Grace to you . . . Grace be with you. (Paul’s letters)

Without exception the apostle Paul begins and ends each of his thirteen New Testament letters by blessing his Christian readers with future grace.

What he usually says at the beginning of his letters is, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” At the end he usually says something like, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.”

Nothing else in Paul’s letters comes close to this kind of unbroken focus on future grace at the beginning and ending of every letter.

What is Paul doing when he begins and ends his letters with words like these? He is blessing his readers, including us!

Blessings are peculiar. They focus on the persons spoken to (“Grace to you”). But they also appeal to God to do something (“Grace to you from God our Father”). The person who blesses takes a position between God and others, and makes his words a conduit of blessing between the two.

There is another remarkable thing about these blessings of future grace. Without exception the blessings at the beginning of Paul’s letters say “Grace [be] to you,” while the blessings at the end of the letters say “Grace [be] with you.”

The meaning I would suggest is this: At the beginning of his letters, Paul has in mind that the letter itself is a channel of God’s grace to the readers. Grace is about to flow “from God” through Paul’s writing to the Christians.

But as the end of the letter approaches, Paul realizes that the reading is almost finished and the question rises, “What becomes of the grace that has been flowing to the readers through the reading of the inspired letter?” He answers with a blessing…: “Grace [be] with you.” With you as you put the letter away and leave the church.

What then do we learn from Paul’s unbroken pattern of beginning and ending his letters in this way?

We learn that grace is an unmistakable priority in the Christian life. We learn that it is from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, but that it can come through people. We learn that grace is ready to flow to us every time we take up the inspired Scriptures to read them. And we learn that grace will abide with us when we lay the Bible down and go about our daily living.

In other words, we learn that grace is not merely a past reality but a future one.

This is what I mean by future grace.