Timothy my workfellow, and Lucius, and Jason, and Sosipater, my kinsmen, salute you. (22) I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord. (23) Gaius mine host, and of the whole church, saluteth you. Erastus the chamberlain of the city saluteth you, and Quartus a brother. (24) The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. (25) Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, (26) But now is made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: (27) To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.
Reader! do not overlook, how blessedly the Apostle dwells upon the precious words: the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ! He repeats it, as if it could not be mentioned (and which it never can) too often. And it is to the same purport, when he folds up the last leaf, in the cover of this blessed Epistle, and saith: To God only wise; or as Jude (for it is to one and the same Person the address is) renders it: To the only wise God our Savior! Reader! what think you of these precious, precious things? Who can this only wise God, and God our Savior be, but He, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? Colossians 2:3. Is he not all along revealed, as the visible Jehovah? Is it not said: No man hath seen God at any time. But, it is immediately added; the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father; he hath declared him. John 1:18. He then it is, that hath come forth from the invisibility of Jehovah, to make him visible to the Church; in and through the medium of our nature. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, Colossians 2:9. Is he not then the only wise God, which both Paul and Jude here alluded to? Not to the exclusion of the Persons of the Father, and the Holy Ghost, but in common with both, and the visible representation of the whole three Persons. And, Reader! I pray you to turn to the Epistle of Jude, and read attentively the whole; and then say, whether all along through the whole of it, the Apostle is not principally speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ? He is said to present to himself, the Church as faultless before him. So Paul saith, Ephesians 5:23; Philippians 3:20; Titus 2:13. And Peter to the same amount, 2 Peter 1:1. Neither is this act of presentation at the last day ever spoken of in the Scripture, as the act of God the Father, or of God the Holy Ghost! Can anything more clearly define the Person, and Office-work of the Lord Jesus Christ? Hail thou God only wise! Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! be glory ascribed to thee through the mediation of the God-Man Jesus Christ forever. Amen.