The Fragrance of Love (Ephesians 5:2)

What does it mean to “walk in love” and become a fragrant offering to God?

In this Christ-centered Bible study on Ephesians 5:2, Nathan Johnson explores Paul’s profound imagery of aroma, sacrifice, and the life of love that reflects Jesus Christ. The apostle declares that Christ “loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God,” and this message unpacks how believers are called to live that same sacrificial, Spirit-empowered love in a world that may reject it.

Discover how your life can become a pleasing fragrance to God.

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Key Passage: Ephesians 5:2

… and walk in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
– Ephesians 5:2

The Clothing of the Kingdom

• Put Off / Put On
  • put off sin and the culture of the world’s kingdom and put on Christ (the clothing of the Kingdom)

Therefore be imitators …

• Ephesians 5:1 – Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children …
  • You become like the one you’re around and love the most (kids with parents; me with Stephen; etc)
  • Ephesians 5:1 [NRJ]– Therefore be image-bearers of God, as beloved children …
• How can we possibly “image” God?
  • Genesis 1:27 – And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
    • we are image bearers of the living God
  • Not WWJD! (mimic)
  • We can’t!
  • Oswald Chambers– The secret to imitation is impartation.
  • This is Paul’s entire message of Ephesians: IN CHRIST
  • 1 John 4:9 – By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

Walk in Love

• Ephesians 5:1–2 – Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
  • Love travels at about 3 miles an hour (normal walking speed) – love demands time, patience, slowness … the Lord was patient with us, He doesn’t rush His process (we need to love like that too)

The Sacrifice of Love

• Lust grabs, love gives
• Lust asks how can I use you, love asks how can I serve and pour out my life for you
• True love (agapē) always demands sacrifice (bleed, suffer, die, never think about yourself)
• John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
• Ephesians 5:1–2 – Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
• OFFERING (prosphora) – something presented to a god for acceptance or rejection; often refers to sacrifices (specifically the gift that was brought to the Temple for sacrifice)
  • these sacrifices required their death 
  • when you took a lamb to the Temple, you didn’t intend to return home with it
  • the sacrifice was consecrated and surrendered to God
• SACRIFICE (thysia) – refers more to the act of sacrifice itself
  • Mark Holmes– Originally, thusian [thysia] related to the smoke resulting from the sacrifice, which produced an aroma. The basic understanding of the primitive mind, in regard to sacrifice, was that it became the means by which earth-dwelling humans presented their gifts to heaven-dwelling gods. No matter how many times they would throw a slaughtered ram into the air, it always seemed to find its way back down. But, once burnt with fire, this same offering was transformed from its solid state into a vapor that ascended into heaven, to be enjoyed by the deity to whom it was offered. ⁽¹⁾
  • Kenneth L. Boles – These words are strongly suggestive of the O.T. sacrificial system. The word “sacrifice” and the verb form of “offering” each appear over 70 times in the book of Leviticus alone. (See especially Lev 1:13.) Christ is the fulfillment of these sacrifices, making complete and final atonement by his blood (Eph 1:7; Heb 9:28; 10:12). Christ was the ultimate sacrifice, the only sacrifice God truly desired (Heb 10:5). ⁽²⁾
  • Hebrews 7:26–27 – For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.
  • Hebrews 8:1–3 – Now the main point in what is being said is this: we have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the holy places and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer.
  • Hebrews 9:11–12– But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy places once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
  • Jesus is the High Priest, He is the altar, He is the sacrificial Lamb
  • He is the sacrifice and the offering

Just as …

• The extent and immensity of our love is to be measured by the love of Christ
• How did He love? Extravagantly, without limit – to the point where His love was an offering, sacrifice, and sweet-smelling aroma
• He “gave Himself up for us” (the Cross)
• 1 John 3:16– By this we have known love, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
• Mark Holmes– We will never obtain a likeness of God until we become totally surrendered to Him. We sing this truth often in our churches: “But we never can prove the delights of His love until all on the altar we lay.” ⁽³⁾
• Hymn: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
  • Love so amazing, so divine,
    demands my soul, my life, my all.

The “Given Over” Contrast

• Ephesians 5:2 – … and walk in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us …
  • Peter Thomas O’Brien– The verb ‘gave over’, together with the reflexive pronoun ‘himself’, indicates that Christ took the initiative in handing himself over to death. He went to the cross as the willing victim … There may be a deliberate contrast being drawn between Christ’s action in giving himself over to death (παρέδωκεν ἑαυτόν) and that of the Gentiles who ‘gave themselves over to immorality’ (ἑαυτοὺς παρέδωκαν, 4:19). ⁽⁴⁾
  • Ephesians 4:19 – And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
  • Will I give myself over to sin or will I surrender myself to Christ for Him to demonstrate His love in and through me?
• Romans 6
• Put off / Put on
• Galatians 2:20– I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Living as a Fragrant Aroma

• Genesis 8:20–21 – [Noah] Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And Yahweh smelled the soothing aroma …
• Numbers 29:2 – And you shall offer a burnt offering as a soothing aroma to Yahweh …
• Exodus 30:1, 7– [Incense altar]“Moreover, you shall make an altar as a place for burning incense; you shall make it of acacia wood.… Aaron shall burn fragrant incense on it; he shall burn it every morning when he trims the lamps.”
• Ezekiel 20:41– “As a soothing aroma I will accept you when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered; and I will prove Myself holy among you in the sight of the nations.”
• Ephesians 5:2 – … just as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

You are now the aroma of God to the world

• Romans 12:1–2– Therefore I exhort you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—living, holy, and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect.
• 2 Corinthians 2:14–16 – But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ, and manifests through us the aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. 
  • Diffuser– oozing Jesus in everything we do
  • Illustration: toothpaste
• Amy Carmichael – “One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving.”

FOOTNOTES

(1) Mark A. Holmes, Ephesians: a Bible commentary in the Wesleyan tradition (Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 1997), 141.
(2) Kenneth L. Boles, Galatians & Ephesians, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1993), Eph 5:2.
(3) Mark A. Holmes, Ephesians: a Bible commentary in the Wesleyan tradition (Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 1997), 141.
(4) Peter Thomas O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999).

Photo Credit: Getty Images

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In Our Next Study Together …

I invite you to join me on this journey from the book of Ephesians to discover God’s eternal purpose, His plan for your life, and learn how to practically live out an abundant and fruitful Christian life. 

• The focus of our next study: Ephesians 4–6
  • We are going to step back and gain a big-picture view of the second half of Ephesians.
  • I encourage you to read through Ephesians a couple of times this week and focus specifically on Ephesians 4–6.