And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The apostle encourages the Romans to persevere in resisting the wiles of the devil, with the assurance that, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, they are "shortly" to receive their discharge, and have the satisfaction of 'putting their feet upon the neck' of that formidable Enemy-a symbol familiar, probably in all languages, to express not only the completeness of the defeat, but the abject humiliation of the conquered foe (see Joshua 10:24; 2 Samuel 22:41; Ezekiel 21:29; Psalms 91:13). Though the apostle here styles Him who is thus to bruise Satan, "the God of peace," with special reference to the "divisions" (Romans 16:17) by which the Roman Church was in danger of being disturbed, this sublime appellation of God has here a wider sense, pointing to the whole 'purpose for which the Son of God was manifested, to destroy the works of the devil' (1 John 3:8); and indeed this assurance is but a reproduction of the first great promise, that the Seed of the woman should bruise the Serpent's head (Genesis 3:15).
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. [Amen.] The "Amen" here has no manuscript authority. What comes after this, where one would have expected the letter to close, has its parallel in Philippians 4:20, etc., and, being in fact common in epistolatory writings, is simply a mark of genuineness.
The Salutations of the Apostle's Friends at Corinth (Romans 16:21-23)