(3) Children and Parents (6:1–4)
1Children, obey your parents in the Lord;1 for this is right
2“Honor your father and mother”—that is2 the first commandment accompanied by a promise—
3“so that it may go well with you and you may live a long time on earth.”
4Fathers, do not make your children angry, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
1 The directions to children and parents are quite similar to those in Col. 3:20–21, although that to children is reinforced by an OT quotation.
The phrase “in the Lord” is of doubtful authenticity. It is in any case a Christian household that is envisaged; there is no question here of Christian children’s being told to obey their (possibly non-Christian) parents except where such obedience would conflict with their duty “in the Lord.”3 Attempts to establish dependence of the Ephesians passage on its counterpart in Colossians, or vice versa, are totally inconclusive.4
2–3 This direction is undergirded by the quotation of the fifth commandment of the Decalogue, quoted according to Deut. 5:16 rather than Exod. 20:12, from which the clause “so that it may go well with you” is absent (on the other hand, part of Deut. 5:16 is missing from this quotation).5 The “promise” which accompanies this commandment6 is the promise of prosperity and long life; no such promise is attached to any of the four preceding commandments. In the original form of the commandment (both in Exod. 20:12 and in Deut. 5:16) the long life is to be enjoyed “in the land which the Lord your God gives you,” that is, in the land of Israel; such a limitation would be inappropriate in a Gentile-Christian context, so the final adjective clause is omitted and “in the land” understood as “on the earth.”7 Verse 3 may be designed mainly to state what the attached promise is; in what sense prosperity and long life might be assured to Christians in the Roman Empire in the second half of the first century A.D. is uncertain. The chief point of the quotation of the fifth commandment may be to confirm that obedience to parents is “right”8 because it is enjoined in the law of God.
The fifth commandment was cited by Jesus as an example of a divine ordinance which was nullified in practice by a rabbinical ruling, current in his day, regarding the law of vows (Mark 7:9–13).9
4 As in Col. 3:21, fathers (or parents) are urged not to assert their authority over children in a manner more calculated to provoke resentment than ready obedience. The verb expressing such unreasonable parental conduct is different from that in the parallel passage, but the general sense is the same.10 Where Col. 3:21 adds the clause “lest they be disheartened,” the Ephesians injunction recommends a better course of action: “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”11 The “training and instruction of the Lord” would involve following Christ’s example, with due regard to his “meekness and gentleness” (2 Cor. 10:1), as well as putting into practice his precepts. And the children will the more readily learn these lessons if the parents themselves show the way—by following Christ’s example and practicing his precepts. The only other occurrence of the word “training” in the Pauline corpus is in 2 Tim. 3:16, where inspired scripture is said to be “profitable” (among other things) “for training in righteousness.”12 In Heb. 12:5–11 it appears four times in the sense of “discipline” or even “chastisement.” The word “instruction” is also used in relation to OT scripture—in 1 Cor. 10:11, where the record of Israel’s rebellion in the wilderness is said to have been “written for our instruction.”13 It carries with it the sense of admonition and sometimes of warning, as in Tit. 3:10, where a factious man is to have no more time wasted over him “after a first and second warning.”14
J. A. Robinson compares the injunction to a parent in Didache 4.9: “You shall not withhold your hand from your son or daughter, but teach them the fear of God from their youth up.”15 Only, in the NT household codes nothing is said (explicitly, at any rate) about corporal punishment.
(4) Slaves and Masters (6:5–9)
5Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart,16 as (you obey) Christ,
6not by way of eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God heartily,
7rendering service with goodwill, as to the Lord17 and not to human beings.
8You should know that, whatever good thing each one does, this is what he will receive from the Lord, whether he is a slave or a free person.
9As for you masters, do the same to them; give up threatening, for you know that both their master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
5 The directions to slaves and masters follow those in Col. 3:22–4:1 quite closely, and the exposition of those verses will for the most part be applicable here too. The phrase “with fear and trembling” is a recurring one in Paul (cf. 1 Cor. 2:3; 2 Cor. 7:15; Phil. 2:12); it appears a number of times in the Septuagint.18 Here it probably catches up the phrase “in the fear of Christ” in Eph. 5:21.19 It is Christ rather than their earthly masters that slaves should fear, although the fear of Christ will teach them to show due reverence and respect to their earthly masters (lit., their “masters according to the flesh,” as in Col. 3:22). In serving their earthly masters they will bear in mind that they are primarily serving Christ.20
The words “in sincerity of heart” are used by David of himself in the Septuagint version of 1 Chron. 29:17, where the Hebrew text means “in the uprightness of my heart.”21 J. B. Lightfoot suggests the translation here and in Col. 3:22: “with undivided service”;22 he compares the exordium of the book of Wisdom, where the rulers of the earth are called upon to seek the Lord “with sincerity of heart.”23
6 “Not by way of eye-service, as men-pleasers” practically repeats Col. 3:22: “not with eye-service, as men-pleasers.” J. B. Lightfoot regarded “eye-service” as a “happy expression” and thought that it might be Paul’s own coinage.24 The contrast between being a slave of Christ and a pleaser of men is pointed by Paul, with reference to his own policy, in Gal. 1:10.25 There is indeed one place in his letters where he speaks of himself as “pleasing everybody in everything,” but there he means putting other people’s preferences before his own for the gospel’s sake, “not seeking my own advantage but that of the many, that they may be saved” (1 Cor. 10:33).
Doing the will of God “heartily”—from the heart or from the soul26—is set in contrast (as in Col. 3:23, “whatever you do, do it heartily”) with eye-service.
7 Eye-service may pass muster for a time when one is working for an earthly master, but the Lord judges by the heart and not by outward appearance. Even if the work to be done for an earthly master were tedious and burdensome, if the Christian slave looked on it as a service rendered “to the Lord and not to human beings” that would transform his attitude to it and enable him to do it with “the ready good will, which does not wait to be compelled” (J. A. Robinson).27
8 “You should know,”28 the apostle adds-implying that what he is about to say is a piece of common Christian catechesis-that each person will receive from the Lord a recompense for what he or she has done; and it makes no difference whether one is enslaved or free.29 The time when the recompense will be awarded appears from other Pauline references to be the advent of Christ, when his people will be manifested before his tribunal.30 In Col. 3:25 the one who does wrong will be requited for that wrongdoing; here it is the good deed that is fittingly rewarded. The Pauline teaching echoes the dominical logion of Matt. 16:27, which declares that when the Son of Man comes in glory, “then he will render to everyone according to what he has done.”31
9 When masters are told to “do the same” to their slaves,32 the sense is that they are to treat their slaves with Christian consideration, the spirit with which Christian slaves are to obey their masters. They should make it easy for their slaves to work for them with goodwill. Threatening with punishment, or harsh language and behavior in general, may ensure outward obedience, but hardly that obedience which comes “from the heart.” There is no word of abolishing the institution of slavery, but where masters and slaves are fellow-members of a Christian household their relationship should be mutually helpful. As in Col. 4:1, Christian masters are reminded that they themselves serve a Master in heaven: their treatment of their slaves is a matter for which he will hold them responsible to him. The statement that “there is no favoritism with him” is appended to the direction to slaves in the Colossians household code (Col. 3:25).33
6. “BE STRONG IN THE LORD” (6:10–17)
10For the rest,34 be strong35 in the Lord and in his mighty power.36
11Put on the panoply of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil;
12because it is not against flesh and blood that we wrestle,37 but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this dark domain,38 against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.39
13Therefore, take up the panoply of God, so that you may be able to withstand them in the evil day and, having done everything, to stand your ground.
14Stand therefore, with the girdle of truth round your waist, having put on the breastplate of righteousness
15and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
16Take up, in addition to all these,40 the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fire-tipped darts of the evil one;
17and take41 the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word.
10 “Be strong in the Lord” might be rendered more literally “Strengthen yourselves in the Lord.” This form of words has OT precedent. In a critical situation in the life of David, he is said to have “strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (1 Sam. 30:6). At a later date the God of Israel says of his people gathered home from exile, “I will make them strong in the LORD” (Zech. 10:12).42 But the idea of divinely imparted strength finds frequent expression without the explicit addition of the phrase “in the LORD”; the exhortation to Joshua, “be strong and very courageous” (Josh. 1:7),43 is given to many others in the OT, and is taken up in the NT. “Be watchful, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong,” says Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 16:13),44 and these words are echoed here.
The “mighty power” of God by which his children are to be strengthened—literally, “the power of his might”—has been mentioned already in this letter. It is “the surpassing greatness of his power in us who believe”; it is the “operation of his mighty strength” by which he raised Christ from the dead (Eph. 1:19–20); it is the power with which Paul has prayed that his readers may be strengthened by the Spirit of God in their inner being (Eph. 3:16).45 Here they are told one way in which this power can be effective in their lives—in enabling them to resist those forces in the world that are hostile to their well-being and opposed to the gospel.
11 To resist those forces their natural strength and resolution will not suffice. The “panoply of God,” spiritual armor, is necessary. The word “panoply,” which occurs several times in the Septuagint, is found once only in the NT outside our present passage—in the parable of the strong man armed in Luke 11:21–22, where one who is even stronger comes and strips him of his “panoply”—“his armor in which he trusted.” It denotes a complete outfit of personal armor, for defense and for attack.46
“Though we live in the world,” says Paul to the Corinthians, “we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:3–4). But there it is not body armor that Paul has in mind, but siege engines, with which he intends to “demolish arguments and every lofty structure that is raised against the knowledge of God,” with the aim of “taking every design prisoner and subjecting it to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).
Here it is the “wiles”47 of the devil that have to be resisted. These may be even more subtle than the “human craftiness and trickery which schemes to lead people astray” against which a warning has been sounded in Eph. 4:14. One of the devil’s wiles has already been mentioned in this letter: it is his readiness to exploit strained relations and angry feelings between believers so as to damage their personal or corporate welfare and witness (Eph. 4:27). To be forewarned about the nature of his wiles is to be forearmed against them.
12 Nor do believers need to be on their guard only against the wiles of the devil. The whole climate of opinion in the Graeco-Roman world of apostolic days was inimical to the principles of the gospel. “The god of this age” who “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4), has a host of allies, principalities and powers, here described as “the world-rulers of this dark domain” (lit., “this darkness”) and “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.”
The former references to principalities and powers in this letter have been neutral, nothing being said expressly about their character. In Eph. 1:21 Christ has been exalted above them; in Eph. 3:10 they are meant to learn through the church something of God’s “manifold wisdom.” It is not necessary to infer from the present reference that all principalities and powers are viewed as evil, or hostile to the cause of Christ. But those mentioned here certainly are viewed as hostile,48 and the question arises whether they are to be identified with the principalities and powers disarmed by Christ in the vivid picture of Col. 2:15. If they are identical, how can disarmed powers still constitute a threat? The answer is that they constitute no threat to those who are united by faith to the victorious Christ and avail themselves of his resources, the resources which are here described metaphorically as “the panoply of God.” But to those who neglect those resources, and especially to those who are disposed to give them some room in their lives, they continue to present a threat.
The term “world-rulers”49 appears here only in the NT, but it is difficult to dissociate them from the “rulers of this age” who, according to 1 Cor. 2:6, 8, are on the way out because their failure to discern God’s eternal wisdom led them to “crucify the Lord of glory.” In the Fourth Gospel the singular form, “the ruler of this world,” is found three times (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11); this “ruler” (archōn) endeavors to take advantage of Christ as his passion draws near, but finds no means of doing so: on the contrary, he himself is judged and cast out. The same malign figure is mentioned as “the ruler of the domain of the air” in Eph. 2:2.50
The original application of the term “world-rulers” (kosmokratores) appears to have been to the planets,51 but it is used also of a variety of dominant deities and later of the Roman emperor, who on the human level was indeed the “world-ruler.”52 It was taken over as a loanword in rabbinical Hebrew, with reference to the Roman emperor and other human potentates and also to spiritual powers like the angel of death.53 In the Testament of Solomon (2nd or 3rd cent. A.D.) demons who come to Solomon introduce themselves as stoicheia,54 “the world-rulers of this dark domain” (18:2)55—but these words are probably dependent on the present text.
When they are called rulers of “this dark domain,” they are associated with the “dominion of darkness” from which, according to Col. 1:13, the people of Christ have been rescued.56 They will do their best to reclaim the people of Christ for their own dominion, but their attempts will be fruitless if the people of Christ resist them with the spiritual resources which are now placed at their disposal. Only spiritual resources can prevail against them, for they themselves are “spiritual forces,” and forces of evil at that.57 The heavenly realm58 in which they are located has been mentioned already as the realm in which “principalities and powers” learn lessons in divine wisdom (Eph. 3:10); it is also the realm in which Christ sits enthroned at God’s right hand, high above every principality and power (Eph. 1:20–21) and in which his people have been made to sit along with him (Eph. 2:6). The heavenly realm may be envisaged as comprising a succession of levels, with the throne of God on the highest of these and the hostile forces occupying the lowest.59 The level which they occupy is probably identical with “the domain of the air,” ruled (according to Eph. 2:2) by “the spirit which now operates in the disobedient.”60 At any rate, these are real forces of evil which are encountered in the spiritual sphere, and they have to be withstood. The spirit of the age—any age—is rarely found in alliance with the Spirit of Christ.
13 The panoply of God, then, is available for his children to take up and use. The “evil day” (like the “evil age” of Gal. 1:4) is the period that is dominated by the forces of evil,61 with special emphasis, perhaps, on those occasions when the hostility of evil is experienced in exceptional power, and the temptation to yield is strong. It is then that the panoply of divine grace and strength is indispensable, enabling the believer to resist the pressure and stand firm. A Roman centurion, according to Polybius, had to be the kind of man who could be relied upon, when hard-pressed, to stand fast and not give way;62 and the same quality is necessary in the spiritual warfare. “Having done everything” is explained by J. A. Robinson as “having accomplished all that your duty requires.”63 When all that has been accomplished, the one thing needful is to stand one’s ground.
14 “Stand therefore,” comes the command; and then the panoply of God is described in detail, each piece of armor being identified with some divine gift or virtue.
There are literary antecedents for this metaphorical use of armor. In Isa. 59:17 the God of Israel, displeased because no one has shown himself willing to stand up for justice, arms himself for the defense of the cause of truth:
He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
and a helmet of salvation upon his head;
he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,
and wrapped himself in fury as a mantle.
In partial dependence on this passage the author of the book of Wisdom describes God as acting in defense of the righteous when they are oppressed (5:17–20):
The Lord will take his zeal as his panoply,
and will arm all creation to repel his enemies;
he will put on righteousness as a breastplate,
and wear impartial justice as a helmet;
he will take holiness as an invincible shield,
and sharpen stern wrath for a sword,
and creation will join with him
to fight against his frenzied foes.
Paul uses military language from time to time to describe his own ministry.64 A closer parallel to the present passage is found in the exhortation to “put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation” (1 Thess. 5:8). But what we have here is more elaborate. Truth is to be their belt or girdle (lit., “having girt65 your loins with truth”); this may be an echo of Isa. 11:5, where it is said of the coming “shoot from the stump of Jesse” that “righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and faithfulness (LXX “truth”) the girdle of his loins.” Here truth remains the girdle66 but righteousness becomes the breastplate, as in Isa. 59:17 and Wisdom 5:18. It is truth and righteousness as ethical qualities that are meant, rather than truth of doctrine and justification by faith; though the latter are not unrelated to the ethical qualities.67
15 The designation of the military footwear (the caligae, if we use the Roman term) as “the preparation of the gospel of peace” is patently borrowed from Isa. 52:7: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace”—words applied by Paul, in an abridged form, to those who are sent to preach the Christian message (Rom. 10:15). Here he “means to express the readiness which belongs to the bearer of good tidings,” says J. A. Robinson,68 who points out that the Greek noun meaning “preparation” is used in the Septuagint for a stand or base.69 Those who must at all costs stand their ground need to have a secure footing; in the spiritual conflict, this is supplied by the gospel, appropriated and proclaimed.
16 In addition to the defensive equipment actually worn on the body comes the shield, carried on the left arm and maneuvered so as to repel attacks of various kinds, including “fire-tipped darts”70 or other flaming missiles designed to cause personal or material damage. Even when such a missile was caught by the shield and did not penetrate to the body, says Livy, it caused panic, because it was thrown when well alight and its motion through the air made it blaze more fiercely, so that the soldier was tempted to get rid of his burning shield and expose himself to the enemy’s spear-thrusts.71 But the “shield of faith” not only catches the incendiary devices but extinguishes them. The “fire-tipped darts of the evil one” are the “wiles of the devil” already mentioned; the best defense against them is faith in God. Here too a question arises: is it faith in God or faithfulness to God that is meant? In 1 Pet. 5:8–9, where the assaults of the devil are described by means of a different figure of speech (he “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”), faith again is recommended as the best means of defense against him: “resist him, firm in your faith.” There, as E. G. Selwyn says, “a flint-like resolution” is what is called for;72 such a resolution is the product of an unshakable faith in God.
There is a figurative reference to fiery missiles in the Qumran Hymns of Thanksgiving, where the speaker says of the mighty men who surround him with their weapons of war:
“They have let fly arrows
against which there is no cure,
and the flame of (their) javelins
is like a consuming fire among trees.”
But his loyalty to God’s covenant protects him; his “foot remains upon level ground.”73
17 The “helmet of salvation” is taken from Isa. 59:17, where Yahweh wears it.74 In such a context it might well be the helmet of victory (cf. GNB: “He will wear … victory like a helmet”), for the God of Israel does not receive salvation; he bestows it. Here too the “helmet of salvation” recommended to the believer might be called the helmet of victory, for God’s victory is his people’s salvation. In 1 Thess. 5:8 “the hope of salvation” serves as a helmet, for in that letter salvation is something which believers are “destined … to obtain … through our Lord Jesus Christ”—at his parousia. In this letter, however, salvation is viewed as already accomplished—“it is by grace that you have been saved” (Eph. 2:5)—so “the helmet of salvation” is available for the protection of believers.
The only weapon of attack that is included in the equipment is the sword. It is the “sword of the Spirit,” the sword of the breath of God. Of the expected prince of the house of David it is said in Isa. 11:4 that “he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.” This prophecy is taken up in the vivid picture of the conquering Word of God in Rev. 19:15: “from his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations.”75 But now the sword is used not to smite the earth or slay the wicked, but to repel the spiritual foes of the people of God. “God’s word” is his utterance—“every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Deut. 8:3 LXX). It is through his Spirit that his word is both uttered and received on earth. Perhaps the best example of the use of his word to repel spiritual foes is seen in Jesus’ employment of the text just quoted (Deut. 8:3) to repel the tempter in the wilderness.76 The divine utterance, the product of the Spirit, lends itself readily to the believer who has laid it up in his heart77 for effective use in the moment of danger against any attempt to seduce him from allegiance to Christ.
The pieces of armor listed cover most of those which might have been seen on a Roman soldier at the time. The most obvious omission would be the greaves, which were worn to protect the front of the legs.78 When John Bunyan described the equipment which Christian received in the armory of the House Beautiful and used to good effect against Apollyon on the next stage of his journey, he drew on this passage in Ephesians, and noted that no armor was provided for the back, so that at the approach of Apollyon Christian had no option but “to venture and stand his ground.”79
This account of the spiritual conflict and the panoply of God has inspired others to develop the theme—notably Bunyan in The Holy War (The Holy War made by Shaddai upon Diabolus for the Regaining of the Metropolis of the World or the Losing and Taking Again of the Town of Mansoul, 1682)—a work which, had the same author not written The Pilgrim’s Progress, would have been acclaimed as the greatest allegory in the English language. Twenty to twenty-seven years before The Holy War was published, another Puritan, William Gurnall, minister of Lavenham, Suffolk, produced his encyclopaedic exposition of these verses (Eph. 6:10–20), The Christian in Complete Armour (1655–62), which in its twentieth-century reprint (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1964) runs to some 1200 double-column pages—an exhaustive body of practical divinity.80
7. “WATCH AND PRAY” (6:18–20)
18Pray in the Spirit at all times with all prayer and supplication, and keep awake for this very purpose with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints,
19and also for me: pray that I may be given utterance as I open my mouth, to make known the mystery of the gospel81 with liberty of speech.
20It is for the sake of the gospel that I am an ambassador—an ambassador in chains! Pray that I may enjoy liberty in this matter,82 and speak as I ought.
18 This paragraph is closely similar to its counterpart in Col. 4:2–5, but neither passage can be shown to be dependent on the other. Both reflect a common situation, existing at the time and place of writing.
There is no obvious separation in the Greek text between this exhortation to prayer and the immediately preceding encouragement to resist spiritual foes.83 The imperative “pray” (in our rendering above) renders the participle “praying” in the Greek.84 This might be a further instance of the imperatival use of the participle;85 but, so far as the construction goes, “praying” (with the following “keeping awake”) seems to belong to the series of participles dependent on the imperative “stand” at the beginning of v. 14 (“having girt,” “having shod,” “having taken up”).86
Praying “in the Spirit” means praying under the Spirit’s influence and with his assistance. “I will pray with the spirit87 and I will pray with the mind also,” says Paul (1 Cor. 14:15), by way of response, it appears, to some who believed that to pray in a “tongue” unintelligible to speaker and hearers alike was to pray “in the Spirit.” It is no criterion of the power of the Spirit that the person praying does not understand his own prayer. On the other hand, there are prayers and aspirations of the heart that cannot well be articulated; these can be offered in the Spirit, who, as Paul says, “himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26).
Both in his own practice and in that of his converts and others, Paul insists on the necessity of constant prayer—praying “at every time” (as the literal rendering is here).88 “Pray without ceasing,” the Thessalonian Christians are exhorted (1 Thess. 5:17), while Paul himself repeatedly assures his readers of his unremitting prayer for them (cf. Col. 1:3). Here the general word for prayer is used, together with “supplication,” the word emphasizing the element of petition or entreaty in prayer.89
As in Col. 4:2, the importance of watchfulness, keeping spiritually alert, is stressed. A different word for keeping awake is used here90—the same word as appears in a similar exhortation in Luke 21:36, where Jesus, warning his disciples of the impending crisis, urges them to “keep awake at all times, praying that you may prevail … to stand before the Son of Man.”91 The eschatological note is not explicitly prominent in Colossians and Ephesians, but it can be discerned wherever watchfulness and perseverance92 are enjoined.
The readers have already been commended for their love “to all the saints” (Eph. 1:15); one way of continuing to show this love is to persevere in making supplication for them.
19 With the exhortation to pray “for all the saints” comes a special request to pray for Paul in particular, in language closely akin to that in Col. 4:3–4. If the life-setting of the letter was Paul’s detention in Rome, where he looked forward to his appearance before the supreme tribunal, then he might well ask for prayer as he tried to exploit every opportunity for gospel witness in his present restricted situation, and especially when the time came (as he hoped) to bear witness before Caesar himself.93 Much might depend on what Paul said on that occasion, and on the manner in which he said it—not so much for his own safety (a matter of minor importance in his eyes) as for the progress of the gospel in the Roman world. He had made known in the eastern provinces the “mystery”94 with which he had been entrusted on the Damascus road; the impending opportunity of making it known at the very heart of the imperial administration carried great responsibility with it, wholeheartedly as he welcomed it. Hence he besought the prayers of his fellow-Christians, that he might say the right thing in the right way,95 and do so without inhibitions.
20 Twice in this prayer request he expresses the desire that he may be granted liberty of speech as he makes the gospel known.96 This liberty of speech cannot be divorced from the inward liberty of spirit which enables one to speak from the heart. His sense of liberty was the greater because he knew that what he had to make known was not his own message but the Lord’s. He was but the ambassador; Christ was the sovereign on whose behalf he was to speak. He had no uncertainty about his commission: as he put it to Philemon, if he was the prisoner of Christ Jesus, he was at the same time the ambassador of Christ Jesus97—none the less an ambassador even if he was, as he says here, “an ambassador in chains.”98
If it is to the hearing of his appeal that 2 Tim. 4:17 looks back, then the answer to the prayer requested here is recorded there: “the Lord stood by me and gave me strength to proclaim the message fully, so that all the Gentiles might hear it.” “All the Gentiles” could not be present in court while Paul made his defense, but this is an instance of Paul’s “representative universalism”;99 what was said in public at the center of the empire would reverberate as far as the distant frontiers.
IV. LETTER-CLOSING (6:21–24)
1. PERSONAL NOTES (6:21–22)
21So that you also may know my affairs, how I am getting on, you will learn everything from Tychicus, my dear brother and a trusty servant in the Lord.
22I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may learn our news and that he may encourage your hearts.
21–22 This note about Tychicus follows Col. 4:7–8 almost word for word. The implication is that Tychicus was entrusted with this letter together with that to the church of Colossae, and would deliver it on his journey to the Lycus valley—perhaps in the Lycus valley itself. The words at the beginning of v. 21—“so that you also may know my affairs”—most probably mean “so that you, in addition to others who are receiving news of me, may know my affairs.”100 This would be natural if Colossians and Ephesians were written and sent at the same time.
Tychicus, who was evidently in Paul’s company at the time of writing, would be able to convey further information about him by word of mouth.
If this letter is pseudonymous, then the reference to Tychicus is a literary borrowing from Col. 4:7–8, and it might be asked why a reference to Tychicus in particular was thought apposite here. An answer to this question must necessarily be speculative.101
2. FINAL BENEDICTION (6:23–24)
23Peace to the brothers,102 and love103 with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
24Grace and immortality be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ.104
23 The grace and peace which figured in the initial greeting are repeated here in the final blessing, but in reverse order and less closely tied together. “Peace” is mentioned similarly in the letter-closing of Galatians (Gal. 6:16);105 more fully, the presence of “the God of peace” is the substance of the benedictions of Rom. 15:33 (cf. 16:20); Phil. 4:9; 1 Thess. 5:23,106 of “the Lord of peace” in 2 Thess. 3:16, and of “the God of love and peace” in 2 Cor. 13:11.
“Love with faith” is love accompanied by faith. “Love” in a final blessing is not surprising, whether it be the love of God (as in 2 Cor. 13:14) or Paul’s own love (as in 1 Cor. 16:24). But what is the force of “faith”? Most probably its present collocation with love takes up the thanksgiving of Eph. 1:15, in which the apostle expresses his pleasure at news of the readers’ faith or fidelity as members of the Christian fellowship and their love shown to “all the saints.”107 At the end of the letter he prays that these qualities may continue to characterize them. Such qualities would be their response to the peace and grace bestowed by God; like all the Christian virtues, they have their source in God—“God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (cf. Eph. 1:2).
24 “Grace be with you,” as in Col. 4:18, is Paul’s basic benediction at the end of a letter; it is generally expanded in various forms. Here it is cast in the third person (like “to the brothers” in v. 23).108 “This,” says J. A. Robinson, “is in harmony with the circular nature of this epistle”—possibly so, but its circular nature has not inhibited the use of the second person in vv. 21–22.
The present expansion bespeaks grace on “all who love our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a positive counterpart to the negative “if anyone has no love for the Lord” of 1 Cor. 16:22109 (which perhaps takes up a word of eucharistic admonition).110 The construction of the last two words in the Greek text of the letter—“in immortality” or “with immortality”111—is uncertain. Their position would suggest that they be taken as an adverbial phrase modifying the verb “love”: hence RSV “all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love undying” (similarly ASV, NAB, NIV, GNB).112 The KJV took the Greek word aphtharsia in a moral sense, translating “… that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity” (RV, with excessive literalness, “in uncorruptness”). But J. A. Robinson found it impossible to “point to any passage in the writers of the second century” in which the word was “used of moral incorruptness, though … common enough in the usual sense of immortality.” He further considered that “the disposition of the sentence” was “fatal” to the rendering adopted above, in which the word is attached to “grace.”113 The justification for adopting this rendering lies mainly in the prevalence throughout this letter of the preposition “in” with a “comitative” sense, attaching the following word to one or more preceding words so as to complete a series.114 Cf. NEB (“God’s grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, grace and immortality”); Jerusalem Bible (“May grace and eternal life be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ”).