Ephesians 6:23

Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(23) Peace be to the brethren . . .—In the conclusion of the Epistle, as at the beginning, St. Paul gives the double benediction, “Peace and grace be with you all.” But it. is impossible not to notice the difference between the generality of the terms here used (“the brethren,” and “all who love the Lord Jesus Christ”) and the personal “you” of all the other Epistles—a difference which would be inexplicable if this Epistle were addressed to the well-known and loved Church of Ephesus alone.

Peace seems especially dwelt upon in the Epistles of the Captivity, of which the Epistle to Philippi contains (in Ephesians 4:7) the fullest description of the “peace of God which passeth all understanding.” It is naturally connected here with love (as in 2Corinthians 13:11; Colossians 3:15-16)—a “love with faith,” “making perfect” (as in Galatians 5:6) the faith which St. Paul takes for granted as being in them. For peace is first with God, in the thankful receiving of His mercy; from this naturally arises “love with faith” towards Him; and out of this, again, peace and love towards men, in the conviction that, “if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1John 4:11). All these are gifts from “God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

MacLaren's Expositions

EPHESIANS

PEACE, LOVE, AND FAITH

Ephesians 6:23The numerous personal greetings usually found at the close of Paul’s letters are entirely absent from this Epistle. All which we have in their place is this entirely general good wish, and the still more general and wider one in the subsequent verse.

There is but one other of the Apostle’s letters similarly devoid of personal messages, viz. the Epistle to the Galatians, and their absence there is sufficiently accounted for by the severe and stern tone of that letter. But it is very difficult to understand how they should not appear in a letter to a church with which the Apostle had such prolonged and cordial relations as he had with the church at Ephesus. And hence the absence of these personal greetings is a strong confirmation of the opinion that this Epistle was not originally addressed to the church at Ephesus, but was a kind of circular intended to go round the various churches in Asia Minor, and only sent first to that at Ephesus. That opinion is further confirmed by the fact known to many of you that in some good ancient manuscripts the words ‘at Ephesus’ are omitted from the first verse of the letter; which thus stands without any specific address.

Be that as it may, this trinity of inward graces is Paul’s highest and best wish for his friends. He has no earthly prosperity to wish for them. His ambition soars higher than that; he desires for them peace, love, faith.

Now, will you take the lesson? There is no better test of a man than the things that he wishes for the people that he loves most. He desires for them, of course, his own ideal of happiness. What do you desire most for those that are dearest to you? You parents, do you train up your children, for instance, so as to secure, or to do your best to secure, not outward prosperity, but these loftier gifts; and for yourselves, when you are forming your wishes, are these the things that you want most? ‘Set your affections on things above,’ and remember that whoso has that trinity of graces, peace, love, faith, is rich and blessed, whatsoever else he has or needs. And whoso has them not is miserable and poor.

But I wish especially to look a little more closely at these three things in themselves and in their relation to one another. I take it that the Apostle is here tracking the stream to its fountain; that he is beginning with effects and working backwards and downwards to causes; so that to get the order of nature and of time we must reverse the order here, and begin where he ends and end where he begins. The Christian life in its higher vigour and excellence is rooted in faith. That faith associates to itself, and is inseparably connected with love, and the faith and love together issue in a deep restful tranquillity which nothing can break.

Now, let us look at these three things as the three greatest blessings that any can bear in their hearts, and wring out of time, sorrow, and change.

I. First, the root of everything is a continuous and growing trust.

Remember that this prayer or wish of my text was spoken in reference to brethren; that is to say, to those who, by the hypothesis, already possessed Christian faith. And Paul wishes for them, and can wish for them, nothing better and more than the increase and continuousness of that which they already possess. The highest blessing that the brethren can receive is the enlargement and the strengthening of their faith.

Now we talk so much in Christian teaching about this ‘faith’ that, I fancy, like a worn sixpence in a man’s pocket, its very circulation from hand to hand has worn off the lettering. And many of us, from the very familiarity of the word, have only a dim conception of what it means. It may not be profitless, then, to remind you, first of all, that this faith is neither more nor less than a very familiar thing which you are constantly exercising in reference to one another-that is to say, simple confidence. You trust your husband, your wife, your child, your parent, your friend, your guide, your lawyer, your doctor, your banker. Take that very same emotion and attitude of the mind by which you put your well-being, in different aspects and provinces, into the hands of men and women round about you; lift the trailing flowers that go all straggling along the ground, and twine them round the pillars of God’s throne, and you get the confidence, the trust, of the praises and glories of which the New Testament is full. There is nothing mysterious in it, it is simply the exercise of confidence, the familiar cement that binds all human relationship together, and makes men brotherly and kindred with their kind. Faith is trust, and trust saves a man’s soul.

Then, remember further that the faith which is the foundation of everything is essentially personal trust reposing upon a person, upon Jesus Christ. You cannot get hold of a man in any other way than by that. The only real bond that binds people together is the personal bond of confidence, manifesting itself in love. And it is no mere doctrine that we present for a man’s faith, but it is the person about whom the doctrine speaks. We say, indeed, that we can only know the person on whom we must trust by the revelation of the truths concerning Him which make the Christian doctrines; but a man may believe the whole of them, and have no faith. And what is the step in advance which is needed in order to turn credence into faith-belief in a doctrine into trust? In one view it is the step from the doctrine to the person. When you grasp Christ, the living Christ, and not merely the doctrine, for yours, then you have faith.

Only remember, my brother, if you say you trust Christ, the question has immediately to be asked: What Christ is it that you are trusting? Is it the Christ that died for your sins on the Cross, or is it a Christ that taught you some great moral truths and set you a lovely example of life and conduct? Which of the two is it? for these two Christs are very different, and the faith that grasps the one is extremely unlike the faith that grasps the other. And so I press upon you this question: What Christ is it to Whom your confidence turns, and for what is it that you are looking to Him? Is it for help and guidance of some vague kind; is it for pattern or example, or is it for the salvation of your sinful souls, by the might of His great sacrifice?

Then, remember still further, that this personal outgoing of confidence, which is the action both of a man’s will and of a man’s intellect, to the person revealed to us in the great doctrines of the Gospel-that this faith, if it is to be worth anything, must be continuous. Paul could desire nothing better for his Ephesian friends than that they should have that which they had-faith; that they should continue to have it, and that it should be perennial and increasing all through their lives. You can no more get present good from past faith than the breath you drew yesterday into your lungs will be sufficient to oxygenate your blood at this moment. As soon as you break the electric contact, the electric light goes out, and no matter how long a man has been living a life of faith, that past life will not in the smallest degree help him at the present moment unless the faith is continuous. Remember this, then, a broken faith is a broken peace; a broken faith is a broken salvation; and so long, and only so long, as you are knit to Jesus Christ by the conscious exercise of a faith realised at the moment, are you in the reception of blessing from Him at the moment.

And, still further, this faith ought to be progressive. So Paul desired it to be with these people. If there is no growth, do you think there is much life? I know I am speaking to plenty of people who call themselves Christians, whose faith is not one inch better to-day than it was when it was born-perhaps a little less rather than more. Oh! the hundreds and thousands of professing Christians, average Christians, that clog and weaken all churches, whose faith has no progressive element in it, and is not a bit stronger by all the discipline of life and by their experience of its power. Brethren! is it so with us? Let us ask ourselves that; and let us ask very solemnly this other question: If my faith has no growth, how do I know that it has got any life?

And so let me remind you further that this faith, the personal outgoing of a man’s intellect and will to the personal Saviour revealed in the Scriptures as the sacrifice for our sins, and the life of our spirits, which ought to be continuous and progressive, is the foundation of all strength, blessedness, goodness, in a human character; and if we have it we have the germ of all possible excellence and growth, not because of what it is in itself, for in itself it is nothing more than the opening of the heart to the reception of the celestial influences of grace and righteousness that He pours down. And, therefore, this is the thing that a wise man will most desire for himself, and for those that are dearest to him.

Depend upon it, whether it is what we want most or not, it is what God wants most for us. He does not care nearly so much that our lives should be joyful as that they should be righteous and full of faith; and He subjects us to many a sorrow and loss and disappointment in order that the life of nature may be broken and the life of faith may be strong. If we rightly understand the relative value of outward and of inward things, we shall be thankful for the storms that drive us nearer to Him; for the darkening earth that may make the pillar of cloud glow at the heart into a pillar of fire, and for all the discipline, painful though it may be, with which God answers the prayer, ‘Lord, increase our faith.’

II. And now, next, notice how inseparably associated with a true faith is love.

The one is effect that never is found without its cause; the other is cause which never but produces its effect. These two are braided together by the Apostle as inseparable in reality and inseparable in thought. And that it is so is plain enough, and there follow from it some practical lessons that I desire to lay upon your hearts and my own.

There are, then, here two principles, or rather two sides of one thought; no faith without love, no love without faith.

No faith is genuine and deep which does not at once produce in the heart where it is lodged an answering love to God. That is clear enough. Faith is, as I have said, the recognition and the reception of the divine love into the heart; and we are so constituted as that if a man once knows and believes in any real sense the love that God has to him, he answers it back again with his love as certainly as an echo which gives back the sound that reaches it.

Our faith is, if I may so say, like a burning-glass, which concentrates the rays of the divine love upon our hearts, and focuses them into a point that kindles our hearts into flame. If we have the confidence that God loves us, in any real depth, we shall answer by the gush of our love to Him.

And so here is a test for men’s faith. You call yourselves Christians. If I were to come to you and ask you, ‘Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?’ most of you would say, ‘Yes!’ Try your faith, my friend, by this test: Does it make you love Him at all? If it does not, it is more words than anything else; and it needs a wonderful deepening before it can have any real power in your hearts. There is no faith worthy the name unless its child, all but as old as itself, be the answer of the heart to Him, pouring itself out in thankful gratitude.

No love without faith; ‘we love Him because He first loved us.’ God must begin, we can only come second. Man’s natural selfishness is only overcome by the clearest demonstration of the love of God to him; and until that love, in its superbest because its lowliest form, the form of the sacrifice on the Cross, has penetrated into a man’s heart through his faith, there will be no love.

So then, dear friends, there is a test for your love. We hear a great deal said nowadays, as there has always been a great deal said, about the essence of all religion consisting in love to God; and about men ‘rejecting the cumbrous dogmas of the New Testament, and falling back upon the great and simple truths, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; and thy neighbour as thyself,’ and saying ‘that is their religion.’ Well, I venture to say that without the faith of the heart in, not the cumbrous dogmas, but the central fact of the New Testament, that Christ died on the Cross for me, you will never get the old commandment of love to God with heart and soul and strength and mind really kept and carried out; and that if you want men to have their hearts and wills bound into loving fellowship with God, it is only by the path of faith in Him who is the sacrifice for sin that such fellowship is reached. Hence there follows a very plain, practical advice. Do you want your heart’s love to be increased? Learn the way to do it. You cannot work yourselves into a fervour of religious emotion of any valuable kind. A man cannot get to love more by saying, ‘I am determined I will.’ We have no direct control over our affections in that fashion. You cannot make water boil except by one way, and that is by putting plenty of fire under it; and you cannot make your affections melt and flow except by heating them by the contemplation of the truth which is intended to bring them out. That is to say, the more we exercise our minds on the contemplation of Christ’s great love to us, and the more we put forth the energies of our souls in the act of simple self-distrust and reliance upon Him, the more will our love be fervent and strong. You can only increase love by increasing the faith from which it comes. So do you see to it, if you call yourselves Christians, that you try to deepen all your Christian affections by an honest, meditative, prayerful contemplation and grasp of the great love of God in Jesus Christ. And do not wonder if your Christian life be, as it is in so many of us, stunted, not progressive, bringing no blessing to ourselves and little good to anybody else. The explanation is easy enough. You do not look at the Cross of Christ, nor live in the contemplation and reception of His great grace.

III. And now, lastly, these two inseparably associated graces of faith and love bring with them, and lead to, the third-peace.

It seems to be but a very modest, sober-tinted wish which the Apostle here has for his brethren that the highest and best thing he can ask for them is only quiet. Very modest by the side of joy and excitement, in their coats of many colours, and yet the deepest and truest blessing that any of us can have-peace. It comes to us by one path, and that is by the path of faith and love.

These two bring peace with God, peace in our inmost spirits, the peace of self-annihilation and submission, the peace of obedience, the peace of ceasing from our own works, and entering, therefore, into the rest of God. Trust is peace. There is no tranquillity like that of feeling ‘I am not responsible for this: He is; and I rest myself on Him.’

Love is peace. There is no rest for our hearts but on the bosom of some one that is dear to us, and in whom we can confide. But ah, brother! every tree in which the dove nestles is felled down sooner or later, and the nest torn to pieces, and the bird flies away. But if we turn ourselves to the undying Christ, the perpetual revelation of the eternal God, then, then our love and our faith will bring us rest. There will be peace in trusting Him whom we never can trust and be put to shame. There will be peace in loving Him who is more than worthy of and able to repay the deep and perennial love of all hearts.

Self-surrender is peace. It is our wills that trouble us. Disturbance comes, not from without, but from within. When the will bows, when I say, ‘Be it then as Thou wilt,’ when in faith and love I cease to strive, to murmur, to rebel, to repine, and enter into His loving purposes, then there is peace.

Obedience is peace. To recognise a great will that is sovereign, and to bow myself to it, not because it is sovereign, but because it is sweet, and sweet because I love it, and love Him whose it is-that is peace. And then, whatever may be outward circumstances, there shall be ‘peace subsisting at the heart of endless agitation’; and deep in my soul I may be tranquil, though all about me may be the hurly-burly of the storm.

The Christian peace is an armed peace, paradoxical as it appears; and according to the great word of the Apostle, is a sentry which garrisons the beleaguered heart and mind, surrounded by many foes, and keeps them in Christ Jesus.

‘There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked,’ he is ‘as a troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt’; but over the wildest commotion one Voice, low, gentle, omnipotent, says: ‘Peace! be still!’ and the heart quiets itself, though there may be a ground swell, and the weather clears. He is your peace, trust Him, love Him, and you cannot but possess the ‘peace of God which passeth understanding.’

Benson Commentary

Ephesians 6:23-24. Peace be to the brethren — That is, all prosperity in matters temporal and spiritual; and love — To God, one another, and all the saints, arising from God’s love to you; with faith — In God, in Christ, and his gospel, accompanied with every other grace; from God the Father — The original source of all our blessings; and the Lord Jesus Christ — Through whose mediation alone they are communicated to us. Grace — The unmerited favour of God, and those influences of his Spirit, which are the effect thereof; be with all them that love our Lord Jesus in sincerity — Εν αφθαρσια, literally, in incorruption: that is, without any mixture of corrupt affections, or without decay; who continue to love him till grace shall end in glory.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:19-24 The gospel was a mystery till made known by Divine revelation; and it is the work of Christ's ministers to declare it. The best and most eminent ministers need the prayers of believers. Those particularly should be prayed for, who are exposed to great hardships and perils in their work. Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith. By peace, understand all manner of peace; peace with God, peace of conscience, peace among themselves. And the grace of the Spirit, producing faith and love, and every grace. These he desires for those in whom they were already begun. And all grace and blessings come to the saints from God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grace, that is, the favour of God; and all good, spiritual and temporal, which is from it, is and shall be with all those who thus love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and with them only.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Peace be to the brethren - The Epistle is closed with the usual salutations. The expression "peace to you," was the common form of salutation in the East (see the Matthew 10:13 note; Luke 24:36 note; Romans 15:33 note; compare Galatians 6:16; 1 Peter 5:14; 3 John 1:14), and is still the "salam" which is used - the word "salam" meaning "peace."

And love with faith - Love united with faith; not only desiring that they might have faith, but the faith which worked by love.

From God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ - The Father and the Son are regarded as equally the author of peace and love; compare notes on 2 Corinthians 13:14.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

23. love with faith—Faith is presupposed as theirs; he prays that love may accompany it (Ga 5:6).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He prays for their continuance and increase in these graces, which already were begun in them.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Peace be to the brethren,.... The members of the church at Ephesus, who stood in a spiritual relation to each other; meaning all prosperity outward and inward, temporal, spiritual, and eternal; especially peace of conscience under the sprinklings of the blood of Christ, and a view of peace made with God by that blood:

and love with faith from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ; that is, an increase of these graces, and of the exercise of them, is wished for; for otherwise these brethren had both these graces, faith and love; see Ephesians 1:15; which go together; faith works by love, and love discovers faith, and both are imperfect; faith has something lacking in it, and love is apt to grow cold, and need reviving and increasing; and these, and the increase of them, are from God the Father, who is the God of all grace, and from Jesus Christ, in whom all fulness of grace is; and these things are equally desired from the one as from the other, and shows a plurality of persons in the Godhead, and the equality of Christ with the Father; and such a wish expresses the apostle's great love and affection for the brethren, and points out the things they stand in need of; and which, being asked for such, might be expected to be enjoyed.

Geneva Study Bible

Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Ephesians 6:23 f. Twofold wish of blessing at the close, in which, however, Paul does not, as in the closing formulae of the other Epistles, directly address the readers (μεθʼ ὑμῶν, μετὰ πάντων ὑμῶν, μετὰ τοῦ πνεύματος ὑμῶν). This variation is to be regarded as merely accidental, and the more so, seeing that he has in fact been just addressing his readers directly, and seeing that a μεθʼ ὑμῶν or the like would simply address the readers, as has so often been done in the Epistle itself, leaving, we may add, the question, who these readers are, in itself wholly undetermined. For what is asserted by Grotius on Ephesians 6:24 : “Now, Ephesios tantum salutat, sed et omnes in Asia Christianos,” is not implied in τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς—which, on the contrary, represents quite the simple ὑμῖν, inasmuch as Paul conceives of the recipients of the Epistle in the third person. According to Wieseler, p. 444 f., the apostle in Ephesians 6:23 salutes the Jewish Christians (ἀδελφ.), and in Ephesians 6:24 the Gentile Christians (πάντων) in Ephesus. Improbable in itself, more particularly in this Epistle, which so carefully brings into prominence the unity of the two; and the alleged distinguishing reference would neither be recognisable, nor in keeping with the apostolic wisdom.

εἰρήνη] not concordia, as recommended by Calvin (“quia mox fit dilectionis mentio;” comp. also Theodoret and Oecumenius), but, as Calvin himself explains: welfare, blessing, שָׁלוֹם, without more precise definition, because it takes the place of the valete (ἔῤῥωσθε, Acts 15:29) at the close of our Epistle,[319] and because that special sense is not at all suggested from the contents of the Epistle (comp. on the other hand, 2 Corinthians 13:11).

ἀγάπη μετὰ πίστεως] is one object of the wish for blessing, not two. After the general fare well! namely, Paul singles out further the highest moral element, which he wishes for his readers. He does not, however, write καὶ ἀγάπη καὶ πίστις, because with good reason he presupposes faith (in the atonement achieved by Christ) as already present, but has doubtless to wish for them that which, as the constant life of faith, is to be combined with it (1 Corinthians 13; Galatians 5:6), Christian brotherly love, consequently love with faith (ἀγάπη has the emphasis, not μετὰ πίστ.). Comp. Plato, Phaed. p. 253 E: κάλλος μετὰ ὑγιείας λαμβάνειν. Bengel and Meier understand the divine love, to which, however, μετὰ πίστ. is unsuitable, although Meier explains it: in conformity with their own faith, partly at variance with linguistic usage,[320] partly importing a thought (their own). The reading ἔλεος (instead of ἈΓΆΠΗ) is to be regarded simply as a glossematic consequence of the explaining it of the divine love, and yet, though found only in codex A, it is held by Rückert to be the true one (comp. Galatians 6:16); Paul, he says, wishes to the readers εἰρήνη κ. ἔλεος for the reward (?) of faith.

ἀπὸ Θεοῦ πατρὸς κ. κυρ. Ἰ. Χ.] See on Romans 1:7. Grotius, we may add, rightly observes: “conjungit causam principem cum causa secunda.”[321] For Christ is exalted on the part of God to the government of the world, and particularly to the Lordship of the church (Ephesians 1:22; Php 2:9); and His dominion has in God, the Head of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:3), not merely its ground (comp. also Ephesians 1:17), but also its goal (1 Corinthians 3:23; 1 Corinthians 15:28).

[319] Hence also not to be explained of the peace of reconciliation (Bengel, Matthies, Schenkel, and others), any more here than in the opening salutations of the Epistle, where it takes the place of the epistolary salutem, εὖ πράττειν.

[320] μετά may, it is true, sometimes be approximately as to sense rendered by conformably to, but the analysis in those cases is such as does not suit our passage. See e.g. Dem. Lept. p. 490; Plato, Phaed. p. 66 B, where μετὰ τῶν νόμων and μετὰ τοῦ λόγου is to be explained, in connection with the laws, etc., i.e. with the aid of the same. Comp. also Thucyd. iii. 82. 5, and Krüger in loc. See in general, Bernhardy, p. 255.

[321] The order in the combination of the two causes is inverted in Gal. l.c.: διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χρ. καὶ Θεοῦ πατρός.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Ephesians 6:23-24. Closing Benediction.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

23–24. Benediction

23. Peace] The Apostle returns to his opening benedictory prayer. See on Ephesians 1:2 and note.—We may remark here that the phrase “Grace and peace,” in apostolic salutations, though no doubt connected with ordinary Greek and Hebrew greetings, is not to be explained by them. Both nouns are surely used in the fulness of their Christian meaning. It is “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ;” “the peace of God.”

the brethren] The only certain occurrence in this Epistle (see note on Ephesians 6:10 above) of this word in the plural. In the singular it has occurred once, Ephesians 6:21. As children of God, Christians are brothers of one another in a sense full of Divine life and love. See Romans 8:29; 1 John 5:1.

love] The Divine gift of love in all its aspects. He prays that “the love of God may be poured out in their hearts” (Romans 5:5), and that they may “walk in love” (above, ch. Ephesians 5:2) as its result. For the word “love” in benediction or salutation, cp. 2 Corinthians 13:11; Judges 2.

with faith] As if to secure the reality and purity of the experience of love by its co-existence with faith, holy reliance, in God through Christ by the Spirit. Here “faith,” as well as “love” and “peace,” is invoked upon them; it is a “gift of God.” See on Ephesians 2:8 above.

from God the Father] Cp. Ephesians 1:2, and notes. There “our Father” is the wording. For the present phrase, cp. 2 Timothy 1:2; Titus 1:4. The probable reference of the word “Father” in such an invocation (having regard to the far more frequent other form) is to the Father’s Fatherhood as towards the brethren of His Son, rather than directly towards His Son. But the two aspects are eternally and indissolubly united.

and the Lord Jesus Christ] See on Ephesians 1:2.

Bengel's Gnomen

Ephesians 6:23. Εἰρήνη, peace) peace with God and the love of God to us. A recapitulation is contained in this word peace, comp. Judges 1:2.—[107] μετὰ πίστεως, with faith) This is taken for granted, as being the gift of God.

[107] Τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς, to the brethren) In this conclusion he does not say to you, as in Ephesians 6:21. It was, it seems, an encyclical epistle.—V. g.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 23, 24. - CLOSING BENEDICTION. Verse 23. - Peace be to the brethren. There is a double invocation of blessing - to the brethren, and to all that love the Lord. "The brethren" must mean the members of the Church addressed, with special reference to the amalgamation in one body of Jews and Gentiles, or to the one family (Ephesians 3:15) in which they were brethren, Peace is the echo of Ephesians 1:2, and denotes the apostle's desire for the continuance among them of the peace with God to which they had been admitted, as well as the prevalence of peace in every sense of the word. And love with faith. "Love" in the widest sense (Ephesians 3:17, 19) - the love of Christ to them, their love to Christ, and their love to one another; and love is coupled with faith, because faith is the companion of love, they are in the closest relation to each other. Faith in Christ receives him as he is offered, in all his love and goodness; it sees his loving face, and is changed into the same image. From God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (comp. Ephesians 1:2). Ephesians 6:23