Greet One Another with a Holy Kiss (Romans 16:16)

There is something very seriously wrong in a church where people do not enjoy speaking to one another. You even find churches where people simply do not speak to each other at all. Thankfully, that is not the case here in Covenant Fellowship — if anything, perhaps we have the opposite problem: we cannot get people to stop talking and go home after the service! But the Bible tells us in many places, and not least in Romans 16:16, that a cold, unfriendly church is a contradiction in terms. It should not exist. God has something to say about how we greet one another.

This is not a one-off command. Five times in the New Testament we are commanded to greet one another with a holy kiss. Now, in case anyone is getting nervous about what this means for after the service, the key thing here is not so much the exact form of the greeting as the fact of our doing it. The principle is that we are to greet one another warmly and lovingly. How precisely we do that will vary according to culture. J.B. Phillips — and you would guess this was done by an Englishman — paraphrased Romans 16:16 as "Give one another a hearty handshake all round." In France it might be a kiss on both cheeks; in Japan, a bow; in America, a high-five. But as John Stott put it so well: "Whatever form it takes, whenever Christians greet one another, their verbal greetings should be made stronger, warmer, and more personal by a culturally appropriate sign."

To understand this command, we need to look beyond the outward form and think about what the holy kiss symbolizes. It is a visible sign of the real, deep affection that ought to exist between Christians. In other words, it is not enough for us to say that we love one another. It is not enough even to actually love one another. The Bible says we are to show it — regularly. There is something wrong in any relationship where affection is never expressed.

A Comprehensive Greeting

Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:26, "Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss." In the early church, congregations were small — they met in one another's homes — and it was possible for everyone to greet everyone else, just as it is possible for us here in Covenant Fellowship. Paul is eager that this should be done deliberately and conscientiously every week. Everyone is to greet everyone else. There are to be no cliques in the church. We are not just to greet the elders, the minister, the leaders. We are not just to make for our close friends and ignore the people we find harder work.

This was quite different from the world of the New Testament. In that culture, kisses were only given by social inferiors to their superiors — it was a one-way system that said something about your status and your place on the pecking order. But the church, Paul says, is not to be like that. These distinctions of rank and social prestige do not matter. Some churches incorporate this into their order of worship. Galway Baptist does it — we visited there earlier in the summer, and they have a few minutes during the service where everyone has the opportunity to greet those sitting around them. A large, famous church in the centre of London called St Helen's practises this as well. For many years, one of the regular visitors at St Helen's was Lord Mackay — a keen, bright Christian and also the Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom, one of the most important and powerful men in the nation. Every week, Lord Mackay would simply turn to whoever was sitting beside him during that time of greeting and chat away. He did not tell them he was the Lord Chancellor if he could possibly avoid it. He was just one Christian talking to another Christian. He did not consider himself above greeting even the lowliest of the saints.

We need to be careful that because we have a close and loving church family, we do not leave anyone out. It would be easy — because we have lots of people we are close to and have known for a long time — to be happy and not notice those who are on the periphery and not being greeted in the same way. There is nothing wrong with having favourites in the church — Jesus had favourites even among the twelve; Peter, James, and John were singled out for all kinds of blessing and experiences that the other nine did not enjoy. But what is absolutely forbidden is favouritism, and we must stamp it out ruthlessly.

An Affectionate Greeting

A kiss is nothing if not affectionate. It is something intimate, something tender — and that is how God says we are to greet one another. It tells us something about how the Lord wants us to feel towards one another. We are to be glad to see one another. We are to greet one another warmly. We are to look forward with anticipation to the next time we get to be together.

Some Christians say something like this: "God tells us to love one another; He does not tell us to like one another." It may be true that you can love someone without liking them — we are commanded to love our enemies, and presumably we do not like our enemies. But it is hard to square that statement with what the Bible says here about greeting one another with a holy kiss. We are to work at liking one another. It is a bit like children trying a new food: they taste a tiny, microscopic portion on the edge of their lip and instantly say, "Don't like that!" You want to say, "Give it a chance! You cannot say you don't like it until you have actually tried it." And yet that is what we can be like with people. We give them a few seconds, and if we do not instantly warm to them, we keep them at arm's length. People are far more important than mushrooms. If we should give a strange food a chance, how much more should we give one another a chance?

Remember the golden rule: do to others as you wish they would do to you. Would you want other people to base their opinion of you on just the first few seconds of meeting you? Then invest time in trying to like the people in our fellowship that you do not naturally warm to. The pagans, Jesus says, love those who love them. The most evil pagan in Galway today likes people they naturally warm to. But Christians are to be different. Christians have the Holy Spirit of God living within them, and the Bible says that the Spirit within you is greater than the one who is in the world. This is a supernatural work, and it grabs the world's attention — it is a powerful witness when people come into our church and see very different people getting on well together and loving each other. Perhaps they say, "I don't know how you put up with that person." And we can say, "Let me tell you how: it is by the grace of God. And that's how they put up with me."

A Family Greeting

More than anything else, the kiss was used within the context of the family. And that is the key that helps us understand its significance in the church. The most common word in the New Testament to describe Christians is not "church," not "believers," not "saints" — it is brothers, used almost 250 times. Jesus said in Matthew 23:8, "You are not to be called Rabbi, for you have only one Master and you are all brothers." It is a beautiful picture of the church — an image that conveys the closeness and the unity that ought to exist within the body of Christ. God is our Father, Jesus is our elder brother, and the church is God's household.

That is why we do not just meet together once a week on a Sunday morning. We meet again on Sunday evening, on Wednesday evening, and at other gatherings — because you cannot get to know the other members of the family by remote control. Our Father in heaven wants us to be a close, affectionate family, and that is why He tells us to greet one another with a holy kiss. And we need to remember that our family extends beyond Covenant Fellowship — we are part of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland, and our church family is bigger still, including all true gospel churches everywhere.

Remember the words of Jesus on the day of judgment: "Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did not do for me" (Matthew 25:45). If you freeze another Christian out, if you do not greet them warmly, that is how you are treating the Lord Jesus Christ. It is unthinkable that Jesus could walk into Covenant Fellowship and sit here in the flesh and no one would welcome Him, no one would speak to Him. And yet Jesus says that is what happens every time the lowliest Christian comes into the church and no one greets them.

We are living at a time in history when society and community is disintegrating. The secular world is a cold and unfriendly place. How many people are there in your life who are genuinely interested in you outside your immediate family? The church is meant to be a bright, shining light in a dark world where people feel desperately lonely and disconnected. There is something attractive about a happy family — non-Christians should feel drawn by the warmth of our affection and the sincerity of our love for one another. They should come in, see how we greet one another, and long to be part of it. And the wonderful thing is that anyone can be part of this family, because the church is a family that is constantly adopting new members.

Brothers and sisters, we are the family of God. You would not know it to look at us — we are a very ordinary, odd collection of people — but we are the family of God. Let us live like it. Let us not bring shame to our Father by squabbling, by envying one another, by being impatient and unforgiving. Parents delight to see their children getting on well together — and how much more does the Lord delight to see us, His children, loving one another? So let us greet one another with a holy kiss. Let us greet everyone without exception. Let us greet one another with warm affection, and let us greet one another as brothers and sisters.

This sermon is part of the One Another Commands series at Covenant Christian Fellowship, Galway. See also: Consider One Another Better Than Yourselves (Philippians 2:3) and Instruct One Another (Romans 15:14).