Ephesians 5:7Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” This happened to you, he says, not because of your virtue, but by the grace of God. That is, you too were once worthy of the same things, but no longer.

Further, the soul that has received the luminous word of truth itself becomes light and hears from Paul: “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.”

When the soul is permeated by the Gospel word, it is called light according to faith, and likewise according to works. “Let your light so shine,” says the Lord, “before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Mt 5:16).

It is necessary that one who has received the light of faith should also do the works of light. The soul of the faithful must not only be light; he must also shine before men by his works.

Therefore the Savior says: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Mt 5:16).

And here is something marvelous: the light that comes from God is simple, but its rays are diverse, not in nature, of course, but in operation.

The enlightening teaching of God is sent to every faithful soul, according to what is said: “Let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us” (Ps 89:17), so that our works may be set right before Him.

This brightness is one in itself, but by manifesting itself in us it produces many brightnesses: the brightness of almsgiving, the brightness of chastity, the brightness of hospitality, and the brightness of love.

With God the brightness is one. In us it seems to sparkle and shimmer in varied hues, illumining one with the gift of prophecy, kindling in another the fire of apostleship, and granting another the radiance of martyrdom.

There the brightness is one, but in us there are many, as it is said: “With You is dominion in the day of Your power, in the brightnesses of Your saints” (Ps 109:3).

“Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your participants” (Ps 44:8). And elsewhere: “For we have become participants of Christ, if indeed we hold the beginning of substance, substantiae, firm to the end” (Heb 3:14).

I do not remember reading the word fellow partaker anywhere except in the present passage. Yet it is clear that here it is not used in a good sense, but in the opposite sense.

Thus those must conduct themselves who pledge themselves to be zealous for every purity. They have been placed in a state of purity and have received the powers to preserve it and live in it.

“Holiness is the heart’s fulfillment with all the virtues. Yet it is witnessed chiefly by purity from fleshly impulses and sympathies.” “In all the holy ascetics we find the indication that idle speech and buffoonery stand in direct connection with desire.

To quench the desire of the flesh and the eyes, he, the Apostle, sets before them the danger of losing the Kingdom of Heaven because of these things. He offers, as it were, a choice between the momentary sweetness of desire and eternal blessedness in the Kingdom of Christ.

The extortioner is characterized by a special and weighty trait: he is an idolater. In the Epistle to the Colossians he also calls covetousness idolatry (3:5).

Every passion is indeed such that, when it overcomes someone, it wholly swallows him up. For this reason the Apostle also called the belly a god (Phil 3:19).

Yet attachment to riches has a special trait that places the one possessed by it in the same line as idolaters. This trait is trust in wealth. But one must expect everything from God and rest all one’s hopes in Him.”

“Ephesus was full of diverse schools and communities. Among them, the Epicureans did not judge fornication strictly, just as among the Jews the Sadducees did not. The Apostle, of course, knew this. He knew what these vain talkers could say.

Without entering into a detailed examination of their vain speech, he cuts off the temptation with one word: see to it that, whatever anyone may say against this apostolic teaching, you are not deceived.”

“Be afraid, he says, lest through opposition to the truth and indulgence toward impurity you become like them, the disobedient. If you allow this, you will share their lot. And their lot is the fire of judgment and torment” (Right Reverend Theophan).

Do this so that you may keep yourselves pure, not only from lustful deeds, but also from feelings and thoughts. We see in ascetic writings that there is no more powerful means for driving away assaults of desire than remembrance of judgment.

Some advise standing at the judgment and not turning one’s thoughts away from it. This keeps one in fear, which consumes everything impure.

The Apostle commands those who struggle with the passions to keep two most stirring images in mind and heart. The first is the image of the Lord crucified for us on the Cross, to quench all evil movements born from the soul’s irascible power.

The second is the image of the dread judgment, to quench the passionate movements of desire. By them every passion is driven from the soul.

By them also, when the good intention to please God has been established in the soul, even the very arising of passions is prevented. Whoever has them mingled with his consciousness has entered the realm of dispassion.

The state of dispassion brings one near to the all-perfection of God, or to the brightness of God. When God created man according to His image, He placed in him all His excellences that the creature, man, could contain.

After the fall, these excellences were darkened, covered, and distorted by the passions, which entered with selfhood, the source of the fall.

In Christ Jesus, the grace that enters restores our spirit, in which the image of God is found. It teaches it and helps it to drive out of human nature all the passions that darken it.

It lays as the foundation of this expulsion the trampling down of selfhood through self-denial. This is the first step in following Christ.

When the passions are driven out, human nature enters into the divine perfection predestined for it, into likeness to God. “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 Jn 1:5).

This expresses His most perfect all-perfection. And when man enters into likeness to God, or partakes of the divine perfections, or tastes the divine excellences, he is called one who enters into God’s light and is clothed in it.

In reality, he then becomes light. This is precisely what the holy Apostle now begins to discuss.

Until now he has led the Christian into battle with the passions that proceed from anger and desire. He has brought him to the state of dispassion, pure and bright with divine brightness.

Now, turning the attention of Christians themselves to this change accomplished in them, he speaks to them as if saying: you were darkness, but now you have become light.

Beginning with this word, he then depicts the brightness of active Christian life in itself (vv. 8-10), and its light-bearing power for all who have not partaken of the light of Christ (vv. 11-14).

The Lord said something similar to the Apostles: “You are the light.” Be a lamp for all (Mt 5:14-16).