This greeting is by me, Paul, with my own hand. If any man doesn’t love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be cursed. Come, Lord! The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Parallel Translations
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This greeting is by me, Paul, with my own hand.
If any man doesn’t love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be cursed. Come, Lord!
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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The salutacion of me Paul with myne awne hande.
Yf eny man love not the Lorde Iesus Christ the same be anathema maranatha.
The grace of the Lorde Iesus Christ be with you all.
My love be with you all in Christ Iesu. Amen. ‘The epistle vnto the Corinthyans sent from Philippos by Stephana and Fortunatus and Acaichus and Timotheus.’
Show all 3 translations
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The salutation of me Paul with mine owne hand.
If any man loue not the Lord Iesus Christ, let him be had in execration maran-atha.
The grace of our Lord Iesus Christ be with you.
My loue be with you all in Christ Iesus, Amen. The first Epistle to the Corinthians, written from Philippi, and sent by Stephanas, and Fortunatus, and Achaicus, and Timotheus.
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Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (46)
- Ephesians 6:24 (v22) Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. Amen.
- John 14:21 (v22) One who has my commandments and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love…
- Galatians 6:11 (v21) See with what large letters I write to you with my own hand.
- Colossians 4:18 (v21) The salutation of me, Paul, with my own hand: remember my bonds. Grace be with you. Amen.
- Matthew 10:37 (v22) He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me.
Show all 46 cross-references
- John 8:42 (v22) Therefore Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven’t come of…
- Romans 16:20 (v23) And the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
- 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (v22) For the love of Christ constrains us; because we judge thus, that one died for all, therefore all died. He died for all, that those who…
- Hebrews 6:10 (v22) For God is not unrighteous, so as to forget your work and the labor of love which you showed toward his name, in that you served the…
- 1 John 4:19 (v22) We love him, because he first loved us.
- 1 John 5:1 (v22) Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Whoever loves the Father also loves the child who is born of him.
- 2 Thessalonians 3:17 (v21) The greeting of me, Paul, with my own hand, which is the sign in every letter: this is how I write.
- Revelation 22:20 (v22) He who testifies these things says, “Yes, I come quickly.” Amen! Yes, come, Lord Jesus.
- Romans 9:3 (v22) For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers’ sake, my relatives according to the flesh
- 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 (v22) punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus, who will pay the penalty: eternal…
- 1 Peter 1:8 (v22) whom, not having known, you love. In him, though now you don’t see him, yet believing, you rejoice greatly with joy that is unspeakable and…
- 1 Peter 2:7 (v22) For you who believe therefore is the honor, but for those who are disobedient, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief…
- Matthew 6:13 (v24) Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.’
- Acts 23:14 (v22) They came to the chief priests and the elders, and said, “We have bound ourselves under a great curse to taste nothing until we have killed…
- Romans 16:23 (v23) Gaius, my host and host of the whole assembly, greets you. Erastus, the treasurer of the city, greets you, as does Quartus, the brother.
- 1 Corinthians 12:3 (v22) Therefore I make known to you that no man speaking by God’s Spirit says, “Jesus is accursed.” No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” but by the…
- 1 Corinthians 14:16 (v24) Otherwise if you bless with the spirit, how will he who fills the place of the unlearned say the “Amen” at your giving of thanks, seeing he…
- 2 Corinthians 8:8-9 (v22) I speak not by way of commandment, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity also of your love. For you know the grace…
- 2 Corinthians 12:15 (v24) I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more abundantly, am I loved the less?
- Galatians 1:8-9 (v22) But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you any “good news” other than that which we preached to you, let him be…
- Galatians 5:6 (v22) For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love.
- Jude 1:14-15 (v22) About these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute…
- Revelation 3:19 (v24) As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent.
- Song of Solomon 1:3-4 (v22) Your oils have a pleasing fragrance. Your name is oil poured out, therefore the virgins love you. Take me away with you. Let’s hurry. The…
- Song of Solomon 1:7 (v22) Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you graze your flock, where you rest them at noon; for why should I be as one who is veiled beside…
- Song of Solomon 3:1-3 (v22) By night on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him. I will get up now, and go about the city; in the…
- Song of Solomon 5:16 (v22) His mouth is sweetness; yes, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, daughters of Jerusalem.
- Isaiah 5:1 (v22) Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.
- Matthew 25:45-46 (v22) “Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Most certainly I tell you, because you didn’t do it to one of the least of these, you didn’t do it to…
- Matthew 28:20 (v24) teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
- John 14:15 (v22) If you love me, keep my commandments.
- John 14:23 (v22) Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.
- John 15:24 (v22) If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and…
- John 16:14 (v22) He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine, and will declare it to you.
- John 21:15-17 (v22) So when they had eaten their breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?” He said to him,…
- Romans 16:22 (v21) I, Tertius, who write the letter, greet you in the Lord.
- 1 Corinthians 4:14-15 (v24) I don’t write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have ten thousand tutors in Christ, you…
- 1 Corinthians 16:14 (v24) Let all that you do be done in love.
- 2 Corinthians 11:11 (v24) Why? Because I don’t love you? God knows.
- Philippians 1:8 (v24) For God is my witness, how I long after all of you in the tender mercies of Christ Jesus.
- Philemon 1:19 (v21) I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it (not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self besides).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (22 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v22 By these words, are betokened the [secret] kind of…
By these words, are betokened the [secret] kind of curse and excommunication that was amongst the Jews: and the words are as much as to say, as our Lord cometh: So that his meaning may be this, Let him be accursed even to the coming of the Lord, that is to say, to his death’s day, even for ever.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv21, 22, 24 21 The salutation of me Paul with mine own…
21 The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand.
Ver. 21. With mine own hand] Well known to the Corinthians, to prevent imposture.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv21–24 These words are judged to signify to us, that…
These words are judged to signify to us, that though the former part of the Epistle was written out of Paul’s copy by some others, yet the three last verses were written by him with his own hand.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv22–23 This is, if any man do either oppose Christ…
This is, if any man do either oppose Christ and his gospel, or apostatize and backslide from his holy profession, and thereby discover he had no sincere love for Christ, let him be accursed till the Lord comes to judgment; and when he comes to judgment, let him without repentance lie under a dreadful, yea, an eternal curse.
Observe here, How that those who do not sincerely love our Lord Jesus Christ, are under the heaviest and bitterest of divine curses.
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Note, 1. The ground or cause of this curse, the not loving of Jesus Christ; he doth not say, If any man hate Christ, or reproach and blaspheme him, or persecute and injure him; but, if he doth not love him. The bare want of this affection to Christ, is enough eternally to separate us from Christ.
Note, 2. The nature of this curse: Let him be Anathema Maran-atha. The apostle pronounces the curse in two languages, Greek and Syriac, to denote both the vehemency of his own spirit in speaking, and the certainty of the thing spoken: or perhaps to show that men of all nations and languages who love not Christ, are under a curse, and that they are deservedly cursed among all nations.
The Greek word, Anathema, signifies execrable; the Syriac word, Maran-atha, is a compound of Maran, Lord, and atha, he cometh. These words were used anciently in the most dreadful sentence of excommunication; as if they had cited the person to the tribunal of Christ, at his coming to judge the world, or left him bound under the curse of that sentence until the coming of Christ.
Note, 3. The extent of this curse, If any man; as if he had said, Let him be who he will that loves not Christ, Jew or Gentile, bond or free, male or female, rich or poor, young or old, prince or peasant, king or beggar, who have oportunities to know Christ and yet do not love him, let him be accursed by him to eternal ages; let him be fully separated from the society of Christians here in this world, and from all fellowship and communion with Christ finally in the world to come.
The sum is, That those who love not our Lord Jesus Christ, much more those who wilfully hate and oppose him and his holy laws, are accursed persons in this life, and devoted to destruction here: but when they shall stand before that impartial judge of the world, they shall receive from his mouth a final malediction, an irreversible execration, which shall be immediatedly succeeded with the anguish and torments of eternity.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv21–22 With my own hand - What precedes having been…
With my own hand - What precedes having been written by an amanuensis.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv21–24 Verse 21. The salutation of me Paul with mine…
Verse 21. The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand.] This should be rendered: "The salutation is written by the hand of me Paul;" γεγραπται, is written, being understood. It is very likely that the apostle wrote this and the following verses with his own hand. The rest, though dictated by him, was written by an amanuensis.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv22–23 1Co 16:22. If any man love not the Lord…
1Co 16:22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus — In sincerity, but is secretly alienated from him in heart, while he calls himself his servant, preferring some secular interest of his own to that of his Divine Master; if any one be an enemy to Christ’s person, offices, doctrines, or commands; let him be Anathema Maranatha — Anathema signifies a thing devoted to destruction, and it seems to have been customary with the Jews of that age, when they had pronounced any man anathema, to add the Syriac expression, Maranatha, that is, the Lord cometh; namely, to execute vengeance upon him. See note on Rom 9:3. We may add further here, “Anathema Maranatha, were the words with which the Jews began their greatest excommunications, whereby they not only excluded sinners from their society, but delivered them to the divine Cherem, or Anathema; that is, to eternal perdition. This form they used, because Enoch’s prophecy concerning the coming of God to judge and punish the wicked, began with these words, as we learn from Jude, who quotes the first sentence of that prophecy, 1Co 16:14. Wherefore, since the apostle denounced this curse against the man, who, while he professed subjection to Christ, was secretly alienated from him in his heart, it is as if he had said, Though such a person’s wickedness cannot be discovered and punished by the church, yet the Lord, at his coming, will find it out, and punish him with eternal perdition. This terrible curse the apostle wrote in his epistle to the Corinthians, because many of the faction, but especially their leader, had shown great alienation of mind from Christ. And he wrote it with his own hand, to show how serious he was in the denunciation;” and he inserted it between his salutation and solemn benediction, that it might be the more attentively regarded. “Estius says, from his example, and from the anathemas pronounced Gal 1:8-9, arose the practice of the ancient general councils, of adding to their decisions, or definitions of doctrine, anathemas against them who denied these doctrines.” Be this as it may, let it ever be remembered that professing Christians, who do not sincerely love their Master, lie under the heaviest curse which an apostle could pronounce, or God inflict. Let the unhappy creatures take the alarm, and labour to obtain a more ingenuous temper, ere the Lord, whom they neglect, and against whom they entertain a secret enmity, descend from heaven with unsupportable terror, and pronounce the anathema with his own lips, in circumstances which shall for ever cut off all hope, and all possibility of its being reversed! See Macknight and Doddridge.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv21–24 The salutation of me, Paul, with mine own hand…
The salutation of me, Paul, with mine own hand - It is evident that Paul was accustomed to employ an amanuensis (copyist) in penning his epistles (see the note on Rom 16:22), though he signed his own name, and expressed his Christian salutation in every epistle, 2Th 3:17; compare Col 4:18. This gave a sanction to what was written; was a proof that it was his own, and was a valuable token of affectionate regard. It was a proof that there was no fraud or imposition. Why he employed an amanuensis is not known.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv22, 24 Let him be anathema, accursed. Maran Atha,[2] which, according…
Let him be anathema, accursed. Maran Atha,[2] which, according to St. Jerome and St. John Chrysostom, signify, the Lord is come already, and so is to be taken as an admonition to those who doubted of the resurrection, and is to put them in mind, that Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead, is come already. The Rabbinical writers tells us, there are three curses among the Jews called by different names: that the first was niddui, which implied an expulsion from the synagogue for a time; the second was greater, such being quite cut off from the common society, called Cherem; the third, Maran Atha, the Lord cometh, is coming, or is come, which was followed by exemplary judgments and punishments. Thus Mons. Hure, in his Bible Dictionary, Mr. Legh, in his Critica Sacra, and also Mr. Nary. But whether this is better grounded than many other Rabbinical stories, let others judge. (Witham)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Maran Atha, Greek: maran atha. St. John Chrysostom, Greek: ti de esti maran atha; o kurios emon elthe, &c. St. Hierom [St. Jerome], Epist. ad Marcellam. tom. ii. p. 706, and de nominibus Hebraicis. tom. iv. p. 78.
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George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv21–24 salutation . . . with mine own hand--He therefore…
salutation . . . with mine own hand--He therefore dictated all the rest of the Epistle.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv21–24 21. Mine own hand—In 2Th_3:17, Paul adds, “which is…
21. Mine own hand—In 2Th_3:17, Paul adds, “which is the token in every epistle: so I write.” His autograph was security against forgery. See Rom_16:22; Gal_6:11; Philippians 19. Very probably the whole close (1Co_16:21-24) was autographic.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv21, 22, 24 21. The salutation of me Paul with mine own…
21. The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand] It was the custom of St Paul to employ an amanuensis. See Rom_16:22. But in order that the Epistle should be recognized as his, it was his custom to add a salutation in his own handwriting, which he wished to be regarded as a token of genuineness. 2Th_3:17. See also Col_4:18 and Gal_6:11 (where it seems to be implied that St Paul wrote the whole of that particular Epistle himself).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv21, 22, 24 (21) The salutation of me Paul with mine own…
(21) The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand.—It was the Apostle’s habit to dictate his Epistles, but to add a few words at the end in his own handwriting. (See 2Th_3:17.) The concluding verses here are accordingly St. Paul’s autograph. The earlier portions had been written by Sosthenes. (See 1Co_1:1.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv21–24 With mine own hand. Every one of St. Paul"s…
With mine own hand. Every one of St. Paul"s Epistles, except that to the Galatians, (Gal_6:11) seems to have been written by an amanuensis. The blaze of light in the vision on the road to Damascus seems to have left him with acute and permanent ophthalmia as his "thorn in the flesh;" and this would naturally disincline him to the physical labour of writing. When he did write, his letters seem to have been large and straggling, (Gal_6:11) But this was an age in which documents were frequently falsified by designing persons, and this seems to have happened to St. Paul after he had written his very first extant letter. After warning the Thessalonians not to be frightened "by epistle as from, (2Th_2:2) he adds, at the close of the letter, that henceforth he intends to authenticate every letter by an autograph salutation (2Th_3:17; Col_4:18; Rom_16:22) To this bad and dangerous practice of forgery is due the energetic appeal of Rev_22:18, Rev_22:19. A similar appeal to copyists, couched in the most solemn language, is found in Irenaeus ("Opp.," 1:821, edit. Stieren), and at the end of Rufinus"s prologue to his translation of Origen"s "De Principiis.
Vers. 21, 22.
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A negative crime and positive punishment.
"If any man love not," etc. The words contain two things.
I A NEGATIVE CRIME. "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ," etc. We make three remarks on this state of mind in relation to Christ.
1. It is unreasonable. There is everything in him to call out the highest love. There are three kinds of love to which we are susceptible, and which are incumbent on usgratitude, esteem, and benevolence. The first requires a manifestation of kindness; the second, of moral excellence; the third, a purpose for the common good. Christ manifests all these, and therefore deserves our highest love.
1. It is ascertainable. We can soon ascertain whether we love Christ or not. There are infallible criteria. For example, the chief object of love will always be
1. the engrossing subject of thought;
2. the attractive theme of conversation;
3. the source of the greatest delight in pleasing;
4. the most transformative power of character; and
5. the most identified with our conscious life.
6. It is deplorable. This love is the only true regulative power of the soul. Where this is not, all the powers of our nature are misemployed, and. all is confusion.
II A POSITIVE PUNISHMENT. "Let him be Anathema Maran-atha." These words intimate two things concerning the punishment.
1. Its nature. "Let him be Anathema." The word expresses some terrible amount of suffering. It is one of Paul"s strong words to express a terrible evil. Excommunication from all that is pure and good and happy is undoubtedly involved. The soul cut off from Christ, its Centre, Root, Fountain, Life, is utterly destroyed.
2. Its certainty. "Maran-atha," which means, "The Lord will come." This word is probably introduced by Paul in order to convey the certainty of the destruction of those who "love not the Lord Jesus Christ." Paul had written the other part of this letter by an amanuensis, but to write these terrible words he takes up the pen himself. "The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand." He felt the utmost recoil of heart for those who "love not the Lord Jesus Christ," and had the most overwhelming idea of the misery to which such will be exposed. Men are accursed, not merely because they hate Christ, rebel against his authority, and profane his ordinances, but because they do not love him.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv22, 24 If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ,…
1Co_16:22
If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.
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Love to Christ
(Eph_6:24 and Text):--Though so dissimilar, both texts teach the same truth, viz., that love to Christ is the indispensable condition of salvation.
I. Why is love to Christ thus necessary? Because--
1. Christ is God--God in the clearest form of manifestation--the sum of the Divine perfections. All that there is in God to command the supreme duty of loving Him is in Christ, therefore it is impossible to love God without loving Christ, and not to love Christ is not to love God.
2. Christ is God in our nature, and is thus invested with special attractions, because--
(1)Possessed of another kind of excellence.
(2) Brought into a relation to us He sustains to no other order of beings.
3. Christ loved us and given Himself for us. To be insensible of this claim on our affection is indicative of the greatest moral depravity.
4. By His love and death Christ has opened a way to us from degradation and misery to eternal life and glory.
5. We are shut up to the necessity of loving Christ or Satan. There are but two sovereigns, and you must choose between them.
II. What is it to love Christ, and how can we tell whether we love Him or not? Where this love is there will be--
1. A feeling of reverence and complacency which prevents us from ever treating Him with neglect or indignity, and which makes His society delightful.
2. Zeal for His honour. Any disrespect shown Him is painful to us, and anything which promotes His glory is a source of delight to us.
3. A desire to please Him, to do His will. (C. Hodge, D. D.)
The importance of love to Christ
I. The Lord Jesus Christ is truly and eminently lovely, and is therefore to be loved. Consider the nature and actings of this grace.
1. If Christ be considered as able to do that for us, and communicate that to us, which we want, love is evinced by desire. The believer cannot be satisfied without Him.
2. If He be considered as having already manifested Himself to the soul, then love exerts itself in a way of delight. Whom having not seen, ye love, etc.
3. As Christ has an interest to be carried on in the world, love displays itself in zeal for His honour. If ye love Me, keep My commandments.
4. If we consider Christ as offended with our sins, and having suffered for them, love manifests itself in grief and sympathy. I am crucified with Christ, says the apostle, and I could not do less.
5. If we consider Christ as glorified in heaven, love expresses itself in joy and triumph.
II. Notwithstanding all this amiableness in Christ, there are some who no not love Him. Such persons have--
1. No real esteem for the Saviour. Unto you that believe, He is precious.
2. No true faith in Christ.
3. No obedience and subjection to Christ. If a man love Me, he wilt keep My words.
III. All who love not the Lord Jesus Christ, are chargeable with aggravated guilt, and expose themselves to the severest displeasure of God. Because--
1. He is so dearly beloved of God.
2. He is so lovely and desirable in Himself.
3. He has given the most astonishing proofs of His love to sinners.
Consequently the want of love to Christ will be destructive of religion here, and happiness hereafter. This one defect destroys the excellency and life of all religion. Without love, faith is dead, repentance legal, fear slavish; and all duties void of this principle are vain. As to future happiness, heaven is a place of love; and to entertain one person there who is not a lover of Christ, would disturb the order and break the harmony of that blessed society. Conclusion:--
1. Love to Christ may be easily discovered.
(1) By the current of your thoughts. What persons love, they think much upon; and the pleasant image is continually before them.
(2) By the care of your lives. Can you say that to you to live is Christ? Now, then, let conscience do its office, and it will easily tell you whether you love Christ or not.
2. Not to love Christ is a crime of tremendous guilt, which is attended with dreadful aggravations; for--
(1) It is a sin without cause. It admits of no reason or excuse.
(2) It is also a sin against many causes.
(3) It is the cause of many other sins. (S. Lavington.)
Loving Christ and the penalty of neglecting it
Note the position which this verse occupies.
1. This Epistle was dictated to an amanuensis, and now Paul adds The salutation of me Paul with my own hand: a form immediately followed, in most of his Epistles, by the apostolic benediction: but here he interposes the text. I think this shows us the state of his heart, which was full of Christ: he could not suppress the strong affection he entertained for the Saviour, and here he overflows.
2. Interposed as it is between the signature and the benediction, he intends it to have all the weight which apostolical authority can give it. Note--
I. The duty enjoined.
1. Its object.
(1) The old law was comprehended in two commandments, of which the first was greatest, Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God, etc. The New Testament puts forward a similar claim on behalf of Christ; and it were easy to argue from this, that Christ is the one Jehovah for whom the old law challenges our supreme and undivided love. Indeed, this very name is here applied to Him. He is set before us, while claiming our affections, as the Lord.
(2) He who claims our love bears not only the incommunicable name, but a name common to many of His fellow-men: Jesus.
(3) Bears another name, or rather title--Christ, or Anointed; because He sustains those offices into which men were commonly inducted by anointing, and which, as God-man, He sustains on behalf of mankind--Prophet, Priest, and King. God, Man, Mediator between God and men--whoever does not present Him in these three aspects robs Him of a part of that which essentially belongs to Him: whoever does not exhibit Him under this threefold character does not show you the Christ of the Scriptures, but some idol of his own invention.
2. The love which is claimed in His behalf must be--
(1) Sincere. You find a distinction made in the Scriptures between loving our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and pretending to love Him.
(2) Supreme. If any man will come after Me--if any man will be My disciple, he must be prepared to hate father, mother, etc. At the time when this was spoken, there went great multitudes after Him: but this was the doctrine by which He proved them. There are multitudes who will come after Him still, if He will be content to follow in the train of some beloved pursuit, or lust. Religion would be the most popular thing in the world, and would carry the whole world before it, if it were at liberty to waive this point. But Christ will have the first place in our affections: whatever stands opposed to Him we must hate; whatever is in harmony with Him, and dependent upon Him, must be loved in subordination to Him.
(3) Ardent. The Scriptures are wont to illustrate this subject by a comparison taken from fire. There may be a spark, and if that spark is blown, it may rise to a vehement flame which many waters cannot quench. You have only to neglect it, and it will expire. But you are told that you must stir up the gift of God.
(4) Constant; and that because He is always the same; that is due to Him at one time is due to Him at all times.
(5) Practical. This is the love of God that we keep His commandments.
3. The evidences of this love. I cannot help thinking, that in the case of every human object of affection, the love which there was need to try by many signs, would hardly be counted worth having; that where there is so much uncertainty whether we love Christ or no, one thing is certain--that we do not love Him very much: but still, for the sake of those who love, and who search after the signs and marks, let me give you one or two.
(1) The love of the brethren, i.e., the brethren of Christ, as well as ours: and it is in that light that they are principally to be regarded. If a man feels his heart expanded towards all Christians--if he is willing to bear with their weaknesses, and relieve their necessities, for Christs sake--he loves Christ. But on the other hand, if he will stand aloof from them, does he love Christ? If he says he does, Christ Himself says he is a liar. He tells you they are His representatives, and whoever does not to them as he would to Christ, if Christ stood in person before him, does not love Christ as he ought. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye love one another.
(2) Whoever loves Christ, rejoices in the return of the Lords Day. You have days of meeting among friends; and the offering of every expression of joy is appropriate to such meetings. This is the day which Christ sets apart to meet His friends. Do you love His Sabbath, and do you rejoice in its return? Do you honour the Lord and keep His ordinances? If so, there is ground to hope you love Christ. But if the Sabbath is a weariness, your love to Christ is yet but a name--there is no substance in it.
(3) The Bible is Christs love-letter to His people. Who loves to read and honour it? Who comes to it with a relish, as a friend reads a letter from a loved friend? He loves Christ: this is a sign which cannot be mistaken.
II. The penalty denounced. Whoever will not stand this test, what is to become of him? Let him be accursed: our Lord is coming. This form of expression is said to be taken from the practice in the synagogues in excommunicating offenders. They had three forms of excommunication, in the last or highest of which they used this expression, and this was always understood to imply the sentence of final and irrevocable ruin. Now, says the apostle, this is the doom of all who do not love Christ.
2. The curse does not fall now: the lovers of Christ and those who do not love Him go on, perhaps, very much with equal steps through life. But the Lord is coming; and at His coming He is to separate between those who love Him and those who do not love Him. The tares and the wheat grow together till the harvest; we cannot separate the hypocrite from the sincere until some overt action incontestably proves that the profession is false. The day of separation is at the end of the world; and to this St. Paul alludes, The Lord is coming, to discern between the true professor and the false.
3. The Lord delayeth His coming: but why? Not out of weakness, not out of forgetfulness, but that in the interval the curse may be averted.
4. I know that you cannot command your affections, but I tell you what you can do--you can go to the throne of grace and pray that the Holy Ghost may shed it abroad in your hearts. (G. Osborn, D.D.)
Want of love to Christ is
I. Rebellion against the highest authority. This is My beloved Son, hear ye Him. Want of love is therefore transgression of the will of God and rebellion against Him.
II. Contempt of the highest excellence. Whether you consider the, Divine nature of our Lord, or His human nature, or His mediatorial character, there is in Him everything calculated to attract. He is altogether lovely; therefore not to love Him is to have a degraded mind, and to throw contempt on the highest manifestation of human excellence and Divine love.
III. Ingratitude to the highest benefactor. Consider what we owe Him in connection with His incarnation, death, intercession. Think of the sinfulness of rejecting Him in the light of the truth that those who despise Him live because of His intercession. Conclusion: Is there anything to be said in extenuation of this guilt? The greatest argument for love is love. We love Him because He first loved us. You cannot force the slave to love his master; but what do you think of the child that, after receiving increasing kindness, refuses to love a parent? One sees the guilt in such a case. God is not a hard Master; Christ does not treat us as slaves. Oh, if His love is not in our hearts we are indeed hard, unfeeling, thankless, justly under the anathema of God. (W. Cadman, M A.)
Not loving Christ and its consequences
I. What are the claims of Christ upon our love?
1. He is God. If this were the only ground, He would surely have every right to expect our love. He who is the Author of every mercy therefore demands our love.
2. And yet, having failed of obtaining it as Creator, having had His laws insulted and His majesty dishonoured, He hath sought to win our love by such an act of love as even exceeds the mercies of creation, viz., redemption. Whatever you require for your admission into heaven, His love hath done it all. And now He offers His salvation freely.
3. Now, is this Friend of our lost souls unreasonable when He asks our hearts of us? We give them to our friends on earth.
II. Who are the men that love not that Lover of their souls?
1. The world. Here are a great variety of characters, but all are alike in this, they love not the Lord Jesus Christ. They live without Him, neglect His Word, discountenance His cause, love and follow practices which are His abomination.
2. Hypocritical professors, Christs own definition of those who love Him not is He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings. True, they may say high things of Him, yet all this is like the kiss of Judas, whilst they are doing all things in their life and practice to dishonour and affront Him. They love sin.
III. The guilt these men incur. Who can fathom the depth of their ingratitude! To have forgotten the mercies of creation is an awful blot upon our nature; but when He dies for our iniquities, and calls us to His pardoning mercies, who shall estimate the blackness of his guilt who treats this Saviour lightly? If I had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin; all our other sins look nothing when compared to this.
IV. The awful doom of all those who love not the Lord Jesus Christ. Let them be accursed at the second coming of the Lord. There is a curse which rests upon the head of every man by nature as a breaker of the law of God (Deu_27:26); and to deliver our souls from this was the great end of our Redeemers death (Gal_3:13). To those therefore who receive Him and rely upon Him this curse is turned into a blessing (Rom_8:1). But they who love not the Lord Jesus Christ remain under that curse from which He died to set them free (Joh_3:36; 1Co_15:17). To reject a Saviour, as it is a more aggravated sin than to reject the law, so will it meet with a more aggravated condemnation (Heb_10:28-29). The curse of the law is terrible; but the wrath of the Lamb! what will that be? (A. Roberts, M.A.)
The sin and doom of the loveless
I. Why is the Lord Jesus Christ to be loved? This love was the pervading emotion of early times, and its fervour quailed not at martyrdom. The memory of the Cross was fresh, and faith wrought by love. That love was a distinct and personal attachment, and is so still. For this love is a rational affection. It is not an emotion which springs up, none can tell how or why. Nor is it any caprice or feverish excitement. It rests on a sure foundation--on a tried corner-stone, viz., the knowledge of Christs person and claims.
1. Is He not the chiefest among ten thousand as a man? and were He not more than man, you cannot but love Him. Thou art fairer than the sons of men. The sexes divide between them the elements of perfection, and a perfect man or woman might not be a perfect being. But all that is tender and graceful in woman, and all that is noble and robust in man, met together in Jesus. Nature is never prodigal of her gifts. Birds of gay plumage have no song; strength is denied to creatures endowed with swiftness. As one man is generally distinguished by the predominance of one class of virtues, and another man by another, so the union of both might realise perfection. Had the peculiar gifts of John and Paul been blended, the result might have been a perfect apostle. Were the intrepidity of Luther, the tenderness of Melancthon, and the calm intellect of Calvin combined in one person, you would have the model of a faultless reformer. But every grace that adorns humanity was in Jesus in fulness and symmetry. No virtue jostled another out of its place. None rose into extravagance--none pined in feeble restriction. Perfect in every relation of life, wise in speech, pure in conduct, large in compassion, intense in beneficence, replete with everything that charms into attachment and rapture, He was the incarnation of universal loveliness.
2. But Christs humanity was assumed into a personal union with a higher nature. To take a nature so low, to save a race so guilty, and by an agony so awful, was the effect of a love that could only dwell in the bosom of Jehovah. And oh what a labour He accomplished! He secured for us the best of boons, and delivered us from the worst of evils. And surely we must love Him, because He first loved us.
II. How Jesus is to be loved. If our creed be, there is none like Christ, then the language of our heart will be--None but Christ! His claims are paramount, and therefore love to Him must not only be ardent, but supreme. Now, it is not of the absence of love in the Church we complain so much as of its lukewarmness. In many love only warms towards Christ on the first day of the week, and falls into slumber on the other six days. The plant could not maintain its life by the enjoyment of air, soil, and water once a week, and the animal would drag out an enfeebled existence if it depended on a similar periodical nutrition. No; it is of the nature of love to give its object an immediate and permanent existence in the heart. If Christ were loved, His image would ever dwell within us; and were He loved supremely, that image would gather in upon itself our deepest attachment, and exercise an undivided sway over thought, purpose, speech, and action.
III. The sin and danger of not loving Christ. It implies--
1. Ignorance of His person, claims, and work. The more men know Him, the more does their heart burn with this gracious and absorbing affection. And surely ignorance of Him must bring a merited anathema. For such ignorance is wholly inexcusable, with the Bible before it and the Cross in its view.
2. Unbelief. Faith worketh by love. But if absence of love imply absence of faith, what a curse must follow He that believeth is saved, but he that believeth not is condemned already. Severed from Christ the soul is lost for ever.
3. Unlikeness to God. And if, on a point so tender, he is unlike God, will not God frown upon the sinner and punish him?
4. Unfitness for heaven. Heaven is a region where love to Jesus predominates--where it gladdens every bosom, and gives music to every anthem. But the unloving mind is not allowed to join in these warblings, for none but the new heart can sing the new song. Without love to Him, because unconscious of any salvation from Him, it would feel no reason to bless Him.
5. The certainty of the curse--Our Lord cometh. The Church rejoices in that motto, but it is the terror of the wicked. The cloud that guided Israel consumed and terrified the amazed Egyptian. And He comes for the very purpose of making inquisition--of ascertaining who have responded to His love, and confided in His atonement. Nor can He be deceived. His eye, as it looks upon the mass, scans every individual and looks down into his heart. Nay, the heart without love will at once discover itself by its tremor. Nor can it escape. Subterfuge and evasion are alike impossible. But not only does the awful formula certify the curse, it also embitters it--Our Lord cometh--He whom men are bound to love as Saviour pronounces the dead anathema. From other lips it would not be so awful; but surely such an anathema from the lips of Love must arm itself with a burning and unbearable terror. (J. Eadie, D.D.)
A negative crime and a positive punishment
This expression may be regarded--
1. As a grand characteristic of Biblical appeal. It appeals to the heart, and seeks the reformation of the world by the reformation of the individual, and the reformation of the individual by the reformation of the heart.
2. As an incidental argument of the Godhead of Christ. The Bible claims for Him supreme love, but supreme affection belongs to God. Paul makes our destiny depend upon love to Christ. Would he make our destiny depend upon mere love to man, to Abraham, David, Isaiah, or John?
3. As a solemn test of a true character. The essence of a true character consists not in ideas or mere actions, but in love, and in love for Christ. Lovest thou Me? said Christ to Peter. The text contains--
I. A negative crime. This state of mind in relation to Christ is--
1. Unreasonable. There is everything in Him to call out the highest love. There are three kinds of love of which we are susceptible--gratitude, esteem, and benevolence. The first requires manifestation of kindness; the second, of moral excellence; the third, a purpose for the common good. Christ manifests all these, and therefore deserves our highest love. There may be men who have power to excite in our natures, in some degree, love in some of these forms; but Christ alone has power to excite all in the highest degree.
2. Ascertainable. We can soon ascertain whether we love Christ or not. The chief object of love will always be--
(1) The most engrossing subject of thought.
(2) The attractive theme of conversation.
(3) The source of the greatest delight in pleasing.
(4) The most transforming power of character.
(5) The most identified with our conscious life.
3. Deplorable. This love is the only true regulative power of the soul. Where this is not, or where it is misdirected, all the powers of our nature are misemployed, and all is confusion. Then, indeed, the life of the soul is dead to virtue and to happiness. Our happiness consists in supreme affection, and our supreme affection, to yield happiness, must be directed to an object absolutely perfect, reciprocative, and ever enduring. Such an object is Christ, and such only is He.
II. A positive punishment.
1. Its nature. Let him be Anathema. The word primarily means anything that is laid up, or set apart for some particular purpose. The secondary and general meaning is accursed, devoted to ruin (cf. Gal_1:7-8; Rom_9:3)
. It is one of Pauls strong words to express a terrible evil. Cut off the planet from the sun, and it rushes to ruin; the river from the fountain, and it is gone; the branch from the tree, and the limb from the body, and they die. The soul, cut off from Christ--its centre, fountain, root, life--is destroyed.
2. Its certainty. Maran-atha, the Lord will come. Christ will come to execute judgment upon those who love Him not. Paul had written the other part of his letter by an amanuensis, but to write these terrible words he takes up the pen himself. Men are accursed, not merely because they hate Christ, rebel against His authority, profane His ordinances, but because they do not love Him; whatever else they do in philanthropy, etc. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Anathema
I. The crime supposed. Not to love Christ supremely is--
1. Unreasonable--He is supremely lovely.
2. Ungrateful--He has loved us.
3. Unjust--He has a right to our love.
II. The punishment threatened.
1. The punishment.
2. The time.
3. The certainty. Application--
(1) It is the duty of all men to love Christ.
(2) Christ knows those who love Him. (G. Whitefield.)
Anathema and grace
1. Terror and tenderness are strangely mingled in this parting salutation. Paul has been obliged, throughout the whole Epistle, to assume a tone of remonstrance, and here he traces all their vices to their fountain-head--the defect of love to Jesus Christ--and warns of their fatal issue.
2. But he will not leave these terrible words for his last. The thunder is followed by gentle rain, and the sun glistens on the dewdrops (verse 23). Nor for himself will he let the last impression he one of rebuke or even of warning (verse 24). Is not that beautiful? And does it not go deeper than the revelation of Pauls character? May we not see in these terrible and tender thoughts a revelation of the true nature both of the terror and the tenderness of the gospel which Paul preached? Note--
I. The terror of the fate of the unloving. Anathema means an offering, or a thing devoted. In the story of the conquest of Canaan, e.g., we read of places, persons, or things that were accursed, i.e., devoted or put under a ban. And this devotion was of such a sort as that the subjects were doomed to destruction. So Paul tells us that the unloving, like those cities full of uncleanness, when they are brought into contact with the infinite love of the coming Judge, shrivel up and are destroyed. Maran-atha is a separate sentence. It means our Lord comes, and was perhaps a kind of watchword. The use of it here is to confirm the warning of the previous clause, by pointing to the time at which that warning shall be fulfilled.
1. The Lord comes. Pauls Christianity gathered round two facts and moments--one in the past, Christ has come; one in the future, Christ will come. For memory, the coming by the cradle and the Cross; for hope, the coming on His throne in glory. And between these two moments, like the solid piers of a suspension bridge, the frail structure of the present hangs swinging. There have been many comings in the past, besides the coming in the flesh. One characteristic is stamped upon them all, and that is the swift annihilation of what is opposed to Him. The Bible has a set of standing metaphors by which to illustrate this thought--A flood, a harvest, the waking of God from slumber, etc. The second coming will include and surpass all the characteristics which these lesser and premonitory judgment days presented in miniature.
2. The coming of the Lord of love is the destruction of the unloving--not the cessation of their being, but a death worse than death, because a death in life. Suppose a man with all his past annihilated, with all its effort crushed, with all its possessions gone, and with his memory and his conscience stung into clear-sighted activity, so as that he looks back upon his former and into his present self, and feels that it is all chaos, would not that fulfil the word, Let him be Anathema? And suppose that such a man, in addition to these thoughts, and as the root and the source of them, had ever the quivering consciousness that he was in the presence of an unloved Judge! The unloving heart is always ill at ease in the presence of Him whom it does not love. The unloving heart does not love, because it does not trust nor see the love. Therefore, the unloving heart is a heart that is only capable of apprehending the wrathful side of Christs character. So there is no cruelty, no arbitrariness in the decree that the heart that loves not when brought into contact with the infinite Lord of love must find in the touch death and not life, darkness and not light, terror and not hope.
3. Paul does not say he that hateth, but he that does not love. The absence of love, which is the child of faith, the parent of righteousness, the condition of joy in His presence, is sufficient to ensure that this fate shall fall upon a man.
II. The present grace of the coming Lord. Our Lord cometh. The grace, etc. (verse 23).
1. These two things are not contradictory, but we often deal with them as if they were. But the real doctrine says there is no terror without tenderness, and there is no tenderness without terror. You cannot have love which is anything nobler than facile good nature and unrighteous indifference, unless you have along with it aspects of Gods character and government which ought to make some men afraid. And you cannot keep these latter aspects from being exaggerated and darkened into a Moloch of cruelty unless you remember that underlying them and determining them are aspects of the Divine nature, to which only child-like confidence and love rightly respond. The terror of the Lord is a garb which our sins forces upon the love of the Lord.
2. Note what the present grace is. A tenderness which gathers into its embrace all these imperfect, immoral, lax, heretical people in Corinth, as well as everywhere else--with you all. And surely the love which gathers in such people leaves none outside its sweep. Let nothing rob you of this assurance, that the coming Lord is present with us all, and all we need, in order to get its full sunshine into our hearts, is that we trust Him utterly, and, so trusting, love Him back again with that love which is the fulfilling of the law and the crown of the gospel.
III. The tenderness, caught from the Master Himself of the servant who rebukes (verse 24). There is no other instance where he introduces himself and his own love at the end, after he has pronounced the solemn benediction. But here, as if he had felt that he must leave an impression of himself on their minds which corresponded to the impression of his Master that he desired to leave, he deviates from his ordinary habit, and makes his last word a personal word--My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Paul embraces all whom he has been rebuking in the warm embrace of his proffered love, which was the very cause of his rebuke. The healing balm of this closing message was to be applied to the wounds which his keen edged words had made, and to show that they were wounds by a surgeon, not by a foe. Because the gospel is a gospel, it must speak plainly about death and destruction to the unloving. The danger signal is not to be blamed for a collision. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
Loving Jesus Christ
First, love Christ so far as to lay down the pleasures of this life for Him, and so far as to lay down the life itself for Him.
2. Love Him, then, as He is presented to thee here: love the Lord, love Christ, love Jesus. As He is the Lord, thou wilt fear Him; but no man fears God truly, but that that fear ends in love. Love Him as He is the Lord, that would have nothing perish that He hath made. And love Him as He is Christ, that hath made Himself man too, that thou mightest not perish. Love Him as the Lord that could show mercy, and love Him as Christ who is that way of mercy which the Lord hath chosen. I have found Him, and found that He, who by His incarnation was made able to save me (so He was Christ), by His actual passion hath saved me, and so I love Him as Jesus. When I conceit, when I contemplate my Saviour thus, I love the Lord, and there is a reverent adoration in that love; I love Christ, and there is a mysterious admiration in that love; but I love Jesus, and there is a tender compassion in that love, and I am content to suffer with Him and to suffer for Him rather than see any diminution of His glory by my prevarication. And he that loves not thus, that loves not the Lord God, and God manifested in Christ, Anathema, Maranatha, which is our next and our last part. Whether this Anathema be denounced by the apostle by way of imprecation, that he wished it so, or pronounced by way of excomnmnication, that others should esteem them so and avoid them, as such persons, is sometimes debated amongst us in our books. But we rather take this in the text to be an excommunication denounced by the apostle, than an imprecation. Now the excommunication is in the Anathema, and the aggravating thereof in the other words, Maranatha. The word Anathema had two significations: that which for some excellency in it was separated from the use of man to the service of God, or that which for some great fault in it was separated from God and man too. From the first kind men abstained because they were consecrated to God, and from the other because they were aliened from God. By the light of nature, by the light of grace we should separate ourselves from irreligious and from idolatrous persons, and that with that earnestness which the apostle expresses in the last words, Maranatha. It is superabundant perverseness to resist Christ now, now that He hath appeared already and established to Himself a kingdom in the world. And so St. Chrysostom seems to take it too. Christ is come already, says he. If any excuse could he pretended before, yet since Christ is come, none can be, But that is not all that is intended by the apostle in this place. It is not only a censorious speech, it is a shame for them, and an inexcusable thing in them, if they do not love the Lord Jesus Christ; but it is a judiciary speech, thus much more, since they do not love the Lord. The Lord judge them when He comes. I, says the apostle, take away none of His mercy when He comes, but I will have nothing to do with them till He comes; to me He shall be Anathema, Maranatha, separated from me till then; then the Lord, who shows mercy in minutes, do His will upon him. To end all, if a man love not the Lord, if he love not God, which is, which was, and which is to come, what will please him, whom will he love? (J. Donne.)
Affection ungratefully withheld
After Joan of Arc had won the great victory at Orleans, and made clear the way for Charles the Seventh to be crowned king, she was taken prisoner, and subjected to the most brutal treatment at the hands of her enemies; still her ungrateful king refused to make a single move to liberate the one who had freed his subjects, and made him heir and king. My unsaved friend, you are doing the same thing. As you read the simple narrative, you doubtless will say, King Charles was ungrateful, and deserved punishment. Yet Jesus Christ left His heavenly home, came down to earth, suffered, and died that you might be crowned the child of a King, and you refuse to even acknowledge Him. Should the anger of God consume you, could you say aught in your defence? (Sharpened Arrows.)
The sin of not loving Christ
To refuse to love Jesus Christ, I affirm, is to do Him all the evil which an open enemy could, or at least would do. If Jesus Christ had come into the world, as a king into a revolted province, in order to extinguish rebellion, and cause the silence of terror to reign in it, He might be satisfied with a trembling submission, and care nothing for the evil we do Him. But such a submission He did not desire, nor can desire. That alone which He desired, that alone for which He descended to the earth, the end to which He directed all His toils, was the conquest of our heart. Separate from that triumph, every other is nothing to Him. (Dr. Vinet.)
Want of love to Christ a fatal sin
How great is the sin of not loving your Lord and your Saviour! Oh! but you see, sir, that is a mere negative thing. It is what we do that we are accountable for to God; it is our positive actions that we must render an account for at the last. Is that so? Is there no sin in not doing what you ought to do? If your neighbours house were in flames to-night, and you saw them belching out of the windows, would it be no sin for you to sit calmly in your own dwelling, and not go at midnight to raise the family from their fatal sleep? Would you think so if to-morrow morning you looked at their skeletons amid the charred and blackened ruins? Suppose there is some man in this chapel to-night, who lives in a comfortable and luxurious mansion, but his own mother is in an almshouse, I say to him, Where is your old mother? He says, In the poorhouse. Do you know, sir, that you are practising a diabolical cruelty? Oh! but I am doing nothing to my mother. It is your not doing; it is your living in luxury, and she lying there on that hard bed of poverty and neglect that stamps you, sir, with that most damnable sin of breaking Gods fifth commandment. It is what you do not do that stamps you as an ingrate to her that bore you. Oh! my friends, yet out of Christ, it is the sin of not loving Christ that makes you guilty before God. Not loving Him is pronounced in all cases a positive and fatal sin. (T. L. Cuyler.)
How he came to say it
How came the tender-hearted Paul to throw those red-hot words at the Corinthians? Not to love Christ is--
I. Unreasonable and unnatural. Tradition tells us that He was the most infinitely beautiful being that ever walked our small earth, and to a lovely exterior He joined all loveliness of disposition. The sunshine of His love mingling with the shadows of His sorrows, crossed by the crystalline stream of His tears and the crimson of His blood, make a picture worthy of being called the masterpiece of the eternities. He was altogether lovely--always lovely, and lovely in everything. Lovely in His sacrifice. Why, He gave up everything for us, and He took everybodys trouble. Now suppose that, notwithstanding all this, a man cannot have any affection for Him. Why After all this, if a man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha.
II. Unjust. Just look at the injustice of not loving Him. There is nothing that excites a man like injustice. If there ever was a fair and square purchase of anything, then Christ purchased us. If anything is purchased and paid for, ought not the goods to be delivered? And you will go to law for it, and, if need be, hurl the defaulter into jail. Such injustice as between man and man is bad enough, but between man and God it is reprehensible and intolerable. After all thin purchase if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.
III. Suicidal. If a man gets into trouble, and he cannot get out, we have only one feeling towards him, sympathy and a desire to help him. But suppose the day before he failed, W. E. Dodge had come into his store and said: My friend, I hear you are in trouble. I have come to help you, and suppose the man were to say, I dont want it; I would rather fail than take it; I dont even thank you for offering it. Your sympathy for that man would cease immediately. Now Christ hears of our spiritual embarrassments. He finds the law saying, Pay me what thou owest. Pay? We cannot pay a farthing of all the millions of obligation. Well, Christ comes in and says, You can use My name. Now suppose the soul says, O Christ, I want not Thy help. Go away from me. You would say, After all this ingratitude and rejection, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha.
IV. Cruel. The meanest thing I could do for you would be needlessly to hurt your feelings. Now, Christ is a bundle of delicacy and sensitiveness. Oh, what rough treatment He has received sometimes from our hands! Every time you rejected the Lord you struck Him. How you have broken His heart! Do you know there is a crucifixion going on now? You say, Where? Here! When a man refuses to love Christ and rejects Him, the apostle intimates that. He crucifies the Lord afresh. By our sins we have done this. When I think of all this, my surprise at the apostle ceases. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv21–22 21–24. The salutation of me, Paul, with mine own…
21–24. The salutation of me, Paul, with mine own hand. Paul's letters were written by an amanuensis (Rom. 16:22), but he always added a salutation in his own hand as a proof of genuineness (2 Thess. 3:17). 2 Thess. 2:2, implies that spurious letters were circulated.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv21–24 21. “The salutation of Paul with my own hand.”…
21. “The salutation of Paul with my own hand.” Owing to ocular feebleness, Luke and others wrote for him. But we see that to this letter he appends his personal autograph.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v21 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians
ANATHEMA AND GRACE
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1Co 16:21 - 1Co 16:24.
Terror and tenderness are strangely mingled in this parting salutation, which was added in the great characters shaped by Paul’s own hand, to the letter written by an amanuensis. He has been obliged, throughout the whole epistle, to assume a tone of remonstrance abundantly mingled with irony and sarcasm and indignation. He has had to rebuke the Corinthians for many faults, party spirit, lax morality, toleration of foul sins, grave abuses in their worship even at the Lord’s Supper, gross errors in opinion in the denial of the Resurrection. And in this last solemn warning he traces all these vices to their fountainhead-the defect of love to Jesus Christ-and warns of their fatal issue. ‘Let him be Anathema.’
But he will not leave these terrible words for his last. The thunder is followed by gentle rain, and the sun glistens on the drops; ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.’ Nor for himself will he let the last impression be one of rebuke or even of warning. He desires to show that his heart yearns over them all; so he gathers them all-the partisans; the poor brother that has fallen into sin; the lax ones who, in their misplaced tenderness, had left him in his sin; the misguided reasoners who had struck the Resurrection out of the articles of the Christian creed-he gathers them all into his final salutation, and he says, ‘Take and share my love-though I have had to rebuke-amongst the whole of you.’
Is not that beautiful? And does not the juxtaposition of such messages in this farewell go deeper than the revelation of Paul’s character? May we not see, in these terrible and tender thoughts thus inextricably intertwined and braided together, a revelation of the true nature both of the terror and the tenderness of the Gospel which Paul preached? It is from that point of view that I wish to look at them now.
I. I take first that thought-the terror of the fate of the unloving.
Now, I must ask you for a moment’s attention in regard to these two untranslated words. Anathema Maran-atha. The first thing to be noticed is that the latter of them stands independently of the former, and forms a sentence by itself, as I shall have to show you presently. ‘Anathema’ means an offering, or a thing devoted; and its use in the New Testament arises from its use in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, where it is employed for persons and things that, in a peculiar sense, were set apart and devoted to God. In the story of the conquest of Canaan, for instance, we read of Jericho and other places, persons, or things that were, as our version somewhat unfortunately renders it, ‘accursed,’ or as it ought rather to be rendered, ‘devoted,’ or ‘put under a ban.’ And this ‘devotion’ was of such a sort as that the things or persons devoted were doomed to destruction. All the dreadful things that were done in the Conquest were the consequences of the persons that endured them being thus ‘consecrated,’ in a very dreadful sense, or set apart for God. The underlying idea was that evil things brought into contact with Him were necessarily destroyed with a swift destruction. That being the meaning of the word, it is clear that its use in my text is distinctly metaphorical, and that it suggests to us that the unloving, like those cities full of uncleanness, when they are brought into contact with the infinite love of the coming Judge, shrivel up and are destroyed.
The other word ‘Maran-atha,’ as I said, is to be taken as a separate sentence. It belongs to the dialect, which was probably the vernacular of Palestine in the time of Paul, and to which belong, for the most part, the other untranslated words that are scattered up and down the Gospels, such as ‘Aceldama,’ ‘Ephphatha,’ and the like. It means ‘our Lord comes.’ Why Paul chose to use that untranslated scrap of another tongue in a letter to a Gentile Church we cannot tell. Perhaps it had come to be a kind of watchword amongst the early Jewish Christians, which came naturally to his lips. But, at any rate, the use of it here is distinctly to confirm the warning of the previous clause, by pointing to the time at which that warning shall be fulfilled. ‘If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be devoted and destroyed. Our Lord comes.’ The only other thing to be noticed by way of introduction is that this first clause is not an imprecation, nor any wish on the part of the Apostle, but is a solemn prophetic warning {acquiesced in by every righteous heart} of that which will certainly come. The significance of the whole may be gathered into one simple sentence-The coming of the Lord of Love is the destruction of the unloving.
‘Our Lord comes.’ Paul’s Christianity gathered round two facts and moments-one in the past, Christ has come; one in the future, Christ will come. For memory, the coming by the cradle and the Cross; for hope, the coming on His throne in glory; and between these two moments, like the solid piers of a suspension bridge, the frail structure of the Present hangs swinging. In this day men have lost their expectation of the one, and to a large extent their faith in the other. But we shall not understand Scripture unless we seek to make as prominent in our thoughts as on its pages that second coming as the complement and necessary issue of the first. It stands stamped on every line. It colours all the New Testament views of life. It is used as a motive for every duty, and as a magnet to draw men to Jesus Christ by salutary dread. There is no hint in my text about the time of the Lord’s coming, no disturbing of the solemnity of the thought by non-essential details of chronology, so we may dismiss these from our minds. The fact is the same, and has the same force as a motive for life, whether it is to be fulfilled in the next moment or thousands of years hence, provided only that you and I are to be there when He comes.
There have been many comings in the past, besides the comings in the flesh. The days of the Lord that have already appeared in the history of the world are not few. One characteristic is stamped upon them all, and that is the swift annihilation of what is opposed to Him. The Bible has a set of standing metaphors by which to illustrate this thought of the Coming of the Lord-a flood, a harvest when the ears are ripe for the sickle, the waking of God from slumber, and the like; all suggesting similar thoughts. The day of the Lord, the coming of the Lord, will include and surpass all the characteristics which these lesser and premonitory judgment days presented in miniature. I do not enlarge on this theme. I would not play the orator about it if I could; but I appeal to your consciences, which, in the case of most of us, not only testify of right and wrong, but of responsibility, and suggest a judge to whom we are responsible. And I urge on each, and on myself, this simple question: Have I allowed its due weight on my life and character to that watchword of the ancient church-Maran-atha, ‘our Lord cometh’ ?
Now, the coming of the Lord of Love is the annihilation of the unloving. The destruction implied in Anathema does not mean the cessation of Being, but a death which is worse than death, because it is a death in life. Suppose a man with all his past annihilated, with all its effort foiled and crushed, with all its possessions evaporated and disappeared, and with his memory and his conscience stung into clear-sighted activity, so that he looks back upon his former self and into his present self, and feels that it is all waste and chaos, would not that fulfil the word of my text-’Let him be Anathema’ ? And suppose that such a man, in addition to these thoughts, and as the root and the source of them, had ever the quivering consciousness that he was and must be in the presence of an unloved Judge; have you not there the naked bones of a very dreadful thing, which does not need any tawdry eloquence of man to make it more solemn and more real? The unloving heart is always ill at ease in the presence of Him whom it does not love. The unloving heart does not love, because it does not trust, nor see the love. Therefore, the unloving heart is a heart that is only capable of apprehending the wrathful side of Christ’s character. It is a heart devoid of the fruits of love which are likeness and righteousness, ‘without which no man shall see the Lord,’ nor stand the flash of the brightness of His coming. So there is no cruelty nor arbitrariness in the decree that the heart that loves not, when brought into contact with the infinite Lord of Love, must find in the touch death and not life, darkness and not light, terror and not hope. Notice that Paul’s negation is a negation and not an affirmation. He does not say ‘he that hateth,’ but ‘he that doth not love.’ The absence of the active emotion of love, which is the child of faith, the parent of righteousness, the condition of joy in His presence, is sufficient to ensure that this fate shall fall upon a man. I durst not enlarge. I leave the truth on your hearts.
II. Secondly, notice the present grace of the coming Lord.
‘Our Lord cometh. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.’ These two things are not contradictory, but we often deal with them as if they were. And some men lay hold of the one side of the antithesis, and some men lay hold of the other, and rend them apart, and make antagonistic theories of Christianity out of them. But the real doctrine puts the two together and says there is no terror without tenderness, and there is no tenderness without terror. If we sacrifice the aspects of the divine nature, as revealed to us in the gentle Christ, which kindle a wholesome dread, we have, all unwittingly, robbed the aspects of the divine nature, which warm in us a gracious love, of their power to inflame and to illuminate. You cannot have love which is anything nobler than facile good nature and unrighteous indifference, unless you have along with it aspects of God’s character and government which ought to make some men afraid. And you cannot keep these latter aspects from being exaggerated and darkened into a Moloch of cruelty, unless you remember that, side by side with them, or rather underlying them and determining them, are aspects of the divine nature to which only child-like confidence and calm beatific returns of love do rightly respond. The terror of the Lord is a garb which our sins force upon the love of the Lord, and when the one is presented it brings with it the other. Never should they be parted in our thoughts or in our teaching.
Note what that present grace is. It is a tenderness which gathers into its embrace all these imperfect, immoral, lax, heretical people in Corinth, as well as everywhere else-’The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.’ There were men in that church that said, ‘I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, I of Christ.’ There were men in that church that had defiled their souls and their flesh, and corrupted the community, and blasphemed the name of Christ by such foul, sensual sin as was ‘not even named among the Gentiles.’ There were men in that church so dead to all the sanctities even of the communion-table as that, with the bread between their teeth and the wine-cup in their hands, one was hungry and another drunken. There were men in that church, whose Christianity was so anomalous and singularly fragmentary that they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. And yet Paul flings the great rainbow, as it were, of Christ’s enclosing love over them all. And surely the love which gathers in such people leaves none outside its sweep; and the tenderness which stoops from heaven to pity, to pardon, to cleanse such is a tenderness to which the weakest, saddest, sinfullest, foulest of the sons of men may confidently resort. Let nothing rob you of this assurance, that Christ, the coming Lord, is present with us all, and with all our weak and wicked brethren, in the full condescension of His all-embracing, all-hoping, all-forgetting, and all-restoring love. All that we need, in order to get its full sunshine into our hearts, is that we trust Him utterly, and, so trusting, love Him back again with that love which is the fulfilling of the Law and the crown of the Gospel.
III. And now, lastly, note the tenderness, caught from the Master Himself, of the servant who rebukes.
This last message of love from the Apostle himself, in 1Co 16:24, is quite anomalous. There is no other instance in his letters where he introduces himself and his own love at the end, after he has pronounced solemn benediction commending to Christ’s grace. But here, as if he had felt that he must leave an impression of himself on their minds, which corresponded to the impression of his Master that he desired to leave, he deviates from his ordinary habit, and makes his last word a personal word-’My love be with you all in Christ Jesus.’ Rebuke is the sign of love. Sharp condemnation may be the language of love. Plain warning of possible evils is the simple duty of love. So Paul folds all whom he has been rebuking in the warm embrace of his proffered love, which was the very cause of his rebuke. The healing balm of this closing message was to be applied to the wounds which his keen edged words had made, and to show that they were wounds by a surgeon, not by a foe. In effect, this parting smile of love says, ‘I am not become your enemy because I tell you the truth; I show my love to you by the plainness and roughness of my words.’ Generalise that, free it from its personal reference, and it just comes to this: There never was a shallower sneer than the sneer which is cast at Christianity, as if it were harsh, ‘ferocious,’ or unloving, when it preaches the terror of the Lord. No! rather, because the Gospel is a Gospel, it must speak plainly about death and destruction to the unloving. The danger signal is not to be blamed for a collision, which it is hoisted to avert; and it is a strange sign of an unfeeling and unsympathetic, or of a harsh and gloomy system, that it should tell men where they are driving, in order that they may never reach the miserable goal. ‘Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.’ And when people say to us preachers, ‘Is that your Gospel, a Gospel that talks about everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord at the glory of His coming-is that your Gospel?’ We can only answer, ‘Yes, it is! Because, so to talk, may by God’s mercy, secure that some who hear shall never know anything of the wrath, save the hearing of it with the ear, and may, by the warning of it, be drawn to the Rock of Ages for safety and shelter from the storm.’
Therefore, dear friends, the upshot of all that I have been feebly trying to say is just this; let us lay hold with all our hearts, and by simple faith, of the present grace of the coming, loving Lord and Judge. You can do it. It is your only hope to do it. Have you done it? If so, then you may lift up your heads to the throne, and be glad, as those who know that their Friend and Deliverer will come at last, to help, to bless, to save. If not, dear friend, take the warning, that not to love is to be shrivelled like a leaf in the flame, at that coming which is life to them that love, and destruction to all besides. ‘Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness before Him in the day of judgment.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv21–24 The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand…
The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand . [All of Paul's letters save Galatians appear to have been written by an amanuensis ( Gal_6:11 ). Inspired Scripture was too important to be wanting in authenticity, or to be subjected to suspicion as forgery.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v22 Anathema Maranatha
Anathema Maranatha
Accursed; our Lord cometh. Christ is God’s final test.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v21 I, Paul, write this with my own hand
I, Paul, write this with my own hand
Paul was making it clear that the instructions in this letter are from him, even though one of his co-laborers wrote what Paul was saying in the rest of the letter. Paul wrote this last part with his own hand.
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may he be accursed
"may God curse him." See how "accursed" was translated in 1 Corinthians 12:3.
translationWords
Paul
hand
love
grace
amen
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv21–23 16:21 Paul takes up the pen and signs the…
16:21 Paul takes up the pen and signs the letter in his own handwriting. As was common, Paul used a secretary to write this letter and others (see Rom 16:22; Gal 6:11; Col 4:18; 2 Thes 3:17).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.