from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. The source of the “grace and peace” is double.
Paul prays that both God and Christ will bestow this blessing on Philemon and
the others. By “God the Father” the Christian Paul thus acknowledges not only
Yahweh, the God of the OT, but also His fatherhood in a special way. In the OT
God is called often the Father of corporate Israel (Deut 32:6; Isa 63:16; 64:8;
Jer 3:4, 19; 31:9; Mal 2:10; Sir 51:10), because He was perceived as the
creator and provider of His people. Now Paul speaks of God as the Father of
Christians, as in Gal 1:3, 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Phil 1:2; Rom 1:7b.
Paul acknowledges that the risen Christ is equally
the source of such blessing. He thus puts the risen Christ on the same level as
God the Father, recognizing them both as the source of the grace and peace in
his greeting. “God and Christ issue grace and peace to Philemon and others in
the context of the human social world” (Soards, “Some Neglected Theological
Dimensions,” 214).
The title Kyrios
is used of Christ, which denotes his status as the risen Lord; see further
Fitzmyer, Romans, 112–13; EDNT, 2. 328–31. For the combination
“Lord Jesus Christ,” see also 1 Thess 1:1; 5:23; Gal 1:3; 6:18; Rom 5:1, 21.
Calling Jesus Christ Kyrios in this
letter is particularly significant, because as a common noun the word denotes
“lord, master” and was particularly used in the contrast of kyrios and doulos, “master” and “slave,” in the social world of the time.
Recall how Paul describes a slave who has become a Christian as apeleutheros Kyriou, “a freedman of the
Lord” (1 Cor 7:22). (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Letter of
Philemon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB 34C; New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2008], 91)
