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"?
Love has the last word
Paul had suffered much from the very people he was writing to. Even so, he did not stop at a prayer for grace.
William KellyHe 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.
Leslie M. GrantLast 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.
"You all" — nobody left out
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.
J. N. DarbyWe 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.
What "in Christ Jesus" adds
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.
Hamilton SmithThe 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.
An Outline of Sound WordsAt 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.
Grace first, then love
Verse 23 and verse 24 belong together. Grace is what holds them; Paul's affection follows as a personal parting word.
A. PridhamTheir 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.
Warning and warmth in one breath
The letter carries its gravest warning just before these last words. Yet the warning does not cancel the two lines that follow it.
William KellyBut 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.
J. N. DarbyHis heart flows out (v. 24), and he comforts himself in being able to acknowledge them all in love.
Summary
- 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.