Charles Hodge on Ephesians 5:14

V. 14. As light is thus efficacious, and as it is accessible, or may be obtained, therefore the Scriptures call even upon the sleeping and the dead to arise and meet its life-giving beams. Διὸ λέγει, scil. ἡ γραφή. As this formula of quotation is never used in the New Testament except when citations are made from the Old Testament, it cannot properly be assumed that the apostle here quotes some Christian hymn with which the believers in Ephesus were familiar; or some apocryphal book; or some inspired book no longer extant. We must understand him either as referring to many exhortations of the Old Testament Scriptures, the substance of which he condenses in the few words here used; or as giving the spirit of some one passage, though not its words. Both these methods of explanation may be sustained by appeal to similar passages. The apostles in quoting the Old Testament sometimes combined several passages in the same quotation—and sometimes give as the teaching of the prophets what is nowhere taught or asserted in express terms, but is abundantly or clearly implied in what they say. At other times again, the reference is obviously to some one passage, and yet neither the Hebrew nor Septuagint is accurately followed, but the general idea is reproduced. We without the authority and divine guidance of the apostles deal in the same way with the word of God, of which almost every sermon would furnish examples. It is generally assumed that Paul here refers to Is. 60, 1, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." Or, as De Wette renders it; "Auf, werde licht, denn es kommt dein Licht, und die Herrlichkeit Jehovah’s gehet iiber dir auf." Up, become light; for thy light comes, and the glory of Jehovah riseth over thee. The analogy between this passage and the quotation of the apostle is plain. There are in both—1. The call to those who are asleep or dead to rise. 2. To receive the light. 3. The promise that Jehovah, Lord, or Christ, equivalent terms in the mind of the apostle, would give them light. There can, therefore, be little doubt that it was the language of Isaiah Paul intended in substance to quote. Beza thinks that Is. 26, 19, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust," &c., is to be included in the reference; and others join Is. 9, 2, "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." It is true that in these, as well as in other passages, the power of light, i. e. of divine truth, its advent in the person of Christ, and the call to those who are in darkness to accept it, are included. But the probability is that Is. 60, 1, was the passage most distinctly in the apostle’s

Those asleep and the dead are in darkness, and therefore those involved in spiritual darkness are addressed as sleeping. The light which comes from Christ has power to reach even the dead—as our Lord, in the use of another figure, says, "The hour is coming, and now is, that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live," John 5, 25. This does not mean that the dead must be revived before they hear the voice of the Son of God, but his voice causes them to hear and live. So the passage before us does not mean that those asleep must arise from the dead and come to Christ for light; but that the light which Christ sheds around him, has power to awake the sleeping dead. Thus the passage is a confirmation of what is said in the preceding verse, viz., that every thing made manifest by the light, is light.