Ephesians; 1:5 – The adopted sons are sons of light consisting of goodness, righteousness, and truth, part 3.

Thursday April 25, 2019

 

EPH 5:7 Therefore do not be partakers with them [unbelievers];

 

EPH 5:8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light

 

EPH 5:9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth),

 

Goodness - a heart overcome by the love of God.

 

Righteousness - God’s character, the root of all goodness.

 

Guided by divine righteousness, goodness done by the believer is divine good and not human sentimentality or ritual.

 

Truth - the inward reality and depth of goodness and righteousness. It is the harmony of the inward and outward man.

 

Truth is more than telling the truth. The world expects that in all people. This is the light of all of God’s truth shining through them. What they know and believe is from God’s revelation and that truth also corresponds with their behavior, speech, and action.

 

The truth is alive and powerful. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The truth also makes one free. The truth instructs in righteousness and also corrects and reproves. If we say that we have the truth but don’t speak, think, act, and conduct ourselves in the truth, then we have not believed the truth.

 

We are forced to consider the subject of light when we think of the truth, for only the children of light can behold the truth. The truth sets us free for the truth is of the light. No one conceals the truth unless they are ashamed of it. Nothing has to protect the truth for it is indestructible.

 

The truth raises divine virtue in us which supersedes hope of reward and fear of punishment. 

 

The hope of reward and the fear of punishment are rightly used until the inward disposition of virtue grows; but if a religion has only these two as the chief and only motives, its people will never have divine virtue.

 

A believer may seek the truth for any number of reasons. At the beginning of his spiritual journey he has little virtue, if any, and so how noble could his reasons be? He may seek the truth to escape from the terrible decisions that are causing him pain, but when he finds the truth, his motivation will not longer be reward, but simply a love of the truth.

 

1JO 2:4 The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;

 

1JO 2:5 but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:

 

1JO 2:6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

 

Was the manner of Christ’s walk for reward or for avoidance of punishment? No.

 

JOH 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.

 

JOH 14:24 "He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.

 

If our only motivation was material reward, on earth or in heaven, or the avoidance of divine discipline, we would never become virtuous. We lose our lives for Jesus sake.

 

PSA 40:1 For the choir director. A Psalm of David.

 

I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me, and heard my cry.

 

PSA 40:2 He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay; And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.

 

PSA 40:3 And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear, And will trust in the Lord.

 

PSA 40:4 How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.

 

PSA 40:5 Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which Thou hast done, And Thy thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with Thee; If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.

 

Now David, knowingly or not, begins a prophecy of his coming Son Jesus, which is recorded in HEB 10:5-10.

 

PSA 40:6 Sacrifice and meal offering Thou hast not desired; My ears Thou hast opened [Hebrew: karah = to dig out. To bore out or open the ear with the truth]; Burnt offering and sin offering Thou hast not required.

 

“has opened” - karah = to dig out. If a slave voluntarily served his master, a hole was bored out of his ear. The ear is a picture of obedience to the truth, which Christ perfectly exhibited.

 

PSA 40:7 Then I said, "Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me;

 

PSA 40:8 I delight to do Thy will, O my God; Thy Law is within my heart."

 

So the Divine Word testified His desire to become the Father's servant by voluntarily assuming a human body, in order to offer the one only expiatory sacrifice which the Father desired, and of which all other 'sacrifices' were but shadowy types, having in themselves nothing acceptable to God.

 

God opened Messiah's internal ear - i.e., framed Him as the sinless man, willing to offer such a wonderful proof of obedience.

 

HEB 5:2

Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.

 

In the scroll of the book it is written of Him, but not just His existence or His coming, but what He would be and what He would do. He enters the world voluntarily to do all that is written in the book about Him. He comes in order to be perfectly obedient to the word - to the truth.

 

JOH 17:4

“I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do.”

 

PSA 40:8 I delight to do Thy will, O my God; Thy Law is within my heart."

 

The New Covenant in His blood:

 

JER 31:33

“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

 

Old Testament believers, in some measure, had the law in their heart. It was commanded that they do so. Yet, the fullness of the Spirit, whereby the law of Christ was written in the hearts of God's people (JER 31:33), was reserved for the times of the Gospel of Jesus, in whose heart first, as man, the law was perfectly written.

 

PSA 40:9 I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation; Behold, I will not restrain my lips, O Lord, Thou knowest.

 

PSA 40:10 I have not hidden Thy righteousness within my heart; I have spoken of Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation; I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth from the great congregation.

 

Proclaiming righteousness and truth are glad tidings. It is not hidden or disguised or dressed up some way to make it more attractive.

 

The truth sets us free for the truth is of the light. No one conceals the truth unless they are ashamed of it. Nothing has to protect the truth for it is indestructible.

 

In the beginning was the Word. The Word was God. The Word created the world. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. They tried to kill the Word and thought they had succeeded, but the Word rose again and now sits at the right hand of God until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. Nothing has to protect the truth. The truth is indestructible.  

 

Having the truth, we have nothing to hide. We are of the day, not the night.