What does it mean to walk in love (Ephesians 5:2)?

The imitation enjoined is not artificial but natural. Here are children playing in the market-place. They hold an imaginary court. This little maiden, arrayed in cheap finery, is impersonating a queen. She imitates queenly manners as best she can, but it is all very crude and artificial. There however is a small lad, minutely observing his father. Presently friends are smiling at him and observing how very like his father he is. His imitation is largely unconscious and wholly natural, for he is the son of his father, possessing his life and nature. Now it is as children of God that we are called upon to be imitators of God.

We are to walk in love. This is not natural to us as the children of Adam, but it is natural to us as born of God, for God is love. Walking in love is thus simply the manifesting in practice of the Divine nature. Hence it adds, "as Christ also has loved us," since in Christ the Divine nature was seen in all its fulness and perfection. In His case moreover love led to action. He gave Himself for us in sacrifice to God. In this of course He stands alone, though we are to love even as He loved. He was the true burnt offering, the Antitype of Leviticus 1.

(V. 2). Firstly, as children, we are exhorted to walk in love. At once Christ is set before us as the great example of this love. In Him we see the devotedness of love that gave Himself for others, and this devotedness goes up to God as a sweet-smelling sacrifice. Such love goes far beyond the demands of the law which requires that a man love his neighbour as himself. Christ did more, for He gave Himself to God for us. It is this love we are asked to imitate, a love that would lead us to sacrifice ourselves for our brethren. Such love will in its little measure, even as with the infinite love of Christ, go up as a sweet savour to God. The love that led the Philippian assembly to meet the necessities of the Apostle was to God “an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God” (Philippians 4:16-18).

“And walk in love,” according to the example set before us by Christ, for it is “as Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savour.” The death of Christ was a propitiatory offering, and we cannot follow Him in that, but we can imitate Him in the love that would lead us to lay down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3:16). Paul mentions two saints of God who for his life laid down their own necks. If one risks his life for another, at is equivalent to laying it down.

One word as to carrying this through. "Walk in love," etc. (verse 2). I give myself up for others, but to God. If I give myself to others, I may not go right, for they may not go right. The lower and worse the person I give myself up for, the higher it is. The principle of Christ was, He gave Himself to God, but for the vilest. It was a sacrifice of love - love that has its motive in itself for God, its object in God - and that kept it steady in the path.

If “accepted in the Beloved,” we are now exhorted to “walk in love” (Eph. 5:2). To walk corresponding to our exalted place is surely incumbent on us. Responsibility flows from relationship, and Christianity as contrasted with law places us in present, gracious, and happy relation with God as Father. That is settled for us in grace. We are to imitate God as “dear children” and to “walk in love” (Eph. 5:1-2). But in order to imitate any one we must know that one. Now we are made acquainted with God—are placed in His presence, and put in possession of His mind. We can therefore imitate God as His children, and just as He has dealt with us in ways of divine and perfect love so in like manner we are to walk in and exhibit love in our own ways.

Verses 1 and 2 of chapter 5 are closely connected with verse 32 of chapter 4. God's gracious character of love that delights to have us as His dear children is our example. The more we realize the reality of this, the more consistent with it will be our walk. For we are to walk in love. Nor is it a love we must manufacture or awaken in our own hearts, but the blessed result of Christ's love to us. That love has given, not only many gifts, but Himself. He delivered Himself up for us. While the gift of Himself was for us, yet His blessed offering and sacrifice was to God. The offering speaks especially of the value of the gift in God's eyes, while as a sacrifice the gift expresses the greatness of what Christ has given up for the glory of God. Both the peace offering and burnt offering character of His sacrifice are seen here. The peace offering brings us into sweet accord with God in Christ, and the burnt offering ascends to God to delight His heart of infinite love. In Leviticus 1:9,13,17 and 3:5,16, both of these offerings are seen as sweet savor offerings -- offerings that were a sweet odor to God.

We are to "walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour." How such a word searches the heart! Is this how we love? Who will not own to shortcoming? Yet the standard may not be lowered, nothing short of this is the mind of God for His saints. Christ gave Himself — His love led Him even to death for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (1 John 4). The sacrifice of Christ is here brought before us in its burnt offering aspect — it was a sweet smelling savour; and, blessed be His name, "for us." In 1 Peter 2:24, where we get the trespass offering side of His cross, "a sweet savour" could not be said: He bore our sins, and drank the cup of divine wrath which was their due.

Verse 1. "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children." God becomes the pattern of our imitation (mimetai, t. Th.) the moment we accept, by faith, the gracious declaration of His love to us in Christ. To aim at such conformity while remaining in ignorance of His free forgiveness of our sins, is nothing but the presumptuous folly of a darkened understanding. What God does can be truly imitated by those only who are born of God. Having accepted us in the Beloved, the title which naturally could be only His, is now by grace applied diffusively to all His saints. It is as "dear children" that we are called to show to one another some faint reflection of that love which He has so abundantly bestowed on us in Christ. Let it be noticed, that in making this appeal to our hearts, the Spirit of God encourages us in our appropriation of a greeting, the terms of which are apt to make us stagger under a freshly awakened sense of our own unworthiness, by a direct and simple reference to the cross. It is because God has forgiven us, in Christ, as stated at the close of the preceding chapter, that these words of Divine endearment become rightfully our own. The Son has made us free into the fellowship of His own liberty. In receiving Him by faith, we have received power to become the sons of God (John 1:12)

Verse 2. "And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us," etc. If we imitate the Father, we shall walk in love, for God is love. But the active stimulant as well as the just measure of such love, is to be found in the remembrance of Him who gave Himself to death for our sakes. Love in the Spirit has always something of a sacrificial character. It is thus distinguished from natural partiality. Originating in the new and risen life, it views natural death among the possible tests of its devotion to the name of Jesus. "We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:16). More difficult, perhaps, though not less acceptable to God, than one such mighty effort of self-sacrifice, is that "patient continuance in well doing," which makes Christ the law of our daily walk; a light which leads far away from the path of self-seeking, to find increase to our happiness in practical conformity to Him.

It has been said that we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, if necessary. But it is always necessary. There is no self in love, and there is a great deal of self in us, which, to walk in love, must be sacrificed. “Walk in love as Christ also has loved us and has given Himself for us” (Eph. 5:2). In this world men guard themselves from the encroachment of their neighbours. Each cares for his own things, and self-interest is man’s first and supreme thought, for man is beyond all thought utterly selfish. But in the assembly of God it is to be the opposite of this, for there a man is no object to himself. His neighbours everything and himself nothing. There is to be no self-assertion, but continual self-surrender. If our hearts are filled with the love of Christ, we will not find it difficult. The commandment, that we should love one another, as He has loved us, will not be grievous to us.

We may get more distinct forms of this expression; for instance, Eph. 5:2. This is based upon the fact of our being children of God; and we get a characteristic of walk, and a very important one, brought out. The apostle says, "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, even as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." In this respect also I have to walk as Christ did — "in love, even as He hath loved us." Turn also to John 13:14: "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you;" also verse 17: "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." But what I want to bring before you specially is in Eph. 5:2. We are to imitate Christ, then, simply because of what we are, and the place we occupy. And then we have this example set before us here; and it is wonderful the terms in which we have it described. He "hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." The apostle John also brings this out in his first epistle. I will read it just in passing. 1 John 3:16: "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us." And what else? "And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." So that the love of Christ ought to be our model in this expression of it — love even to death. But in the verse I read out of Ephesians, we have the important truth, that while Christ loved us, and gave Himself for us, it was "an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." The expression of our love, therefore, must not have the saints for its object, but it must be God Himself; and this love can only be expressed in obedience, not otherwise. It is exceedingly important to remember this. We might be tempted — many are — to think that we must exhibit love under all circumstances. Not so; the expression of the love must be governed by the word of God; and so the glory of God is to be the first thing. "He gave Himself for us." Yes; but it is "an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." I suppose there is no snare so great as that which pleads for charity towards all, in the sense that we must not exclude any from the Lord's table, which is quite true so far as it goes; but we must except those whom God's word excludes. The love must be expressed in obedience to God. It must have God for its object; and therefore, if I go outside of His word, I am making my fellow-believer the object, and not God. We thus get the true character of love; unless it has God for its object, it is not the love that Christ exhibited when He gave Himself for us. We have to imitate Christ; that is our responsibility.