of knowledge and of purity; but if we believe the teaching of Scripture, these, too, are from Christ, in His universally-diffused work, by which, apart altogether from individual faith, or from a knowledge of revelation, He is ‘the light that lighteth every man coming into the world.’ And I hold that, wheresoever there is conscience, wheresoever there is judgment and reason, wheresoever there are sensitive desires after excellence and nobleness, there is a flickering of a light which I believe to be from Christ Himself. But that light, as widely diffused as humanity, fights with, and is immersed in, darkness. In the physical world, light and darkness are mutually exclusive: where the one is the other comes not; but in the spiritual world the paradox is true that the two co-exist. Apart from revelation and the acceptance of Jesus Christ’s person and work by our humble faith, the light struggles with the darkness, and the darkness obstinately refuses to admit its entrance, and ‘comprehendeth it not.’ And so, ineffectual but to make restless and to urge to vain efforts and to lay up material for righteous judgment, is the light that shines in men whose hearts are shut against Christ. The fruitful light is Christ within us, and, unless we know and possess it by the opening of heart and mind and will, the solemn words preceding my text are true of us: ‘Ye were sometime darkness.’ Oh, brother! do you see to it that the subsequent words are true of you: ‘Now are ye light in the Lord.’ Only if you are in Christ are you truly light.
II. Now, secondly, notice the fruitfulness of this indwelling light.
Of course the metaphor that light, like a tree, grows and blossoms and puts forth fruit, is a very strong one. And its very violence and incongruity help its force. Fruit is generally used in Scripture in a good sense. It conveys the notion of something which is the natural outcome of a vital power, and so, when we talk about the light being fruitful, we are setting, in a striking image, the great Christian thought that, if you want to get right conduct, you must have renewed character; and that if you have renewed character you will get right conduct. This is the principle of my text. The light has in it a productive power; and the true way to adorn a life with all things beautiful, solemn, lovely, is to open the heart to the entrance of Jesus Christ.
God’s way is-first, new life, then better conduct. Men’s way is, ‘cultivate morality, seek after purity, try to be good.’ And surely conscience and experience alike tell us that that is a hopeless effort. To begin with what should be second is an anachronism in morals, and will be sure to result in failure in practice. He is not a wise man that tries to build a house from the chimneys downwards. And to talk about making a man’s doings good before you have secured a radical change in the doer, by the infusion into him of the very life of Jesus Christ Himself, is to begin at the top story, instead of at the foundation. Many of us are trying to put the cart before the horse in that fashion. Many of us have made the attempt over and over again, and the attempt always has failed and always will fail. You may do much for the mending of your characters and for the incorporation in your lives of virtues and graces which do not grow there naturally and without effort. I do not want to cut the nerves of any man’s stragglings, I do not want to darken the brightness of any man’s aspirations, but I do say that the people who, apart from Jesus Christ, and the entrance into their souls by faith of His quickening power, are seeking, some of them nobly, some of them sadly, and all of them vainly, to cure their faults of character, will never attain anything but a superficial and fragmentary goodness, because they have begun at the wrong end.
But ‘make the tree good’ and its fruit will be good. Get Christ into your heart, and all fair things will grow as the natural outcome of His indwelling. The fruitfulness of the light is not put upon its right basis until we come to understand that the light is Christ Himself, who, dwelling in our hearts by faith, is made in us as well as ‘unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and salvation, and redemption.’ The beam that is reflected from the mirror is the very beam that falls on the mirror, and the fair things in life and conduct which Christian people bring forth are in very deed the outcome of the vital power of Jesus Christ which has entered into them. ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,’ is the Apostle’s declaration in the midst of his struggles; and the perfected saints before the throne cast their crowns at His feet, and say, ‘Not unto us! not unto us, but unto Thy name be the glory.’ The talent is the Lord’s, only the spending of it is the servant’s. And so the order of the Divine appointment is, first, the entrance of the light, and then the conduct that flows from it.
Note, too, how this same principle of the fruitfulness of the light gives instruction as to the true place of effort in the Christian life. The main effort ought to be to get more of the light into ourselves. ‘Abide in Me, and I in you.’ And so, and only so, will fruit come.
And such an effort has to take in hand all the circumference of our being, and to fix thoughts that wander, and to still wishes that clamour, and to empty hearts that are full of earthly loves, and to clear a space in minds that are crammed with thoughts about the transient and the near, in order that the mind may keep in steadfast contemplation of Jesus, and the heart may be bound to Him by cords of love that are not capable of being snapped, and scarcely of being stretched, and the will may in patience stand saying, ‘Speak, Lord! for Thy servant heareth’; and the whole tremulous nature may be rooted and built up in and on Him. Ah, brother! if we understand all that goes to the fulfilment of that one sweet and merciful injunction, ‘Abide in Me,’ we shall recognise that there is the field on which Christian effort is mainly to be occupied.
But that is not all. For there must be likewise the effort to appropriate, and still more to manifest in conduct, the fruit-bringing properties of that indwelling light. ‘Giving all diligence add to your faith.’ ‘Having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord.’ We are often told that just as we trust Christ for our forgiveness and acceptance, so we are to trust Him for our sanctifying and perfecting. It is true, and yet it is not true. We are to trust Him for our sanctifying and our perfecting. But the faith which trusts Him for these is not a substitute for effort, but it is the foundation of effort. And the more we rely on His power to cleanse us from all evil, the more are we bound to make the effort in His power and in dependence on Him, to cleanse ourselves from all evil, and to secure as our own the natural outcomes of His dwelling within us, which are ‘the fruits of the light.’
III. And so, lastly, notice the specific fruits which the Apostle here dwells upon.
They consist, says he, in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Now ‘goodness’ here seems to me to be used in its narrower sense, just as the same Apostle uses it in the Epistle to the Romans, in contrast with ‘righteousness,’ where he says, ‘for a good man some would even dare to die.’ There he means by ‘good,’ as he does here by ‘goodness,’ not the general expression for all forms of virtue and gracious conduct, but the specific excellence of kindliness, amiability, or the like. ‘Righteousness’ again, is that which rigidly adheres to the strict law of duty, and carefully desires to give to every man what belongs to him, and to every relation of life what it requires. And ‘truth’ is rather the truth of sincerity, as opposed to hypocrisy and lies and shams, than the intellectual truth as opposed to error.
Now, all these three types of excellence-kindliness, righteousness, truthfulness-are apt to be separated. For the first of them-amiability, kindliness, gentleness-is apt to become too soft, to lose its grip of righteousness, and it needs the tonic of the addition of those other graces, just as you need lime in water if it is to make bone. Righteousness, on the other hand, is apt to become stern, and needs the softening of goodness to make it human and attractive. The rock is grim when it is bare; it wants verdure to drape it if it is to be lovely. Truth needs kindliness and righteousness, and they need truth. For there are men who pride themselves on ‘speaking out,’ and take rudeness and want of regard for other people’s sensitive feelings to be sincerity. And, on the other hand, it is possible that amiability may be sweeter than truth is, and that righteousness may be hypocritical and insincere. So Paul says, ‘Let this white light be resolved in the prism of your characters into the threefold rays of kindliness, righteousness, truthfulness.’
And then, again, he desires that each of us should try to make our own a fully developed, all-round perfection-all goodness and righteousness and truth; of every sort, that is, and in every degree. We are all apt to cultivate graces of character which correspond to our natural disposition and make. We are all apt to become torsos, fragmentary, one-sided, like the trees that grow against a brick wall, or those which stand exposed to the prevailing blasts from one quarter of the sky. But we should seek to appropriate types of excellence to which we are least inclined, as well as those which are most in harmony with our natural dispositions. If you incline to kindliness, try to brace yourselves with righteousness; if you incline to righteousness, to take the stern, strict view of duty, and to give to every man what he deserves, remember that you do not give men their dues unless you give them a great deal more than their deserts, and that righteousness does not perfectly allot to our fellows what they ought to receive from us, unless we give them pity and indulgence and forbearance and forgiveness when it is needed. The one light breaks into all colours-green in the grass, purple and red in the flowers, flame-coloured in the morning sky, blue in the deep sea. The light that is in us ought, in like manner, to be analysed into, and manifested in, ‘whatsoever things are lovely and of good report.’
And so, dear friends, here is a test for us all. Devout emotion, orthodox creed, practical diligence in certain forms of benevolence and philanthropic work, are all very well; but Jesus Christ came to make us like Himself, and to turn our darkness into light that betrays its source by its resemblance, though it be a weakened one, to the sun from which it came. We have no right to call ourselves Christ’s followers unless we are, in some measure, Christ’s pictures.
Here is a message of cheer and hope for us all. We have all tried, and tried, and tried, over and over again, to purge and mend these poor characters of ours. How long the toil, how miserable and poor the results! A million candles will not light the night; but when God’s mercy of sunrise comes above the hills, beasts of prey slink to their dens and birds begin to sing, and flowers open, and growth resumes again. We cannot mend ourselves except partially and superficially; but we can open will, heart, and mind, by faith, for His entrance; and where He comes, there He slays the evil creatures that live in and love the dark, and all gracious things will blossom into beauty. If we are in the Lord we shall be light; and if the Lord, who is the Light, is in us, we, too, shall bear fruits of ‘all righteousness and goodness and truth.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Spirit. App-101., but the texts read “light”.
goodness. Compare Rom 15:14.
righteousness. App-191.
truth. See Eph 4:21.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Eph 5:9. ,[80] the fruit of light) The antithesis is, the unfruitful works of darkness, Eph 5:11.-, in) is in, consists in, etc.- , in goodness, and righteousness, and truth) These are opposed to the vices just before described, from ch. Eph 4:25, and onwards.
[80] Rec. Text has with later Syr. But ABD() corrected later, Gfg Vulg. Lucif. have .-ED.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Eph 5:9
Eph 5:9
(for the fruit of the light-The fruit of the light, of knowing and doing this truth of God, is to produce a life in goodness and righteousness and truth. [The metaphor is a striking one, but literally correct, inasmuch as light is the necessary condition of that vegetative life which grows and yields fruit, while darkness is the destruction, if not of life, at any rate of fruit-bearing perfection.]
is in all goodness-[This stands first, as the most visible and obvious form of Christian excellence-that for which every one looks in a religious man, and which all admire when it is seen. Goodness is love embodied; it is the sanctification of the heart and its affections, renewed and governed by the love of God in Christ. Love, as the Christian knows it, is of God, for herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1Jn 4:10-11). This is the faith that makes good men-the best in the world. So “the fruit of the light is in all goodness.]
and righteousness-[The principle of righteousness includes everything in moral and spiritual worth, and is often used to denote in one word the entire fruit of Gods grace in man. Righteousness is loyalty to Gods holy and perfect law revealed through Jesus Christ; it is the love of that law in mans innermost spirit, it is the quality of a heart one with the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:2), reconciled to it as it is reconciled to God himself in Christ Jesus.]
and truth),-Truth signifies the inward reality of goodness and righteousness. Truth does not mean veracity alone, the mere truth of the lips. Truth of words requires a reality behind itself. The acted falsehood is excluded, the hinted and intended he no less than that expressly uttered. Beyond all this, it is the truth of the man that God requires-speech, action, thought, all consistent, harmonious and transparent, with the light of Gods truth shining through them. Truth is the harmony of the inward and the outward-correspondence of what the man is in himself with which he appears to be. Now, it is only children of light, only men thoroughly good and upright who can, in this strict sense, be men of truth.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
righteousness
(See Scofield “1Jn 3:7”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
The Fruit of the Light
For the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.Eph 5:9.
This is one of the cases in which the Revised Version has done service by giving currency to an unmistakably accurate and improved reading. That which stands in our Authorized Version, the fruit of the Spirit, seems to have been a correction made by some one who took offence at the violent metaphor, as he conceived it, that light should bear fruit, and desired to tinker the text so as to bring it into verbal correspondence with another passage in the Epistle to the Galatians, where the fruits of the Spirit are enumerated. But the reading the fruit of the light has not only the preponderance of manuscript authority in its favour, but is also preferable because it preserves a striking image, and is in harmony with the whole context.
The Apostle has just been exhorting his Ephesian friends to walk as children of light, and before he goes on to expand and explain that injunction he interjects this parenthetical remark, as if he would say, To be true to the light that is in you is the sum of duty, and the condition of perfectness, for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth. That connexion is entirely destroyed by the substitution of Spirit. The whole context, both before and after the text, is full of references to the light as working in the life; and two verses after it we read about the unfruitful works of darkness, an expression which evidently looks back to the text.
Calvin showed his judgment and independence in preferring this reading to that of the received Greek text; similarly Bengel, and most of the later critics. The sentence is parenthetical, and contains a singular and instructive figure. It is one of those sparks from the anvil in which great writers not infrequently give us their finest utterancessentences that get a peculiar point from the eagerness with which they are struck off in the heat and clash of thought, as the mind reaches forward to some thought lying beyond. The clause is an epitome, in five words, of Christian virtue, whose qualities, origin and method are all defined. It sums up exquisitely the moral teaching of the Epistle. Gal 5:22-23 (the fruit of the Spirit) and Php 4:8 (Whatsoever things are true, etc.) are parallel to this passage, as Pauline definitions, equally perfect, of the virtues of a Christian man. This has the advantage of the others in brevity and epigrammatic point.
Great Christian teachers have spoken of the virtues of the heathen as splendid sins. But Christ and His Apostles never said so. He said: Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold. And they said: In every nation he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. The Christian creed has no jealousy in regard to human excellence. Whatsoever things are true and honourable and just and pure, wherever and in whomsoever they are found, our faith honours and delights in them, and accepts them to the utmost of their worth. But then it claims them all for its ownas the fruit of the one true light which lighteth every man. Wherever this fruit appears, we know that that light has been, though its ways are past finding out. Through secret crevices, by subtle refractions and multiplied reflections, the true light reaches many a life lying far outside its visible course.1 [Note: G. G. Findlay, The Epistle to the Ephesians, 324.]
I
The Fruit-producing Light
1. In the context the Apostle has been speaking of light; here he boldly says, the light, and the change of expression is not accidental. He wishes to point to some specific source from which all light flows. And this is quite clear from the expression Now are ye light in the Lorda phrase which implies that the light which he has in view is not natural to men, but is the result of the entrance into their darkness of a new element. The words evidently imply that the light which blesses and hallows humanity is no diffused glow, but is all gathered and concentrated into one blazing centre, from which it floods the hearts of men. Or, to put away the metaphor, he is here asserting that the only way by which any man can cease to be, in the doleful depths of his nature, darkness in its saddest sense, is by opening his heart through faith, that into it there may rush, as the light ever does where an openingbe it only a single tiny crannyis made, the light which is Christ, and without whom is darkness.
How terrible is the thought of blind darkness, and most of all to a painter, who truly sees; whereas most men are purblind, while they think they see the glories of this marvellous world. But worse infinitely is the blindness of mans spirit, often wilfully barring out every avenue by which Light might enter. That word I know by experience is true. The entrance of Thy Word giveth Light; and those who glory in their acquaintance with the discoveries of modern Science, and in Literature, Art, Music, and every sensuous pleasure, are feeding on husks, like the Prodigal, if their souls are estranged from God our Father and from the True Light of man, Jesus Christ.1 [Note: Life and Letters of Frederic Shields, 344.]
Jesus was the Light of the world, the Revealer of the Father, and, as the Revealer, the Giver of life to men. As the Light, He imparts new possibilities of life to those who otherwise were hopelessly dead in trespasses and sins. The Light of Christ enters the heart; and what is the result? Productiveness of a high and spiritual order in the life that is thus begotten and sustained: all that such a life brings forth is the fruit of that light. No man can keep that light to himself. The ordinary figure of the lamp placed upon the lampstand is a striking one. You do not put it under a bushel but on a lampstand. But that is not the only way in which light shows itself; you light a candle and it shines forth. But God lights a grain of corn and it grows up into a stalk, and develops an ear, and full corn in the ear; it is the light He has given to that grain of corn that results in its growth and in its development, and the ear of corn is the outshining of that light with which Gods sunshine has permeated that grain. As God causes His sun to shine upon every field which bears in it the seed that has been sown by the farmer, He is sowing light into that field so that the seed itself shall manifest that light which it has received in the development and multiplication of its own life, and in the warm glow which imparts wealth and glory to every harvest field. And so in the human heart, when the light of God through Jesus Christ enters it, there is a growth. You cannot conceal that light, it will show itself in fruits of light.2 [Note: D. Davies, Talks with Men, Women and Children, vi. 378.]
When Christ enters any human heart, he bears with Him a twofold light: first, the light of conscience, which displays past sin, and afterwards the light of peace, the hope of salvation. In Holman Hunts picture, The Light of the World, the lantern, carried in Christs left hand, is this light of conscience. Its fire is red and fierce; it falls only on the closed door, on the weeds which encumber it, and on an apple shaken from one of the trees of the orchard, thus marking that the entire awakening of the conscience is not merely to committed but to hereditary guilt. The light is suspended by a chain, wrapt about the wrist of the figure, showing that the light which reveals sin appears to the sinner also to chain the hand of Christ. The light which proceeds from the head of the figure, on the contrary, is that of the hope of salvation; it springs from the crown of thorns, and, though itself sad, subdued, and full of softness, is yet so powerful that it entirely melts into the glow of it, the forms of the leaves and boughs, which it crosses, showing that every earthly object must be hidden by this light, where its sphere extends.1 [Note: Ruskin, Arrows of the Chace (Works, xii. 329).]
2. The light is antecedent to the fruit. Christ first, conduct second. To begin with what should be second is an anachronism in morals, and will be sure to result in failure in practice. He is not a wise man who tries to build a house from the chimneys downwards. And to talk about making a mans doings good before you have secured a radical change in the doer, by the infusion into him of the very life of Jesus Christ Himself, is to begin at the top story, instead of at the foundation. Many of us are trying to put the cart before the horse in that fashion. The people who, apart from Jesus Christ, and the entrance into their souls by faith of His quickening power, are seeking, some of them nobly, some of them sadly, and all of them vainly, to cure their faults of character, will never attain anything but a superficial and fragmentary goodness, because they have begun at the wrong end.
Light is the most essential condition of fruitfulness. Without light no vegetable or animal growth reaches perfection of colour or development. Rob the plant of its light, and you blanch it; rob any creature of the light, and you take out of him all colour and stamina. Any gardener will tell you that he may have all the heat that is necessary for an aromatic plant, and that shall enable it to blossom and put on a beautiful garment, so that it shall resemble the luxuriance with which it grows in its natural soil and under its native skies; but that when he has done all, when he has got his thermometer up into any temperature he chooses, there is little or no aromatic secretion. That in which the plant excels, that in which it finds its final meaning, is absent. To all appearance it is very much the same plant as in its native soil and light, and yet there is an all-important difference. Under these conditions it is not the fruit of light. It has heat, but light is something more than heat; and that is what is often wanting under this leaden sky of ours. As it is to be found in tropical regions, it is wanting in the most beautiful and perfect conservatory or hot-house that has ever been erected here. If men could only make a sun that should shine brightly through all our gloomor, rather, if men could only rid themselves of the clouds that intercept the light of the sun that shines in fairer skies in the distant Eastit would be all very well; but they cannot, and thus sunlight is wanting in sufficient quantities to ripen aromatic shrubs here, and nothing can compensate for that lack. All the artificial warmth that you can get fails to produce the same results.1 [Note: D. Davies, Talks with Men, Women and Children, vi. 376.]
Our definitions of a good man are as varied as the standpoints from which we look at him. We judge his goodness by his kindness, or honesty or veracity or purity or sobriety or some other minor morality for which he may be distinguished. And in our generous moods and magnanimous moments, when we want to exemplify the fine breadth of spirit by which all our thoughts are animated, we say, He is not a Christian, but he is a good man! Is he? If, as is the case, God and good come from the same root, should not the test go a step further back? Is he a God-man? God-man and good man should mean one and the same. And in so far as the virtues which the man possesses and exercises are God-like and God-inspired, every good man is a God-mana man in whom God strives and struggles.2 [Note: R. Cynon Lewis, in Sermons by Welshmen, 298.]
The good man is not alone. Touch him, and you touch God. Help him, and your help is taken as if it were rendered to God Himself. This may give us an idea of the sublime life to which we are calledwe live, and move, and have our being in God; we are temples, our life is an expression of Divine influence; in our voice there is an undertone of Divinity.3 [Note: Joseph Parker.]
3. Light has a wonderful vivifying power. It gives life and vigour. In the Arctic regions there are whole months during which the sun never rises, and if you want to know how valuable light is, you have just to think of the great difference between what you would see if you were there, and what you see around you in this land. If you go far enough north you find constant ice and snow; there are no beautiful flowers and fruits, no green grass to please the eye, no colours of any kind to gaze upon, but only an endless white winding sheet that seems to wrap up the dead earth. You have a barren wilderness in which, if you sought to dwell, you would be sure to die of cold and starvation. Contrast with all this the fields and the trees, and the hedges amongst which you live here, the bright blossoms that are in some of our gardens, and the sweet fruits that come in the autumn, and the sheaves that are gathered in the harvest time. What is the reason of this great difference? It is light. We get the light every day of the year, and it comes down to us in a more direct way than that in which it falls in the Arctic circle, so that we get more of its benefits.1 [Note: J. Aitchison, A Bag with Holes, 105.]
You may remember the beautiful lines in which Oliver Goldsmith depicts the heavenly spirit which the village pastor was able to maintain
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form
Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
So is it with the Christian disciple who through all the checkered scenes of his daily life walks in the light with God. The light of heaven in his heart shines out in his face, and surrounds him with a glory which is not the less real that earthly eyes cannot see it, as earthly trials cannot cause it for one moment to pale.2 [Note: J. P. Lilley, The Pathway of Light, 63.]
Birds are very fond of catching the last evening rays of a winters sun, and are always to be found in the afternoon on banks facing the west, or swinging, if there is no wind, on the topmost branch of the small fir-tree. On the mountains, too, all birds, as the sun gets low, take to the slopes that face the west; whilst in the morning they betake themselves to the eastern banks and slopes that meet his rays. No bird is to be found in the shade during winter, unless it has flown there for shelter from some imminent danger. This is very remarkable in the case of the golden plovers, who in the evening ascend from slope to slope, as each becomes shaded by the intervening heights, until they are all collected on the very last ridge which the sun shines upon.1 [Note: J. A. St. John, A Tour in Sutherlandshire.]
Grant us Thy light, that we may learn
How dead is life from Thee apart;
How sure is joy for all who turn
To Thee an undivided heart.
Grant us Thy light, when, soon or late,
All earthly scenes shall pass away,
In Thee to find the open gate
To deathless home and endless day.2 [Note: L. Tuttiett.]
4. We must welcome the light and bask in it. You are light in the Lord, the Apostle said; walk as children of the light. But his readers might ask: What does this mean? It is poetry: let us have it translated into plain prose. How shall we walk as children of the light? Show us the path. I will tell you, the Apostle answersthe fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Walk in these ways; let your life bear this fruit; and you will be true children of the light of God. So living, you will find out what it is that pleases God, and how joyful a thing it is to please Him (Eph 5:10). Your life will then be free from all complicity with the works of darkness. It will shine with a brightness, clear and penetrating, that will put to shame the works of darkness and transform the darkness itself. It will speak with a voice that all must hear, bidding them awake from the sleep of sin to see in Christ their light of life.
How eagerly the sunflower turns to the sun! When the sun sets, and night falls, it folds up its leaves. But when the morning light comes once more, it opens up its bosom to its sweet, soft touch. Nor is this all; it keeps inclining towards the sun all day, following its course through the sky.
Florence Nightingale tells, in her Notes on Nursing, how the patients in the hospitals turn towards the light. The light is life-giving, health-giving. It seems to draw the sufferers to itself.3 [Note: A. G. Fleming, Silver Wings, 77.]
My purpose in writing to-day is to narrate a little and homely incident which occurred last night, and which touched me not a little, leaving you to draw the moral. Taking a constitutional before dinner in a drenching rain, I came up with a humble working man to whom I wished a good evening. The man walked alongside of me and began to talk, telling me the landlady of the house where he lived had died some little time ago. That, my friend, I said, is a road we must all go. Yes, he said, all but those who shall be alive on the earth when He comes again. The word interested me, and I replied, I am glad to hear you speaking in that way. We talked a little amid the pelting rain about Christs second coming, when he remarked, Blessed are they who hear the joyful sound; they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance! I noticed a strange, bright, happy light about the mans homely face, which struck me; and I said, You seem to be rejoicing in that joyful sound of the Gospel? Yes, he said, I am very happy, for I am trusting in my Saviour and humbly trying to serve Him. But some time ago, he went on to say, it was very different. For months and months I was in the most dreadful misery, believing myself a lost man for whom there was no mercy. I could get no peace night nor day. But one Sunday I happened to go into Saltcoats Parish Church, and something that the minister saidit was nothing very particularcame home as true. Thats true, I said, thats true. I see that Christ is a Saviour. From that moment I trusted Him. I am trusting Him still, and with His grace I will to the end. Life is now all changed to me, and I am the very happiest of men. No doubt many a temptation came to me to go back to the old life. But He kept by me and brought me out of a horrible pit, and from the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock. And there I hope to remain for ever.
He then went on to say that no sooner had he found this new joy than he said to himself: I must try to do something for Him who has done so much for me. And casting about for something to do, he remembered an old friend who had gone very far astray through drink, and was then lying on a sick-bed, and hinting about ending himself. He said he stuck to that man for days and nights till God honoured him in being the instrument of effecting a great change, and, like himself, he is now a humble and earnest Christian. I asked him how he had dealt with him. I just tellt him, he said, with a happy smile, to look to Christ, to follow Christ, to trust in Christ. We shook hands together as we parted, mutually commending each other to God, and I ate my dinner with a happy heart. God be with you, dear Lady Frances, and give you all joy and peace in believing.1 [Note: Life of Dr. MacGregor of St. Cuthberts, 289.]
As the branch abides in the vine,
Through seasons delayed or long,
Till its clusters of purple shine
And the vintage echoes with song;
As tendril and leaf and flower
Partake the life of the tree,
And further its use and power,
In bondage of growth made free
So, Lord, till lifes ultimate hour,
My soul would abide in Thee!
As the ripples move with the tide,
Far over the world-wide deep,
And, in union naught may divide,
One rhythm and purpose keep;
As the lightest eddies of foam
Are held in that vast decree,
And never a wave may roam
So, Maker of shore and sea,
Desiring no lovelier home,
My spirit would move in Thee!
As fragrance grows in the rose,
Of petal and bloom a part,
A mystery no man knows
Enwrought in its innermost heart
So, through unsearchable love,
A wave at one with Thy sea,
A branch Thine hand can approve,
A sweetness enshrined yet free,
My God, I would live and move
And have my being in Thee!1 [Note: Mary R. Jarvis.]
II
The Varieties of Fruit which the Light Produces
In all goodness and righteousness and truth. In Christs garden there forms in clustered beauty and perfectness the ripe growth of virtue, which in the sunshine of His love and under the freshening breath of His Spirit sends forth its spices and yieldeth its fruit every month. In it there abide goodness, righteousness, truththese three; and who shall say which of them is greatest?
In St. Pauls letter to the Galatians the fruit is divided into nine varieties, whereas in his letter to the Ephesians it is divided into three only. In the former the varieties are, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; in the latter they are goodness, righteousness, and truth. The former are more or less specific, the latter generic. In the Galatian list he is thinking of several Christian graces in detail; in the Ephesian list he brings out a few great outstanding graces which are inclusive of many more. But the geometrical axiom that the whole is greater than its parts and includes them does not cover the ground. We dare not limit the elements that go to the making of a Christian character to nine or nineteen, for the sweetest graces referred to elsewhere by the Apostle are omitted from both lists. Faith and love are in the chorus, but hope is not; peace and joy are in, but patience is not; and no spiritual chorus can be complete, or is destined to create the most perfect harmony by the due proportion of parts, which leaves out such seraphic songsters as Hope and Patience, to say nothing of other graces omitted, whose presence always makes music. St. Paul formed his chorus of graces on the Galatian scale some years before he wrote to the Ephesians, and so to omit none now, he writes for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth. No grace is left out here, for the fruit grows and ripens in every garden of goodnessthe melody of the Spirit is heard in every righteous ring of the honest heart, and the harmony is like the harmony of heaven without a single discord when truth is added.
The different kinds of fruit are not to be separated, but should grow on the one stem, should blend in the one character. So many of us are good on one side and not on another. One side of our life is sweet, while another side is sour. Or we have pity, but no hope; we have tears, but no laughter. We are one-sided, lopsided, and acceptable fruit cannot be found on every branch. When we live clear out in the light of Christ, the genial heat and radiance will make every part fruitful, and on every side men will see the bounties of the Spirit.
Goodness is the adjustment of our relations to God, righteousness the adjustment of our relations to man, truth the adjustment of our relations to self. Goodness makes me worship, righteousness makes me act, truth makes me think. Goodness makes me look up, righteousness makes me look out, truth makes me look in. Goodness makes me see God, righteousness makes me see others, truth makes me see self. Goodness gives me a vision of the world above me, righteousness gives me a vision of the world without me, truth gives me a vision of the world within me. Truth is thus the man at the wheel, directing the ship, and bringing it safely to its haven.
As seen through the prism on which the rays of the sun fall, the fruit of the light is in all red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. These are loosely the primary colours, but strictly they are only threered, yellow, and blue. These are the principal colours that we see tremble on the rainbow across the sky, but these primary colours are split up into many more as we watch them in their infinite variety in foliage and flower. And so the fruit of the inward light which is the result of a Spirit-filled soul, is in all goodness and righteousness and truththe primary colours of the Kingdom, which divide themselves again into all the graces of the Christian life.1 [Note: R. Cynon Lewis, in Sermons by Welshmen, 297.]
For as a stone, so Sufi legends run,
Wooed by unwearied patience of the sun
Piercing its dense opacity, has grown
From a mere pebble to a precious stone,
Its flintiness impermeable and crass
Turned crystalline to let the sunlight pass;
So hearts long years impassive and opaque,
Whom terror could not crush nor sorrow break,
Yielding at last to loves refining ray
Transforming and transmuting, day by day,
From dull grown clear, from earthly grown divine,
Flash back to God the light that made them shine.2 [Note: Jalaluddin Rumi, in A Little Book of Eastern Wisdom, 57.]
1. In all goodness.Goodness seems to be used here in its narrower sense, just as the same Apostle uses it in the Epistle to the Romans in contrast with righteousness, where he says, for a good man some would even dare to die. There he means by good, as he does here by goodness, not the general expression for all forms of virtue and gracious conduct, but the specific excellence of kindliness, amiability, or the like. Righteousness, again, is that which rigidly adheres to the strict law of duty, and carefully desires to give every man what belongs to him, and to every relation of life what it requires. And truth is rather the truth of sincerity as opposed to hypocrisy and lies and shams than the intellectual truth as opposed to error.
(1) Christian goodness is the sanctification of the heart and its affections, renewed and governed by the love of God in Christ. It is, notwithstanding, seldom inculcated in the New Testament; because it is referred to its spring and principle in love. Goodness is love embodied. Now love, as the Christian knows it, is of God. We love, says the Apostle John, because he first loved us He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. This is the faith that makes good menthe best the world has ever known, the best that it holds now. Vanity, selfishness, evil temper and desire are shamed and burnt out of the soul by the holy fire of the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. In the warm, tender light of the cross the heart is softened and cleansed, and expanded to the widest charity. It becomes the home of all generous instincts and pure affections. So the fruit of the light is in all goodness.
Mr. Watts painted his Miltonic Satan with the face averted from the light of the Creator with whom he talked.1 [Note: M. S. Watts, George Frederic Watts, i. 97.]
The soul of goodness is love; for it is out of love that goodness issues, and it is in love that goodness culminates. There are other motives which incite to goodness, but they aid and foster, they do not create it. Without love there may be good actions, but there cannot be goodness; as a quality, goodness must be rooted in love. Most men are still so far from a true conception of love that they suspect it of certain inherent possibilities of weakness, and strive to steady and invigorate it by bringing to its aid the ideas of law and duty; not discerning that love carries in its heart a law far more searching and inexorable than any that was ever graven on tables of stone or written in statute-books, and that duty, in the sense of obligation to serve, is its daily life. The severity of Christ, the teacher of love, is more terrible than that of the sternest Old Testament lawgiver, because the test He applies not only tries conduct but searches motive. The law is satisfied when restoration is made or the penalty paid; it cannot go further. But to love, which searches the heart as with a lighted torch, these are only the external signs of repentance; it cannot rest short of a complete cleansing of the spirit. With a severity born of a passionate determination to make the best in every man supreme, it will accept nothing less than final and lasting purification.
No quality of the infinite love is more Divine than its ability to bear and to impose suffering; it would rather the loved one were slain than dishonoured; rather he were tortured than stained. In Mr. Wattss beautiful picture of Love and Life Love is leading Life up the steep pathway, over the stones that bruise and pierce, with infinite gentleness but with inexorable purpose. For love can lead where law cannot drive, and love can win where law is powerless to force obedience. For love has resources with which law is not armed; it has the fellowship of burden-bearing and suffering. It asks no one to go where it is not ready to go itself. By its very nature it takes in the experience of one whom it strives to reclaim or correct, and in the anguish of the repentance which it compels it often sweats great drops of blood. Law declares the guilt of the world and imposes its penalty; love carries the consciousness of that guilt home to the deepest nature, compels not only the forsaking of the sin, but the re-birth, with all its pangs, of the soul of the sinner, and walks step by step through the humiliation and bitterness of repentance, restitution, and recovery. It shares the shame and anguish long after the law has run its course and is satisfied. It compels the guilty to confess and restore with an inexorableness more terrible than that of law itself; but it does not leave the offender in the dark; it goes to prison with him, wears the garb and does the work of punishment with him; and when he has cleansed himself, welcomes him back to life and duty when all faces are turned away.1 [Note: H. W. Mabie, The Life of the Spirit, 133.]
It is the blending of purity with gentleness that makes goodness. A good man is something more than a strictly righteous man or a strictly just man. There is a gentleness and grace to add a charm to what might otherwise be repellent in the strength and vigour of his convictions and life. A good man is a man who has strong convictions, and who, having them, has also graces that impart a beauty to them. The earth has a backbone of granite rock, but it does not project its granite rock in every spot of charming landscape. There, as a rule, it shows its gentleness and grace; and even when by mighty upheavals or convulsions it shows here and there its rocky ribs, it clothes them with some half tone of moss or lichen or foliage. So that, associated with the most rugged force, there is a gentle grace and beauty. It is only when we try the strength of the earth that we find the strength of backbone it has. And so in the case of the typical good man. Such are his gentleness and grace that it is only when men try the strength of his principles that they find the granite rock under all. The good man is the gentle mangentle in the gentleness, and strong in the strength, of Christ.1 [Note: D. Davies, Talks with Men, Women and Children, vi. 379.]
I must, from time to time, remind you of what I have often recommended to you, and of what you cannot attend to too much: sacrifice to the Graces. The different effects of the same things, said or done, when accompanied or abandoned by them, is almost inconceivable. They prepare the way to the heart; and the heart has such an influence over the understanding that it is worth while to engage it in our interest. It is the whole of women, who are guided by nothing else; and it has so much to say even with men, and the ablest men too, that it commonly triumphs in every struggle with the understanding.2 [Note: Lord Chesterfield, Letters to his Son, i. 326.]
(2) In all goodnessgoodness of every variety. The piety of one man is deep and silent like the broad winding river which carries peace and plenty to the country through which it passes; the piety of another is strong and demonstrative like the wind which drives the ship from one continent to the other with its weight of wealth and commerce; the piety of the third is modest and retiring like the violet which flourishes best in the shade, but whose fragrance is never hidden. And yet they are all the fruit of the light. The piety of Peter is the piety which is active, energetic, impulsive, impetuous, rushing down the hill like an Alpine torrent, or over the precipice like a mighty cataract. The piety of John and Mary is the piety of the meditative mystics, who lay the head on the Masters breast to listen to the pulsations of His heart, or who sit at His feet to drink in His message and to catch every breeze that blows from the throne. The piety of the publican is the piety that dares not look up to heaven, and yet grows one of the sweetest fruits in the garden of Godhumility. The fruit of the light is in all goodnessin the type that says nothing, and in the type that says everything, in the type that works, and in the type that waits.
A great many mistakes are made about amiability. A man may be amiable simply through mere want of interest or force; he may be so constituted that he really does not much care who is who or what is what. He may have a senile grincall it a smile if you pleasefor anybody and for all persons alike,a nice old man who never says a cross word, and never has a frown upon his face. That is not amiability. Here is a man who is naturally unamiable; he looks with a discriminating eye upon man and things; he is very passionate, fiery, self-asserting. Yet, by the grace of God, he is kept back; at times he shakes in the leash; he often seems as if he would break it and be away! Yet Gods hold upon him is such that he speaks gentle words, restrains terms of indignation and wrath, moderates his rising passion. Therethough he cannot look very amiable, though he may have a grim faceis the amiable Man 1:1 [Note: Joseph Parker.]
He went about doing good. So we might say in our own age of two or three who have been personally known to us, He or she went about doing good. They are the living witnesses to us of His work. If we observe them we shall see that they did good because they were goodbecause they lived for others and not for themselves, because they had a higher standard of truth, and therefore men could trust them, because their love was deeper, and therefore they drew others after them. These are they of whom we read in Scripture that they bear the image of Christ until His coming again, and of a few of them that they have borne the image of His sufferings, and to us they are the best interpreters of His life. They too have a hidden strength which is derived from communion with the Unseen; they pass their lives in the service of God, and yet only desire to be thought unprofitable servants. Their way of life has been simplethey have not had much to do with the world. They may have been scarcely known, or not known until after their death; they may have had their trials toofailing health, declining years, the ingratitude of menbut they have endured as seeing Him who is invisible.2 [Note: Benjamin Jowett.]
2. This fruit is in all righteousness.The principle of righteousness, fully understood, includes everything in moral worth, and is often used to denote in one word the entire fruit of Gods grace in man. For righteousness is the sanctification of the conscience. It is loyalty to Gods holy and perfect law. It is no mere outward keeping of formal rules, such as the legal righteousness of Judaism, no submission to necessity or calculation of advantages; it is a love of the law in a mans inmost spirit; it is the quality of a heart one with that law, reconciled to it as it is reconciled to God Himself in Jesus Christ. At the bottom, therefore, righteousness and goodness are one. Each is the counterface and complement of the other. Righteousness is to goodness as the strong backbone of principle, the firm hand and the vigorous grasp of duty, the steadfast foot that plants itself on the eternal ground of the right and true and stands against a worlds assault. Goodness without righteousness is a weak and fitful sentiment: righteousness without goodness is a dead formality. He cannot love God or his neighbour truly who does not love Gods law; and he knows nothing aright of that law who does not know that it is the law of love.
There is nothing so terrible as the insistence of love on perfect righteousness. It cannot compromise; it is powerless to accept anything less, because it has a consuming desire to bring out the final touch of nobleness in the soul it loves. They have not known the divinest secret of love who have not suffered from its inflexible idealism, its inexorable determination to get the best and the most out of the loved one. Many a husband has rebelled in feeling against his wifes faithful loyalty to his own noblest nature, and has come at last, in the clearer vision of his own growth, to reverence that insistence upon the best in aim, conduct, and habit as the very highest form of tenderness. It is not easy to live under the same roof with the ideal of what one ought to be and to do; but there comes a time, in such companionship, when the very roof is sacred because it has sheltered it. One must be good indeed before one can live at ease with a great love. For this reason Calvary is more awful than Sinai, and the patient sufferings of Christ more appalling than all the thunderings of the lawgivers. For love is not only all tenderness, forgiveness, and service; it is also all severity, sanity, duty, righteousness. It is far stronger and safer than law, because it is far more searching and inexorable.1 [Note: H. W. Mabie, The Life of the Spirit, 136.]
The rule of right, the symmetries of character, the requirements of perfection, are no provincialisms of this planet; they are known among the stars; they reign beyond Orion and the Southern Cross; they are wherever the universal Spirit is; and no subject mind, though it fly on one track for ever, can escape beyond their bounds. Just as the arrival of light from deeps that extinguish parallax bears witness to the same ether there that vibrates here, and its spectrum reports that one chemistry spans the interval, so does the law of righteousness spring from its earthly base and embrace the empire of the heavens the moment it becomes a communion between the heart of man and the life of God.1 [Note: J. Martineau, A Study of Religion, i. 26.]
One morning I walked with a friend out of the city of Geneva to where the waters of the lake flow with swift rush into the Rhone. And we were both greatly interested in the strange sight which has impressed so many travellers. There are two rivers whose waters come together here, the Rhone and the Arve, the Arve flowing into the Rhone. The waters of the Rhone are beautifully clear and sparkling. The waters of the Arve come through a clayey soil and are muddy, grey, and dull. And for a long distance the two waters are wholly distinct. Two rivers of water are in one river-bed, on one side the sparkling blue Rhone water, on the other the dull grey Arve water, and the line between the two is sharply defined. And so it continues for a long distance. Then gradually they blend and the grey begins to tinge all through the blue. I went to the guide-book and maps to find out something about this river that kept on its way undefiled by its neighbour for so long. Its source is in a glacier that is between ten thousand and eleven thousand feet high, descending from the gates of eternal night, at the foot of the pillar of the sun. It is fed continually by the melting glacier which, in turn, is being kept up by the snows and cold. Rising at this great height, ever being renewed steadily by the glacier, it comes rushing down the swift descent of the Swiss Alps through the lake of Geneva and on. There is the secret of purity, side by side with its dirty neighbour.
Our lives must have their source high up in the mountains of God, fed by a ceaseless supply. Only so can there be the purity and the momentum that shall keep us pure, and keep us moving down in contact with men of the earth. And we must keep closer to the source than is the Rhone at Geneva, else the streams flowing alongside will unduly influence us. Constant personal contact with Jesus is the beginning ever new of service.2 [Note: S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Service, 30.]
King of mercy, King of love,
In whom I live, in whom I move,
Perfect what Thou hast begun,
Let no night put out this sun;
Grant I may, my chief desire,
Long for Thee, to Thee aspire!
Let my youth, my bloom of days
Buy my comfort, and Thy praise;
That hereafter, when I look
Oer the sullied, sinful book,
I may find Thy hand therein
Wiping out my shame and sin!
O it is Thy only art
To reduce a stubborn heart;
And since Thine is victory,
Strongholds should belong to Thee;
Lord, then take it, leave it not
Unto my dispose or lot;
But since I would not have it mine,
O my God, let it be Thine.1 [Note: Henry Vaughan.]
3. In all truth.Truth comes last, for it signifies the inward reality and depth of the other two. Truth does not mean veracity alone, the mere truth of the lips. Heathen honesty goes as far as this. Men of the world expect as much from each other, and brand the liar with their contempt. Truth of words requires a reality behind itself. The acted falsehood is excluded, the hinted and intended lie no less than that expressly uttered. Beyond all this, it is the truth of the man that God requiresspeech, action, thought, all consistent, harmonious and transparent, with the light of Gods truth shining through them. Truth is the harmony of the inward and the outwardthe correspondence of what the man is in himself with that which he appears and wishes to appear to be.
Like you, I am most interested in the progress of art, and believe it can only be great by being true; but I am inclined to give truth a wider range, and I cannot help fearing you may become near-sighted. That I feel with you with regard to earnestness and truth in painting must be evident from my agreeing with you in admiration of certain productions; but I do not agree with you in your estimation of truth, or rather your view of truth. It appears to me that you confound it too much with detail, and overlook properties; and that in your appreciation of an endeavour to imitate exactly, you prefer the introduction of what is extraneous, to the leaving out of anything that may be in existence. Beauty is truth, but it is not always reality. In perceiving and appreciating with wonderful acuteness quality and truth of accident, you run some risk of overlooking larger truth of fundamental properties. In fact you are rather inclined to consider truth as a bundle of parts, than truth as a great whole.1 [Note: George Frederic Watts, i. 92.]
Imagination has pictured to itself a domain in which every one who enters should be compelled to speak only what he thought, and pleased itself by calling such domain the Palace of Truth. A palace of veracity, if you will; but no temple of the truth. A place where each one would be at liberty to utter his own crude unrealities, to bring forth his delusions, mistakes, half-formed, hasty judgments; where the depraved ear would reckon discord harmony, and the depraved eye mistake colour; the depraved moral taste take Herod or Tiberius for a king, and shout beneath the Redeemers cross, Himself he cannot save! A temple of the truth? Nay, only a palace echoing with veracious falsehoods, a Babel of confused sounds, in which egotism would rival egotism, and truth would be each mans own lie.2 [Note: F. W. Robertson.]
The part of public agitation which she least liked was its unfairness. She could detest a thing wholeheartedly, but she never could misrepresent it, and partisanshipincluding Labour partisanshipshe would not even excuse. Sentiment of the gushing type she mistrusted, and it found no place in her appeals. Rigidity in truthfulness was one of her fundamental characteristics. Error is the only fruit of error, she once said when some one urged that in dealing with the crowd one had to practise some deceptions. If the road ahead is difficult, say so; if the pilgrimage is drudgery, discipline your people so that they may be able to go through it. Consequently, if she held to her views with unbending decision she was always tolerant and always anxious to meet the other side.3 [Note: J. Ramsay MacDonald, Margaret Ethel MacDonald, 198.]
Let me find thy road whilst my strength holds out.
Thy rest when my strength has failed,
First the weary search, and the misty doubt,
Then Truth with her face unveiled.
In the dim pine-woods I have known her near
By the flash of her dear white feet
Down the quiet glades, where the soul can hear
A song that is passing sweet.
For the ears that hear and the hearts that dare
Her ageless song she sings;
For her listening ones she has filled the air
With the tumult of her wings.4 [Note: P. C. Ainsworth, Poems and Sonnets, 51.]
The Fruit of the Light
Literature
Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, vi. 376.
Findlay (G. G.), The Epistle to the Ephesians (Expositors Bible), 321.
Fleming (A. G.), Silver Wings, 70.
Garbett (E.), Experiences of the Inner Life, 127.
Holland (H. S.), Logic and Life, 163.
Jones (J. D.), The Unfettered Word, 260.
Kenrick (C. W. H.), in Sermons for the People, iii. 80.
Lewis (R. C.), in Sermons by Welshmen, 296.
Llewellyn (D.), The Forgotten Sheaf, 45.
Maclaren (A.), Christs Musts, 239.
Mortimer (A. G.), Lenten Preaching, 26.
Newman (J. H.), Oxford University Sermons, 37.
Pulsford (J.), Christ and His Seed, 178.
Trench (R. C.), Sermons in Ireland, 133.
Childrens Pulpit: First Sunday in Advent, i. 6 (Shore).
Christian World Puplit, lxviii. 161 (Waggett).
Clergymans Magazine, New Ser., i. 155 (Tillotson).
Literary Churchman, xxxviii. (1892) 105.
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
the fruit: Gal 5:22, Gal 5:23
goodness: Psa 16:2, Psa 16:3, Rom 2:4, Rom 15:14, 1Pe 2:25, 3Jo 1:11
righteousness: Phi 1:11, 1Ti 6:11, Heb 1:8, Heb 11:33, 1Pe 2:24, 1Jo 2:29, 1Jo 3:9, 1Jo 3:10
truth: Eph 4:15, Eph 4:25, Eph 6:14, Joh 1:47
Reciprocal: Deu 27:9 – this day Neh 9:20 – good Psa 112:4 – he is gracious Psa 143:10 – thy spirit Pro 3:3 – mercy Son 7:13 – at our Hos 14:8 – From me Mat 3:8 – fruits Mat 7:17 – every Joh 3:21 – that his Joh 7:38 – out Joh 15:5 – same Rom 6:22 – ye have Rom 8:5 – of the Spirit Rom 8:14 – led Rom 8:23 – which have Rom 12:2 – good 2Co 9:10 – increase 2Co 13:14 – the communion Phi 4:8 – are true Col 1:6 – bringeth 1Th 5:8 – who 1Ti 2:3 – this Jam 3:17 – gentle 1Jo 3:7 – he that
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
(Eph 5:9.) This verse is a parenthesis, illustrative and confirmatory of the previous clause.
-For the fruit of the light. Instead of the Textus Receptus has . For we have the authority of A, B, D, E1, F, G, and the Vulgate; while the Stephanic text is found in D3, E2, K, L, the majority of mss., in the Syriac too, and in two of the Greek commentators. Internal evidence here can have but little weight. One may say that was inserted in room of , to give correspondence with the of the preceding verse; or one may say, on the other hand, that supplanted from a reminiscence of Gal 5:22. The particle is used here, as often, to introduce a parenthetic confirmation. The verse not only explains what is meant by walking as children of light, but really holds out an inducement to the duty. The fruit is-
-in all goodness. We cannot say, with so many expositors, that being supplied, the meaning is-the fruit of the Spirit is in, that is-ponitur-consists in, all goodness, etc. In that case, the simple nominative might have been employed. We understand the apostle to mean, that the fruit is always associated with goodness as its element or sphere. Winer, 48 (3) a. These qualities uniformly characterize its fruits. No one will assent to the unscholarly remark of Kttner, that the three following nouns are merely synonymous. does not signify beneficence, properly so called, but that moral excellence which springs from religious principle (Gal 5:22; Rom 15:14), and leads to kindness, generosity, or goodness. It here may stand opposed to the dark and malignant passions which the apostle has been reprobating-.
-and righteousness. This is integrity or moral rectitude (Rom 6:13; 1Ti 6:11), and is in contrast not only with the theft and covetousness already condemned, but with all defective sense of obligation, for it rules itself by the Divine law, and in every relation of life strives to be as it ought to be-and is opposed to . For the spelling of this and the preceding noun, see Etymol. Mag. sub voce . See under Eph 4:24.
– and truth. Truth stands opposed to insincerity and dissimulation-. These three ethical terms characterize Christian duty. We cannot agree with Baumgarten-Crusius, who thus distinguishes the three nouns: the first as alluding to what is internal, the second as pertaining to human relations, and the third as having reference to God. For the good, the right, and the true, distinguish that fruit which is produced out of, or belongs to, the condition which is called light in the Lord, and are always distinctive elements of the virtues which adorn Christianity.
Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians
Eph 5:9. A tree is known by its fruit (Mat 7:16-20), and the kind of character a man maintains can be known only by the fruit or outward deeds in his life. The Spirit cannot produce anything but that which is goodness and righteousness and truth. This important subject is treated also in Gal 5:22-23.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Eph 5:9. For. This verse is a parenthetic reason for the last exhortation, inciting them to walk thus.
The fruit of the light; Spirit is poorly supported, apparently taken from Gal 5:22. As there, fruit is singular, pointing to the unity of the moral results.
Is in, consists in, is contained in, all, every kind of, goodness and righteousness and truth. All these are moral qualities, presenting Christian ethics under its three aspects, the good, the right, and the true (so Meyer). Other distinctions have been attempted, but without much success. Observe that these are the fruit, not the cause of the light.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
These words contain a reason why the Ephesians, who were once darkness, but then enlightened by the Holy Spirit, should walk as children of the light; namely, because the fruits of that light, or of the Holy Spirit, the author of that light which they had received, is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, that is, it consisted in these things, these are the fruits of the enlightening and enlivening Spirit of God.
So that the force of the argument lies thus: such a walking as is here directed to, namely, in the love and practice of universal righteousness and goodness, is the genuine fruit and natural result of the Holy Spirit, and accordingly as such they were obliged to it. None can walk as children of the light, but such as are renewed and quickened by the Holy Spirit of God, and made children of light; and such will be found in the practice of those duties, wherein that walk consisteth.
Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord; that is,
1. To study the word, and find what is pleasing unto God.
2. Embrace with our hearts what we find to be so.
And, 3. To practise in our lives what we embrace with our hearts.
The scripture acquaints us with some persons and some performances which are very acceptable unto God; such persons as live most by faith, as are very upright in their walking, very sincere in all they do, such are greatly acceptable, namely, when we do justice and judgment, this is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice; both commutative and distributive justice betwixt man and man, more pleasing to God than the highest acts of worship performed to him without this, Pro 21:3. To serve Christ with a pure intention, with good will, or a willing mind, and to suffer patiently for well-doing, this is highly pleasing and acceptable unto God,1Pe 2:20.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
9 (For the fruit of the Spirit [is] in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
The “fruit of the Spirit” is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible, but here it is characterized in generality, where as in Galatians, it is characterized in some specifics. “Fruit” relates to the product of a plant. The plant grows and works toward the natural end of producing fruit. The term is used of one’s offspring or child. We, as humans, grow and mature and children are the natural product of that process, unless something interrupts that process.
The Spirit of God is living within us to the natural extent that we would produce fruit. Notice “fruit” is not listed as being the one and only fruit there is to some preachers – soul winning. It is anything that produces goodness, righteousness and truth. In Galatians five we see a more specific listing, 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
The fruit of the Spirit may include soul winning, but it does not exclude everything else but soul winning. All our good works are a result of the Spirit’s work within us and this is all fruit or progeny of the Spirit.
What is good, righteous and truth – a tall order for the Christian in this century of the church. What a challenge to the churches in our day that use The Simpsons, television shows Harry Potter and the like in Sunday school to liven up the class. Sure there may be some little truth hidden away in those shows, but to watch the rest of the garbage that is its wrapper is not feeding your mind with what is good – we think on things that are in our minds, thus if you watch these shows and others on television that is what you are thinking about rather than the good, the righteous, and the truth.
I would guess that you could find some small truth in a pornography film, but to get at it you would have to watch a lot of filth. I would not doubt that some Sunday school teacher somewhere will adapt porn to their lessons if they are using the Simpsons and Potter.
We aren’t adapting the world’s ways any more in the church; we are the world in many aspects. I would guess that is some ways we are worse than the world. I can’t imagine any lost person using The Simpsons to attempt to teach moral truth, though we do.
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
5:9 (For the fruit of the {d} Spirit [is] in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
(d) By whose power we are made light in the Lord.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The fruit of the light is those qualities that characterize God’s life (i.e., the fruit that the Spirit produces). The three qualities mentioned here are the opposite of the fruit of darkness (Eph 4:18-19). If the child of light does not walk in the light, he will not bear much of the fruit of the light (cf. Joh 15:1-6). He might even be outwardly indistinguishable from a child of darkness (cf. Mat 13:24-30).