Ephesians 5:9
“for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth”.
When the bible speaks of fruit most think “of the Spirit”. Today’s verse says, “fruit of the light”. I would say they are synonyms. Today’s verse says that the fruit consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth. We’ll focus on each of those words.
In Mark 10:18 says, ‘And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good, except God alone.”‘ We toss the word good around casually and apply it to many things, food, hikes, cars, people and so on. Jesus elevates that word and applies it to God.
The bible has a different view of people and their hearts. Jeremiah 17:9 says of us, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” This would surprise most readers. We, as christians, rarely view people this way. A common response of most would be to say, “I’m a good person.” Yes, but compared to God, no. So, we would conclude that goodness is to be of God.
The next word is righteousness. This is a relational term. To be in a right relationship. We run into the same issue with this word. Romans 3:10 says, ‘As it has been written: “There is none righteous, not even one.”‘ Outside of Christ that is true. However in Christ, God sees us through the lens of Jesus. Thus we are considered righteous. We have a right relationship with God.
We are to have righteous relationships with people. Jesus says in Matthew 5:23, 24, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and first go away, be reconciled to your brother; and then having come, offer your gift.” He’s saying we should pause our spiritual sacrifices until the relationship is right. This is a high priority. Many would think that spiritual service to God precedes this. He says, “No.”
The last word is truth. The romans focused much on truth. Pilate asked, “What is truth?”, when Jesus said He came to came to proclaim it. Individual philosophers would go down particular roads. John 14:6 says, ‘Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'” The truth is a person. It’s not a perspective or a set of teachings. He came to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin. When we accept Him as lord and savior we are walking in the truth.
These three words, goodness, righteousness and truth were our focus on the fruit of light.