CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 15:17.—The things of the ministry committed to Paul of God are the things in which he will glory.
Romans 15:18.—St. Paul will not take any glory to himself. There is nothing done by him which Christ did not work; to Him be all the praise.
Romans 15:19.—It might have been expected that Paul would mention Damascus, the place of his spiritual birth, as the centre of his missionary operations; but he begins at Jerusalem. Christ first sent His gospel to Jerusalem sinners. Here is a gracious centre and an ever-widening circle. It enlarges itself westward; it comprehends Greece, Asia Minor, the Grecian islands, the country between Asia Minor and Jerusalem, Phœnicia, Syria, part of Arabia, Rome the world’s metropolis, and probably Spain.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 15:17-21
St. Paul as a missionary.—History is precept teaching by example; history is recorded experience; and this is especially so when the history is the biography of one individual. We should read the noble actions of others, so as to be stimulated to heroic deeds. Here is a piece of autobiography which has in it much instruction. Let us seek to be inspired with love to Christ and to humanity, and we shall find our missionary sphere. It lies round about us. Some people pine because they cannot reach the distant Illyricum, while they neglect the Jerusalem of home and of country.
I. The missionary’s travels.—In St. Paul’s days travelling was very difficult when it was not done by sea, for carriage roads and vehicles hardly existed. There were no luxurious first-class carriages by which to be carried from one scene of labour to another. When it is calm, the seas over which Paul sailed are delightful; but they have also suddenly their caprices—the ship may run aground in the sand, and all that one can do is to seize on a plank. There were perils everywhere. Paul, it seems, journeyed almost always on foot, existing doubtless on bread, vegetables, and fruit. What a life of privations and trials is that of the wandering devotee! The police were negligent and brutal. St. Paul was not backed up by any great scientific or missionary societies. He was not attended by a number of followers armed with breech-loaders, prepared to shoot down barbarians as if they were so many rabbits. Almost alone the great traveller went from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum. It lay beyond Macedonia, on the north-east coast of the Adriatic Gulf. The journey was somewhere about one thousand three hundred miles in a straight line; and when taken in all its windings, with its towns, populous districts, pleasant valleys, stern mountain ranges, and barren climes, shows his indefatigable zeal. St. Paul did not go in search of lovely scenery. Had he done so, he might have pleased his fancy as he journeyed, say from Antioch to Seleucia, where on all sides are copses of myrtles, arbutus, laurels, green oaks, while prosperous villages are perched upon the sharply cut ridges of the mountains. To the left the plain of Orontes unfolds to view its splendid cultivation. On the south the wooded summits of the mountains of Daphne bound the horizon. Often the route is hard; certain cantons are peculiarly rugged, barren; still Paul in his journeys would touch certain points which were veritable paradises. St. Paul did not go to admire works of art: had he done so, he might have gratified his taste and stayed at Athens on the way to Corinth; for Athens had then even the appearance of being ornamented with almost all her masterpieces of art. The monuments of the Acropolis were intact; the sanctity of that immaculate temple of the beautiful was not changed. Pœcile, with its brilliant decoration, was as fresh as it was on the first day. There were the Propylæum, that chef-d’œuvre of grandeur; the Parthenon, which absorbed every other grandeur save its own; the Temple of Victory, worthy of the battles which it consecrated; and the Erechthæum, a prodigy of elegance and finish. Needless, however, to follow St. Paul in this discussion of the negative. He went from Jerusalem round about unto the borders of Illyricum to win hearts unto Jesus Christ, the true King, the Sovereign of the universe.
II. The missionary’s work.—His work is to preach the gospel of Christ. The missionary is to preach whether men will hear or will forbear. He is to preach the old message instinct with fresh life and feeling. The old message adapts itself to all states of society and to all conditions of men. Thank God, our missionaries are preaching still, and among great varieties of places and people, amid many forms of outer life, amid many gradations of human comforts and human resources. Some labour among the most glorious manifestations of creative might, others upon scorched and arid plains—some in the busy life of cities, others in lonely isles. In labours abundant, in perils oft, by example, by preaching, by prayers, everywhere they seek to approve themselves unto God, and serve their generation according to His will. Politicians may lecture them; men of science may undervalue them; time-serving editors may pour on them their scorn; they may be called enthusiasts, or be socially despised; but steadfast in faith, unmoved by reproach or praise, they will reply, Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. Our meat is to do the will of Him that sent us, and to finish His work.
III. The missionary’s originality.—We do not mean his originality as a genius, though St. Paul was that in spite of his detractors. We do not refer to his originality as the founder of a new ethical system, though St. Paul’s system was different from and superior to any system previously propagated. We allude to St. Paul’s desire to be the first in order. He would not build upon another man’s foundation. That is how second-rate builders work. What are we modern builders doing but placing our petty pretentious cornices on the glorious temples raised by the giants of former times? Well, let us do our best. A cornice is not to be despised. If we can only take out a few decaying stones and put fresh material in the place, let us be thankful that we have done something for God’s great cathedral.
IV. The missionary’s beneficent design.—To make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed. Conversion here set forth:
1. In its nature—obedience to Christ;
2. In its Author—Christ Himself working by His Spirit;
3. In the means employed—the gospel preached and lived by men. The Church of the future in foreign lands, properly formed, will be inspired with a lofty humanity. It shall sweep away all the forms of cruelty and of wrong which have lowered tribes and nations in the estimation of their fellows. Its earnest life shall be fed with large-hearted love, which yearns to draw all men back to the Father and to bring about perfect union between man and man. Possessing a martyr’s faith, it shall hold to purest principles with a martyr’s constancy. Honest missionary agencies have determined the broad gauge on which the great highway of the nations shall be constructed, and have laid down in many great centres of movement the first lines of the permanent way. Earnest workers have heard and obeyed the divine call: Go through the gates; cast up the highway; lift up a standard for the people. By their labours every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. All difficulties shall be overcome; all divisions and separations between men closed for ever. Man shall be linked with man, and there shall be no more sea. With one heart, though of many names, the tribes of earth shall journey together to the city of God. The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs, with everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 15:17-21
Gospel miracles authentic.—“Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God.” It is not likely that Paul would have made mention at all of these miracles had they not been wrought at Rome as well as in other places along his apostolical tour where Churches had been planted by him. At all events he, in epistles to other Churches, does appeal to the miracles which had been wrought in the midst of them. For example, in the free and fearless remonstrance which he held with the Galatians, he puts the question with all boldness: “O foolish Galatians, … he that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (Galatians 3:1; Galatians 3:5.) And in the enumeration which he makes of the powers conferred on various of the Church office-bearers, he tells the Corinthians that to one is given by the Spirit of God the working of miracles; and, more specifically still, to another the gifts of healing, and to another divers kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues (1 Corinthians 12:9-10). And again, in another epistle to the same people, he says, “Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds” (2 Corinthians 12:12). In this respect he tells them that they were not inferior to other Churches; nor is it probable that he would have written of these miracles to his converts at Rome had they been in this state of inferiority to others. There cannot then be imagined a more satisfactory historical evidence for these high and undoubted credentials of a divine mission, than we are able to adduce for the miracles which abounded in the primitive Churches, and for those in particular which were worked by Paul’s own hands. He indeed, in common with the other apostles, possessed the endowment in a degree that might be called transcendental—insomuch as, besides having the gift of miracles, they had the power, by the laying on of their hands, of conferring this gift upon others (Acts 8:18, etc.). Now whatever exhibition might have been made of such things at Rome, certain it is that for miracles both at Corinth and in Galatia we have testimony in such a form as makes it quite irresistible. Here we have, in the custody of these two Churches from the earliest times, the epistles which they had received from Paul; the original documents have been long in their own possession, while copies of them were speedily multiplied and diffused over the whole Christian world. In these records do we find Paul, in vindication of his own apostleship, and in the course of a severe reckoning with the people whom he addresses, make a confident appeal to the miracles which had been wrought before their eyes. Had there been imposture here the members of these two Churches would not have lent their aid to uphold it. They would not have professed the faith which they did in pretensions which they knew to be false, and that for the support of a claim to divine authority now brought to bear in remonstrance and rebuke against themselves. We might multiply at pleasure our suspicions of Paul, and conjure up all sorts of imaginations against him, but no possible explanation can be found for the acquiescence of his converts in the treachery of the apostle, or rather of their becoming parties to his fabrication, if fabrication indeed it was. One can fancy an interest which he might have in a scheme of deception; but what earthly interest can we assign for the part which they took in the deception, knowing it to be so? Or on what other hypothesis than the irresistible truth of these miracles can we explain their adherence to the gospel, and that in the face of losses and persecutions, nay, even of cruel martyrdoms, but over and above all this the taunts and cutting reproaches to the bargain of the very man who could tell them of the miracles which themselves had seen as the vouchers of his embassy from God, and threatened, if necessary, to come amongst them with a rod and make demonstration in the midst of them of his authority and power? Had there been deceit and jugglery in the matter, why did they not let out the secret, and rid themselves at once and for ever of this burdensome visitation? The truth is, that the overpowering evidence from without, and their own consciences within, would not let them. There is no other historical evidence which in clearness and certainty comes near to this; and whether we look to the integrity of these original witnesses, men faithful and tried, or to the abundant and continuous and closely sustained testimony which flowed downward in well-filled vehicles from the first age of the apostles, we are compelled to acknowledge a sureness and a stamp of authenticity in the miracles of the gospel, not only unsurpassed, but unequalled by any other events, the knowledge of which has been transmitted from ancient to modern times.—Dr. Chalmers.
Gospel to be preached as a witness.—Even where St. Paul preached with little or no success, he might be said to have no more place in that part—no more, for example, at Athens, although he left it a mass of nearly unalleviated darkness—just as our Lord’s immediate apostles might well be said to have no more place in those towns that rejected their testimony, and against which they were called to shake off the dust of their feet, and then to take their departure—fleeing from the cities which either refused or persecuted them, and turning to others. The way in fact of apostles or ministers, the outward instruments in the teaching of Christianity, is the same with the way of the Spirit, who is the real agent in this teaching, by giving to their word all its efficacy. He may visit every man, but withdraws Himself from those who resist Him—just as the missionaries of the gospel might visit every place, and have fulfilled their work even in those places where the gospel has been put to scorn, and so become the savour of death unto death to the people who live in them. Yet we must not slacken in our endeavours for the evangelisation of the whole earth, although the only effect should be that the gospel will be preached unto all nations for a witness, and the success of the enterprise will be limited by the gathering in of the elect from the four corners of heaven. It is a matter of unsettled controversy whether Paul ever was in Spain, or was able to fulfil his purpose of a free and voluntary journey to Rome, his only recorded journey there being when taken up as a prisoner in chains. At the beginning of the epistle he tells them of his prayer, and here expresses his hope of again seeing them in circumstances of prosperity, when, after a full and satisfactory enjoyment of their society, he might be helped forward by them on his way to the country beyond. Let me here notice, in passing, how accordant the movements both of Paul beyond Judœa and of our Saviour and the apostles within its limits, as described in the gospels and Acts, are with the abiding geography of towns and countries still before our eyes. It is in itself a pleasing exercise to trace this harmony of Scripture with the known bearings and distances of places still; and even serves the purpose of confirmation as a monumental evidence to the truth of Christianity.—Dr. Chalmers.