The salutation of [me] Paul with my own hand.
Near the end of a long letter full of correction, Paul takes the pen from the person writing for him and adds a greeting in his own handwriting. Why did he need to sign at all? What did that signature prove? And does a dictated letter carry less weight than one he wrote out himself?
Paul rarely wrote his letters out himself. One writer sets out his usual practice:
It was Paul's custom to employ a secretary to write his letters (see Romans 16:22), though he wrote to the Galatians himself (Gal. 6:11). But at the end he wrote a few words with his own hand, or, we suppose, signed his name, so that it might be a token to them of its genuineness.
A handwritten greeting was not decoration. It answered a real danger:
The second of these letters [to the Thessalonians] exposes the fraud of a letter pretending to have come from the apostle. It had deceived some at least. From then on his greeting with his own hand in every letter is the token to guard the saints.
Earlier in this letter Paul had called his instructions the Lord's commands. His signature stands behind that claim:
For letters which had the character of commandments of the Lord (1 Cor. 14:37) this was important. The greeting at the end came from his own hand, which verified all that was in the letter as his, that is, as of apostolic inspired authority. We see what he thought of his own letters. He counted accuracy important, just because they were not his, but from the Lord.
So what did that signature guarantee — the letter as a whole, or every word in it? The same writer answers:
He verified his letters to the assemblies by writing the greeting at the end with his own hand. That marked the importance he attached to the exact wording, and it confirmed the principle of an exact inspiration.
If Paul says this mark appears in every letter, how many did he write out in full himself? One writer says we cannot settle the number. He adds that the question does not touch the worth of what we read:
This handwritten greeting is called "the sign of genuineness in every letter," yet it is added in that formal way to only three. So we are still in doubt about how many were written in his own hand. We are certain only about two. And God's words do not vary in value for the heart of the believer, whether the hand that first wrote them was that of Tertius or of Paul.
Tertius was the secretary who wrote out Paul's letter to the Romans while Paul spoke it.
What Paul wrote by his own hand next is startling. The sternest warning in the letter sits beside his love for these people:
The apostle, then, adds his greeting with his own hand. Here, as usual, the body of the letter was not in his own writing. But he also adds the sternest condemnation of anyone who did not love the Lord... yet this did not clash in the least with the love that stirred and filled his heart, as one sees from verse 23, and especially 24. Indeed, we may doubt whether love can be genuine without hating evil.
Another writer names the motive behind all Paul's correction:
However faithfully he may have written to them, love was the motive; so he carried out his own exhortation to them, "Let all that you do be done in love."
- The hand that signs. Paul dictated his letters to a secretary. He then wrote the closing greeting himself, as a token that the letter was genuine.
- The hand that guards. Someone had once forged a letter in his name. From then on his own handwriting guarded the churches.
- The hand that authorises. He took this care because the letters were not his own. They carried the Lord's commands, so every word had to be exact.
- The hand that does not diminish. Nobody can say how many letters Paul wrote out in full. It makes no difference to their value: the words are God's, whether the hand was that of Tertius or of Paul.
- The hand that loves. The same hand wrote the sternest warning against anyone who did not love the Lord, and wrote out of a heart full of love. Faithfulness and affection came from one pen.
If any one love not the Lord [Jesus Christ] let him be Anathema Maranatha.
Paul closes a letter that has corrected grave errors and evils at Corinth, yet his last warning names none of them. It falls instead on anyone without love for Christ, and two strange words tie it to a date: the coming of the Lord.
The first of these words is Greek; the second is not.
Two Aramaic words meaning "the Lord comes", added (perhaps as a kind of watchword) after the word Anathema, "let him be accursed", applied to those who do not love the Lord Jesus.
Older translations leave both words as they stand. The ESV puts them into English, and it reads the second as a call for the Lord to come.
The New Testament has two Greek words for love. Paul picks the narrower one here, and it means more than human warmth.
Agapao is the general term for loving, and it fits in every direction — to superiors, inferiors and equals. It is used of God's feeling toward man, and of man's toward God... On the other hand, phileo seems to be a narrower word, and it properly implies special affection and endearment... Just as little can phileo be reduced to the purely human regard of the heart. It is not so that the Father loves the Son or even us; nor can anything be more opposed to the true meaning of 1 Corinthians 16:22.
Paul reaches for this word of endearment very rarely.
Paul uses it only twice: 1 Cor. 16:22 in full keeping with what we have found to be the rule in other passages, and in Titus 3:15.
We might expect Paul's closing sentence to name the offenders at Corinth. It does not.
These were grave errors and formidable evils — errors and evils which drew a sharp and stern rebuke from the inspired apostle. But when at the close he pronounces his solemn "Anathema Maranatha," it is not directed against those who had introduced the errors or practiced the evils, but against "any man" who does not love the Lord Jesus Christ... The only safeguard against every kind of error and evil is genuine love for the Lord Jesus Christ. A man may be so strictly moral that no one could put his finger upon a single blot in his character or a single stain in his reputation. Yet underneath that strict morality, there may be a heart as cold as ice, so far as the Lord Jesus is concerned.
Turn the warning around and it becomes an encouragement. The love that is missing in one heart is what gives worth to everything in another.
Remember that the only basis for true morality, the only basis for sound doctrine, the only basis for "pure religion," is love for the Lord Jesus Christ. Where this love does not exist, all is cold, barren and worthless... But if the heart is truly touched with the living spark of love for Jesus, then every effort after pure morality, every struggle against our hateful lusts and tempers, every open hand of genuine kindness... every act of devotion, every outgoing of the soul, is precious to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
Paul ties the warning to the Lord's return. That day will show where hearts really stood.
The coming of the Lord may reveal a solemn fact. Some have taken their place among the Lord's people who have never truly been touched by His love, and who therefore have no love for Him. So they prove that they are not the Lord's.
The verse strikes many readers as harsh. One writer answers by pointing to the Father's own estimate of His Son.
God loves His Son. He knows what He has done and suffered for mankind, and He rightly values His claims on their grateful love... But if we are careless about all this, and despise the One who brings us heaven's richest gifts, what will the throne of judgment say? Is there no crime in despising both the love and the authority of God, and in ignoring His demands for the honour of His Son?
Two verses later Paul sends his own love to the very people he has just warned. Commentators differ on what the phrase is. Some call it a set formula for putting a person out of the church. One writer thinks it goes further still.
To me it appears to go farther still. Yet it did not clash in the least with the love that stirred and filled his heart, as you can see from verse 23, and especially verse 24. It is doubtful whether love can be genuine without hating evil. And what evil can compare with bearing the name of the Lord while having no real attachment to Him?
- Words — "Anathema" is a curse; "Maranatha" is Aramaic for "the Lord comes". Paul speaks the sentence and its date in one breath.
- Love — Paul picks the Greek word for close, personal affection. It means far more than ordinary human regard.
- Target — The curse falls not on the errors Paul rebuked but on "any man" who does not love Christ. Spotless morals can hide an ice-cold heart.
- Value — Where that love is real, every small struggle, gift and prayer is precious to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
- Coming — His return will show who was never touched by His love. Some who stood among His people were never His.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ [be] with you.
Paul ends a long letter of correction, and his last warning is a curse on anyone who does not love the Lord. Then comes this line, and the question is why he leaves a troubled church with grace rather than one more rule.
Paul opens another letter with a curse just as sharp. One writer sets that beside the warning and the blessing here:
Here he burns with no less fire against anyone who does not love the Lord, and in the light of His coming too, which goes further than putting a person out of the church. But this in no way interferes with his prayer, that not His judgment but His grace might be with you. He also assures them all of his own love in Christ Jesus. So confidence and affection mark this handwritten close, as well as the gravest warning.
The blessing does not cover everyone. Another writer draws the line:
Verse 23 gives them the usual lovely blessing: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." But the verse before it is a solemn warning. That grace does not extend to anyone who "does not love our Lord Jesus Christ." Instead of blessing, he is sure of only one thing: being accursed (anathema) at the coming of the Lord (maran-atha).
Paul does not leave the Corinthians standing on their own love for Christ. One writer puts it the other way round:
Their love to Him is only a witness and effect of His own true grace to them. In that grace they stand. Paul now hands them over for safe keeping to the one thing that can sustain them, with a parting word of brotherly affection from himself. His work as an inspired corrector of their ways had kept him at a distance from them until he had said all he had to say. But his heart is still with them as his beloved children in the faith.
The writers quote an older translation, which reads "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." Either way, the grace belongs to a Person, and one writer draws out what that holds for us:
This is what we all need — the resources that are in the Lord Jesus Christ and His grace… So "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ" means this: every kind of grace we need is available in Him.
Paul wrote the closing lines by hand. One writer explains what that closing sentence was for:
The apostle wanted to prove that his letters were his own, and to keep forged letters from fooling the saints, as people seem to have tried at Thessalonica. So early in his writing ministry he chose a token by which readers could know his true letters: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." He wrote it perhaps with his own hand… and we find this greeting, in its longest form or its shortest, added to all his letters.
So this closing line is more than a polite farewell. It is Paul's own mark on the letter.
This grace is for the whole journey, and it works on a person along the way:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is to be with us all as we travel on to His coming, through the present scenes of toil and trouble, strife and desert life. It is to rest on our spirits, form our characters, shape our thoughts, enter our hearts, and come into expression in our lives. The whole church of God needs it. Every little gathering of the Lord's people needs it. The saints of God — you and I and all the rest of us — greatly need it. Blessed be God, it rests on us, and is available to us in every conceivable emergency.
- Warning, then grace. Verse 22 curses; verse 23 blesses. Both come from the same pen. The sternest warning "in no way interferes with his prayer, that not His judgment but His grace might be with you."
- Grace first. Love for Christ is "only a witness and effect of His own true grace" — not the cause of it.
- Grace stored in a Person. Because it is His grace, "every kind of grace we need is available in Him."
- Grace as signature. Paul chose this sentence as his token. In its longest form or its shortest, it closes all his letters.
- Grace for the road. It is to rest on us as we travel toward His coming, "available to us in every conceivable emergency."
My love [be] with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Paul closes a letter full of correction with one line of personal affection. How can sharp rebuke and warm love stand side by side? And why does he mark his love with the words "in Christ Jesus"?
Paul had suffered much from the very people he was writing to. Even so, he did not stop at a prayer for grace.
He had suffered much from them. Even so, he was not content with the prayer "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you." He ends with "My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen." What could be more Christlike!
This closing line also shows how to read everything before it. The rebukes were not a break in his love for them.
Last of all, Paul assures them of his own love in Christ Jesus. The many rebukes in this letter are not separate from real love for them. That very love is what moved him to write them.
The verse before this one pronounces a curse on anyone who does not love the Lord. Yet Paul does not then split the assembly into a trusted group and a suspect one.
We also see that, whatever the disorder was, the apostle recognises the members of the assembly as all being real Christians. This is so completely true that he pronounces a solemn curse on everyone who did not love the Lord Jesus. There might be such people, but he would in no way recognise them. Is this a mixture he allows? He will not believe it, and he embraces them all in the bonds of Christian love.
Paul does not just say "my love." He says what kind of love it is. In doing so he practises what he had told them earlier in the letter.
The apostle desires that the grace of the Lord may be with these saints. He ends by assuring them that his love went out to them all. It was not mere human love, but love "in Christ Jesus". However faithfully he had written to them, love was the motive. So he carried out his own instruction to them, "Let all that you do be done in love".
Those words also say where these believers stand and who they are waiting for.
At the very close of the epistle, Paul sent his love to the Corinthian saints because they were "in Christ" as believers in Him who was coming again.
Verse 23 and verse 24 belong together. Grace is what holds them; Paul's affection follows as a personal parting word.
Their love for Him is only a witness and effect of His own true grace to them. In that grace they stand. It alone can sustain them, and Paul now commits them to it for safe keeping, with a parting word of brotherly affection from himself. His task of rebuking their ways, as one inspired by God, had held him at a distance from them until his words were said. But his heart is still with them as his beloved children in the faith.
The letter carries its gravest warning just before these last words. Yet the warning does not cancel the two lines that follow it.
But none of this interferes with his prayer that not His judgment but His grace might be with them, as he assures them all of his own love in Christ Jesus. So confidence and affection mark this closing, written in his own hand, as well as the gravest warning. It is a wise and worthy personal message to his beloved children in the faith.
Paul wrote these last words with his own hand, and commentators read that gesture as a sign of how much they meant to him.
His heart flows out (v. 24), and he comforts himself in being able to acknowledge them all in love.
- Grace first. Their love for the Lord is the effect of His grace toward them. Paul commits them to that grace for safe keeping before he adds anything of his own.
- Love as motive. Love did not cancel the many rebukes in this letter. Love produced them.
- Love in Christ. This is not ordinary human warmth. It is love "in Christ Jesus," sent to people who belong to the One who is coming again.
- Love to all. Whatever the disorder at Corinth, Paul treats them as real Christians. He takes every one of them into his affection.
- Love last. The gravest warning does not cancel the closing prayer for grace or the closing word of love. Commentators call that mix Christlike.