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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).
Christ is the peace, love with faith, and grace in our experience in order that we may love Him in incorruptibility, that is, in all that the church is. For the proper church life we need to love the Lord in incorruptibility, that is, in and according to all the crucial things revealed and taught in the six chapters of this book, such as the church as the Body of Christ, the new man, the economy of God’s mystery, the oneness of the Spirit, reality and grace, light and love, and the items of God’s armor. All these things are incorruptible because they are true, genuine, and real. For the sake of the church, our love toward the Lord must be in these incorruptible things.
In 1 Timothy 1:17 Paul says that God is incorruptible, and in 2 Timothy 1:10 he says that the Lord “nullified death and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel.” First Corinthians 15 tells us that in resurrection the corruptible things will become incorruptible (vv. 50-53). To love the Lord in incorruptibility means to love Him in the new creation. All the things of the old creation are corruptible. This is proved by Romans 8 where we see that the whole creation is groaning under the slavery of corruption (vv. 21-22). Everything of the old creation is corruptible, whereas the new creation is not. We must love the Lord in the new creation, not in the old creation.
Ephesians 6:24 is the conclusion of the entire book. In the six chapters of Ephesians Paul reveals to us the incorruptible things: Christ, the church, and all the positive items related to Christ and the church. We must love the Lord in these incorruptible things. We should love the Lord according to the Father’s choosing and predestinating us unto sonship; we should love the Lord according to the Son’s redemption; we should love the Lord according to the sealing and pledging of the Spirit; we should love the Lord according to the hope of God’s calling, according to the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and according to the surpassing greatness of His power which made Christ the Head over all things to the church; and we should love the Lord according to Christ’s resurrection which made us alive, resurrected us, and seated us in the heavenlies.
One of the incorruptible things revealed in Ephesians is the Body of Christ as the embodiment and expression of the processed Triune God (4:4-6). If we would love the Lord Jesus in incorruptibility, we must love Him according to the reality of the Body of Christ as the embodiment and expression of the Triune God. This means that our being should be mingled with the Triune God; otherwise, our love for the Lord is corruptible.
We should not love the Lord in the way of corruption; that is, we should not love the lord in a natural way, in the way of the old creation. Rather, we should love the Lord in the way of the new creation. For example, if we would love the Lord in incorruptibility in the matter of financial giving, we should not let our right hand know what our left hand is doing (Matt. 6:3). To give in the way of making a show is in the old creation. Since we are the kingdom people, our righteous deeds should be kept secret as much as possible (vv. 4, 6, 18). Whatever we do in our spirit under the heavenly rule solely in order to please our Father must not be interfered with by our flesh in its lusting for man’s glory. We as the kingdom people should live by the Father’s divine life and walk according to our spirit. To love the Lord in incorruptibility is to love Him in our mingled spirit, our spirit regenerated, renewed, and indwelt by the Spirit of God. If we do anything in our flesh, it is done in corruption.
To do things in the way of not making a display or a show of oneself is in the new creation. When we give a testimony in a meeting, we should try our best not to make a show. If we testify in order to make a show or a display, we will function in the old creation, that is, function in corruption. The Lord Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for desiring to make a show; whatever they did, they did so to be seen by men (23:5a). In Matthew 6:16-18 the Lord also said, “When you fast, do not be like the sullen-faced hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so that they may appear to men to be fasting. Truly I say to you, They have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” This indicates that we should not make a show in anything we do; otherwise, we will be serving in corruption.
Regrettably, many Christians love the Lord concerning the church in corruption. Both the organization and the practices of the denominations are corruptible things, for they are of the old creation. If anyone loves the Lord yet serves Him according to the ways of the denominations, this is in corruption.
In Ephesians 1:22-23 Paul speaks of the church as the Body of Christ, “the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” To be sure, the church in these verses does not refer to any religious organization. The church as the Body of Christ is incorruptible, but religious organizations are corruptible. To stand on the genuine ground of oneness, the oneness of the Body of Christ, is incorruptible. In contrast, to take any ground other than that of the unique oneness of the Body of Christ kept and expressed in the local churches (Rev. 1:11) is to take the ground of corruption. Instead of loving the Lord in corruptibility, we should love Him in incorruptibility, that is, in a pure way that can stand forever.
Paul concludes his Epistle according to its contents, because whatever is revealed in this Epistle is incorruptible. The Triune God, His dispensing, and the issue of His dispensing — the church, the Body of Christ, the new man, and the bride — are all incorruptible, whereas all other things in the universe will be corrupted. Paul does not conclude his Epistle by simply saying, “Grace be with everyone.” Rather, he declares, “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility.” The reason for this is that the condition for receiving grace is that we love the Lord in incorruptibility. If we would receive grace and practice the proper church life, we need to love the Lord in incorruptibility. For the church our love toward the Lord must be incorruptible, immortal, and imperishable. Such a love is genuine and sincere.
Ephesians presents profound matters that are based upon divine, heavenly, and spiritual facts, all of which have been designed by the Father, accomplished by Christ the Son, and applied to us by the Spirit. Although our present experience of Christ may fall short of these deep and marvelous aspects of Christ as revealed in Ephesians, we should all endeavor to experience and enjoy Him in all these aspects.
