'But now'

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” Ephesians 5:8
Throughout the book of Ephesians Paul draws contrasts between what we once were, “but now” what we have become. We were once dead in sin, ‘but now’ we are alive to God. We were once following the ways of our flesh and of the sinful world around us, ‘but now’ we are able to live godly lives by the Spirit. One idiom that sums all of these things up well is this verse: we were once darkness, ‘but now’ we are light in the Lord.
This verse is interesting in what it does not say. It does not say ‘you were once in darkness’, but ‘you were once darkness’ – we were not just in the darkness of the world (indeed, we still are; that is why we are commanded to let our light shine, Matt. 5:16), but we were part of its essence. We belonged to it and contributed to it. The contrast now: we are not merely ‘iin the light’ but we are light. See Matt. 5:14. Christ living in us is the light that we show to the world.
This is an amazing transformation: God makes us the antithesis of what we once were. We were darkness, but now we are light. We were dead in sins, but now we live in His righteousness. We were heading for hell, but now we are destined for heaven. We hated God, but now we love Him. We were lost, but now we are found; we were blind, but now we see.