For the fruit of the light is in all goodness and justice and truth:
ο γαρ καρπος του πνευματος εν παση αγαθωσυνη και δικαιοσυνη και αληθεια
8 Church Fathers comment on this verse
As if explaining to us who the child of light is, he says: the one who has the fruit of the Spirit. For the Spirit produces fruits, not those of which we spoke above, but their opposites. These are goodness, which is opposed to irritation and anger; righteousness, which is opposed to covetousness; and truth, which is opposed to the false pleasure of impurity. He speaks of all goodness, meaning goodness toward all, not only friends, but even enemies.
We set forth this testimony against Marcion, who separates the God of righteousness from the good God. He says that the Creator is just, while another, I know not whom, whose Son is the Christ Who came, is only the good God.
Yet the fruit of light appears not only in goodness, but also in righteousness and truth. Therefore where goodness is, there is also justice. And where justice is, there is consequently truth.
Therefore the good Father of Christ, as they themselves confess, possesses truth and goodness. Where goodness and truth are, there also, in the same one and not in another, is justice, as the Apostle now teaches.
Let Marcion also understand that Christ Himself is called goodness, truth, and justice. He is goodness because He grants grace to believers not according to works, but according to mercy.
He is righteousness in that He renders to each one what he deserves. Finally, He is truth in that He alone knows the causes of all creatures and things.
Saint Paul teaches us how to be enlightened and illumined by the light of Christ when he says: “Walk as children of light, for the spiritual fruit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.”
The Apostle repeats these same words elsewhere: “Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the Gospel of peace” (Eph 6:14-15).
By the word “truth” one must understand the commandment concerning love for God: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37), and “with all your strength” (Lk 10:27).
And again: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Mt 10:37).
If divine love is so jealous that it permits one to love even father and mother only in measure, and not beyond measure, then the Apostle does not command us without reason to gird our loins with truth.
He commands this so that we may not sin against love for God through inappropriate love for others, especially impure love. For chastity in humble-mindedness is dearer to God than all else.
By the word “righteousness” is meant the commandment concerning love for one’s neighbor: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:39).
Since this commandment is not always easy to fulfill, the Apostle commands us to put on the breastplate of righteousness. That means not to be angry, not to condemn, not to envy, to endure offenses, reproaches, and humiliations.
It means to love enemies, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who harm and persecute us.
By the words “fruit of goodness” and “Gospel of peace” are signified kindness, simplicity toward one’s neighbor, and every benevolence and friendliness. As it is said: “Have peace and holiness with all” (Heb 12:14).
“Seek peace and pursue it.” Or as the Church now sings: “By the Resurrection let us forgive all things to one another.”
Since he said, “Walk as children of light” (Eph 5:8), he shows, by way of addition, what the works are of those enlightened by the All-Holy Spirit. He calls them the fruit of the Spirit, because people accomplish them by His grace.
When he wrote to the Galatians, he listed nine fruits of the Holy Spirit. “For the spiritual fruit,” he said, “is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control” (Gal 5:22-23).
But when writing to the Ephesians, he shortened the fruits to only three: “in all goodness and righteousness and truth.”
First, notice here the relation in which the number three stands to nine. From three comes nine, and three is the root of nine.
Second, note that he added “in all” to the three fruits, in order to reveal that the practice of these three great virtues contains the others as well.
For when we live “in all goodness,” doing good to friends and enemies, and “in all righteousness,” wronging neither ourselves by committing sin nor our neighbor by injustice and domination, and in all “truth,” speaking the truth of faith and being truthful in every word and deed, then we love, rejoice, are at peace, and are longsuffering.
Then we become kind, merciful, faithful, meek, and self-controlled.
The calling of Christians (Eph 5:8-10), who, "as children of light, must bear the fruits of the Spirit in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, testing what alone is pleasing to God."
The Apostle indicates a new impulse toward virtue in the brightness of Christianity and the darkness of paganism. They differ from one another as light differs from darkness.
According to blessed Theodoret, the Apostle speaks to the Ephesians as if saying: “Remember what you were and what you have become: from darkness, light.
Formerly, both in doctrines, that is, in your way of thinking and believing, and in life, you were real darkness. But now you are light. You know the true God and perform the works of light.
This came to pass with you not by your virtue, but in the Lord, that is, by divine grace. Therefore you must no longer become partakers with the sons of disobedience, upon whom the wrath of God is coming. Do not run back into darkness.”
What, then, does it mean to walk as children of light? It means to walk in goodness, righteousness, and truth.
When these dwell in us by the grace of the Holy Spirit, they drive out all the passions. For they are active powers, not passive qualities. By them, in general, the state of dispassion and purity is defined.
Goodness embraces all love. Righteousness embraces every righteousness, allowing nothing unrighteous, not only in deed and word, but even in thought.
Since one cannot live rightly and lovingly without knowledge of the truth, one may also understand this as the knowledge of truth. This grace-filled knowledge illumines all the paths of life.
It shows what must be done, and how, in each case, so that one may act in a way pleasing to God. Yet there is nothing unfitting in accepting here, with Chrysostom, that this points to the taste of true good in the Lord, in contrast to deceptive sensual pleasures” (Right Reverend Theophan).
For children of light, the symbol of purity, holiness, and good, it is unfitting to be companions of the children of darkness. As those born of light, Christians must live a luminous, that is, a holy life. This is especially so because such a life bears majestic fruits. It is revealed in every kind of goodness, by which a person becomes like the all-good God. It is revealed in righteousness, opposed to incontinence and covetousness, and in truth, opposed to pagan falsehood and deception.
This answers someone who might ask: what does it mean to walk as children of light? It means to walk in goodness, righteousness, and truth.
Those in whom the Spirit dwells and acts naturally walk in this way. These are precisely the children of light, born of God, Who is light. Therefore to indicate the fruits of the Spirit is the same as indicating how the children of light walk.
The children of light are those born of the Spirit and filled with the Spirit. Where the Spirit is, there is life in goodness, righteousness, and truth. Consequently, whoever is a child of light walks in this way and not otherwise.
Saint Chrysostom says: “Here he explains what it means to walk as children of light, and says: in all goodness, against the angry and harsh; and righteousness, against the covetous; and truth, against false pleasure.”
Thus, according to Saint Chrysostom, followed by Oecumenius and Theophylact, goodness, righteousness, and truth dwell in us by the grace of the Holy Spirit and drive out all the passions.
Or they dwell in us on the condition that the passions, about which the Apostle has written until now, have been driven out. Once established, they begin to act in place of them. For they are active powers, not passive qualities.
If goodness, righteousness, and truth are established where the passions have been banished, then clearly the state of dispassion and purity is defined by them.
What goodness, righteousness, and truth mean exactly may be explained differently from our commentators. Yet one cannot reinterpret the fact that they are implanted in place of the passions and themselves embrace the whole bright, Godlike life.
The meaning of each of these root virtues is clear from its very name. Goodness embraces all love. Righteousness embraces every righteousness, permitting nothing unrighteous, not only in deed and word, but even in thought.
Love and righteousness are the clearest representatives of likeness to God, for God is love and righteousness itself. What does truth signify?
Since one cannot live rightly and lovingly without knowledge of the truth, this may be understood as knowledge of truth. This knowledge is grace-filled. It illumines all the paths of life.
It indicates what must be done, and how, in each circumstance, so that one may act in a way pleasing to God.
Yet there is nothing unfitting in accepting, together with Saint Chrysostom, that here he points to the taste of the true good in the Lord, in contrast to deceptive sensual pleasures.
Those who commune with the Lord taste that the Lord is good, and they are assured that only in this tasting is their true good. This assurance, with constant tasting of the good things from the Lord, becomes the true and firm support of spiritual life.
It does not allow one to notice the privations connected with that life. Like a stream, sweet and true good flows into the heart from life according to God, when one tastes how good the Lord is.
If one enters into details about what goodness, righteousness, and truth are, one may build an entire system of Christian moral teaching. One may present the full bright image of the life of the sons of light.
Whoever desires may be guided in this by what the Longer Catechism and the Orthodox Confession say in explanation of the Beatitudes: blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; blessed are the merciful; and blessed are the pure in heart.
But it seems that the holy Apostle wished to embrace all this in one word when he says next.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 12 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS