2 Thessalonians 3:16

2 Thessalonians 3:16. The Lord of peace. That God the Father is here meant may be argued from the use of the expression in Romans 15:33; Romans 16:20, and especially in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 5:23. That Jesus Christ is meant may be argued from the common application to Him of the title ‘Lord,' and from the fact that ‘peace' was emphasized by Himself as that which He would specially bestow. The title is selected as suitable to the gift Paul desires in their behalf; and the desirableness of this gift itself is suggested by the circumstances of persecution without and dissension within in which the church at Thessalonica was. The Lord of peace signifies not only that He can bestow peace, but also and primarily that it is His own attribute. He has peace, because He sees the end from the beginning, and is unassailable in His righteousness and sovereignty. He gives His own peace by enabling men to rely upon Him, to accept His will, that will which shall certainly be accomplished, and by thus lifting them up above anxiety into His own security.

The Lord be with you all. He leaving them, leaves the Lord with them. It is the ‘farewell' which rises naturally to the lip of him who must now lose sight of those he loves, but would fain leave them with all and far more than all the protection and blessing which he would himself have striven to provide them with.