What Does Ephesians 6:23 Mean?

(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.”