All the brothers send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
Sixteen chapters have corrected a divided, quarrelling church. Now the letter ends with a greeting, not a rebuke — and with a command to greet one another. Why close a letter about disorder with a kiss, and what makes that kiss "holy"?
Greetings carried in the communion of one Spirit
Closing greetings can look like filler. One writer explains why they belong in a letter written from God.
A. PridhamWe now have a few of the usual greetings with which the apostle loved to finish his letters. For though he wrote from God, and in the name and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, he wrote in the communion of the one Spirit which lives in the entire body. Such messages of love, then, are natural and fitting ornaments to the letters they belong to.
Who "all the brothers" are
How far does this greeting reach? One writer allows two readings of the phrase.
A. Pridham"All the brothers" are probably the believers at Ephesus. But we may take these words in a wider sense. Then they are a bold expression of the love which he knew was in every soul that is alive to God.
A common custom taken up into the church
The kiss was not invented by Christians. It was already a common greeting between relatives. Scripture takes it up and gives it a new setting.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThis common way of greeting among relatives is set apart as holy by its adoption in the church. Five of the letters close with the exhortation to greet one another with a holy kiss, or kiss of love. Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14. When Paul said farewell to the elders of Ephesus, they wept bitterly, and fell on his neck and kissed him.
The weight of the word "holy"
The word "holy" is doing real work. Paul asks for warm affection, but for warmth that stays pure.
William KellyPaul commands this way of greeting here, as he does to the Romans. The apostle Peter commands it too, writing to the Christian Jews scattered throughout Asia Minor. It points to the warm but holy affection that then bound the saints together as saints. So it should always be, in a world where sin brings in distance or corruption.
Why this command, to this assembly
Paul gives the same instruction again at the end of his second letter to Corinth. One writer ties the command to the quarrels that were tearing the church apart.
A. PridhamFriends need no prompting to show their love openly. In nature's order, brothers cling to one another by instinct. God's children are both brothers and friends... Now dissension is the very poison of love, and the apostle knew all too well that it had already worked to a dangerous extent at Corinth... Love's forms are hard to keep where love is a stranger to the heart. That hard duty is laid as a binding obligation on all who name the name of Christ. So the unwilling keeper of the rule may make his own reluctance his teacher, and be led to consider and repent.
Every member owned — and the test that follows
Paul greets the whole assembly, leaving no one out. What does that assume about them?
J. N. DarbyWe see that, whatever the disorder might be, the apostle recognises the members of the assembly as all being real Christians. He wants them to acknowledge one another by the kiss of love, the universal expression of brotherly affection. This is so completely the case that he pronounces a solemn curse on everyone who did not love the Lord Jesus.
Where the custom has changed
The same command appears in the letter to Thessalonica. One writer asks there what to do when a culture greets in another way.
Leslie M. GrantThe affections of the saints for one another are encouraged in fitting expressions too — their greeting one another with a holy kiss. In western nations, of course, this is little accepted. Yet let us encourage every true expression of holy affection in the Lord between saints.
Summary
- Custom — the kiss was already the common greeting between relatives. Scripture does not invent a new sign; it takes up that one and sets it apart for the church.
- Holy — that one word guards the affection at both ends: warm, but never corrupt in a world of sin.
- Commanded — love comes freely between friends; here it is commanded. Anyone who finds that hard learns something about his own heart.
- Wide — "all the brothers" may mean the believers at Ephesus, or every soul alive to God. The love travels in the communion of the one Spirit.
- Testing — the same letter that tells the brothers to greet one another curses anyone who does not love the Lord. Love, not profession, is the mark.