«　WEEK 3　DAY 2　»

　　Eph. 5:25 Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.

　　6:24 Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility.

　　In Ephesians the phrase in love, which is rich in feeling, is used repeatedly… Later, the church in Ephesus was rebuked by the Lord because she had lost her first love toward Him (Rev. 2:4)…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… 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). (Eph. 6:24, footnote 2)

　　The phrase in love occurs six times [in Ephesians]… The first instance of in love is in 1:4: “Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love.”… In love could also be joined with the first phrase of verse 5: predestinating us unto sonship. Thus, in love in verse 4 could modify God’s choosing of us, our being holy and without blemish before God, or God’s predestinating of us.

　　The next instance of in love is in 3:17… In order for the believers to be rooted for growth in life and grounded for building up, they must be in a condition of love. This love is not ours; it is the divine love. The Lord is waiting for us to give Him the opportunity to deeply root and ground us…We need to love Him according to His good pleasure. We should repent and pray, “Lord, help me to love You not according to my preferences but according to You, Your heart’s desire, and Your plan.”

　　In Ephesians 4 the phrase in love is used three times. Verse 2 says, “With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing one another in love.”…Our natural humanity does not have the ability to bear others, especially troublesome ones… If we are in the divine love, loving the Lord with this love, we will not care for others’ criticism but will quickly let it go. The next verse in Ephesians that uses the phrase in love is 4:15: “Holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ.” To hold to truth is to hold whatever is real, whatever is true. According to Ephesians, the true, real things are Christ and His Body. Thus, to hold to truth is to hold to Christ and the church…We must love the Lord and the church, His Body, with the divine love. Verse 16 says, “Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.”

　　Ephesians 5:2 says, “Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.”… We need to walk—to live, act, and have our being—in the divine love, and it is the divine love with which we should love others. Paul concludes this Epistle with a blessing: “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility” (6:24). We need to love the Lord not in a wild way or in any selfish desire or natural good intention but in incorruptibility. In this kind of love we can be made holy and without blemish, be rooted and grounded, bear one another for the oneness of the Body, and hold to truth—to Christ as the Head and the church as the Body—so that we could be joined, knit, and built up together in the Body as an organism for the expression of Christ. We also need to walk and have our being in the divine love. If we love the Lord in these things, we love Him in incorruptibility. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, pp. 551, 554-556)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, pp. 551-556, 573-580; CWWL, 1963, vol. 3, “Basic Principles of the Experience of Life,” ch. 6