m.

I. Aim at an all-round productiveness of the natural fruits of the
light.

The true reading is, 'Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the
light' (not _spirit_, as the Authorised Version reads it) 'is in all
goodness and righteousness and truth.' Now, it is obvious that the
alteration of 'light' instead of 'spirit' brings the words into
connection with the preceding and the following. The reference to the
'fruits of the spirit' would be entirely irrelevant in this place; a
reference to the 'fruit of the _light_,' as being every form of goodness
and righteousness and truth, is altogether in place.

There is, then, a natural tendency in the light to blossom out into all
forms and types of goodness. 'Fruit' suggests the idea of natural,
silent, spontaneous, effortless growth. And, although that is by no
means a sufficient account of the process by which bad men become good
men, it is an inseparable element, in all true moral renovation, that it
be the natural outcome and manifestation of an inward principle;
otherwise it is mere hypocritical adornment, or superficial appearance.
If we are to do good we must first of all _be_ good. If from us there
are to come righteousness and truth, and all other graces of character,
there must, first of all, be the radical change which is involved in
passing from separateness in the darkness to union with Jesus Christ in
the light. The Apostle's theory of moral renovation is that you must
begin with the implantation in the spirit of the source of all moral
goodness--viz. Jesus Christ--brought into the heart by the uniting power
of humble faith. And then there will be lodged in our being a vital
power, of which the natural outcome will be all manner of fair and pure
things. Effort is needed, as I shall have to say; but prior to effort
there must be union with Jesus Christ.

This wide, general commandment of our text is sufficiently definite,
thinks Paul; for if the light be in you it will naturally effloresce
into all forms of beauty. Light is the condition of fruitfulness.
Everywhere the vital germ is only acted upon by the light. No sunshine,
no flowers; darkness produces thin, etiolated, whitened, and feeble
shoots at the best. Let the light blaze in, and the blanched feebleness
becomes vigorous and unfolds itself. How much more will light be the
condition of fruitfulness when the very light itself is the seed from
which all fruit is developed.

But, still further, mark