What Did These Profound Benediction Words Mean to Men and Women Then and What Do They Mean Today?

What must it have meant to these men and women and what does it mean today when we say, May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all? We read these words at the close of Paul's second letter to the Corinthians Church.

This must have been a strange thing to say to these people who had been steeped in philosophy or paganism. This was so new and so fresh and almost novel, but yet it was all so real.

As Words

It was part of their corporate experience, and it was part of their personal experience. Is it part of yours?

This leads us right to the heart and core and centre of our Christian Faith, namely our fellowship with God.

There is no such thing as fellowship among believers apart from our fellowship with God through Jesus Christ, and there is no fellowship with God that does not drive us to having fellowship with those around us in the body of Christ.

Fellowship or koinonia, as we have it in the Greek, or communion, is an amazing characteristic in the Church. Invest in such a deep fellowship and reap all its benefits and dividends.

You have that man Saul of Tarsus writing this. He had been a proud haughty Pharisee, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and here he is sharing his deepest thoughts with people from the Greek slums, who were barbarians and Scythians and miserable outsiders, and yet now miraculously, his brothers.

Only one thing can explain this, and that is Jesus Christ! It is He who makes the difference. It is He who brings about the miraculous transformation. It is He Who bring about the most profound intimate and realistic fellowship with the living God and, and with our brothers and sisters in the faith.

It is he who does it! It is He who does everything that is important in this crucial area of life.

Sandy Shaw

What Did These Profound Benediction Words Mean to Men and Women Then and What Do They Mean Today?