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Peace to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. (Ephesians 6:23-24)

Paul often ends his letters with these two words: grace and peace. \xa0They come in a different order and a different way every time\u2014but these are the two words that reliably offer the benediction at the close of Paul\u2019s letters. \xa0Here those blessings of grace and peace resonate as reminders of what came before in this letter. \xa0

Like from the first chapter\u2019s run-on sentence of lavish, overflowing gifts of grace or second chapter\u2019s famous words \u201cby grace you have been saved, through faith\u2014and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God\u2014not by works, so that no one can boast\u201d (2:8-9). \xa0Now as we close, Paul reminds us once again that God\u2019s grace surrounds his people from beginning to end. \xa0Grace: a gift given to us which spills over from us.

And the word peace. \xa0We discovered in chapter two that Jesus Christ himself \u201cis our peace\u201d (2:14). \xa0His purpose being to \u201ccreate in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit\u201d (2:15b-18). \xa0This peace of Christ which has made us to be a \u201cunity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace\u201d is ours\u2014a gift we are called to both receive and \u201ckeep\u201d (4:3). \xa0Peace then also, is a gift given to us which is to be actively tended by us. \xa0

Then, new words join the usual pair of grace and peace here. \xa0Faith is one of them. \xa0We already heard that word come up: \u201cby grace you have been saved, through faith\u201d (2:8). \xa0It is \u201cthrough faith in [Jesus] we may approach God with freedom and confidence\u201d (3:12). \xa0We learn that there is but \u201cone faith,\u201d just as there is one Lord and baptism (4:5). \xa0Again, this unity of \u201cone faith\u201d is a gift and a goal, just like peace. \xa0We are called therefore to use our gifts to support and build one another up \u201cuntil we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son\u2026\u201d (4:13). \xa0Faith in Christ is also our shield against the powers of evil (6:16). \xa0But as the letter begins and ends, we hear not of faith in the abstract noun, but faith as a lived reality\u2014a verb. \xa0Paul writes at the beginning of the letter to \u201cthe faithful in Christ Jesus\u201d and at the end he writes of \u201cTychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord\u201d (1:1, 6:21). \xa0Faith is also a gift and goal.

Love is another word Paul adds. \xa0When love shows up in the first half of the book (which is a lot!), it always refers to God\u2019s own love, aside from just one instance. \xa0Love too then, is firstly a gift of God before it is ever an act of humanity. \xa0So profound is this gift of God that Paul prays his famous prayer for his hearers, that \u201cbeing rooted and established in love, [you] may have power, together with all the [saints], to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge\u2014that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God\u201d (3:17-19). \xa0Then in the second half of the book, love dominates Paul\u2019s instructions for how to live as a saint. \xa0The emphasis can be summed up in the words of 5:2, where Paul invites us to \u201cwalk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.\u201d \xa0Love as a gift, love as a goal.

Faith and love come together in the beginning, where Paul writes \u201cever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God\u2019s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers\u201d (1:15-16). \xa0Now at the end he picks this unceasing prayer back up in his benediction: \u201clove with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ\u201d (6:23).

The most significant words added to this ending, though, are the names of God himself. \xa0The letter began with a four-fold repeat of God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son. \xa0They are both mentioned in each of the opening four verses. \xa0Now at the end, they appear again. \xa0The Father and the Son, giving gifts to the saints. \xa0And, here we are as God\u2019s people, the saints, responding to God\u2019s good gifts. \xa0This is the gospel according to Ephesians, it is the way that the saints practice a life of resurrection in Christ. \xa0Receiving the gift and walking it out as our life\u2019s goal.

For, to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).

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