The Benediction
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Ghost,
be with you all.
Amen"
How familiar the words are! The very fact of their familiarity, it is to be feared, sometimes robs them of their significance. In the mouths of some they become a mere formula of dismissal, uttered as a matter of routine and heard without thought or exercise on the part of many.
It is a thousand pities that this should be so, for the sacred words have a tremendous import. The verse is one of the few where all the three Persons of the Triune God-head are named, the Holy Spirit being God equally with the Father and the Son. Not three Gods in one Person, but one God existing in three Persons.
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ"
was shown in the past by His becoming poor for our sakes (2 Cor. 8:9). It is not, however, confined to that, as if it were a mere matter of history. It is warm, tender and true today, and the prayer of the Benediction is that it may be with us, that is, that we may have the reality of it, and the consciousness of it, wherever we go.
"The love of God."
This also was convincingly manifested in the past in the gift of His Son. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him" (1 John 4:9). But it also is a present reality. It is a love that holds us in its eternal embrace. Nothing can separate us from it.
"The Communion of the Holy Ghost."
The meaning of this is not quite so evident as that of the preceding words. It carries with it, of course, the thought of communion with the Father and the Son in which we share through the ministry of the apostles, to whom it first pertained (1 John 1:3). But it most assuredly conveys also the thought of communion one with another. It is what we sometimes pray for in the words of a familiar hymn:
"Thus
may ours be sweet communion
With each other and the Lord."
It means the putting away all that would introduce a discordant note, all envy, suspicion, evil speaking, uncharitable thoughts, divisions, selfishness, etc.
This is what is implied in "the communion of the Holy Ghost." Strife and discord among Christians are works of the flesh (Gal. 5:20), whereas the fruit of the Spirit is "love, joy, peace" (verse 22). The Spirit of God, the God of peace, works for practical unity, love and mutual forbearance among His saints. When we pray: "the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all," we are praying that we may all be kept in the current of His working, never making a contribution to the enemy's evil work of fostering discord and strife, but that we may be preserved in harmony, in that communion which is of the Holy Spirit's making.