You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source, of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth.
14
Wherefore[dio] he saith,[lego] Awake thou
[egeiro] that sleepest,[katheudo] and[kai] arise[anistemi] from[ek] the dead,[nekros] and[kai] Christ[Christos] shall give[epiphausko]
thee[soi] light.[epiphausko] KJV-Interlinear
14 For this
reason it says, "Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will
shine on you." NASB
The phrase 'it says,' is a typical but general statement that refers to a commonly known fact.
When quoting scripture, generally the phrase used is 'it is written.' When a statement from God is stated, the comment used is generally 'thus says the Lord.'
But here Paul does not use a quote, but refers to a common truth, that should be widely known. Just as we all know that the sun rises in the east, or two plus two is four, even though we do not quote any written text, we simply take this as a stated truth, that everyone knows and accepts as truth.
Sleep and death are used here to symbolize the detachment of a person from truth.
When you are asleep, you are unconscious, inactive in life, not awake, not cognizant of the world around you.
When you are dead, you are separated completely from life, as it were.
But here both sleep and death are not used in a literal sense, but figuratively to indicate that if you are not functioning in the light of truth, which is Bible doctrine, then you are asleep, or worse yet, you are dead to the realities of truth. You are detached and completely removed or disconnected from life and reality.
So, Paul commands that you wake up, smell the coffee, stop acting like the dead, but get back with or rejoin the living as it were, and get your act together. This is what you tell someone who has their thinking messed up, that has their head on crooked, and needs a swift kick to the back side, in order to get them back on course in life.
And we do this, by listening, learning, studying daily, confessing whenever necessary, praying frequently, and otherwise functioning within our spiritual life as intended by God.
When you are asleep, you cannot function in life. When you are dead, you certainly cannot function.
Life without doctrine is like sleeping or like being dead. You have nothing, do nothing, are nothing.
And that is how most people are in this world. They are sleep-walking or dead-walking and going nowhere.
By ignoring, rejecting, or being indifferent toward doctrine, or trying to invent your own reality, then you and your life are no better than the life of a sleeping or dead person.
Only doctrine, when learned in the proper way, which is by means of a daily study while in fellowship, supplies all of the necessary ingredients for living a life completely and thoroughly to its fullest.
