What is a spiritual awakening?
Ephesians 5:14 breaks into the letter as a quoted summons — a voice calling a sleeper to get up, with the promise that Christ will shine on him. It raises the question of who is asleep, what the waking costs, and what the light is for.
Who the Call Is Addressed To
The wording sounds like a call to the spiritually dead, but one commentator points out that the promise attached to it is light, not life — which tells you the hearers already have life.
William KellyEphesians 5:14. The Scriptures alluded to seem to be Isaiah 52 and 60, but the application here is clearly to believers, slumbering among dead men or things, from which they are called to arise, so that Christ may give them light — not life, which would be their first need as unbelievers.
So the awakening here is not the start of the Christian life. It is a Christian being shaken out of a drift.
What Spiritual Sleep Looks Like
Sleep is not the same as scandal. A sleeping believer may be doing nothing obviously wrong, and that is exactly the danger.
J. N. Darby"Awake, O sleeper" — that is, looking at Christians, not committing sins, but gone to sleep in the world. In the world the people are all dead; but if a man goes to sleep, he is just as much alive as when awake, yet he is as good as dead. He does not hear, or speak, or think; he is like a dead man. Look at the Christian who is going along with the world — he is with the dead.
The test is not activity but responsiveness. A sleeper is present and silent.
The First Awakening: A Sinner Sees Himself
There is an earlier awakening, and the word is used for that too. It is the moment a person stops explaining himself and agrees with God's verdict.
William KellyWhen a sinner is awakened by the Holy Spirit to his own guilt and state before God, he owns this frankly, and justifies God in condemning himself, though crying for mercy which, to his adoring wonder, he finds already proclaimed to him in the gospel.
Writers describe this as painful but healthy — the pain itself is evidence that something living is at work.
The Christian's FriendNow, while this state of soul is always painful (and it often drives a man nearly to despair), it is healthy, a blessed thing. Wherever there is a clear sense of our position, there is the desire to go to God, even with the awareness of having no right to be there.
Awakening Is Not Yet Rest
Being awakened and being at peace are two different things, and confusing them leaves people stranded. One writer marks the gap with the son who came home in the story Jesus told.
J. N. DarbyIt is a very different thing to be converted and to be saved. Conversion is the conscience awakened, but not purged. The prodigal was converted when he thought of going to his father, but he was still in the far country, starving; even when the father met him, he was in his rags. When the best robe was put on him, he was saved.
Commentators differ on how long that gap normally lasts. Some note that many come into peace the very evening they are awakened, while others pass through long distress — and that such distress is not required for a conversion to be genuine.
Andrew MillerMany are brought into peace, perhaps the same evening that they are awakened... Others, instead of being brought into peace at once, continue for some time in distress and pass through deep exercise of soul. "But why is this?" our inquirer may ask. "Is this experience necessary to genuine conversion?" Certainly not.
What the Light Then Does
The promise is light, and light has a double effect: it exposes what is inside, and it makes the person who walks in it visible to others.
T. B. BainesThe light of God shining into the heart drives out the evil — not by changing the old nature, but by enabling us to judge it and its deeds... So where the rays of God's light are allowed to search the heart, there is real and deep judgment of evil, as well as practical separation from it... The believer not only walks in the light but, by doing so, becomes a source of light himself.
When a Whole Community Is Awakened
The word is also used of wider movements, where God stirs many at once. One commentator separates two things often lumped together: rousing sinners, and recalling God's own people.
William KellyA revival is more a work of awakening sinners, whereas this was a recall of the people of God as well to their place, away from idols and profanity. No doubt sinners were awakened, but there was a loud call to the people of God generally to hear the word of God instead of settling down in their own decline and dishonour.
The mark of the real thing is not volume.
Hamilton SmithIn every true revival the people of God, if led by the Spirit, will be marked by prayer and confession rather than by shouting and celebration. The more noise and display, the less there is of God in any movement among His people.
Summary
- Sleep — A sleeping believer isn't necessarily sinning; he is alive but unresponsive, keeping company with the dead by going along with the world.
- Waking — Awakening is God's Spirit making a person see himself honestly, whether that is a sinner owning his guilt or a Christian roused from drift.
- Light — The promise attached to the call is light, not life: it exposes evil, produces real separation from it, and turns the believer into a light himself.
- Rest — An awakened conscience is not yet a purged one; like the son still in his rags, a stirred soul needs Christ before it has peace.
- Spread — What happens in one heart can spread to many, but the test of a true awakening is prayer and confession, not noise.