and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God.
Christ is our true model; we must embrace each other with the love He showed us, sparing not His own life that we might be redeemed. The more we grasp His extraordinary kindness, the more tightly we are bound to serve Him, and unless we love one another, none of our duties will please God.
AI summary
Christ gave Himself up to death for us, the offerer and the offering were one. He is the antitype of all the Law's sacrifices, whether unbloody or bloody; God is well pleased with this offering and so is reconciled to us. As what Christ is, believers also are: we too become a sweet savor of Christ to God.
AI summary
Walk in love, not merely having it in principle, but exercising it in act. Christ's past tense love shows both its priority, reaching back to eternity before we loved ourselves, and its certainty: He hath loved you, proven by every step from heaven to earth and back again. Follow His example.
AI summary