Charles Ellicott Commentary Ephesians 5:9

"(for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth)," — Ephesians 5:9 (ASV)

For the fruit . . .—The true reading is of the Light, for which the easier phrase, “the fruit of the Spirit,” has been substituted, to the great detriment of the force and coherence of the whole passage. Light has its fruits; darkness is unfruitful. The metaphor is striking but literally correct, since light is the necessary condition for the vegetative life that grows and yields fruit, while darkness is the destruction—if not of life itself, then at least of fruit-bearing perfection.

Goodness and righteousness and truth.—These are practical expressions of being true in love, described in Ephesians 4:15 as the characteristic of the Christ-like soul. For goodness is love in practical benevolence, forming, in Galatians 5:22, a climax to longsuffering and kindness, and, in 2 Thessalonians 1:11, distinguished as practical from the faith which underlies practice. The other two qualities, righteousness and truth—that is, probably, truthfulness—are both parts of the great principle of being true.