Ephesians 5:9

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 coherency of the whole passage. Light has its fruits; darkness (see Ephesians 5:11) is “unfruitful.” The metaphor is striking, but literally correct, inasmuch as light is the necessary condition of that vegetative life which grows and yields fruit, while darkness is the destruction, if not of life, at any rate of fruit-bearing perfection.

Goodness and righteousness and truth. — These are practical exhibitions of the “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.”