Joh 12:36, Eph 5:8, 1Th 5:5 | JFB | STEP | 35-36. Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, &c.-- Instead of answering their question, He warns them, with mingled majesty and tenderness, against trifling with their last brief opportunity, and entreats them to let in the Light while they have it in the midst of them, that they themselves might be "light in the Lord." In this case, all the clouds which hung around His Person and Mission would speedily be dispelled, while if they continued to hate the light, bootless were all His answers to their merely speculative or captious questions. (See on ).

‏ John 12:36

35-36. Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, &c.--Instead of answering their question, He warns them, with mingled majesty and tenderness, against trifling with their last brief opportunity, and entreats them to let in the Light while they have it in the midst of them, that they themselves might be "light in the Lord." In this case, all the clouds which hung around His Person and Mission would speedily be dispelled, while if they continued to hate the light, bootless were all His answers to their merely speculative or captious questions. (See on Lu 13:23).

‏ Ephesians 5:8

8. sometimes--"once." The emphasis is on "were." Ye ought to have no fellowship with sin, which is darkness, for your state as darkness is now PAST. Stronger than "in darkness" (Ro 2:19).

light--not merely "enlightened"; but light enlightening others (Ep 5:13).

in--in union with the Lord, who is THE LIGHT.

children of light--not merely "of the light"; just as "children of disobedience" is used on the opposite side; those whose distinguishing characteristic is light. Pliny, a heathen writing to Trajan, bears unwilling testimony to the extraordinary purity of Christians' lives, contrasted with the people around them.

‏ 1 Thessalonians 5:5

5. The oldest manuscripts read, "FOR ye are all," &c. Ye have no reason for fear, or for being taken by surprise, by the coming of the day of the Lord: "For ye are all sons (so the Greek) of light and sons of day"; a Hebrew idiom, implying that as sons resemble their fathers, so you are in character light (intellectually and morally illuminated in a spiritual point of view), Lu 16:8; Joh 12:36.

are not of--that is, belong not to night nor darkness. The change of person from "ye" to "we" implies this: Ye are sons of light because ye are Christians; and we, Christians, are not of night nor darkness.