Romans 15

Romans 15:8-33

Subdivision 4. (Romans 15:8-33.)The human appeal and apology of the apostle of the Gentiles. There follows now what in some sense is supplementary to the whole epistle while it is, no doubt, in special relationship to those questions which we have just had discussed, and which are clearly such as would be most likely to affect the harmony of a mixed assembly of Jews and Gentiles, as that at Rome perhaps in an especial manner was. It reminds them of what the Old Testament had declared as to the acceptance of the Gentiles, an object for which, while minister of the circumcision to confirm the promises made to the fathers, Christ had no less wrought. And this leads the apostle into a brief reference to his own labors to the same end, as the apostle of the Gentiles, and to declare once more his unfeigned desire to see the saints at Rome, of which he had spoken at the beginning of the epistle. It is a human appeal which could not fail to have from one like Paul its moral effect in the same direction as what precedes it. At the same time, the comparative slightness of treatment, compared, for instance, with his defence of his ministry in the epistle to the Galatians, answers to its supplementary place here as compared with its foremost one in that which is distinctly controversial.

1. He owns the place that Christ primarily occupied as minister of the circumcision for the truth of God. It was in this character that Israel rejected Him, although the testimony as to it did not end with the Cross, but was continued in that of the Spirit afterward. But the promises which He thus confirmed themselves contemplated the blessing of the nations, and the apostles were distinctly commissioned to bear witness to Him in the whole world. The psalmist had joined with the prophets and with Israel’s own law-giver, as the quotations show here, in expanding these promises in fuller and more definite statements. There could, of coarse, be in these no announcement of the Church, the body of Christ, which was a secret hid in God till Israel refused the grace which had first of all been offered to her; but of this the apostle is not here speaking, nor is the doctrine of it in the epistle at all.

The nations were to rejoice with His special people, and the root of Jesse to be their Ruler and confidence. The branches of the wild olive were, in fact, being grafted into Israel’s olive-tree, though this did not mean the relinquishment on God’s part of promises which were to be fulfilled to the nation in due time. The Old Testament bore witness that God had the Gentiles in remembrance; Israel’s blindness in part might change the character of things for the time being, it being impossible to recognize them in this blindness of unbelief. Gentiles and Jews would thus of necessity be brought together in a way beyond that which the prophets contemplated; but this was almost necessarily the result of the Jews’ own exceptional position through their sin. God’s purpose of blessing to the Gentiles could not wait for this. The apostle does not enter into all this, but it is in the strict line of his argument and easily to be understood. It was better left, perhaps, to be worked out by themselves. He closes this with an earnest prayer in behalf of the Roman saints. In the revelation God had made of Himself, whether to the disheartened adherents of the dying paganism, or to the remnant of Israel disappointed of their national expectations, He had indeed approved Himself as the God of hope. In the realization of the blessings which were now become their own, they could afford to bury their dead past, and forget it. He prays that they may be filled with all joy and peace in believing, so as to abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

How good to make full proof of the possibilities that are in our hands! and how do we possess ourselves of what is our possession! This is for a lamentation, and must be for a lamentation. 2. Paul speaks out the confidence of his heart in these Roman brethren whom as yet he had not seen. He credits them in the frankness of Christian love with the due moral effect of their faith, and with the enlightenment proceeding from it. But he had written to them in the boldness belonging to his position as apostle of the Gentiles, a position the gift of God’s grace alone, to put them in mind of all that was their own. The ministration of the gospel of God was for him in the fruit God gave him of it, a priestly service which presented the Gentiles in whom the Spirit wrought as a sanctified and acceptable offering to Him. The words, in their perfect simplicity and intelligibility, yield no cover to the ritualistic confusion which confounds ministry with priesthood -approach to God with the message of peace and reconciliation for men.

Paul does not stand between the Gentiles and God, to offer anything to Him on their behalf, who in the place which Christianity had given them were themselves all a holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:5), all in equal nearness to Him, through the grace that had brought them nigh. But it was themselves, as the fruit of the work in them of which God had made him the instrument, who became thus an offering -his offering -to God. Thus he had matter of glorying through grace in what God had done through him to make the Gentiles obedient in faith to Christ, God also accompanying his word with signs and wonders, in demonstration of whose work in fact this work of his was. He had not been slothful or negligent either in this joyful work, but from Jerusalem in a wide circuit to Illyricum, he had fully preached the gospel of Christ. Here he explains to them what had hindered him, with all this activity, from coming to a place so central and important as Rome was. It had been, he says, his earnest desire to follow the Scripture principle, to bring those to see who had yet had no tidings brought to them, and those understand who never yet had heard. Rome, therefore, with its assembly already gathered, could not claim him in view of the unoccupied places round. But now be found no more room, as he counted this, in the regions where he had been, and there was the far western country of Spain beckoning him by its need. Here would be his opportunity to visit by the way those whom he had long desired to see. This he contemplated therefore, but not immediately; for now Jerusalem claimed him, for the ministry of the contribution of the Gentiles to the need of those in whose spiritual blessings they had been made partakers.

After this, Rome would come next, on his way to Spain. We have learned elsewhere how differently this was to be fulfilled to him from the way in which he now imagined.

The fear of something, however, that might come to him at the hands of the disobedient in Judea, he frankly confesses, asking their prayers for his deliverance, and the accomplishment of his purpose as he had declared it to them. It is at least probable that he may have, after all, gone on to Spain; but there is no Scripture account of it, and no real certainty. There was, as we know, a long and unwilling delay, and years in a Roman prison, whether in Judea or at Rome. Our prayers are often answered in ways we know not, and so it was in this case as to the apostle himself; but who shall say that they were not answered? or that they were not answered in a way better in the sight of God -better for the gospel itself, than had all taken place according to his thought? Nor would this be irreconcilable with a certain effect of his own failure at this time to interpret aright his Lord’s mind for him. We need not go into this here, but the mistakes of those most earnest and devoted may have, just in this very way, the most important lessons for us. We are to follow no merely human leader without personal exercise, and a grave, wise reserve which the apostle here would be the first to press upon us; “Be ye followers of me,” he could say indeed, but not without the reservation implied, if not directly stated, “even as I also am of Christ.” How beautiful the prayer with which he closes here, -the more as we think upon the difficulties of the way for him whose the the prayer was, -“the God of peace be with you all.”