Revelation 1:4

1:4 From John, ¹  to the seven churches that are in the province of Asia: ²  Grace and peace to you ³  from “he who is,” ⁴  and who was, and who is still to come, ⁵  and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,

Romans 1:7

1:7 To all those loved by God in Rome, ⁶  called to be saints: ⁷  Grace and peace to you ⁸  from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

Romans 16:20

16:20 The God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

Romans 16:24

16:24 [[EMPTY]] ⁹ 

Romans 16:2

16:2 so that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and provide her with whatever help she may need from you, for she has been a great help to many, including me.

Colossians 1:14

1:14 in whom we have redemption, ¹⁰  the forgiveness of sins.

Ephesians 6:23-24

6:23 Peace to the brothers and sisters, ¹¹  and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 6:24 Grace be ¹²  with all of those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. ¹³ 

Ephesians 6:2

6:2 “Honor your father and mother,” ¹⁴  which is the first commandment accompanied by a promise, namely,

Ephesians 3:18

3:18 you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁵ 

¹ tn Grk “John.” The word “From” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

² tn Grk “Asia”; in the NT this always refers to the Roman province of Asia, made up of about one-third of the west and southwest end of modern Asia Minor. Asia lay to the west of the region of Phrygia and Galatia. The words “the province of” are supplied to indicate to the modern reader that this does not refer to the continent of Asia.

³ tn It is probable that the ὑμῖν (Jumin) applies to both elements of the greeting, i.e., to both grace and peace.

⁴ tc The earliest and best mss (Ì^18vid א A C P 2050 al lat sy co) lack the term “God” (θεοῦ, qeou) between “from” (ἀπό, apo) and “he who is” (ὁ ὤν, Jo wn). Its inclusion, as supported by the bulk of the Byzantine witnesses, is clearly secondary and a scribal attempt to achieve two things: (1) to make explicit the referent in the passage, namely, God, and (2) to smooth out the grammar. The preposition “from” in Greek required a noun in the genitive case. But here in Rev 1:4 the words following the preposition “from” (ἀπό) are in another case, i.e., the nominative. There are two principal ways in which to deal with this grammatical anomaly. First, it could be a mistake arising from someone who just did not know Greek very well, or as a Jew, was heavily influenced by a Semitic form of Greek. Both of these unintentional errors are unlikely here. Commenting on this ExSyn 63 argues: “Either of these is doubtful here because (1) such a flagrant misunderstanding of the rudiments of Greek would almost surely mean that the author could not compose in Greek, yet the Apocalypse itself argues against this; (2) nowhere else does the Seer [i.e., John] use a nom. immediately after a preposition (in fact, he uses ἀπό 32 times with the gen. immediately following).” The passage appears to be an allusion to Exod 3:14 (in the LXX) where God refers to himself as “he who is” (ὁ ὤν), the same wording in Greek as here in Rev 1:4. Thus, it appears that John is wanting to leave the divine name untouched (perhaps to allude to God’s immutability, or as a pointer to the Old Testament as the key to unlocking the meaning of this book), irrespective of what it “looks” like grammatically. The translation has placed the “he who is” in quotation marks to indicate to the reader that the syntactical awkwardness is intentional. (For further comments, see ExSyn 63).

⁵ tn BDAG 106 s.v. ἀπό 5.d states: “The expr. εἰρήνη ἀπὸ ‘ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος’ Rv 1:4 is quite extraordinary. It may be an interpretation of the name Yahweh already current, or an attempt to show reverence for the divine name by preserving it unchanged, or simply one more of the grammatical peculiarities so frequent in Rv.”

⁶ map For location see JP4-A1.

⁷ tn Although the first part of v. 7 is not a complete English sentence, it maintains the “From…to” pattern used in all the Pauline letters to indicate the sender and the recipients. Here, however, there are several intervening verses (vv. 2-6), which makes the first half of v. 7 appear as an isolated sentence fragment.

⁸ tn Grk “Grace to you and peace.”

⁹ tc Most mss (D [F G 629 without “Jesus Christ”] Ψ [630] 1881 Ï al) include here 16:24 “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you. Amen.” Other mss (P 33 104 365 pc) include the verse after 16:27. The verse is entirely lacking in Ì^46,61 (א A) B C 81 1739 2464 pc co. The strength of the external evidence, combined with uncertainty in other mss over where the verse should be located and the fact that it is a repetition of v. 20b, strongly favors omission of the verse. The present translation follows NA²⁷ in omitting the verse number, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.

¹⁰ tc διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ (dia tou {aimato" autou, “through his blood”) is read at this juncture by several minuscule mss (614 630 1505 2464 al) as well as a few, mostly secondary, versional and patristic witnesses. But the reading was prompted by the parallel in Eph 1:7 where the wording is solid. If these words had been in the original of Colossians, why would scribes omit them here but not in Eph 1:7? Further, the testimony on behalf of the shorter reading is quite overwhelming: {א A B C D F G Ψ 075 0150 6 33 1739 1881 Ï latt co as well as several other versions and fathers}. The conviction that “through his blood” is not authentic in Col 1:14 is as strong as the conviction that these words are authentic in Eph 1:7.

¹¹ tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

¹² tn Or “is.”

¹³ tc Most witnesses (א² D Ψ Ï it sy) have ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”) at the end of the letter. Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. The earliest and best witnesses (Ì⁴⁶ א* A B F G 0278 6 33 81 1175 1241 1739* 1881 sa) lack the particle, giving firm evidence that Ephesians did not originally conclude with ἀμήν.

¹⁴ sn A quotation from Exod 20:12 and Deut 5:16.

¹⁵ sn The object of these dimensions is not stated in the text. Interpreters have suggested a variety of referents for this unstated object, including the cross of Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem (which is then sometimes linked to the Church), God’s power, the fullness of salvation given in Christ, the Wisdom of God, and the love of Christ. Of these interpretations, the last two are the most plausible. Associations from Wisdom literature favor the Wisdom of God, but the immediate context favors the love of Christ. For detailed discussion of these interpretive options, see A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians (WBC), 207-13, who ultimately favors the love of Christ.