The words of the apostle Paul may seem strange. Can a person imitate God, the Almighty, All-Knowing One who surpasses every human understanding?..
The words of the apostle Paul may seem strange. Can a person imitate God, the Almighty, All-Knowing One who surpasses every human understanding? God, who created heaven and earth? But in the second verse the apostle Paul explains that he is speaking about another kind of imitation.
Would a son who wants to be like his father copy the color of his eyes, his height, his shoe size - inborn qualities that belong to his father's nature? Of course not: he would try to imitate his character, his way of thinking and acting, the way his father builds his relationships with other people...
So it is with our imitation of God: the apostle calls us to love others as our Heavenly Father loves us. The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, in His earthly self-emptying, says that whoever has seen Him has seen the Father - but not because He imitates His invisibility or boundlessness. The main thing in God is love, and it is precisely in this that we can become like Him as beloved children, as His beloved Son does.
5
5:1 Be ye therefore followers - Imitators. Of God - In forgiving and loving. O how much more honourable and more happy, to be an imitator of God, than of Homer, Virgil, or Alexander the Great!
5:3 But let not any impure love be even named or heard of among you - Keep at the utmost distance from it, as becometh saints.
5:4 Nor foolish talking - Tittle tattle, talking of nothing, the weather, fashions, meat and drink. Or jesting - The word properly means, wittiness, facetiousness, esteemed by the heathens an half - virtue.But how frequently even this quenches the Spirit, those who are tender of conscience know. Which are not convenient - For a Christian; as neither increasing his faith nor holiness.
5:6 Because of these things - As innocent as the heathens esteem them, and as those dealers in vain words would persuade you to think them.
5:8 Ye were once darkness - Total blindness and ignorance.Walk as children of light - Suitably to your present knowledge.
5:9 The fruit of the light - Opposite to " the unfruitful works of darkness," Eph 4:11.Is in - That is, consists in. Goodness and righteousness and truth - Opposite to the sins spoken of, Eph 4:25,etc
5:11 Reprove them - To avoid them is not enough.
5:12 In secret - As flying the light.
5:13 But all things which are reproved, are thereby dragged out into the light, and made manifest - Shown in their proper colours, by the light. For whatsoever doth make manifest is light - That is, for nothing but light, yea, light from heaven, can make anything manifest.
5:14 Wherefore he - God. Saith - In the general tenor of his word, to all who are still in darkness. Awake thou that steepest - In ignorance of God and thyself; in stupid insensibility.And arise from the dead - From the death of sin. And Christ shall give thee light - Knowledge, holiness, happiness.
5:15 Circumspectly - Exactly, with the utmost accuracy, getting to the highest pitch of every point of holiness. Not as fools - Who think not where they are going, or do not make the best of their way.
5:16 With all possible care redeeming the time - Saving all you can for the best purposes; buying every possible moment out of the hands of sin and Satan; out of the hands of sloth, ease, pleasure, worldly business; the more diligently, because the present are evil days, days of the grossest ignorance, immorality, and profaneness.
5:17 What the will of the Lord is - In every time, place, and circumstance.
5:18 Wherein is excess - That is, which leads to debauchery of every kind. But be ye filled with the Spirit - In all his graces, who gives a more noble pleasure than wine can do.
5:19 Speaking to each other - By the Spirit. In the Psalms - Of David. And hymns - Of praise. And spiritual songs - On any divine subject. By there being no inspired songs, peculiarly adapted to the Christian dispensation, as there were to the Jewish, it is evident that the promise of the Holy Ghost to believers, in the last days, was by his larger effusion to supply the lack of it. Singing with your hearts - As well as your voice. To the Lord - Jesus, who searcheth the heart.
5:20 Giving thanks - At all times and places. And for all things - Prosperous or adverse, since al] work together for good.In the name of, or through, our Lord Jesus Christ - By whom we receive all good things.