St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: A Practical Exposition. Vol. II

by Charles Gore

DIVISION V. § 7. CHAPTER XV. 1-13.

Unselfish forbearance and inclusiveness.

It was essential, as has been said, that men whose prejudices and instincts were different should live in the same church and eat at the same love feast. This would require a large-hearted and unselfish self-control. Formerly, as in Syria and Palestine, it was the Jews who occupied the position of vantage in the Christian communities, and were not disposed to tolerate the ways of the Gentiles. Now the tables are turned, and the Gentiles are in the majority. The danger is now that those whose instincts are Gentile should bear hardly upon the minority whose prejudices are more or less Jewish. Such St. Paul anticipates, or knows from Priscilla and Aquila, will be the danger among the Roman Christians. Formerly Judaic narrowness had been a formidable danger. It had developed a most perilous heresy, and St. Paul had dealt with it as a deadly poison. Now what remained of Jewish feeling was a weakness to be generously borne with. It affords St. Paul an opportunity of falling back on the general principle, that the measure of Christian strength and full-grown manhood is the readiness to bear the weaknesses of others.

To be told he must not use his normal liberty, must not eat his usual meal or drink his usual cup of wine, because it might scandalize some Christian with the ascetic prejudices of an Essene, or even induce him to do the same against his own conscience—to be told this was annoying to a man who held the 'strong' Christian conviction that all kinds of food were indifferently allowable. The weak scruple of his brother Christian had become an annoying burden of self-denial and self-restraint laid on himself. But this, St. Paul says, is how Christian strength—whether it be the moral strength of clear convictions, or any other sort of faculty[[1]]—must show itself, in readiness to suffer on account of other people's deficiencies, in not resenting the restraints they lay on us, in not expecting to do as we please, but being ready to accommodate ourselves to our neighbour's tastes where it is for his good. That is what our great example did. Plainly His whole human life was putting Himself under the restraints which our weaknesses and narrownesses and slownesses laid on Him. The righteous man in the psalm complains that he has to bear all the reproaches of God which impatient and rebellious Israelites might utter; and that is the picture of Christ bearing our infirmities. (The reproaches which fell on Him were for the very largeness of His love; 'because He received sinners,' and because He received them on the Sabbaths as well as on other days. They were reproaches of God, like Jonah's, because He was too forbearing, too generous.)

Then St. Paul pauses a moment to justify his use of the Psalms. These ancient scriptures did not fulfil their purpose in their own time, or for the old covenant. God intended them for Christians. Their teaching is what they need. The burdens of life are so many, its requirements upon their patience so constant, that they find it hard to maintain their hope. Yet what is the Old Testament so full of? Lessons of endurance and words of encouragement. The encouragement and endurance then, which they gain from the Old Testament, are to help them to maintain Christian hope. They must not lose heart. The end is a great one: it is the maintenance of a united spirit in the Church, such as Christ can approve, such as can express itself in a really unanimous adoration of Him whom Christ recognized as His God and Father. May the God who inspires endurance and encouragement, grant them not to fail in this great end!

Here is the central requirement, then, which a catholic church lays on them. It is to be unselfishly inclusive, to welcome into fellowship people who are not naturally to their taste. Our Lord did not scrutinize us men, but received us, of whatever sort we were, that God might be glorified in human brotherhood. He vindicated the truth of God by fulfilling the covenant of circumcision: first, to confirm the promises given to the fathers of Israel[[2]]; and, secondly, to enlarge the compass of Israel, so that the Gentiles too might share its blessings, out of God's pure mercy apart from any promises. And this also—the fellowship of Jew and Gentile—was matter of ancient prediction by psalmist and prophet. The Roman Christians must not therefore let themselves be discouraged because they have a difficult task to fulfil. And the apostle prays that God, the inspirer of hope, may fill them with such a rich sense of the blessings of believing in Him, that His Spirit, dwelling in them, may make hope to abound in their hearts.

Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbour for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the scriptures we might have hope. Now the God of patience and of comfort grant you to be of the same mind one with another according to Christ Jesus: that with one accord ye may with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, even as Christ also received you, to the glory of God. For I say that Christ hath been made a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, that he might confirm the promises given unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written,

Therefore will I give praise unto thee among the Gentiles,
And sing unto thy name.

And again he saith,

Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people.

And again,

Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles;
And let all the peoples praise him.

And again, Isaiah saith,

There shall be the root of Jesse,
And he that ariseth to rule over the Gentiles;
On him shall the Gentiles hope.

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Ghost.

1. The connexion of thought in this passage is undoubtedly somewhat obscure. But we know to-day, as well as ever, how difficult it is to bear with what is disagreeable to us in others, with what seem to us their deficiencies, without breaking real Christian brotherhood and co-operation. And we know also that where we are possessed by an enthusiasm for brotherhood such as inspired the early Christians, the divisions which small differences tend to produce are peculiarly discouraging, because they suggest that real brotherhood is impossible where men are so differently constituted. We ought not, therefore, to be at a loss to see why St. Paul should pass so easily from speaking of divisions among Christians to speak of the grounds of patience and encouragement and hope. The Christian hope is—in substantial part—the hope of a really catholic church—a real brotherhood among people of different races, classes, tastes, and habits; and it is this great hope which, even in St. Paul's day, was continually suffering discouragement and continually needed reinforcing. And the reinforcement must be 'supernatural.' It is the divine love of the Spirit possessing us which alone can give it vigour. When we are full of the divine consolation, then it is that we are least inclined to be critical, and most disposed 'to receive one another, as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.' For this is the thought we are to have constantly in view, when we find people 'aggravating'—Christ received us, and made the best of those whom 'God gave him,' in spite of the infinite annoyances which we men, even the apostles, caused Him; He dealt with us with infinite patience; He made us welcome; He 'received us.'

In fact, the reason why the connexion of thought in this passage seems obscure to us, is probably in part that we have ceased to think of the real fellowship of the naturally unlike—fellowship in all that makes up human life—as a necessary part of the Christian religion. But to St. Paul there was no Christianity without the reality of catholic brotherhood.

2. St. Paul here, as in writing to the Corinthians[[3]], shows himself specially anxious that Gentile Christians should not think they could make light of the Old Testament, or imagine that 'Christ was the end of the law' in any such sense as would make the books of the old covenant superfluous under the new. Their value, he insists, remains permanent. When he is writing to the Corinthians, he finds it in the moral warnings—the warnings of divine judgement upon the chosen people—of which the history is full. In this epistle he is thinking chiefly of the lessons of 'endurance' and divine 'encouragements,' which histories and prophets provide. In his epistle to Timothy[[4]] he thinks of the books as instruments by the use of which the minister or representative of God may become fully educated and equipped for all the purposes of moral supervision and discipline. They can thus educate and equip him, St. Paul teaches, because they were originally written under the influence of a divine inspiration; but it is only when faith has finally attained its true object in Jesus Christ that their real meaning becomes apparent. And this last principle is implied in almost all his use of the Old Testament.

It is a comfort to perceive that none of the elements of permanent value, which St. Paul discerns in the Old Testament, are the least likely to be affected by reasonable criticism of its documents. Its history, critically read, does not become less truly pregnant with moral warnings or lessons of endurance. The encouragements of the prophets are in no respect reduced in force when they are brought into right relation to their own times. The whole library of books is, at least, as capable of educating and equipping the minister of Christ as ever. Their inspiration is still obvious, when it is interpreted candidly in view of all the facts. And still they can only be rightly regarded when they are looked upon as various elements in a progress which has Christ for its goal.

In his use of particular passages in the Old Testament St. Paul here shows himself as free as ever, but with the same fundamental adherence to the true tendency of the Old Testament as a whole. In quoting Ps. lxix. 9 (ver. 3) he is seeing in the afflicted righteous man a type of Christ. This psalm is constantly cited in the New Testament with the same reference[[5]]. It has been supposed[[6]] that St. Paul here adopts a cry addressed to God by the righteous sufferer in the psalm, and represents it as addressed by Christ to his brother man. 'The reproaches aimed at thee, my despised brother, have fallen upon me.' But, as I have tried to show in the analysis above, this supposition is not needed. Christ is represented appealing to God for succour, because He utterly refuses to take the line of self-pleasing; but bears all that men's impatience of God lays upon Him—all their 'wild and weak complaining.' And it is suggestive to remember, with Origen, that it was Christ's 'receiving of sinners and eating with them,' receiving them on the Sabbath as well as other days, that chiefly brought on Him the reproaches of men. This was probably in St. Paul's mind.

In Ps. xviii. 49 (quoted ver. 9) the victorious king declares that he will praise God for his victory 'among the nations.' St. Paul applies this to Christ, whose victory among the nations means their redemption—their becoming His people.

In Deut. xxxii. 43 (ver. 10) 'the nations are invited to congratulate Israel on possessing a God like Jehovah, who will effectually take up His people's cause. Such an invitation addressed to the nations (cf. Isa. xlii. 10-12; Ps. xlvii. 2, lxvii. 1-7, &c.) involves implicitly the prophetic truth that God's dealings with Israel have indirectly an interest and importance for the world at large[[7]].' This is still more plainly implied in Ps. cxvii. 1 (ver. 11).

Isa. xi. 10 (ver. 12) is quoted from the Greek Bible, which is paraphrastic; but the Hebrew also asserts that the messianic king of David's line is to be a 'signal to the nations,' and that they are to 'resort to him' as to an oracle or place of refuge[[8]].

[[1]] We are all 'strong' in some respect, Origen remarks, so that 'ye that are strong bear the infirmities of the weak' comes to be as broad a precept as 'bear ye one another's burdens.'

[[2]] Cf. Gal. iv. 4, 5: 'Christ, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law, that we (Jews and Gentiles) might receive the adoption of sons.'

[[3]] 1 Cor. x. ii: 'These things happened unto them (the Jews in the Wilderness) by way of example; and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.'

[[4]] 2 Tim. iii. 15-17. 'Sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Every scripture inspired by God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.'

[[5]] Cf. above, xi. 9; in the Gospels, Matt. xxvii. 34; John ii. 17; xix. 28; also Acts i. 20.

[[6]] See S. and H. in loc.

[[7]] Driver, in loc.

[[8]] Cheyne, in loc.