Closing remarks
13
📚This will be my third visit to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word will be established.13:1 Deut 19:15. Paul probably means that the truth of what they were, and what he was, was well established. There was no need for further evidence or delay.⚜
2 📚I told you before, and am telling you in advance, as if I were present the second time, but being absent I now write to those who have previously sinned, and to everyone else, that if I come again I will not spare 📖 them, 3 📚since you seek proof 📖 that Christ is speaking through me. He is not weak toward you, but is mighty in you. 4 📚For though he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God which is active toward you.
5 📚Examine yourselves 📖 and see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you 📖? Unless you fail the test. 6 📚But I trust that you will know that we have not failed the test. 7 📚Now I pray to God that you will do no evil, not that it might appear that we have stood the test, but that you would do what is honourable, even though it might seem we have failed the test. 8 📚For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth. 9 📚For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. And we want this also: your perfection 📖.
13:7-9 Again he puts them first in his thinking – his desire is that they be right with God, even if they think he is not. He was willing to be trampled on if they would be true to God. In any case he could act only for the sake of the truth (1 Cor 9:23; 2 Tim 2:10).⚜
10 📚Therefore I write these things when I am absent, for fear that, being present, I would use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord has given me for building up, and not for demolishing.
13:10 Verse 2; 1 Cor 4:21.⚜
11 📚Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect 📖, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace 📖 will be with you.
12 📚Greet one another with a holy kiss 📖.
13 📚All the saints greet you.
14 📚The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
13:14 Here is a verse full of rich truth. Jesus is in this verse. He is both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36. Notes on “Lord” at Luke 2:11; Phil 2:10-11; on “Christ” at Matt 1:1). It is His grace that saves sinners and blesses believers (2 Cor 8:9; John 1:14-17; Gal 1:6). To say that Christ is the source of grace to men is to say He is God. See references at Phil 2:6.
God the Father is also in this verse. He sent the Lord Jesus Christ (John 3:16; Rom 5:8; 1 John 4:10). Verse 11 speaks of the God of love. Here it is the love of God – His love in action. The grace of Christ and the love of God work together. Because of God’s love Christ came and manifested His grace, and because of His grace God’s love can be with believers.
The Holy Spirit also is here. See notes at John 14:16-17. His personality is indicated. We can have fellowship only with persons, not with unconscious powers or influences. It is through the Holy Spirit that God lives in us believers, and it is through Him that we have fellowship with God the Father and the Lord Jesus (1 John 1:3).
So the Trinity is in this verse. Each of them has His part in the salvation, sanctification, and blessing of believers. See notes on “Trinity” at Matt 3:16-17.⚜