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He saith; either God by the prophets, of whose preaching this is the sum; it may allude in particular to Isa_60:1. Or, Christ by his ministers, in the preaching of the gospel, who daily calls men to arise from the death of sin by repentance, and encourageth them with the promise of eternal life.
Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead; the same thing in two different expressions. Sinners in some respects are said to be asleep, in others, to be dead. They are as full of dreams and vain imaginations, and as unfit for any good action, as they that are asleep are for natural; and they are as full of stench and loathsomeness as they that are dead. Here therefore they are bid to awake from sin as a sleep, and to arise from it as a death. The meaning is, that they should arise by faith and repentance out of that state of spiritual death in which they lie while in their sins.
And Christ shall give thee light; the light of peace and joy here, and eternal glory hereafter. The apostle intimates, that what is the way of Christ in the gospel should likewise be the practice of these Ephesians, whom he calls light in the Lord, viz. to reprove the unfruitful works of darkness, and awaken sleeping, dead sinners, and bring them to the light of Christ.