CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 16:20.—Here is St. Paul’s own superscription, written with his own hand in all his epistles. The Author of peace is the Giver of victory. συντρίψει, selected with special regard to Genesis 3:15.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 16:20.
The peace-destroyer’s destruction.—From the visible enemy who threatens, the apostle’s eye turns to the invisible world, where he discovers, on the one side the more formidable enemy of whom his earthly adversaries are the instruments, and on the other the all-powerful ally on whose succour the Church can reckon in this struggle. The expression “God of peace” is designedly chosen to describe God as one who, if the Church fulfil its task well in these circumstances, will take care to overthrow the designs of its adversaries and preserve harmony among the faithful. No wonder that the Christian’s energies are paralysed if he only considers the smallness of his own resources and the greatness of the powers with which he has to cope; but his heart may be strengthened by the reflection that he has a powerful Friend on whom he may rely, and whose help he may successfully invoke. The Christian may be inspired by the thought that the valour of God is his defence. He may well rise superior to difficulty, remembering that victory is finally certain, for God fights on his side. The work is now going forward under the direction of God. Shortly the finishing stroke will be given. Satan will be a bruised foe under the feet of the triumphant saints.
I. The peace-maker.—The endearing character under which God is presented before us in this passage is that of the peace-maker. The God of peace—the author, originator, and maker of peace. Peace-maker! Delightful to be able to introduce harmony into a world of disorder, to cause a holy calm to reign in a realm which had presented the scene of wild chaos. Among the Saviour’s greatest material works is that by which he calmed the troubled waters of the storm-tossed lake. If he be great who introduces harmony into the disorder of material things, what shall be affirmed of the greatness of Him who introduces order where moral discord prevailed, who gives peace to troubled natures? Jesus Himself says, “Blessed are the peace-makers.” The highest type of man is the peace-maker. Christ as the peace-maker is endeared to troubled hearts. God is by pre-eminence the God of peace. He gave Christ to be a peace-maker. It was God that first made this planet beautiful by the gentle sway of peace. When sin touched with its spoiling hand the calm sea of this world’s peace, it was God’s mercy that floated over the troubled waters the words of hope. When the world attained its highest and darkest reach of moral confusion, it was God that brought into the world the gospel method whereby spiritual unrest was to be removed and peace flow into the hearts of mankind. The character of the peace-maker is ennobled by the thought that God is the offended being, and yet He proposes conditions of peace and makes possible a way of peace. He secures the method of peace at infinite cost. He spared not His Son.
II. The peace-destroyer.—By how much the character of the peace-maker is ennobled, in the same proportion may the character of the peace-destroyer sink in our estimation. It is Godlike to create. It is devil-like to destroy. Destructionists should always bring forward good reasons for the methods they pursue. Our natures would rise in rebellion and in wrath against the wretched and powerful being who should disturb the harmonies of the celestial spheres. But a worse catastrophe has happened. Satan with his tainting hand has touched our humanity, and lost spirits are seen wandering, through a dismal planet, from the Source of life, from the Spring of eternal strength and happiness. The devil destroyed the world’s moral peace when he first entered the garden of peace, and ever since he has been working in the same direction. Satan has destroyed the peace of hearts, the peace of individuals, the peace of Churches, and the peace of nations.
“There is a land of peace,
Good angels know it well;
Glad songs that never cease
Within its portals swell;
Around its glorious throne
Ten thousand saints adore
Christ, with the Father—one,
And Spirit evermore.”
Into that land of peace no ruthless disturber can ever enter.
III. The peace-destroyer’s destruction at the hand of the peace-maker.—In order to perpetuate harmony it is necessary to banish that, or at least to eliminate the power of that, which has been the cause of discord. To preserve the harmony of a kingdom it may be needful to banish the rebels. The peace of the family can be preserved by the exclusion of the quarrelsome member, or by its reformation. The peace of God’s human family is always endangered by the presence of Satan. He appears to be beyond reform. We do not limit the power of the Infinite. But as that power did not prevent Satan’s fatal meddling, so we have no reason to suppose that God’s power will turn the prince of darkness into a veritable angel of light. Satan must be bruised, and so bruised as to be able to do no further moral mischief. He has been bruised in part by Christ’s victorious achievements. Bruised, but not effectually rendered harmless. He is being bruised by the dispensation of the Holy Spirit and by the instrumentality of God’s Church. God will finish the work in righteousness, and Satan will be effectually bruised beneath the feet of God’s people. Satan will be powerless, and over his slain form the Church will ride in triumph. Let us, then, not fear for God’s truth. Relying on God’s promises, we are not to fear the wiles of our great adversary. We must battle and not be dismayed. We must pray and wait in hope for the period of final extinction of Satan as a harmful foe.
IV. The peace-maker’s “due time” we cannot measure.—God’s “shortly” is not to be measured by our minutes. The little child with its inadequate notions of time cannot measure the “shortly” of a wise father. How can the children of time, whose day is but as a butterfly existence, measure the day of Him who is from everlasting to everlasting? We are sometimes disposed to ask, Has the Eternal been so taken up with the consideration and the management of other and higher worlds that He has forgotten us in our low estate—forgotten that His children are well-nigh overwhelmed by the triumphant progress of sin and misery—forgotten that the world has been long groaning beneath the oppression of the evil one—forgotten that the lovers of the truth are comparatively few and their efforts seemingly uninfluential—forgotten that many anxious souls are waiting for the fulfilment of the promise that shortly God will bruise Satan under their feet? But when we get away from the contracting influences of the present world, when we breathe the enlarging atmosphere of God’s broad realm of infinite thoughts, we may get to understand that our “shortly” is a word that impatience utters in moments of defeat and perplexity—that God’s “shortly” may be a word uttered by a Being possessed of infinite wisdom and power, and who can wait, to use a human word, through the slow-moving centuries of time. Where is the mind sufficiently large that can sweep with rapid glance through all that space—if of space or of any notion of limitation we may speak in this connection—that must be comprehended in the “shortly” of Him who fills the boundless realm of eternity? A season must be allowed in which the efficacy of the Saviour’s mediatorial mission shall be vindicated—in which the glory of the Church as a militant force must be evidenced. A great work has to be done before God’s “shortly” can be consummated. We must consider God’s “shortly” in the light of eternity and by the side of those comprehensive plans which must be entertained by the infinite mind.
V. Human peace-makers will share in the final triumph.—The limbs of the Church will not always be fettered; the feet of God’s saints will not always be fastened in the stocks; the iron of oppression will not always eat into their souls. With firm and joyous tread they will victoriously walk over their crushed adversary. Under our feet for ever will be the enemy of our souls. Peaceful millennial reign! blessed sabbatic repose! when
“Sin, my worst enemy before,
Shall vex mine eyes and ears no more;
Mine inward foes shall all be slain,
Nor Satan break my peace again.”
Romans 16:20. Satan bruised.
I.—
1. A reference to Genesis 3:15: apostle points to certainty of Christ’s victory as guarantee of ours.
2. An echo of promise in Psalms 91 of victory over all antagonists—pestilence, terror, flying arrow, destruction. “Thou shalt tread upon the lion,” on “the adder.” Power to conquer sins known and hidden.
3. An echo of Luke 10:19. All these are gathered into the promise of the text. Christ’s heel being on the head, we have only to keep down a little fragment of the writhing body, a little bit of vertebræ. If we try in His strength, we shall come off more than conquerors.
II. What strenuous effort is needed to keep down a snake’s head, a desperate life-and-death struggle! Incongruous epithet at first sight, “the God of peace.” Why not “God of strength?” Our victory only possible by possessing the peace of God. The reason we fall so easily is because we lack that sense of rest in God. That peace of God, and the God who gives that peace, will help us to overcome.
III. “The peace of God” (see Philippians 4:7) will keep us as a garrison keeps a fortress. The Christian’s armour the gospel of peace (Ephesians 6:15).
IV. Ask God for His peace; then in the fiercest struggle we shall have quiet hearts,—peace amid endless agitation; repose in tempest; quiet spirit in the battle.
V. All will come by communion with Christ; His conquest our inspiration. “Shortly?” Yes; by simple obedience and loving fellowship swift victory comes. If not, not His fault, but ours. On eternity’s dial seventy years but a moment. The longest life-struggle but a little while; then the far-exceeding weight of glory. Thy Master conquered; keep near Him, scorning short-lived temptations, calm in such brief struggles; then “under our feet for ever the enemies of our souls.”—Alexander Maclaren, D.D.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 16:20
Conquest of Satan ensured.—The conquest of Satan is ensured by this: When we are at peace with God, the devils themselves are subject to us. When God was in Christ reconciling the world, He was in Christ “destroying him that had the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14), and bringing Satan under the feet of the Mediator and the feet of His members. This was the intent of God in the first promise of a Mediator, to destroy him who had infected mankind and brought death into the world. The bruising his head was the design of Christ’s mission (Genesis 3:15), that the great incendiary who had broken the league and set afoot the rebellion might feel the greater smart of it. And ever since it is by the gospel of peace and the shield of faith that we are only able to “quench the fiery darts of the devil,” and make his attempts fruitless (Ephesians 6:15-16), by the reconciliation God hath wrought and published by the gospel. God, as a “God of peace,” “shall tread him under the feet” of believers (Romans 16:20). Unless He had been a God of peace, we had never been delivered from that jailor who held us by the right of God’s justice. And since we are delivered, God, as a God of peace, will perfect the victory, and make him cease for ever from bruising the heel of the spiritual seed. As God hath given peace in Christ, so He will give the victory in Christ. Peace cannot be perfect till it be undisturbed by invading enemies and subtle adversaries endeavouring to raise a new enmity. Our Saviour spoiled him of his power upon the cross, and took away the right he had to detain any believer prisoner by satisfying that justice and reconciling that God who first ordered their commitment. He answers his accusations as He is an “advocate” at the right hand of God; and at the last, when death comes to be destroyed, and no more to enter into the world, the whole design of the devil for ever falls to the ground. Since we are at peace with God, while we are here the devil himself shall serve us; and the messenger of Satan shall be a means to quell the pride of a believing Paul by the sufficiency of the grace of God, while he fills the heart of an unbelieving Judas with poison and treason against his Master.—Charnock.
Satan not to be feared.—And as good angels shall not, so it is certain likewise that evil angels shall not; good angels will not, and bad angels shall not. Saith He, “I will build My Church upon this rock”—that is, “this faith and confession that Christ is the Son of God, and a heart and life answerable”—“and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). They may assault it, but they shall not prevail. My brethren, this devil whom you fear, and who tempteth you, as Jesus Christ hath under His feet, so He will have him under your feet too one day; do but stay awhile, He shall tread down Satan under your feet shortly (Romans 16:20) You need fear nothing, therefore, either in heaven or in earth.—Goodwin.
The Reconciler the Subduer.—All corrupters of divine truth and troublers of the Church’s peace are no better than devils. Our Saviour thought the name Satan a title merited by Peter, when he breathed out an advice, as an axe at the root of the gospel, the death of Christ, the foundation of all gospel truth; and the apostle concludes them under the same character which hinder the superstructure, and would mix their chaff with his wheat. “Get thee behind Me, Satan” (Matthew 16:23). It is not, “Get thee behind Me, Simon,” or, “Get thee behind Me, Peter”; but, “Get thée behind Me, Satan: thou art an offence to Me.” Thou dost oppose thyself to the wisdom and grace and authority of God, to the redemption of man, and to the good of the world.
1. As the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of truth, so is Satan the spirit of falsehood; as the Holy Ghost inspires believers with truth, so doth the devil corrupt unbelievers with error. Let us cleave to the truth of the gospel, that we may not be counted by God as part of the corporation of fallen angels, and not be barely reckoned as enemies of God, but in league with the greatest enemy to His glory in the world.
2. The Reconciler of the world will be the Subduer of Satan. The God of peace sent the Prince of peace to be the restorer of His rights, and the hammer to beat in pieces the usurper of them. As a God of truth, He will make good His promise; as a God of peace, He will perfect the design His wisdom hath laid and begun to act. In the subduing Satan, He will be the conqueror of His instruments. He saith not, God shall bruise your troublers and heretics, but Satan. The fall of a general proves the rout of the army. Since God, as a God of peace, hath delivered His own, He will perfect the victory, and make them cease from bruising the heel of His spiritual seed.
3. Divine evangelical truth shall be victorious. No weapon formed against it shall prosper; the head of the wicked shall fall as low as the feet of the godly. The devil never yet blustered in the world but he met at last with a disappointment. His fall hath been like lightning, sudden, certain, vanishing.
4. Faith must look back as far as the foundation-promise, “The God of peace shall bruise,” etc. The apostle seems to allude to the first promise—a promise that hath vigour to nourish the Church in all ages of the world. It is the standing cordial; out of the womb of this promise all the rest have taken their birth. The promises of the Old Testament were designed for those under the New, and full performance of them is to be expected, and will be enjoyed by them. It is a mighty strengthening to faith to trace the footsteps of God’s truth and wisdom from the threatening against the serpent in Eden to the bruise he received on Calvary and the triumph over him upon Mount Olivet.
5. We are to confide in the promise of God, but leave the season of its accomplishment to His wisdom. He will bruise Satan under your feet, therefore do not doubt it; and shortly, therefore wait for it. Shortly it will be done, that is, quickly, when you think it may be a great way off; or shortly, that is, seasonably, when Satan’s rage is hottest. God is the best judge of the seasons of distributing His own mercies, and darting out His own glory. It is enough to encourage our waiting, that it will be, and that it will be shortly; but we must not measure God’s shortly by our minutes.—Charnock.