Memory Text
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.”
—2 Corinthians 13:14, NKJV
We’re finally at the end of 2 Corinthians!
And what a journey it has been.
The church in Corinth had problems with division, sexual immorality, lawsuits, spiritual pride, abuses of spiritual gifts, arguments about Paul’s apostleship, and so much more. Even Paul’s relationship with them had become painful. He visited them. He wrote to them. He sent Titus. He defended his ministry. He confronted them. He rejoiced when many of them repented.
After all of that, what would you say as your final words?
Paul could have ended with another rebuke. Instead, he closes with this:
2 Corinthians 13:11, 14 NKJV
“Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. . . .
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.”
Notice the movement.
Paul tells them to be restored, comforted, united, and at peace. Then he points them to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
That is not accidental.
Become Complete
I find the words “become complete” interesting.
The Greek word is katartizō. It can carry the idea of putting something into proper condition, repairing, restoring, or making something what it ought to be. The same word is used when the disciples were “mending” their nets (Matt. 4:21), and Paul uses it in Galatians 6:1 when he tells believers to “restore” someone who has fallen into sin.
Something is broken.
Katartizō means putting it back together.
And that fits Corinth perfectly.
In fact, this is how Paul began his first letter to them:
1 Corinthians 1:10 NKJV
“I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”
“Perfectly joined together” comes from the same word family.
Think about that.
Paul begins 1 Corinthians asking a divided church to be put back together. He reaches the end of 2 Corinthians and he is still saying, “Be restored.”
He has not given up on them.
Murray Harris points out that all five commands in 2 Corinthians 13:11 are in the present tense. Paul wanted rejoicing, restoration, encouragement, unity, and peace to become continuing characteristics of their Christian life.¹
But how does a broken church become whole?
Paul’s final verse gives us the answer.
Grace
2 Corinthians 13:14 NKJV
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ . . . be with you all.”
What does the grace of Jesus look like?
Thankfully, we do not have to guess. Paul already described it a few chapters earlier:
2 Corinthians 8:9 NKJV
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”
That is grace.
Jesus had everything, yet for our sake He became poor.
Harris writes that Christ “was rich beyond telling in the glory of his preexistent life in heaven,” but He entered the relative poverty of human existence for us.² The Creator became a creature. The King became a servant. The One worshiped by angels walked dusty roads, experienced hunger and exhaustion, and eventually hung on a cross.
And notice why Paul brings this up in chapter 8.
He is talking about giving!
Paul wanted the Corinthians to help believers in need. But before telling them what to give, he reminded them of what Jesus had already given.
That is the gospel pattern.
Grace received becomes grace extended.
George Guthrie writes that Paul “sees the gospel also as a basis for right Christian response to the needs of others.”³ Christianity does not merely teach us what Jesus has done for us. It changes how we live toward other people.
And Corinth desperately needed that kind of grace.
When people hurt us, our natural tendency is to treat them according to what they deserve.
Grace does something different.
It remembers how Jesus treated us.
Love
Paul continues:
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God . . .”
One of the simplest descriptions of God in the Bible is also one of the deepest:
1 John 4:8 NKJV
“God is love.”
The verse does not merely say that God loves.
God is love.
John Peckham explains something important about this:
“Prior to and apart from creation, God is love. Before the world began, the persons of the Trinity were united in love relationship.”⁴
Before there was a universe, God was love.
Before there were human beings to love, God was love.
Before there were sinners to save, God was love.
The Father loved the Son. The Son loved the Father. And the Holy Spirit participates in this eternal divine fellowship of love.
I think this is important because we sometimes think that Jesus came to convince an angry Father to love us.
But the gospel says otherwise.
John 3:16 NKJV
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son . . .”
The cross did not make God loving.
The cross revealed how loving God has always been.
And if the church belongs to this God, then love cannot simply be one Christian virtue among many. Love must shape the way we deal with each other.
The Corinthians had knowledge.
They had spiritual gifts.
They had eloquent speakers.
They had strong personalities.
What they desperately needed was love.
Sound familiar?
Fellowship
Finally, Paul says:
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
The word translated “communion” is koinōnia.
It can mean fellowship, sharing, communion, or participation.
But here is an interesting question: What exactly does Paul mean by “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit”?
Does he mean fellowship with the Holy Spirit?
Or does he mean fellowship with one another that the Holy Spirit produces?
Scholars debate this.
George Guthrie favors the second and describes it as “a fellowship among members of the church that is prompted by the Holy Spirit.”⁵ That makes sense in the context. Paul has just told the Corinthians to “be of one mind” and “live in peace.”
Ralph Martin, however, makes what I think is an important observation. He says that perhaps we do not have to choose too sharply between the two meanings because the “fellowship of the church” created by the Spirit comes about through our “common share in the Holy Spirit.”⁶
I think that captures it well.
We have fellowship with one another because we share fellowship in the same Spirit.
Christian fellowship, therefore, is more than friendship.
It is easy to have fellowship with people who are like us.
Same interests.
Same personality.
Same age.
Same preferences.
But what happens when the church brings together people who would probably never naturally become friends?
That is where the Holy Spirit comes in.
The Spirit does something human compatibility cannot do.
He makes many members one body.
Our Triune God
Now step back and look at the entire verse again:
2 Corinthians 13:14 NKJV
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
Jesus Christ.
God the Father.
The Holy Spirit.
All three appear together in one blessing.
Harris calls this Paul’s “most developed trinitarian affirmation in the NT.”⁷ Paul was not writing a systematic theology textbook about the Trinity here. He was blessing a church.
Yet look at how naturally he places the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together as the source of divine blessing.
This also does not mean that only Jesus has grace, only the Father has love, and only the Spirit has fellowship. Elsewhere Paul speaks about the grace of God, the love of Christ, and fellowship with Christ. Harris therefore correctly warns that these qualities “should not be thought of as exclusive characteristics.”⁸
The Three work together for our salvation.
Peckham summarizes it beautifully:
“The story of redemption is the story of the Trinity of love for us and with us.”⁹
Ellen White likewise writes:
“There are three living persons of the heavenly trio; in the name of these three great powers—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—those who receive Christ by living faith are baptized.”¹⁰
The Trinity is not some theological puzzle Christians invented because we enjoy making God difficult to understand.
The doctrine tells us something about the God who saves us.
The Father loves.
The Son gives Himself in grace.
The Spirit brings us into fellowship.
And all Three are working to bring sinful human beings back into communion with God and with one another.
Conclusion
I love how Paul ends his correspondence with Corinth.
He began 1 Corinthians pleading with a divided church to be “perfectly joined together.” He ends 2 Corinthians telling them, “Become complete.”
After all their failures, Paul still believed restoration was possible. Not because the Corinthians had finally become impressive Christians. But because God had not finished with them.
The same is true of us.
Churches can become divided. Relationships can become strained. Christians can hurt one another. Sometimes fellowship can become so damaged that restoration seems impossible.
But Paul ends with a reminder of what God provides to broken people:
The grace of Jesus. The love of God. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Maybe that is what a broken church needs most.
Not simply another strategy for unity.
But a deeper experience of God.
Discussion Questions
- Why do you think Paul ends such a difficult correspondence by emphasizing grace, love, and fellowship?
- What is the difference between ordinary friendship and the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit”?
- Is there a relationship in your life or church that needs katartizō—repair and restoration? What would grace look like in that situation?
Notes
- Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 934.
- Harris, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 580.
- George H. Guthrie, 2 Corinthians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015), 406.
- John C. Peckham, God with Us: An Introduction to Adventist Theology, 170.
- Guthrie, 2 Corinthians, 654.
- Ralph P. Martin, 2 Corinthians, 2nd ed., Word Biblical Commentary 40 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 700.
- Harris, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 116.
- Harris, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 938.
- Peckham, God with Us, 172.
- Ellen G. White, Evangelism (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1946), 615.
Paul’s letters to the Corinthians are a powerful study of Christian life and witness. As we look at the message of the Cross, the power of the resurrection, and the grace that forms God’s people in love and fellowship, may our lives be drawn closer to Christ and His mission.