Greeting formula at the end of the second letter to the Corinthians

If one comes to speak about the Trinity, the conclusion of the Epistle to the Corinthians is often referred to first. Paul writes to the Corinthians as a closing word:

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you all! Amen!”
2Cor 13,13

It is a greeting, not a typical teaching. Nothing is explained here. However, Jesus Christ, God and the Holy Spirit are mentioned together. Doesn’t this speak to the doctrine of the Trinity? That’s what we’re going to investigate now. It is certain that this text is unique: there is no other verse of this kind in the Bible in which God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are presented in this way. Is the view correct and why is it going on here?

Grace, love and community

The first thing that stands out on closer inspection is the core of the statement. It does not concern any doctrine about God, and in no way does it declare that God is made up of three persons. The subject is different. Paul wishes three things for the church in Corinth:

1. Grace (of the Lord Jesus Christ)
2. Love (of God)
3. Community (of the Holy Spirit)

Grace, love and fellowship form the core of the statement. The goal is not to explain the Godhead, but to promote fellowship in Corinth. Each of the statements is clarified with an addendum. It is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the love of God and it is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Here, in the last verse, the Trinity is not explained quickly, but it is a normal greeting, in which it is about completely different things. These are the things Paul wants to convey in his greeting.

No doctrine of the Trinity

One tries a doctrine of the Trinity here in vain. If it were a matter of clear doctrine, then there would have to be something like explanation of the Godhead in three persons. This is precisely what is not being done here.

Those who quote this text in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity do so merely because it sounds similar to the well-known doctrine: “It sounds something like the doctrine of the Trinity and therefore it will probably be so”. Personally, that’s not enough of an explanation for me.

Imagine holding a blue stone in your hand. Then you look up and see the blue sky. Those who now claim that they hold the sky in their hands may be expressing themselves poetically, but unfortunately this has nothing to do with reality.

This is also the case with the text at the end of the second letter to the Corinthians. Here the idea of the Trinity has nothing to do with the text. However, the idea is projected onto the text because it has a “similar sound”.

How many people are mentioned?

If you count the people mentioned in the verse, there are only two. Only Jesus Christ and God are mentioned specifically. In the expression “community of the Holy Spirit” a third person, that of the “Holy Spirit”, is read out with pleasure. You translate how you want to read it.

This is the problem: this person of the “Holy Spirit” must first be defined before it is alluded to here. Many translations do just that. You refer to “Holy Spirit” as a “proper noun” with two capital letters. This is an interpretation that has nothing to do with basic text or context.

Some translations that write “Holy” with a capital letter:

• Elberfelder: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the HolySpirit ⟨bei⟩ with you all!
• Luther 2017: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the HolySpirit be with you all!
• Schlachter 2000: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the HolySpirit be with you all! Amen.

Translations that write the word “holy” in lowercase:

• Zürcher: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the HolySpirit be with you all.
• Concordant New Testament: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the HolySpirit be with you all! Amen.

The idea that this is about the “Holy Spirit”, as if it were about the third person of the Trinity, does not seem to have spread everywhere. Or are there even arguments for looking at the text a little more soberly?

First, one would have to define here the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is not found in the Bible. It arose as a doctrine many centuries after the New Testament was completed. In the development of the doctrine, the third person, the Holy Spirit, came late. Thus, the invention of the Holy Spirit as the “third person of the Godhead” took centuries and was as little known in New Testament times as the doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore, it is impossible that Paul wrote about it. So what does Paul have in mind? Those who try to read the Trinity out of this verse fail to see the historical development.

Here is just the different way of looking at it:

1. I am assuming the Trinity, so I need to find this
2. I start from the text wherein there is no mention of a Trinity, so I don’t feel pressured to read this one.

If I start from the text and not from tradition, what clues do I find in the text? Why does it work? What can I learn positively from the text? For me, this question is much more important than whether or not I need to find a particular teaching here now. I can also learn to distinguish between dogmatic imagination and text. What do we say directly in the text and what would I have to interpret into it? For example: Is there for a capitalization “
H
eiliger Geist” grammatical justifications? The answer is no. It is precisely the respect for Scripture that prevents me from uncritically interpreting arbitrary ideas into it.

Conclusion: Only two persons are mentioned, namely Jesus Christ and God. A “Holy Spirit” did not exist in Paul’s day. He doesn’t seem to have introduced this either.

The fellowship of the Holy Spirit

Paul addresses the church in this final greeting to grace, love, and community. It is about the way of living together in the community and how this is shaped. This comes logically from the greeting formula. The addition of “holy” does not make the word spirit a separate person, but describes how the spiritual community should be characterized.

In the verse before, Paul addresses the church, “Greet one another with a holy kiss!” (2Cor 13,12). Of course, the addition of “holy” here does not make it a person named “Holy Kiss”. Kiss or spirit here are extended with an attribute “holy” which is to clarify the spirit, holiness of kiss, communion and other. This emphasis comes directly from the context.

The basic text originally knew only a capitalization of all letters, completely without word spacing, punctuation and the like. Therefore, whoever uses capital letters where and why does so out of linguistic necessity in translation or by interpretation. Interpretation is what we see here. Those who prefer “Holy Spirit” to “Holy Ghost” have a reason for this that arises interpretatively rather than linguistically. There is no reason not to write the word “holy” here with a lowercase letter.

Only if one already assumes that it is about the third person of a Trinity here, a capital letter is put. However, this is not supported by the context. However, the Zurich translation as well as the Concordant Testament, as referenced above, have written a simple “communion of the Holy Spirit.” This is consistent with the type of fellowship among community members envisioned here and fits naturally with the statement.

Is the Trinity established here?

No, no Trinity is established here. The reasons for this were listed. The greeting formula has a very different focus than the declaration or affirmation of a Trinity. The Trinity is not established here or in any other place in the Tenach or the New Testament. However, the text is often misused to pretend an agreement with the Trinity. However, this is something completely different.

Who wants to remain soberly with the text, finds here neither a reasoning of “three persons” nor of a “Trinity”. What I found here is what the text does not say and what it says positively. On the other hand, the doctrine of a Trinity was neither refuted in its entirety nor was a different view positively formulated here. The issue here was a single text cited as a pro-argument for a doctrine of the Trinity. This was refuted. The concern was not to infer beyond what is written (1 Cor. 4:6).

Paul’s concern was about the direction of the church. It should be characterized by grace, love and fellowship. This seems to me to be the only valid “trinity” in the context.