Philemon 1:25

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ So Romans 16:20; Rom 16:24; 1 Corinthians 16:23; 2 Corinthians 13:13; Galatians 6:18 (where the whole formula is verbatim as here); Php 4:23; 1 Thessalonians 5:28; 2 Thessalonians 3:18; Revelation 22:21. Cp. 2 Timothy 2:1.

" The grace" is in short the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, in His saving presence and power; Himself at once Gift and Giver. So the Epistle closes, as it began, "in Him."

with your spirit Not "spirits"; as if Philemon and his house had, in Christ, "one spirit," one inner life. See further, Appendix N. The same phrase occurs Galatians 6:18 and (in the true reading) Philippians 4:23; where see our note.

Amen The word is probably to be retained here. So R.V. text. It is properly a Hebrew adverb, meaning "surely;" repeatedly used as here in the O. T. See e.g. Deuteronomy 27:15, &c.; Jeremiah 11:5 (marg. A.V.).

The Subscription

Written from Rome, &c. Lit., To Philemon it was written from Rome by means of (i.e., of course, "it was sent by hand of") ( the) domestic Onesimus. Obviously, the statement is true to fact. On the antiquity of this and similar Subscriptions see note on that appended to Colossians.

A few mss. (of cent. 8 at earliest) have, (The) Epistle of the holy Apostle Paul to Philemon and Apphia, owners of Onesimus, and to Archippus the (sic) deacon of the Church in Colossæ, was written from Rome by means of (the) domestic Onesimus.

N. Dr MACLAREN ON THE LAST WORDS OF THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. (Philemon 1:25.)

In his excellent Expository Commentary on our two Epistles (3rd Edition, 1889) Dr Alexander Maclaren writes as follows:

"The parting benediction ends the letter. At the beginning of the Epistle, Paul invoked grace upon the household -from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Now he conceives of it as Christ's gift. In Him all the stooping, bestowing love of God is gathered, that from Him it may be poured upon the world. That grace is not diffused, like stellar light, through some nebulous heaven, but concentrated in the Sun of Righteousness, who is the light of men. That fire is piled on a hearth, that from it warmth may ray out to all that are in the house.…

"The grace of Christ is the best bond of family life. Here it is prayed for on behalf of all the group, the husband, wife, child, and the friends in their home-Church. Like grains of sweet incense sprinkled on an altar-flame, and making fragrant that which was already holy, that grace sprinkled on the household fire will give it an odour of a sweet smell, grateful to men and acceptable to God.

"That wish is the purest expression of Christian friendship, of which the whole Letter is so exquisite an example. Written as it is about a common everyday matter, which could have been settled without a single religious reference, it is saturated with Christian thought and feeling. So it becomes an example how to blend Christian sentiment with ordinary affairs, and to carry a Christian atmosphere everywhere. Friendship and social intercourse will be all the nobler and happier, if pervaded by such a tone. Such words as these closing ones would be a sad contrast to much of the intercourse of professedly Christian men. But every Christian ought by his life to be, as it were, floating the grace of God to others sinking for want of it, to lay hold of; and all his speech should be of a piece with this benediction.

"A Christian's life should be -an Epistle of Christ," written with His own hand, wherein dim eyes might read the transcript of His own gracious love; and through all his words and deeds should shine the image of his Master, even as it does through the delicate tendernesses and gracious pleadings of this pure pearl of a letter, which the slave, become a brother, bore to the responsive hearts in quiet Colossæ."