Both grace and truth are covered in chapter four of Ephesians. In chapter one of the Gospel of John grace and truth are also mentioned. The Word was God, and the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth (John 1:1, 14). The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). Ephesians 4 is a full definition of the grace and truth found in John 1. If you would understand the grace and truth revealed in John 1, you need to study Ephesians 4.
Grace and truth are the elements of which chapter four of Ephesians is constituted. Ephesians 1 is structured with the Father’s selection and predestination, the Son’s redemption, and the Spirit’s sealing and pledging. In Ephesians 4 we have not only the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, but also grace and truth. This indicates development and progress.
In both John 1 and Ephesians 4 there is a development of the Triune God. John 1:14 says that the Word, which was God, became flesh. The word “became” indicates development. This One who became flesh and tabernacled among us was full of grace and truth. This is a further development. As God, He was developed to become a man in the flesh. As God incarnate, He was further developed to become grace and truth to us. In Ephesians 1 we see the Triune God, but we do not have the full development of grace and truth. If we would see this development, we need to come to Ephesians 4.
The book of Ephesians is profound. This book cannot be understood by merely reading it according to the letters. We need revelation. This was the reason Paul prayed that the Father would grant the believers a spirit of wisdom and revelation (Eph. 1:17). Natural intelligence or cleverness will not help us to understand such a deep book. We need divine wisdom and revelation.
In Ephesians 1 there is the dispensing of the Triune God to produce the church, the Body of Christ. In this chapter there is little development. But in chapters two and three there is a development that issues in the Body. The topic of Ephesians 4 is the Body; the topic of this chapter is not the Triune God. However, the Body has much to do with the Triune God. In chapter one there is the indication that the Body would be produced. But in chapter four we actually have the Body.
In Ephesians 4 Paul first speaks of the one Body and then of the one Spirit, the one Lord, and the one God, the Father. This indicates that the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—has been developed in the Body. This corresponds to John 1, where the eternal God became flesh and experienced a development in the flesh. In Ephesians 4 the Triune God has been developed not merely in the flesh, but in the Body of Christ. Furthermore, in John 1 there is the development of God in the flesh issuing in grace and truth. In Ephesians 4 there is also the development of the Triune God issuing in grace and truth. In John the eternal God was developed in the flesh and issued in grace and truth, and in Ephesians the Triune God was developed in the Body and issued in grace and truth. In order to understand Ephesians 4 we need to see this development.
Another diamond in Ephesians 4 is the life of God found in verse 18: “Being darkened in their understanding, estranged from the life of God because of the ignorance which is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” The Gentiles, who walk in vanity, have been estranged from the life of God and excluded from it because of the ignorance which is in them and because of the hardness of their heart. They have ceased from feeling and have given themselves over to sinful things. The life of God in Ephesians 4:18 corresponds to the life in John 1:4, a verse which says, “In Him was life.” In John 1 we have grace, truth, and the life of God. In Ephesians 4 we also have these three matters. The difference is that in John 1 there is the flesh, but in Ephesians 4 there is the Body. In John 1 the flesh is the sphere, the element, for God’s development. In Ephesians 4 the mystical Body, the church, is the sphere, the element, for the development of the Triune God. However, in both cases the issue is the same—grace and truth of life. Both grace and truth are of life, and life is actually God Himself.