2 Corinthians 13:13 — The grace, the love, and the fellowship

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.”

2 Corinthians 13:13

Context: the last sentence of a contested letter

No other letter of Paul wrestles so audibly for its own authority as the second to the Corinthians. In chapters 10 to 13 the apostle defends himself against opponents who charge him with a weak bodily presence and poor speech; he calls his own self-defence a folly and, instead of successes, lists his beatings, shipwrecks and distresses. Immediately before our verse stands the admonition to self-examination — “examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith” (13:5) — and the call to be set right, to be of one mind and to live in peace. Then the quarrel breaks off, and the letter closes with a blessing of great calm.

The verse numbering varies: some editions read 13:13, others 13:14, depending on whether the greeting with the holy kiss and the greeting of the saints are counted as one verse or as two. The same sentence is always meant. This small matter is no side issue for the history of interpretation, for it recalls that the verse divisions of the New Testament were only established in the sixteenth century — in the very period in which the controversy over the Trinity flared up anew.

In terms of literary form the verse is an exception. Elsewhere Paul closes his letters simply: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” (Romans 16:20; 1 Corinthians 16:23; Galatians 6:18; Philippians 4:23; 1 Thessalonians 5:28). Only here does the greeting become threefold. Both sides of the later controversy have made capital out of this singularity: the one because so solemnly expanded a blessing must be a confession; the other because a confession that appears only once, and of all places in a greeting formula, can hardly be the load-bearing ground of a doctrine without which no one is saved.

In its later reception the sentence migrated early into the liturgy and to this day opens worship in many churches. The sequence of this development is noteworthy: its use as an opening greeting is older than its dogmatic employment, and the trinitarian interpretation followed the liturgical use rather than preceding it. Fausto Sozzini himself therefore does not treat the verse in a treatise on the Trinity, but where it became a matter of practical dispute: in the controversy over the invocation of Christ, where an opponent objected to him that whoever invokes Christ in the blessing must consistently invoke the Holy Spirit as well.

The Socinian core thesis

The Socinian answer does not begin with a denial but with a distinction. That Father, Son and Holy Spirit are named together in Scripture is undisputed and is expressly held fast as a basic Christian possession. What is disputed is solely the inference drawn from it: that three magnitudes named together must therefore be three persons of one essence. Enumeration proves belonging together in the work, not equality in nature. Whoever wishes to derive a doctrine of essence from a sequence must show that the sequence could not be explained otherwise — and that is precisely what the verse does not accomplish.

The Racovian Catechism carries out the counter-proof with examples from Scripture. In the Bible persons and even things are regularly associated with God without anyone making a deity out of them: “And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel” (1 Samuel 12:18); “the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and his servant Moses” (Exodus 14:31); “I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace” (Acts 20:32); “be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might” (Ephesians 6:10). Paul himself charges Timothy “before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels” (1 Timothy 5:21) — a threefoldness from which no one has yet inferred a trinity of Father, Son and angels.

Moreover, the blessing does not construct the three members alike at all. The grace is called that “of our Lord Jesus Christ”, the love is called that “of God”, the fellowship is called that “of the Holy Spirit” — but these three genitives do not stand in the same relation to their noun. In the case of love, God is the one who loves; in the case of grace, Christ is the one through whom it is bestowed; in the case of fellowship, according to Sozzini, the Spirit is not the giver but the given. A confessional statement about three co-equal persons would have to construct the three members uniformly. This sentence does the opposite.

And finally it carries weight whom the verse calls “God”. Christ is here called “the Lord”, the Spirit is called “the Holy Spirit”, and “God” without any addition stands alongside them — according to Paul’s consistent usage the Father is meant by this (1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 4:6). But if the formula itself designates only one as “God” and names the other two differently, then it distinguishes rather than fuses. The verse that is supposed to prove the threefoldness presupposes in its very wording the Socinian order: one God, the Father; one Lord, through whom his grace comes; one Spirit, whom he distributes.

Exegesis: key terms and semantic field

charis — the grace that is called “of the Lord Jesus Christ”

The word denotes the kindly turning of a superior towards an inferior, the favour that costs nothing and presupposes nothing. Paul opens and closes almost every letter with it; it is the frame into which he sets everything else. It is noteworthy that in the openings of the letters grace is expressly located in two places: “Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ” — the source is named and the way.

For the interpretation of our verse this is decisive. If elsewhere grace comes “from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ”, then the shorter phrase “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” is not a statement about who ultimately gives, but about through whom it is given. Sozzini formulates this state of affairs with great decisiveness in his writing on invocation: it is a matter of “the unique announcement and imparting of the grace of God the Father through Christ”. The genitive therefore designates the mediation, not the origin.

agapē tou theou — the love of God as source

With the second member the case stands otherwise. Here the genitive is indisputably a genitive of the author: God is the one loving, not the one loved. Paul unfolded this sentence in the same letter — “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19) — and brought it into its best-known form in the letter to the Romans: “God shows his love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Thus within the blessing itself the direction in which everything flows is fixed. Love stands at the beginning and is God’s; grace is its bestowal and comes through Christ; fellowship is that which arrives at the recipient. Whoever reads out of the verse a co-ordination of three persons must fail to hear this inner movement. Whoever does hear it finds in it the Socinian doctrine of salvation in three members: God as first cause, Christ as the second cause appointed by him, the Spirit as the power through whose imparting the work is accomplished in the human being.

koinōnia tou hagiou pneumatos — fellowship with the Spirit or through him?

On this third genitive the whole interpretation hangs, and the grammar permits two possibilities. If one understands it actively (as a genitivus subiectivus), the Spirit would be the one who establishes a fellowship — then he would stand as an agent alongside God and Christ. If one understands it objectively (as a genitivus obiectivus), the Spirit is that in which one is given a share — then he stands as a gift alongside two givers. Grammatically both are possible; the decision is made according to usage.

Precisely here Sozzini begins, and he points to the nearest parallel in the same body of letters: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship of the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16). There it is quite beyond doubt that what is named is the thing distributed, not the one distributing. The same phrase, the same author, the same pair of letters — and the New Testament speaks of the Spirit throughout in such a way that he is poured out, given, received, apportioned by measure or without measure. The Racovian Catechism draws the conceptual sum from this: “The Holy Spirit is a power or efficacy which proceeds from God and overflows upon human beings and is imparted to them, by which he separates them from the rest and consecrates them for his use.”

The order: why does Christ stand first?

Were the verse a confession of three co-equal persons, its order would require explanation: Christ first, then God, then the Spirit. None of the later confessional formulas keeps this order; they all begin with the Father. The interpreters of the early church helped themselves with the assertion that the sequence is to be understood “without rank” — an expedient that defuses the text rather than explaining it.

Read as a pastoral wish, by contrast, the order is a matter of course. Paul names first what lies nearest to the congregation: the grace it has experienced in Christ. From there he leads to its ground, the love of God, and from there to what holds the congregation together in daily life, the participation in the Spirit. It is the path of the believer from the experienced to the source and back again into the congregation — not a doctrinal proposition about relations within the Godhead, but the last word of comfort in a letter that until then had contained almost nothing but conflict.

Comparison of interpretations

Sozzini on the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit”

Sozzini comes to speak of our verse in a controversy that at first sight lies elsewhere: may one invoke Christ? His opponent had argued that the Pauline closing formulas — “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” — could not possibly be prayer and invocation; otherwise, according to 2 Corinthians 13:13, one would have to invoke the Holy Spirit as well, and in the end even Paul himself, who writes: “my love be with you all” (1 Corinthians 16:24). Sozzini takes the objection seriously and answers it not dogmatically but grammatically:

“I greatly wonder that in those words ‘fellowship of the Holy Spirit’ you have not recognised that the words ‘of the Holy Spirit’ are to be taken not actively but passively, so that the sense would not be that one asks the Holy Spirit to impart something, but that the Holy Spirit himself be imparted.”

Fausto Sozzini, “On the Honour of Christ”, ‘Pauline closing formulas’

The objection is thereby not rejected but dissolved. If in the third member it is not at all asked that the Spirit should do something, but that he himself should be granted, then the formula contains no invocation of the Spirit at all — and the comparison with the first member collapses. This is a philological argument, not a speculative one: it does not hang on a doctrine of deity but on the question how the genitive functions in Greek.

In the second, more extensive treatment of the same question Sozzini names the verse expressly and adds the decisive parallel passage:

“The words in Paul, 2 Cor. 13:13, ‘fellowship of the Holy Spirit’, do not mean that the Holy Spirit imparts something, but that the Holy Spirit himself is imparted. For the name of the Holy Spirit is in this expression to be taken not actively but passively, as appears from other similar phrases — for example: ‘fellowship of the body and blood of Christ’, 1 Cor. 10:16.”

Fausto Sozzini, “On the Non-Invocation of Jesus Christ in Holy Prayer”, ‘Greeting formula against invocation’

The parallel is deliberately chosen. In speaking of the Lord’s Supper Paul speaks of the “fellowship of the body and blood of Christ”, and no one has ever supposed that body and blood are there the agents; they are that in which the congregation is given a share. The same phrase in the same pair of letters can hardly be taken differently in the case of the Spirit without a reason being given for it. And such a reason cannot be gained from the text, but only from the doctrine already presupposed — whereby the proof runs in a circle.

In the same writing Sozzini goes a step further and examines whether Paul at least asks of Father and Son in the same manner. His answer is an argument from the inequality of the request:

“But it is certain that Paul does not ask grace and peace of the Son in the same manner; therefore the greatest inequality is proved.”

Fausto Sozzini, “On the Non-Invocation of Jesus Christ in Holy Prayer”, ‘Christ as mediator’

With this the core of the Socinian reading is named. The problem is not the combination of the three, but the tacit assumption that combination means sameness of kind. Sozzini holds the contrary: precisely because in the same sentence Paul says something different about each of the three, and in a different manner, the verse shows not the unity of essence but the order of causes.

The Racovian Catechism on the connection of the three

The Catechism treats the threefold formulas of the New Testament in a place of their own. It names three: the baptismal command (Matthew 28:19), the enumeration of the gifts, offices and operations (1 Corinthians 12:4-6) and the witnesses in heaven (1 John 5:7). Our blessing belongs materially in the same series, and the answer given there applies to it as well. It begins with a concession so decisive that it refutes the widespread caricature of Socinianism as mere negation:

“Speaking generally, I affirm that they teach only that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit exist and are joined together in divine matters — which we not only acknowledge but constantly affirm, so that we declare that anyone who does not know this or does not believe it cannot even be a Christian.”

Racovian Catechism, “The connection of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Scripture”

Whoever does not know the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and does not reckon with them is, according to this sentence, not even a Christian. The dispute is therefore not about whether the three belong together, but solely about what their combination proves. And here the Catechism brings in the scriptural examples that show how ordinary such associations are in the Bible:

“For in Scripture it is by no means unusual that in divine matters, no less weighty than the consecration of baptism, both persons and things are associated with God which in no way belong to the essence of God.”

Racovian Catechism, “The connection of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Scripture”

The people fear God and Samuel; they believe the Lord and Moses; Paul commends the elders to God and to the word of his grace; the victor in Revelation receives the name of God, the name of the city and the new name of Christ (Revelation 3:12). In none of these cases is the co-ordination an indication of a common nature. Why should it be so in a greeting formula?

The argument becomes sharpest in the case of the enumeration in 1 Corinthians 12, which stands closest to the blessing: the same three, again in the same unusual order, again with different attributions. Here the Catechism turns the proof around:

“Rather, the opposite is inferred from this, since quite manifestly the Lord, that is, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are distinguished from that one God. […] But the Holy Spirit is the power of God, by the imparting of which all this comes to pass.”

Racovian Catechism, “The divine operations and their attribution”

The observation is simple and hard to refute: in both formulas one member is expressly called “God”, the other two are not. An enumeration that assigns the name of God to one of three distinguishes him from the rest. It cannot therefore at the same time assert that all three are the same God — unless one reads into the text what is to be gained from it. The Catechism therefore regards the verse not as an opponent but as a witness for its own position (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:11).

What the Socinians do not deny

Honesty in presentation requires that the limits of the thesis be named. The Socinians deny neither that the blessing really names three, nor that all three are indispensable in the work of salvation, nor that Christ is more in this blessing than an honourable memory. On the contrary: Sozzini emphatically resisted the view that Christ merely showed grace and did not really bestow it. His opponent wanted to pin him down to this reduction; he rejects it:

“We are therefore driven to this, unless that middle course be granted, that Christ effectively conferred those benefits.”

Fausto Sozzini, “On the Honour of Christ”, ‘Three modes of conferring’

Between merely pointing out a way and an independent working autonomous of God there is, according to Sozzini, a third thing: effective conferring by virtue of received authority. Christ raised the dead, fed the hungry, made the blind see — not as an adviser but as an agent; and even now, exalted at the right hand of God, he truly does something for his own. The blessing therefore asks something real of him. Only not as of one who would have grace of himself.

Just as little is the Holy Spirit reduced to a figure of speech. According to the Catechism he is God’s own power, imparted and effective, which separates human beings and consecrates them for God’s use; without him there would be no congregation and no knowledge. The only question is whether this working presupposes a self of its own or is the working of God himself, in so far as he acts through his Spirit. Whoever grasps the point at issue in this way will see that what stands between the camps is less piety than metaphysics.

Logical arguments

The following considerations are ordered from the wording through usage to the consequences for doctrine as a whole.

1. The verse names only one “God”. In the formula itself only the second member bears the name of God without any addition; Christ is called “the Lord”, the Spirit “the Holy Spirit”. An enumeration that names one of three in this way and the others differently distinguishes — it does not identify. The usage agrees with 1 Corinthians 8:6 and Ephesians 4:6.
2. Co-ordination proves no unity of essence. Scripture places human beings (Samuel, Moses), angels (1 Timothy 5:21) and things (the word of his grace, the power of his might) alongside God. If co-ordination were a proof of essence, the same passages would yield trinities of God and Samuel, or of God, Christ and the angels.
3. The three genitives are not constructed alike. In the case of love God is the agent, in the case of grace Christ is the mediator, in the case of fellowship the Spirit is — according to the usage of 1 Corinthians 10:16 — the thing distributed. A confession of three co-equal persons would have to construct the members uniformly.
4. The parallel of the Lord’s Supper cannot be explained away. “Fellowship of the body and blood of Christ” stands in the same author, addressed to the same congregation, in the same phrase. Whoever wishes to take the expression differently in the case of the Spirit must name a reason for it drawn from the text; a reason drawn from the presupposed doctrine would be a circular argument.
5. In the New Testament the Spirit is consistently described as a gift. He is poured out, given, received, apportioned by measure and without measure, imparted in parts, taken away, quenched. These ways of speaking suit a power that is conferred, not a person who confers (cf. Acts 2:17).
6. The order speaks against a confessional formula. To name Christ before God is impossible in any confessional formula of the early church; as a pastoral wish that begins with the experienced and leads to the source it is a matter of course. The assertion that the order is “without rank” does not explain the finding but defuses it.
7. A singular greeting cannot bear a doctrine necessary for salvation. Paul closes all his other letters with a single member. If the threefoldness were the core of the Christian understanding of God, it would be inexplicable why it occurs in this form exactly once and is nowhere unfolded in the doctrinal chapters of the same letter.
8. The blessing is a request, not a doctrinal proposition. “Be with you all” is an optative. From what is pronounced over a congregation one can immediately gather what it is to receive, but not what nature those named have. To derive an ontology from a word of blessing overtaxes the genre.
9. The burden of proof lies with the stronger claim. That the three belong together is taught by both sides. That they form a single numerical essence is the additional claim; it requires a passage that states it. The blessing does not state it (cf. John 17:3).
10. Otherwise the order of causes remains unexplained. If all three were the same God, it would be impossible to say why the love is precisely God’s, the grace precisely the Lord’s, and the participation precisely the Spirit’s. The Socinian reading explains each attribution from its place in the way of salvation — and leaves no expression uninterpreted.

Biblical cross-references

Matthew 28:19 — the second threefold formula

“Baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” — the classic parallel case, and the answer is the same. The Catechism recalls that Israel was baptised “into Moses” (1 Corinthians 10:2) and Christians “into the death of Christ” (Romans 6:3), without Moses or the death of Christ being divine persons. See Matthew 28:19.

1 Corinthians 12:4-6 — the same triad, the same order

“There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of offices, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but the same God.” Here too only one member bears the name of God, and here too the Spirit designates that which is distributed. See 1 Corinthians 12:11.

1 Corinthians 8:6 — the express standard

“Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, … and one Lord, Jesus Christ.” Where Paul treats the matter itself, then, he distributes the designations precisely. This sentence prescribes the grammar of the blessing. See 1 Corinthians 8:6.

Ephesians 4:4-6 — seven members, not three

“One body and one Spirit … one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.” Here the three stand in a series with body, faith and baptism. Whoever wanted to derive equality of essence from co-ordination would have to deify baptism as well. See Ephesians 4:6.

Revelation 3:12 — the Catechism’s example

The one who overcomes receives the name of God, the name of the new Jerusalem and the new name of Christ. A solemn threefoldness in a formula of promise — and no one has ever inferred from it a trinity of God, city and Christ. See Revelation 3:12.

1 Timothy 2:5 — the number of parties

“There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” A mediator is by definition not one of the parties between whom he mediates; the formula presupposes the distinction that the blessing also makes. See 1 Timothy 2:5.

John 17:3 — the standard of salvation

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Jesus’ own prayer knows the distinction and makes it the content of eternal life. See John 17:3.

1 Corinthians 2:11 — the Spirit “of God”

“The things of God no one knows but the Spirit of God.” As the spirit of a human being is not a second human being alongside the human being, so the Spirit of God is not a second person alongside God; he is God himself, in so far as he knows and works. See 1 Corinthians 2:11.

Objections and Socinian replies

1. “Only divine things can be juxtaposed so solemnly”

The objection has weight, yet Scripture itself removes its ground. Writers brought up precisely as Jews join God without hesitation with other things: the people fear “the Lord greatly, and Samuel”; they believe “the Lord, and his servant Moses”; Paul commends the elders of Ephesus “to God, and to the word of his grace” and charges Timothy “before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels”. In none of these cases does a common nature arise thereby, and in none has interpretation ever asserted one. The Catechism draws from this the conclusion that in divine matters it is “by no means unusual” to associate with God persons and things that do not belong to his essence. The solemnity of a formula therefore establishes its dignity, not the equality of essence of those named. And that Paul had done something unthinkable would first have to be shown — for the blessing precisely does not set three names of God alongside one another, but one.

2. “Three gifts presuppose three givers”

The inference would hold only if the three members were really constructed in parallel; but they are not. In the case of love God stands as author, and no one disputes that. In the case of grace Paul elsewhere expressly names both magnitudes — “from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ” — so that the shorter phrase means the mediation, as Sozzini says: the imparting “of the grace of God the Father through Christ”. In the case of the Spirit, finally, according to the usage of 1 Corinthians 10:16 no giver at all is named, but the thing given. There remain therefore two agents in an ordered relation and one gift — not three givers. Moreover, Sozzini expressly reads the middle member strongly: Christ confers really and effectively, not merely by way of advice; but he confers by virtue of what he has received. The objection therefore proves the effectiveness of Christ, which was never disputed, and not his equality of essence, about which the dispute turns.

3. “The church has always prayed this verse trinitarianly”

The liturgical use is undisputed and is not attacked by the Socinians either; they pray the blessing themselves. What is disputed is that use replaces interpretation. The chronology is instructive here: the verse stood in liturgical use for a long time before it became a means of proof in the doctrinal controversy, and the trinitarian interpretation followed the practice, not the reverse. Moreover, by its very genre a liturgical word of blessing proves what is wished for the congregation, not what nature those named have — the Lord’s Prayer too is ancient and unanimously prayed and contains no doctrine of essence. Finally, Socinianism sets against the argument from antiquity its own principle: what is necessary for salvation must lie so clearly in Scripture that it is written “as it were with a ray of the sun”. A doctrine that has to be inferred from the genre of a greeting formula does not meet this standard.

4. “If Christ is invoked in the greeting, then so is the Spirit”

Sozzini stood precisely in these pincers, and he releases them by the observation that the third member contains no request to the Spirit at all. What is asked is not that the Spirit should do something, but that he himself should be imparted — the genitive is to be taken passively, as in the “fellowship of the body and blood of Christ”. Thus only two are addressed, and their relation is, according to Sozzini, not an equal one: Paul asks grace and peace “not in the same manner of the Son”, from which he infers “the greatest inequality”. That the pincers do not close is shown, moreover, by a sentence of the same apostle a few lines further on in the first letter: “My love be with you all in Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 16:24). Whoever infers deity from the form of blessing would have to infer the deity of Paul here. The form therefore does not bear the inference.

5. “‘God’ here means the Godhead, not the Father”

This interpretation is possible, but it is not gained from the verse; it is brought to it — and it breaks on the verse’s construction. If “God” designated the whole Godhead, the sentence would read: the grace of Christ and the love of the Trinity and the fellowship of the Spirit be with you — whereby Christ and the Spirit would at once be contained in the threefoldness and set over against it. But an expression cannot in the same sentence designate both the whole and a part of the whole. To this is added the author’s usage: where Paul treats the matter doctrinally, he distributes the names expressly — “one God, the Father … and one Lord, Jesus Christ” — and Jesus himself likewise speaks of the Father as the “only true God”. There remains therefore what the Racovian Catechism holds fast as an observation: in just such formulas the one God is manifestly distinguished from the Lord, that is, Christ, and from the Holy Spirit. The verse that is supposed to bear the unity of essence is the verse that most clearly divides it.

Doctrinal consequences

Related verses

The following passages support, deepen or contrast the interpretation presented here:

• Matthew 28:19 — the second threefold formula and its treatment in the Catechism.
• 1 Corinthians 8:6 — “one God, the Father … and one Lord, Jesus Christ”: the distribution of the names in Paul himself.
• Ephesians 4:6 — “one God and Father of all” in the midst of a sevenfold series.
• John 17:3 — the “only true God” and the one sent by him.
• 1 Timothy 2:5 — one God and one mediator: the number of parties.
• 1 John 5:7 — the Comma Johanneum, the third classic triad and its textual history.
• 1 Corinthians 12:11 — the Spirit who distributes, and the question of his subject.
• 1 Corinthians 2:11 — the Spirit of God compared with the spirit of a human being.
• Acts 5:3-4 — to lie to the Spirit is to lie to God: the attribution of divine operations.
• Revelation 3:12 — the association of names and things in a solemn formula.
• 1 Corinthians 11:3 — “and the head of Christ is God”: the order that the blessing presupposes.
• 1 Corinthians 15:28 — the subjection at the end, “that God may be all in all”.

Summary

2 Corinthians 13:13 is the only closing of a letter of Paul that names three magnitudes, and it therefore became early on the chief witness for the doctrine of the Trinity. The Socinian interpretation does not attack this witness by striking out one of the three members, but by reading the sentence more precisely than the formula that was made out of it. It holds fast what the sentence says: God loves, Christ mediates grace, the Spirit is imparted. And it disputes what it does not say: that these three form a single numerical essence.

Fausto Sozzini made the decisive observation not in a treatise on the Trinity but in the controversy over prayer — there, where the verse became a practical matter. His answer is grammatical in kind and therefore verifiable: “fellowship of the Holy Spirit” does not mean that the Spirit imparts something, but that he himself is imparted, as in the “fellowship of the body and blood of Christ”. Thus in the third member there stands a gift, not a giver, and the formula loses its trinitarian symmetry. The Racovian Catechism supplies the second half of the argument: co-ordination is ordinary in Scripture and proves nothing about the nature of those named, and in the very same threefold formulas the one God is expressly distinguished from the Lord and from the Spirit.

What remains is a blessing that forfeits nothing of its fullness. It names the source, the way and the effect of salvation in a single breath and wishes all three at once to the divided congregation in Corinth. Read as an order rather than as an equation, it says more, not less: the love from which everything comes is the love of the Father; the grace in which it reaches human beings is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ; and the fellowship in which it continues to work among human beings is the participation in the Spirit whom God distributes. Whoever prays the sentence in this way prays it whole — and need posit no number in God in order to do so.