“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 1:2 (ESV)
As with all of the Apostle Paul’s New Testament letters, he always includes the same greeting contained in today’s text. Let’s examine the text in detail.
To begin with, there is the familiar phrase Grace to you. Grace (χάρις; charis) means unmerited favor towards someone by someone, who is under no obligation to be gracious to the recipients of grace.
Within this particular context, the grace giver is God (Ephesians 2:1-10). The particular recipients of grace to whom Paul refers are the Ephesians Christians. However, all believers in Christ are objects of God’s amazing grace.
What always follows grace is peace. Peace (εἰρήνη; eirene) is tranquility and freedom from worry. It is also the absence of conflict between two parties. In this context, the two parties who are at peace are God and those who are justified by grace alone, through faith alone in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone (Romans 5:1-5).
Peace with God, along with the peace of God and from God, is the product of grace. Peace is the result of grace. Sinners cannot have peace with God unless they have received the grace from God.
The source of grace and peace is solely from God our Father and solely from the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul identifies both as members of the Godhead. He does so by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21), the third member of the Godhead.
Dr. John MacArthur writes, “From them (God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ) came the authority with which Paul spoke (v. 1) as well as the blessings of grace and peace to all believers. The conjunction “and” indicates equivalence; that is, the Lord Jesus Christ is equally divine with the Father.”
Bible scholar and theologian Charles Hodge (1797-1878) writes, “Jesus Christ is our supreme and absolute Lord and proprietor. The word κύριος (kyrios) is indeed used in Scripture in the sense of master. But on the other hand, it is the translation of Adonai, supreme Lord, an incommunicable name of God, and the substitute of Jehovah, a name the Jews would not pronounce. It is in this sense that Christ is, the Lord, the Lord of Lords, The Lord God; Lord in the sense in which God alone can be Lord-having a dominion of which divine perfection is the only adequate or possible foundation.”
He is Lord, he is Lord. He is risen from dead, and He is Lord. Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Soli deo Gloria!
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