Verse 21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The manner in which the Redeemer is spoken of throughout this book, and especially in this farewell benediction, joined as he is constantly with God as the united object of celestial adoration, and represented repeatedly as clothing himself with the names and attributes of supreme divinity,--and yet, on the other hand, steadily separated from God by a marked and clearly-expressed distinction,--leaves us where indeed we ought to expect to be left, entirely in the dark in respect to the nature and modes of existence which pertain to the mysterious principle of divinity. The human mind is uneasy in this darkness and difficulty, and vainly attempts their removal. Some endeavor to cut the knot, by making Jesus a mere human prophet, and changing to metaphors all those declarations of the word of God which assign to him a position apparently divine. This is a very simple view of the subject, and easily understood. But the question, in this, as in all other researches after knowledge, is not what is simple, but what is true. Others, on the other hand, connecting and combining the various declarations of Scripture, and deducing inferences from them, make out what may be called a theory or the Godhead, distinct, defined, systematic, and drawn out into its details. But, on mature reflection, it will appear that he occupies the most truly philosophical ground, who allows, with the most undisturbed and quiet mind, the mystery of the Godhead to rest in the profound concealment in which it has pleased the Holy Spirit to leave it involved,--who draws no inferences, frames no theory or system, but simply reads what is written, and leaves it as it stands, without attempting to throw human light upon what divine revelation has left obscure. He waits for knowledge to come. And in the mean time he adores the Redeemer so unequivocally described as divine. He sees in him a Lamb slain as an atoning sacrifice for sin. In that atonement he finds relief from remorse, and comfort an peace come from it to displace gloomy recollections of sin, and dark forebodings of retribution; and he closes the sacred volume invoking the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, as his only hope of salvation.