¹⁴ Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.”

Verse 14 is God’s challenge for Christians to walk in the light.

¹⁴ Therefore

“Therefore” here refers to the entire argument from verse eight. Light dispels darkness wherever it finds it.

He says:

The quotation of this verse is an amalgamation of quotes from Isaiah (26:19; 51:17; 52:1; 60:1).

“Awake, you who sleep,

Christians are to awake from spiritual sleep due to their sin. Believers are to awake from slumbering in their sin without identifying it to themselves or before God. They are to alert themselves to their sin. We cannot confess sin without honestly admitting specific sin/s in our lives. Awaking to sin involves confession of sin (1 Jn 1:9).

Arise from the dead,

The “dead” here is the believer in temporal spiritual death. The believer is to repent of walking in darkness out of fellowship with the Lord. It is dangerous for a person who wants to walk with God to sleep in a state of sin. He can rise from temporal spiritual death by confession of his sin.

And Christ will give you light.”

Christ will shine on Christians and thereby enlighten others.

PRINCIPLE:

It is possible for Christians to experience temporal spiritual death (living out of fellowship with God).

APPLICATION:

It is possible for ongoing spiritual life to cease—for the Christian to experience temporal spiritual death. It is also possible to re-engage our temporal spiritual life by confession of sin and allowing the Holy Spirit to control our lives. When we do this we restore fellowship with God.

Living in sin is a state of death. The believer out of fellowship is like a moving carcass. He is a shell of spiritual life. When a Christian deals with sin in his life, God gives him light to walk in a greater way with the Lord. The first step to re-entering fellowship with God is to identify our sin.

Ro 13: ¹² 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.

Eph 5: ⁸ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light