Romans xv. 1-13
THE large and searching treatment which the Apostle has already given to the right use of Christian Liberty, is yet not enough. He must pursue the same theme further; above all, that he may put it into more explicit contact with the Lord Himself.
We gather without doubt that the state of the Roman Mission, as it was reported to St Paul, gave special occasion for such fulness of discussion. It is more than likely, as we have seen from the first, that the bulk of the disciples were ex-pagans; probably of very various nationalities, many of them Orientals, and as such not more favourable to distinctive Jewish claims and tenets. It is also likely that they found amongst them, or beside them, many Christian Jews, or Christian Jewish proselytes, of a type more or less pronounced in their own direction; the school whose less worthy members supplied the men to whom St Paul, a few years later, writing from Rome to Philippi, refers as "preaching Christ of envy and strife" (Phil. i. 15). The temptation of a religious (as of a secular) majority is always to tyrannize, more or less, in matters of thought and practice. A dominant school, in any age or region, too easily comes to talk and act as if all decided expression on the other side were an instance of "intolerance," while yet it allows itself in sufficiently severe and censorious courses of its own. At Rome, very probably, this mischief was in action. The "strong," with whose principle, in its true form, St Paul agreed, were disposed to domineer in spirit over the "weak," because the weak were comparatively the few. Thus they were guilty of a double fault; they were presenting a miserable parody of holy liberty, and they were acting off the line of that unselfish fairness which is essential in the Gospel character. For the sake not only of the peace of the great Mission Church, but of the honour of the Truth, and of the Lord, the Apostle therefore dwells on mutual duties, and returns to them again and again after apparent conclusions of his discourse. Let us listen as he now reverts to the subject, to set it more fully than ever in the light of Christ.
Ver. 1.
Ver. 2.
But (it is the "but" of resumption, and of new material) we are bound, we the able, οἱ δυνατοὶ (perhaps a sort of soubriquet for themselves among the school of "liberty," "the capables")—to bear the weaknesses of the unable, (again, possibly, a soubriquet, and in this case an unkindly one, for a school,) and not to please ourselves. Each one of us, let him please not himself but his neighbour, as regards what is good, with a view to edification.
"Please"; ἀρέσκειν, ἀρεσκέτω. The word is one often "soiled with ignoble use," in classical literature; it tends to mean the "pleasing" which fawns and flatters; the complaisance of the parasite. But it is lifted by Christian usage to a noble level. The cowardly and interested element drops out of it; the thought of willingness to do anything to please remains; only limited by the law of right, and aimed only at the other's "good." Thus purified, it is used elsewhere of that holy "complaisance" in which the grateful disciple aims to "meet half way the wishes" of his Lord (see Col. i. 10). Here, it is the unselfish and watchful aim to meet half way, if possible, the thought and feeling of a fellow-disciple, to conciliate by sympathetic attentions, to be considerate in the smallest matters of opinion and conduct; a genuine exercise of inward liberty.[244]
There is a gulph of difference between interested timidity and disinterested considerateness. In flight from the former, the ardent Christian sometimes breaks the rule of the latter. St Paul is at his hand to warn him not to forget the great law of love. And the Lord is at his hand too, with His own supreme Example.
Ver. 3.
For even our (ὁ) Christ did not please Himself; but, as it stands written (Psal. lxix. 9), "The reproaches of those who reproached Thee, fell upon Me."
It is the first mention in the Epistle of the Lord's Example. His Person we have seen, and the Atoning Work, and the Resurrection Power, and the great Return. The holy Example can never take the place of any one of these facts of life eternal. But when they are secure, then the reverent study of the Example is not only in place; it is of urgent and immeasurable importance.