Ephesians 6:23-24 records Paul’s blessing: “Peace to the brothers and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility.” These verses indicate that we may experience and enjoy Christ as the source of peace, love with faith, and grace, and that for us to love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility, we need peace, love, faith, and grace.
Christ is the source of peace, love with faith, and grace for the church life. In the beginning of the book, the apostle’s greeting is first with grace as the enjoyment and then with peace as the result of the enjoyment (1:2). But in the conclusion the elements are presented vice versa, progressing from the result, peace, to the enjoyment, grace. In other words, after we have come into peace, we still need grace. We first enter into peace through grace. Now as we are enjoying peace, we need even more grace. This is grace upon grace; it also indicates that our experience is from grace to grace.
The reason the apostle inserted love between peace and grace here in the conclusion is that the only way we can be kept in a situation of peace is by continually enjoying the Lord in love. Paul realized that love is crucial. He spoke of love in relation to peace and grace, indicating thereby that love is needed to preserve us in a condition of peace.
According to verse 23 of chapter 6, love is from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The point here is that love originates with God, not with us. Eventually, however, God’s love becomes our love. This is the reason Paul in verse 24 speaks of those who love our Lord Jesus Christ. God’s love for us becomes our love for Him. Peace is maintained by this kind of love. By living in the intimacy of God’s presence, love comes to us. This love then returns to the Lord and becomes our love for Him. By this traffic of love, peace is maintained, and we are preserved in the enjoyment of grace, which is needed for us to live a church life that fulfills God’s eternal purpose and solves God’s problem with His enemy.
Love with faith is the means by which we partake of and experience Christ (1 Tim. 1:14). Faith is for receiving Him (John 1:12), and love is for enjoying Him (14:23). In the Gospel of John we are told first to believe in the Son in order to have eternal life (3:15). To believe in the Lord Jesus is to receive Him. The Gospel of John also emphasizes love. In chapter 21 the Lord asks Peter concerning his love for Him (vv. 15-17). Furthermore, in 14:23 the Lord speaks of the Father and the Son making an abode with the one who loves the Lord Jesus. Therefore, by faith we receive the Lord Jesus, and by love we enjoy Him. For this reason, in 1 Timothy 1:14 Paul puts faith and love together.
Also in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 Paul speaks of faith and love. In this verse he encourages the saints to put on “the breastplate of faith and love.” Comparing this verse to Ephesians 6:14, we see that there are two kinds of breastplates, one for our daily living and the other for fighting. For our daily living we need the breastplate of faith and love. Faith and love are both tender; they are signified in the Bible by the breasts. Such tender parts of our being, our spiritual breasts, need to be covered with the breastplate. By means of the breastplate, our faith and love, which are necessary for a proper Christian life, are preserved. The breastplate of righteousness in verse 14, on the contrary, is for fighting. Whenever we take part in spiritual warfare, our conscience must be protected from Satan’s accusation by the breastplate of righteousness.
The verses concerning faith and love in the Gospel of John, 1 Thessalonians, and 1 Timothy indicate that faith and love go together. But in Ephesians 6:23 Paul does not speak of faith and love nor love and faith, but love with faith. This indicates that we need faith as a match and support for our love. Love with faith is needed. According to Galatians 5:6, faith operates through love. This operation is very delicate. In Galatians, a book that emphasizes justification by faith, we are told in verse 6 that “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything nor uncircumcision, but faith avails, operating through love.” This verse indicates that our faith operates through love; believing in the Lord Jesus is a matter of love. A person who hears the gospel, repents, and then comes to appreciate the Lord Jesus and to feel that He is altogether lovable, will have a strong faith. This faith operates through his love for the Lord. The more we love the Lord, the stronger will be our faith in Him. This is Paul’s thought in Galatians.
Ephesians, however, emphasizes love, not faith. According to Galatians, the more we appreciate the Lord Jesus and love Him, the more we will believe in Him. This is for salvation. However, in Ephesians Paul’s concern is not salvation but continuation and fellowship. This requires love with faith. If our faith is weakened because we accept doubts and questions, we will find it difficult to love the Lord. Whenever faith is damaged, love will be damaged also. In order to continue in fellowship with the Lord through loving Him, we need a strong faith. Therefore, we need both the faith that operates through love and the love that is with faith.
Love with faith is the conclusion of Ephesians, the book on the church. The church needs to enjoy Christ in love with faith, which operates through love (Gal. 5:6). Love comes from God to us, and faith goes from us to God. By means of this traffic of love and faith, peace remains our portion. We are kept in peace by the coming of God’s love to us and by the going of our faith to Him. This traffic also keeps us in the continual supply of grace, in the enjoyment of the Lord (Eph. 6:24).
The enjoyment of the Lord as grace is with those who love Him. In Ephesians the phrase in love, which is rich in feeling, is used repeatedly (1:4; 3:17; 4:2, 15-16; 5:2). Later, the church in Ephesus was rebuked by the Lord because she had lost her first love toward Him (Rev. 2:4). One of the main points revealed in this book is that the church, which is the Body of Christ, is also the bride of Christ, Christ’s wife. With the Body, the emphasis is on taking Christ as life; with the wife, the emphasis is on loving Christ. Therefore, this book emphasizes and also concludes with our love toward the Lord. The church in Ephesus, the recipient of this Epistle, failed in the matter of loving the Lord. Such a failure became the source of and main reason for the failure of the church throughout the ages (Rev. 2—3).