I am currently reading (along with some other things) the sermons of Alexander Maclaren on Ephesians. Maclaren was a powerful 19th Century expositor and close friend of Spurgeon. The two stood together in the “Downgrade Controversy.”

He tends to be more exegetically focused than Spurgeon and his expositions are exceedingly rich. There are 32 volumes of his expositions to be had – covering 64 of the 66 books of our Bibles. Oh for more time!

I would gladly post his entire sermon on this passage, but so that you get a taste for his balance and clarity – offer just this sweet excerpt. Listen to how he handles the interplay of goodness, righteousness and truth as the fruit of The Light (Jesus) in the life of the Believer.

Enjoy!

“Now, all these three types of excellence—kindliness, righteousness, truthfulness—are apt to be separated. For the first of them—amiability, kindliness, gentle-ness-is apt to become too soft, to lose its grip of righteousness, and it needs the tonic of the addition of those other graces, just as you need lime in water if it is to make bone. Righteousness, on the other hand, is apt to become stern, and needs the softening of goodness to make it human and attractive. The rock is grim when it is bare; it wants verdure to drape it if it is to be lovely. Truth needs kindliness and righteousness, and they need truth. For there are men who pride themselves on ‘speaking out,’ and take rudeness and want of regard for other people’s sensitive feelings to be sincerity. And, on the other hand, it is possible that amiability may be sweeter than truth is, and that righteousness may be hypocritical and insincere. So Paul says, ‘Let this white light be resolved in the prism of your characters into the threefold rays of kindliness, righteousness, truthfulness.’”

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ephesians (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2009), 292–293.