DIVISION VI. § 1. CHAPTER XV. 14-33.
His excuse for writing and his hope of coming.
St. Paul is very anxious not to be understood as if, while giving the Christians at Rome these exhortations which we have just been reading, he stood in any doubt himself of their goodness of heart and full grasp of Christian principles, or of their fitness to admonish one another. He has only been bold to put them in mind of what they already knew, because of the priestly commission on behalf of his Lord towards all the Gentiles, which the divine grace has bestowed upon him as apostle of the Gentiles. The gospel entrusted to him requires him as a priest to prepare and offer sacrifice; and the sacrifice which he is to prepare, which the consecration of the indwelling Spirit alone can make acceptable, is that of the whole Gentile world. The extent to which this great charge laid upon him has been fulfilled, gives him good reason for boasting as he stands before God—not in himself, but in Christ Jesus. His work has been a pioneer's work. He has made it his ambition purely to lay foundations. Taking words of Isaiah[[1]] for his motto, he had resolved to go nowhere where any other had been before him to make Christ known. But in that free and open area of a yet unevangelized world, Christ had worked through him to bring the Gentiles to His obedience, and had accompanied his preaching with evidences of miraculous power and with the strong manifestations of the Spirit. So that in the result the work of proclaiming the gospel had been accomplished, starting from Jerusalem, in an extending circuit[[2]] or irregular progress, as far as Illyria.
This world-wide mission would give St. Paul his title to visit Rome[[3]]. But its very greatness has hitherto hindered him. Now however he is hoping to satisfy the desire that has so long possessed him, and to pay them a visit of some length on his way to Spain. That is to say, he hopes to come to them when the task is over which is immediately occupying him. The good will of the churches in Macedonia and Achaia has shown itself in a collection of money for the poor Christians at Jerusalem. This is really the payment of a debt to those to whom they owe their fellowship in Christ's salvation. When then St. Paul has handed over this collection, and secured to its recipients this fruit of his mission, he hopes to pass to Spain by way of Rome; and again, as in his introduction[[4]], he expresses his confidence that at Rome, as elsewhere, the fullness of the rich gifts of Christ will accompany his coming.
Meanwhile he makes his urgent request, by their allegiance to Christ and their fellowship in the spirit of love, that they will join with him in wrestling with God in prayer for the success of his present undertaking—that he may escape the danger to which he is exposed from the hostility of the unbelieving Jews, and that the gift, as ministered by him, may not prove unacceptable to the Jerusalem church; so that he may get happily to Rome and find repose there with them. And he prays for the blessing of the God of peace upon all of them.
And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. But I write the more boldly unto you in some measure, as putting you again in remembrance, because of the grace that was given me of God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus unto the Gentiles, ministering[[5]] the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. I have therefore my glorying in Christ Jesus in things pertaining to God. For I will not dare to speak of any things save those which Christ wrought through me, for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Ghost; so that from Jerusalem, and round about even unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ; yea, making it my aim so to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build upon another man's foundation; but, as it is written,
They shall see, to whom no tidings of him came,
And they who have not heard shall understand.
Wherefore also I was hindered these many times from coming to you: but now, having no more any place in these regions, and having these many years a longing to come unto you, whensoever I go unto Spain (for I hope to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first in some measure I shall have been satisfied with your company)—but now, I say, I go unto Jerusalem, ministering unto the saints. For it hath been the good pleasure of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints that are at Jerusalem. Yea, it hath been their good pleasure; and their debtors they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they owe it to them also to minister unto them in carnal things. When therefore I have accomplished this, and have sealed to them this fruit, I will go on by you unto Spain. And I know that, when I come unto you, I shall come in the fulness of the blessing of Christ.
Now I beseech you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me; that I may be delivered from them that are disobedient in Judaea, and that my ministration which I have for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints; that I may come unto you in joy through the will of God, and together with you find rest. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
1. St. Paul has a habit of representing those he writes to in the best light[[6]]. But the words 'full of goodness,' 'filled with all knowledge,' 'able to admonish,' are no idle compliments. It is not too much to suggest that St. Paul, as he sees the high part which the church of the capital must play in the world, perceives also, in what he hears of the Roman Christians, evidences of the spirit which will enable them to fulfil it. And history verifies the apostle's anticipation. The letter of the Roman church to the Corinthians, which passes under Clement's name, and was written some forty years after this letter of St. Paul's, is the very embodiment of the spirit of goodness, knowledge, and power to admonish. The princely generosity of the Roman church in all directions was proverbial in the second century[[7]]. If it did not become as distinguished as Alexandria in theological science, it did become a chief centre of theological orthodoxy and government. And the repeated evidences we gain that rigorists, from Hippolytus to Novatian, were so dissatisfied with the policy of the Roman bishops as to separate themselves from their communion, give us good reason to believe that the internal policy of this church was, within just limits, liberal and tolerant.
2. St. Paul here describes his apostolic commission in priestly language. 'The sacrificial terminology is far more marked in the original than it can be in a translation[[8]].' The word for 'minister of Christ Jesus' is a technical word for priest in the Greek Old Testament[[9]]. The word translated 'ministering' means 'offering sacrifice.' (That which St. Paul describes himself as offering in sacrifice is not the gospel, as our translation might imply: the gospel assigns the sphere of the sacrifice[[10]], but the sacrifice he has to offer is that of the Gentile world, in Christ, consecrated to be a fit sacrifice by the Spirit.) The phrase also, 'in things pertaining to God' (cf. Hebr. ii. 17), is appropriate to the priest as he stands before God. 'But this is all symbolical language,' it is said. That depends on what we take as the standard of reality in the sacrificing priesthood. If Christ is the standard of priesthood, and His method of making sacrifice the standard method, then St. Paul's account of his priestliness is not appreciably metaphorical, except so far as metaphor belongs to all earthly expressions of heavenly realities; it is rather true to say that the Jewish or heathen priest, with his material victims, was but the dim shadow of a true priest.
The point is that the true Christian idea of sacrifice makes the substance of it to be always persons returning to God the life He gave them. If we must offer sacrifices of money and fruits of the earth, that is because we cannot offer ourselves without our bodies[[11]], or our bodies without the material supplies on which they depend. 'All things come of God, and of His own do we give Him.' And all our labour and prayer for others must be an offering of them, or a preparation to offer them[[12]], to God; which again is only our assisting them to offer themselves. And all this offering in sacrifice of ourselves and others is rendered possible by the one effectual sacrifice, through which alone we and all men have access to the Father. It takes place 'in Christ Jesus,' who, 'through eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God.' There, at the head of all, is the sacrifice of the person, and that person the Son of Man, who can take up into His very life and sacrifice even all mankind. Throughout it is a sacrifice of persons, or of things only as appertaining to persons. This is the fundamental Christian idea, and this at the bottom necessarily forbids us to separate the thing offered from the person offering, the victim from the priest. The priest is the victim, for what he offers is himself.
It is this idea of sacrifice which is realized in the eucharist. The eucharist is the central sacrifice of the Christian body. It is to start with a presentation of material things, bread and wine of the fruits of the earth, with alms and other offerings it may be: and these oblations are accompanied with prayers and symbolic rites. But all is done that both by word and act the One Sacrifice may be commemorated and pleaded. The outward rite but finds its meaning and justification in that—the sacrifice of the Person. Again we can only take part in it with any spiritual reality by becoming ourselves sharers of His sacrifice—ourselves the sacrifice we offer. 'And here,' we cry, 'we offer and present unto Thee ourselves.' We men, St. Augustine does not scruple to say, are the body of Christ, which is offered in that sacrifice[[13]]. And a quite new light is shed on intercessory prayer, in the eucharist and in the rest of life, when we view it as St. Paul would have us view it, as a presenting in sacrifice before God those for whom we pray, according to the true idea of them which the sanctification of the Spirit would make possible and actual. And a quite new light is shed upon all work for others, when we regard it as the preparing of such a sacrifice for the Holy Spirit to consecrate.
From a different point of view St. Paul's conception of his mission as the priest of the Gentile world, might well suggest reflections to the Church of England. If a Christian nation in the providence of God is to overrun the world and possess the nations not yet Christian, it goes with a mission entrusted to it by God. Its mission may be expressed, according to St. Paul's idea, as that of evangelizing the world, but also as that of preparing the heathen nations to be offered to God. It is the return of all humanity to Himself that God desires, and we are to be the ministers of this perfected offering. It strikes us with profound humiliation to realize how 'far fetched' St. Paul's idea would appear to-day to the mass of our nation, which, more than any other, is called by circumstances to an apostolate of the world.
3. St. Paul speaks, here and in many places elsewhere, of his grounds for 'glorying,' or rather 'boasting[[14]],' in what Christ has wrought through him, and of his 'being ambitious' to preach only where no one had been before him[[15]]. And in reading such passages the question sometimes arises in Christian minds—was there, after all, a strain of egotism unsubdued in St. Paul's character? Now no doubt, unlike other apostles whose writings remain in the New Testament, St. Paul had that sort of passionately personal and individual nature which easily passes into spiritual egotism. This at least is discernible in his epistles. It is also true that the necessity which lay so long upon him of vindicating his own apostolic authority, makes it necessary for him at times to talk about himself and his experiences and his personal methods in a way that to some minds suggests egotism; and there is no obligation upon us to maintain that St. Paul was perfect. But we only understand these passages aright when we remember that there runs through them all a conscious irony. The basis of St. Paul's whole theology was the denial of any possible ground for a man to boast in himself. 'Where is boasting? it is excluded.' 'He that boasteth, let him boast in the Lord.' It is Christ who 'leads St. Paul in' His 'triumph.' What he boasts of is not his own, but Christ's. Of course, this sort of language very easily admits of self-deception. St. Paul shows himself conscious of its danger[[16]]. But there can be no question of the vehement sincerity of St. Paul in repudiating any homage to himself which seemed to put him in the place of Christ, or to substitute the teacher for his message[[17]]. And where his personal gifts of intellect might most easily have shone, he had determined to abjure all 'the wisdom of men' in the method of his preaching[[18]]. It is remarkable again that as soon as ever the real peril from Judaism was over in the Church, St. Paul drops his anti-Judaistic polemic, and all that brings the personal element into prominence. He is absolutely free from the charge of pursuing his advantage so as to magnify a personal victory. The more thoroughly we grow to know St. Paul, the more, I think, we feel that his profession is true that he will 'boast' only 'in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ'; and that truly the world, with all its personal ambitions, had been for him nailed to the cross and killed[[19]].
But what exactly was it that St. Paul had to 'boast' that Christ had wrought through him?
He had, he says, accomplished the preaching of the gospel in an irregular circuit from Jerusalem to Illyria. After he had made a beginning of Christian preaching at Damascus, he had, in fact, shared the apostolic preaching at Jerusalem (Acts ix. 29), but his own special work began at Tarsus, or rather at Antioch. After that he had 'fulfilled the proclamation of the gospel,' so far, that is to say, as it belonged to the apostolic office, by founding churches in a gradually enlarging circuit, especially in the chief centres, as the narrative of the Acts shows us, till travelling by the Egnatian way he would have come within sight of the Illyrian mountains at Thessalonica[[20]]. He may even have entered Illyria when the Acts vaguely describes him as going to Macedonia and then 'passing through those parts[[21]]'; but the expression in this epistle does not require this. It is sufficient that the border of Illyria, through which the Egnatian way led to Rome, had been so far his nearest point to the capital.
St. Paul certainly implies that Rome was included in his province of work, and that he owed them a yet unpaid debt[[22]]. This must surely mean, according to St. Paul's principle, that no other of the greater apostles had yet evangelized them or founded the church there[[23]]. Rome was no other man's foundation. But none the less, the elements of a church had collected there. The gospel was being preached there by 'apostles' from among his own circle. And St. Paul, for this reason, does not contemplate any permanent stay with the Romans, but regards Rome only as a place where he can rest and refresh himself, as well as supply deficiencies in the spiritual equipment of the church there, before he passes further west to the untouched region of Spain. St. Paul, we see plainly enough, had no power to foresee the future. But after the long residence at Rome during his first captivity, which he did not the least anticipate, did he, we ask, actually get to Spain? There is certainly no good reason to say he did not, for his movements are, in the main, unknown to us in the last period of his life; and on the other hand in Clement's letter to the Corinthians, written within the first century, he is said to have passed before his martyrdom to 'the limits of the west'—the extreme west—which is certainly most naturally interpreted of Spain[[24]].
4. St. Paul speaks of having wrought 'signs and wonders.' The two words are habitually combined in the New Testament. The word 'wonders' describes the miraculous and astonishing character of the events, while 'signs' indicates that moral witness and significance which distinguishes Christian miracles from vulgar portents. We read of St. Paul working miracles in the Acts. What he says here, and elsewhere[[25]], implies that they were frequently worked, and especially at Corinth, where no such events are recorded in the history. What it is important for us to recognize is, that St. Paul so plainly and repeatedly appeals, in the face of those who could bear witness, to the fact that he himself had power given to him to work miracles, as if it were indisputable.
5. St. Paul tells us that he had it specially laid upon him by the apostles of the circumcision that he was to 'remember the poor,' i.e. the poor Christians at Jerusalem; where poverty was specially rife, because, as we should gather, the wealthier Jews had held aloof from Christianity[[26]]. And this, he adds, was the very thing he himself was zealous to do[[27]]. How much it was in his mind, both the Acts and his own epistles bear witness. We hear much in the epistles to the Corinthians[[28]] of the collection made in the churches of Macedonia and Achaia. Not only was this expression of Gentile good will intended to conciliate the half-alienated and suspicious Jewish Christians of Jerusalem, but the acceptance of the gift at St. Paul's hands, as the fruit of his own labour, was to diminish their suspicion of himself. St. Paul was at pains to prevent any suspicion attaching to his administration of this bounty, and at every point we perceive how much trouble he took about the matter. But, hopeful and zealous as he was about this work of charity, he did not underrate its dangers. His urgent request for the Roman Christians' prayers in this passage, and his readiness to meet his death, if need be, at Jerusalem, as expressed in the narrative of the Acts, show us that he knew the danger he was incurring from the fierce hostility of the Jerusalem Jews.
6. This passage about the collection[[29]], coupled with the allusion to Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, at the beginning of the next chapter, and the allusion to the Corinthian Gaius as St. Paul's host[[30]], enable us to fix the occasion of the writing of this epistle exactly at the moment recorded in Acts xx. 3—the end of his three months' residence in Greece. We also gather from the Acts[[31]], as well as from this epistle, that it was his intention at that period, when he had paid his visit to Jerusalem, to go to Rome. Once more we know from the Acts[[32]] that Sosipater and Timothy were with him at this point, and they join in the greetings of the epistle[[33]]. So that all the indications taken together fix with wonderful accuracy the exact point when the epistle was written[[34]].
7. We do well to note the word used by St. Paul in asking the Roman Christians' prayers. He begs them to 'strive together' with him in their prayers. This word is a derivative of that which describes our Lord's 'agony' in prayer; and Origen's comment upon it is this: 'Hardly any one can pray without some idle and alien thought coming into his mind, and leading off and interrupting the intended direction of his mind to God.... And, therefore, prayer is a great striving (agon, wrestling), so that the fixed direction of the soul towards God may be maintained, in spite of the enemies which interfere and seek to scatter the sense of prayer; so that one who prays may justly say, with St. Paul, "I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course."'
[[1]] lii. 15, according to the Greek.
[[2]] 'Round about,' literally 'in a circle,' as opposed to a straight course; cf. Mark vi. 6, 'round about the villages.'
[[3]] Cf. i. 13-16.
[[4]] i. 11.
[[5]] 'Ministering in sacrifice' marg.
[[6]] Cf. the opening of 1 Cor., a letter which contains on the whole so much blame.
[[7]] Euseb. H. E. iv. 23.
[[8]] Sanday, Conception of Priesthood (Longmans), p. 89.
[[9]] Like 'agape' (see above, p. 131, n. 2) so this word 'liturgus' appears to have been adopted in its priestly sense by the Greek translators of the Bible from the current Greek of Alexandria, cf. Deissmann, Bibelstudien, pp. 137 f.
[[10]] Cf. S. and H. in loc. 'Making sacrifice as a priest under the Gospel.'
[[11]] Cf. xii. x.
[[12]] Col. i. 28: 'Teaching every man ... that we may present every man,' i.e. present him in sacrifice.
[[13]] For his repeated statements see app. note I. p. [240].
[[14]] Cf. 1 Cor. ix. 15; xv. 31; 2 Cor. i. 14; vii. 4, 14; viii. 24; ix. 3; x. 8, 13; xi. 10, 16-xii. 9; Phil. ii. 16; 1 Thess. ii. 19. These passages are worth examining in connexion.
[[15]] Cf. 2 Cor. x. 15, 16.
[[16]] See 2 Cor. xi. 17; xii. 1.
[[17]] 1 Cor. i. 13 ff.
[[18]] 1 Cor. ii. 1-5.
[[19]] Gal. vi. 14.
[[20]] See S. and H. in loc.
[[21]] Acts xx. 2.
[[22]] i. 14, 15.
[[23]] Not Peter therefore, though he was doubtless afterwards at Rome.
[[24]] Ad Cor. 5, see Lightfoot in loc.
[[25]] 2 Cor. xii. 13.
[[26]] Cf. Jas. ii. 5, 6.
[[27]] Gal. ii. 10.
[[28]] 1 Cor. xvi. 1-4; 2 Cor. viii, ix.
[[29]] Cf. Acts xxiv. 17.
[[30]] Rom. xvi. 23. Cf. 1 Cor. i. 14, which shows us a Gaius at Corinth. Cf. the allusion to Erastus in the same verse, coupled with 2 Tim. iv. 20.
[[31]] Acts xix. 21.
[[32]] Acts xx. 4.
[[33]] Rom. xvi. 21.
[[34]] See further, on the purpose of the epistle, vol. i. pp. 4 ff.