'And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but
rather reprove them. 12. For it is a shame even to speak of those
things which are done of them in secret. 13. But all things that
are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth
make manifest is light. 14. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee
light. 15. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but
as wise, 16. Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 17.
Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the
Lord is. 18. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be
filled with the Spirit; 19. Speaking to yourselves in psalms, and
hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart
to the Lord; 20. Giving thanks always for all things unto God and
the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; 21. Submitting
yourselves one to another in the fear of God.'--Eph. v. 11-21.
There are three groups of practical exhortations in this passage, of
which the first deals with the Christian as a reproving light in
darkness; the second, with the Christian life as wisdom in the midst of
folly; and the third with Christian sobriety and inspiration as the true
exhilaration in contrast with riotous drunkenness. Probably such
intoxication was prevalent in Ephesus in connection with the worship of
'Diana of the Ephesians,' for Paul was not the man to preach vague
warnings against vices to which his hearers were not tempted. An
under-current of allusion to such orgies accompanying the popular cult
may be discerned in his words.
These two preceding sets of precepts can only be briefly touched on now.
They lead up to the third, and the second is built on the first by a
'therefore' (ver. 15). The Apostle has just been saying that Christians
were 'darkness, but are now light in the Lord,' and thence drawing the
law for their life, to walk as 'children of light.' A very important
part of such walk is recoiling from all share in 'the unfruitful works
of darkness,'--a significant expression branding such deeds as being
both bad in their source and in their results. Dark doings have
consequences tragic enough and certain enough, but they are barren of
all such issues as correspond to men's obligations and capacities. Their
outcome is like the growths on a tree, which are not fruit, but products
of disease. There is no fruit grown in the dark; there is no worthy
product from us unless Christ is our light. If He is, and we are
therefore 'light in the Lord,' we shall 'reprove' or 'convict' the
Christless life. Its sinfulness will be shown by the contrast with the
Christ-life. A thunder-cloud never looks so lividly black as when
smitten by sunshine.
Our lives ought to make evil things ashamed to show their ugly faces.
Christians should be, as it were, the incarnate conscience of a
community. The Apostle is not thinking so much of words as of deeds,
though words are not to be withheld when needful. The agent of reproof
is 'the light,' which here is the designation of character as
transformed by Jesus, and the process of reproof or conviction is simply
the manifestation of the evil in its true nature, which comes from
setting it in the beams of the light. To show sin as it is, is to
condemn it; 'for everything that is made manifest is light.' Observe
that Paul here speaks of 'light,' not 'the light,'--that is, he is
speaking now not of Christian character, which he had likened to light,
but of physical light to which he had likened it, and is backing up his
figurative statement as to the reproving and manifesting effects of the
former, by the plain fact as to the latter, that, when daylight shines
on anything, it is revealed, and, as it were, becomes light. He clenches
his exhortation by quoting probably an early Christian hymn, which
regards Christ as the great illuminator, ready to shine on all drowsy,
dark souls as soon as they stir and rouse themselves from drugged and
fatal sleep.
The second set of exhortations here is connected with the former by a
'therefore,' which refers to the whole preceding precept. Because the
Christian is to shake himself free from complicity with works of
darkness, and to be their living condemnation, he must take heed to his
goings. A climber on a glacier has to look to his feet, or he will slip
and fall down a crevasse, perhaps, from which he will never be drawn up.
Heedlessness is folly in such a world as this. '"Don't care" comes to
the gallows.' The temptation to 'go as you please' is strong in youth,
and it is easy to scoff at 'cold-blooded folks who live by rule,' but
they are the wise people, after all. A great element in that heedfulness
is a quick insight into the special duty and opportunity of the moment,
for life is not merely made up of hours, but each has its own particular
errand for us, and has some possibility in it which, neglected, may be
lost for ever.
The mystic solemnity of time is that it is made up of 'seasons.' We
shall walk heedfully in the degree in which we are awake to the moment's
meaning, and grasp opportunity by the forelock, or, as Paul says, 'buy
up the opportunity.' But wise heed to our walk is not enough, unless we
have a sure standard by which to regulate it. A man may take great care
of his watch, but unless he can compare it with a chronometer, or, as
they do in Edinburgh, pull out their watches when the one o'clock gun is
fired on a signal from Greenwich, he may be far out and not know it. So
the Apostle adds the one way to keep our lives right, and the one source
of true, practical wisdom--the 'understanding what the will of the Lord
is.' He will not go far wrong whose instinctive question, as each new
moment, with its solemn, animating possibilities, meets him, is, 'What
wilt Thou have me to do?' He will not be nearly right who does not first
of all ask that.
Then Paul comes to his precept of temperance. It naturally flows from
the preceding, inasmuch as a drunken man is as sure to be incapable of
taking heed to his conduct as of walking straight. He reels in both. He
is stone-blind to the meaning of the moments. He hears no call, though
the 'voice of the trumpet' may be 'exceeding loud,' and as for
understanding what the will of the Lord is, that is far beyond him. The
intoxication of an hour or the habit of drinking makes obedience to the
foregoing precepts impossible. This master vice carries all other vices
in its pocket.
Paul makes a daring, and, as some would think, an irreverent,
comparison, when he proposes being 'filled with the Spirit' as the
Christian alternative or substitute to being 'drunken with wine.' But
the daring comparison suggests deep truth. The spurious exhilaration,
the loosening of the bonds of care, the elevation above the pettiness
and monotony of daily life, which the drunkard seeks, and is degraded
and deceived in proportion as he momentarily finds, are all ours,
genuinely, nobly, and to our infinite profit, if we have our empty
spirits filled with that Divine Life. That exhilaration does not froth
away, leaving bitter dregs in the cup. That loosening of the bonds of
care, and elevation above life's sorrows, does not flow from foolish
oblivion of facts, nor end in their being again roughly forced on us.
'Riot' bellows itself hoarse, and is succeeded by corresponding
depression; but the calm joys of the Spirit-filled spirit last, grow,
and become calmer and more joyful every day.
The boisterous songs of boon companions are set in contrast with the
Christian 'psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,' which were already in
use, and a snatch from one of which Paul has just quoted.
Good-fellowship tempts men to drink together, and a song is a
shoeing-horn for a glass; but the _camaraderie_ is apt to end in blows,
and is a poor caricature of the bond knitting all who are filled with
the Spirit to one another, and making them willing to serve one another.
The roystering or maudlin geniality cemented by drink generally ends in
quarrels, as everybody knows that the truculent stage of intoxication
succeeds the effusively affectionate one. But they who have the Spirit
in them, and not only 'live in the Spirit,' but 'walk in the Spirit,'
esteem each the other better than themselves. In a word, to be filled
with the Spirit is the way to possess all the highest forms of the good
which men are tempted to intoxication to secure, and which in it they
find only for a moment, and which is coarse and unreal.