1 Corinthians 16:22

1 Corinthians 16:22. If any man loveth not the Lord [1] that is, the Lord Jesus, let him be Anathema see on 1 Corinthians 12:3; also Galatians 1:8-9.

[1] There can be no question that the words “Jesus Christ” here were not in the original text.

Maran atha. This is the Aramaean or Syriac expression for ‘Our Lord cometh;' a solemn warning that the approaching Advent of the Lord would see that dreadful curse visited upon such. See Matthew 25:41, where this awful curse is first connected with “the Son of man coming in His glory” (Matthew 13:41-43). Why this was expressed in the form of a Syriac exclamation, it is impossible to tell; but since it must have been intelligible to the readers of this Epistle, it would seem to have sprung up first among the early converts of Palestine, who used the vernacular tongue; from them to have become a household word of warm-hearted love to the Lord Jesus, one with another; and thence to have passed to the Gentile churches. It may be added, however, that the word here used for “love” is not that which expresses personal affection, [1] which we should naturally have expected, but that expressing distinctively the love of character what is called the ‘love of complacency;' [2] as if he had said, ‘What I mean is, if any man hath not such love of Him who laid down His life for us that he would lay down his own life for Him, rejoicing to be counted worthy to suffer for His name,' And who says this? It is the man who once thought it his special mission to stamp out that execrated Name from the earth. Has he, then, merely transferred his fanatical rage from one direction into its opposite? The most prejudiced critic, as he observes the serenity with which this Epistle closes, can hardly see in this one verse an interjected burst of fanaticism. As a matter of psychology, burning love to any one deemed supremely worthy of it is apt to beget a feeling of wonder, of grief, and in some very supposable cases, even of indignation at the want of it in others. Certainly a feeling of hatred towards even his bitterest enemies will not be ascribed to him who penned the words of Romans 9:1-5 and Romans 10:1

[1] φιλέω

[2] ἀ γαπ ᾶ ν