“Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.”
Five New Testament letters conclude with this parting command, one that seems strange to our minds, but which probably came a bit more naturally to the initial audience.
Paul closed both of his letters to Corinth this way, in addition to missives sent to Rome and Thessalonica. Peter likewise urged his readers to “greet one another with the kiss of love” (First Peter 5:14).
Today, westerners tend to think of the kiss in a familial or romantic sense, rarely using it as a general greeting, even among close friends or brethren. There are exceptions to this observation, but clearly kissing is not as customary a greeting today as it was in Bible times.
Is it permissible that the holy kiss should suffer disuse, fading into the ether? For churches of Christ that make their boast in Bible authority, is there room for the holy kiss to be replaced by something less intimate?
Bible authority provides the answer. Greeting brethren is mandatory and commanded, but the kissing form of greeting is only one example, and not at all exclusive. When a kiss is chosen, however, is must be holy and pure.
On one occasion, Jesus found himself invited to dine at the house of a Pharisee named Simon, who used the occasion to scrutinize his guest. As Jesus reclined at table, a woman from the city entered and “she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment” (Luke 7:38).
Simon found this scene repugnant, especially when he considered “what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner” (39). Jesus read his thoughts and confronted him with their illogic, contrasting his hypocrisy with her humility: “You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet” (45).
Simon had violated the rules of hospitality by omission – perhaps intentionally, considering his low opinion of his guest – but someone he held in contempt behaved graciously. Her kisses were holy – pure and selfless and humbled. Simon could not even pretend to have the kind of character that poured forth from this sinful woman’s heart that day.
Jesus was greeted again with a kiss toward the end of ministry, but it was not as holy as the sinful woman’s. “While he was still speaking, there came a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss’” (Luke 22:48)?
Judas, the sticky-fingered apostolic treasurer, had promised to identify Jesus in the dark by kissing him on the cheek in the presence of his armed cohort. His kiss was the epitome of hypocrisy, greed and malice. Holy, it was not.
The kiss greeting entered the church as a natural expression of affection among those of “like precious faith,” “the household of God” (Second Peter 1:1, NKJV; First Timothy 3:15). Fellow Christians were not just fellow travelers, but became brothers and sisters, even mothers and fathers in a spiritual sense (see First Timothy 5:1-2). It was not only natural, but it was also very edifying that the disciples began to treat their fellows as family and to greet them as such.
The kiss, however, must be holy – free of apathy, hypocrisy, hidden hatred, condonation of error or licentious intent. Commentators suggest, “There is reason to believe that, as a rule, men only thus greeted men, and women, women” (ISBE). Regardless, a kiss under any other pretense is not the kind enjoined as holy by the apostolic writers.
When Paul bade farewell to the Ephesian bishops, there is a pure example of a holy kiss among brothers: “And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again” (Acts 20:37-38).
Today, the handshake is much more common in western culture, and therefore, the churches of that hemisphere. Sometimes, greetings are elevated to hugs among those who are very close and there are occasions and places where kisses are not entirely uncommon. James, Cephas, John, Paul and Barnabas appeared to have sealed their cooperation with a handshake – “the right hand of fellowship” it was called (Galatians 2:9). Embracing even accompanies the kisses of the prodigal father and son and Paul and the bishops.
Handshakes and hugs, likewise, must be just as holy as the kiss. A greeting is unholy if it disguises fraternal apathy, masks some emotional or spiritual hypocrisy, serves to condone the recipient’s error or hints at some licentious yearning.
Proverbs 10:18 warns, “The one who conceals hatred has lying lips.”
James tried to expose the futility of an insincere greeting as faith without works. “What good is it, my brothers” (James 2:14-17)?
The apostle John added a very personal threat to an unwise greeting of a false teacher: “Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works” (Second John 9-11).
While not exclusive, a holy kiss is a marvelous part of God’s plan for his people to become a spiritual family. A holy kiss is a much better use of the mouth than “to bite and devour one another” with gossip, slander and cursing (see James 3:1-12). The holy kiss serves to identify believers as brethren and to magnify the common faith that binds us together.
ENDNOTE
1 Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. "Entry for 'KISS'". "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia". <http://www.studylight.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T5347>. 1915.