(23) The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.--The true reading is, be with your spirit (as in Galatians 6:18; Philemon 1:25; 2 Timothy 4:22). The reading of our version is the more ordinary form of salutation. In one form or another it is "the token in every Epistle" (2 Thessalonians 3:17). The grace given by the Spirit of God is received in "the spirit" of man, but in order that the whole man, "body, soul, and spirit, be preserved blameless to the coming of the Lord Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
Verse 23. - The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen; read, with the best manuscripts, with your spirit. St. Paul begins with "grace" (Philippians 1:2), and ends with "grace." The gracious love of the Lord Jesus was the joy of his heart.
4:20-23 The apostle ends with praises to God. We should look upon God, under all our weakness and fears, not as an enemy, but as a Father, disposed to pity us and help us. We must give glory to God as a Father. God's grace and favour, which reconciled souls enjoy, with the whole of the graces in us, which flow from it, are all purchased for us by Christ's merit, and applied by his pleading for us; and therefore are justly called the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,.... The Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions read, "with your spirit", as in Galatians 6:18; and so the Alexandrian copy and some others read. This is the apostle's token in all his epistles of the genuineness of them, and which he wrote with his own hand, 2 Thessalonians 3:17; see Gill on Romans 16:22, Romans 16:24.
Amen: with which all the epistles are concluded; see Gill on Romans 16:27.
The subscription is,
it was written to the Philippians from Rome, by Epaphroditus; that this epistle was written to the Philippians by the Apostle Paul, when he was a prisoner at Rome, and sent to them by Epaphroditus their minister, when he returned from him to them.
Amen: with which all the epistles are concluded; see Gill on Romans 16:27.
The subscription is,
it was written to the Philippians from Rome, by Epaphroditus; that this epistle was written to the Philippians by the Apostle Paul, when he was a prisoner at Rome, and sent to them by Epaphroditus their minister, when he returned from him to them.