Anathema Maranatha

“If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha” (1 Cor. 16:22).
THIS is one of the most incisive and challenging statements in all the Bible. Incisive because there is no possibility of misunderstanding it. In the fewest possible words, it declares the inevitable doom of all who do not love the Lord Jesus.
Challenging, first because of its very incisiveness; and second, because of the fact that it contains two untranslated foreign words, Anathema Maranatha, taken from two different languages, and which by their very strangeness compel our attention.
Anathema is Greek and means “accursed,” or “devoted to judgment.” It is the same word that the apostle uses in Galatians 1:8,9: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” The man or angel who misleads others with a false gospel is under the ban of the Eternal God; — Anathema, “accursed,” “devoted to judgment.” He uses the same word again when speaking of himself: he says, “I could wish that myself were accursed, (Anathema, R.V.) from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” It implies then clearly a definite separation from Christ, banishment from God, without any hope of restoration.
Then the other word, “Maranatha,” is a compound word, an Aramaic expression of Chaldean origin, translated “our Lord come!” or “the Lord cometh I” It is a vivid reminder that the rejected Christ is to return in glory as Judge of the living and the dead.
So then the strange compound expression, this Greco — Aramaic term, “Anathema Maranatha,” might really be rendered “devoted to judgment; our Lord cometh.” Slightly paraphrasing the entire sentence, it would read, “If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, he will be devoted to judgment at the coming of the Lord.” What a tremendously solemn statement and how seriously we should consider it!
Notice that according to this passage unless you are a lover of Christ, unless He is precious to you, you are not really saved; and if you are unregenerated, you do not love Him. More than that, you cannot love Him even if you try. It is not in your power to make yourself love Him. You do not have in your heart one atom of love for Christ in your natural condition. And yet if you do not love Him, you must be accursed at His coming. Could anything be more solemn?