“Therefore He says: ‘Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light’” (Ephesians 5:14).
The word “therefore” indicates the apostle Paul has reached a conclusion and seeks to make an exhortation/application based upon the things written immediately prior to this verse.
Since he is addressing “the saints who are in Ephesus” (1:1), the sleep and arising from the dead under consideration would have to be rousing oneself from spiritual lethargy and apathy. A similar call to spiritual vigor and alertness was made by the apostle Paul in Romans where it is written, “And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light” (13:11-12).
Since you are to walk in love, WAKE UP! and live as an imitator of the Holy God, and not as sons of disobedience.
Since you are to walk as children of light, WAKE UP! and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Expose them instead.
As a child of God, the need to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age is pressing and urgent; therefore, WAKE UP! Spiritual sleepwalking does not get the job done.
“Therefore He says: ‘Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.’ See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
