Ver. 7.
For none of us to himself lives, and none of us to himself dies.How, and wherefore? Is it merely that "we" live lives always, necessarily, relatedto one another? He has this in his heart indeed. But he reaches it through the greater, deeper, antecedent truth of our relationto the Lord. The Christian is related to his brother-Christian through Christ, not to Christ through his brother, or through the common Organism in which the brethren are "each other's limbs." "To the Lord," with absolute directness, with a perfect and wonderful immediateness, each individual Christian is first related. His life and his death are "to others," but through Him.The Master'sclaim is eternally first; for it is based direct upon the redeeming work in which He bought us for Himself.
Ver. 8.Ver. 9.
For whether we live, to the Lord we live; and whether we be dead(ἀποθνήσκωμεν),to the Lord we are dead;in the state of the departed, as before, "relation stands."Alike therefore whether(ἐαν τε οὖν)we be dead, or whether we live, the Lord's we are;His property, bound first and in everything to His possession.For to this end Christ both died and lived again,[236]that He might become Lord(κυριεύσῃ, notκυριεύῃ)ofusboth dead and living.
Here is the profound truth seen already in earlier passages in the Epistle. We have had it reasoned out, above all in the sixth chapter, in its revelation of the way of Holiness, that our only possible right relations with the Lord are clasped and governed by the fact that to Him we rightly and everlastinglybelong. There,however, the thought was more of our surrender under His rights. Here it is of the mighty antecedent fact, under which our most absolute surrender is nothing more than the recognition of His indefeasible claim. What the Apostle says here, in this wonderful passage of mingled doctrine and duty, is that, whether or nowe are owningour vassalage to Christ, we are nothing if notde jureHis vassals. He has not only rescued us, but so rescued us as to buy us for His own. We may be true to the fact in our internal attitude; we may be oblivious of it; but we cannot get away from it. It looks us every hour in the face, whether we respond or not. It will still look us in the face through the endless life to come.
For manifestly it is this objective aspect of our "belonging" which is here in point. St Paul is not reasoning with the "weak" and the "strong" from their experience, from their conscious loyalty to the Lord. Rather, he is calling them to a new realization of what such loyalty should be. It is in order to this that he reminds them of the eternal claim of the Lord, made good in His Death and Resurrection; His claim to be so their Master, individually and altogether, that every thought about one other was to be governed by that claim of His on them all. "The Lord" must always interpose, with a right inalienable. Each Christian is annexed, by all the laws of Heaven, to Him. So each must—not make butrealizethat annexation, in every thought about neighbour and about brother.
The passage invites us meantime to further remark, in another direction. It is one of those utterances which, luminous with light given by their context, shine also with a light of their own, giving us revelations independent of the surrounding matter. Here one suchrevelation appears; it affects our knowledge of the Intermediate State.
The Apostle,[237]four times over in this short paragraph, makes mention of death, and of the dead. "No one of us dieth to himself"; "Whether we die, we die unto the Lord"; "Whether we die, we are the Lord's"; "That He might be Lord of the dead." And this last sentence, with its mention not of the dying but of the dead, reminds us that the reference in them all is to the Christian's relation to his Lord, not only in the hour of death, but in the state after death. It is not only that Jesus Christ, as the slain One risen, is absolute Disposer of the time and manner of our dying. It is not only that when our death comes we are to accept it as an opportunity for the "glorifying of God" (John xxi. 19; Phil. i. 20) in the sight and in the memory of those who know of it. It is that when we have "passed through death," and come out upon the other side,
"When we enter yonder regions,When we touch the sacred shore,"
"When we enter yonder regions,When we touch the sacred shore,"
"When we enter yonder regions,
When we touch the sacred shore,"
our relation to the slain One risen, to Him who, as such, "hath the keys of Hades and of death" (Rev. i. 18), is perfectly continuous and the same. He is our absolute Master,thereas well as here. And we, by consequence and correlation, are vassals, servants, bondservants to Him, there as well as here.
Here is a truth which, we cannot but think, richly repays the Christian's repeated remembrance and reflection; and that not only in the way of asserting the eternal rights of our blessed Redeemer over us, but in the way of shedding light, and peace, and the senseof reality and expectation, on both the prospect of our own passage into eternity and the thoughts we entertain of the present life of our holy beloved ones who have entered into it before us.
Everything is precious which really assists the soul in such thoughts, and at the same time keeps it fully and practically alive to the realities of faith, patience, and obedience here below, here in the present hour. While the indulgence of unauthorized imagination in that direction is almost always enervating and disturbing to the present action of Scriptural faith, the least help to a solid realization and anticipation, supplied by the Word that cannot lie, is in its nature both hallowing and strengthening. Such a help we have assuredly here.
He who died and rose again is at this hour, in holy might and right, "the Lord" of the blessed dead. Then, the blessed dead are vassals andservantsof Him who died and rose again. And all our thought of them, as they are now, at this hour, "in those heavenly habitations, where the souls of them that sleep in the Lord Jesus enjoy perpetual rest and felicity,"[238]gains indefinitely in life, in reality, in strength and glory, as we see them, through this narrow but bright "door in heaven" (Rev. v. 1), not resting only but serving also before their Lord, who has bought them for His use, and who holds them in His use quite as truly now as when we had the joy of their presence with us, and He was seen by us living and working in them and through them here.
True it is that the leading and essential character of their present state is rest, as that of their resurrection state will be action. But the two states overflow into each other. In one glorious passage the Apostledescribes the resurrection bliss as also "rest" (2 Thess. i. 7). And here we have it indicated that the heavenly intermediate rest is also service. What the precise nature of that service is we cannot tell. "Our knowledge of that life is small." Most certainly, "in vain ourfancystrives to paint" its blessedness, both of repose and of occupation. This is part of our normal and God-chosen lot here, which is to "walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. v. 7),οὐ διὰ εἴδους, "not by Object seen," not by objects seen. But blessed is the spiritual assistance in such a walk as we recollect, step by step, as we draw nearer to that happy assembly above, that, whatever be the manner and exercise of their holy life, it is life indeed; power, not weakness; service, not inaction. He who died and revived is Lord, not of us only, but of them.
Ver. 10.toVer. 12.
But from this excursion into the sacred Unseen we must return. St Paul is intent now upon the believer's walk of loving large-heartedness in this life, not the next.But you—why do you judge your brother?(he takes up the verb,κρίνειν, used in his former appeal to the "weak," ver. 3).Or you too(he turns to the "strong"; see again ver. 3)—why do you despise your brother? For we shall stand, allof us, on one level, whatever were our mutual sentiments on earth, whatever claim we made here to sit as judges on our brethren,before the tribunal(βῆμα)of our(τοῦ)God.[239]For it stands written(Isai. xlv. 23),"As I live, saith the Lord,sure it is as My eternal Being,that to Me,not to another,shall bend every knee; andevery tongue shall confess,shall ascribe all sovereignty,to God,"not to the creature.So then each of us, about himself,not about the faults or errors of his brother,shall give account to God.
We have here, as in 2 Cor. v. 10, and again, under other imagery, in 1 Cor. iii. 11-15, a glimpse of that heart-searching prospect for the Christian, his summons hereafter,as a Christian, to the tribunal of his Lord. In all the three passages, and now particularly in this, the language, though it lends itself freely to the universal Assize, is limited by context, as to its direct purport, to the Master'sscrutiny of His own servants as such. The question to be tried and decided (speaking after the manner of men) at His "tribunal," in this reference, is not that of glory or perdition; the persons of the examined are accepted; the enquiry is in thedomesticcourt of the Palace, so to speak; it regards the award of the King as to the issues and value of His accepted servants' labour and conduct, as His representatives, in their mortal life. "TheLord of the servantscometh, and reckonethwith them" (Matt. xxv. 19). They have been justified by faith. They have been united to their glorious Head. They "shall be saved" (1 Cor. iii. 15), whatever be the fate of their "work." But what will their Lord say of their work? What have they done for Him, in labour, in witness, and above allin character? He will tell them what He thinks. He will be infinitely kind; but He will not flatter. And somehow, surely,—"it doth not yet appear" how, but somehow—eternity, even the eternity of salvation, will bear the impress of that award, the impress ofthe past of service, estimated by the King. "What shall the harvest be?"
And all this shall take place (this is the special emphasis of the prospect here) with a solemn individualityof enquiry. "Every one of us—for himself—shall give account." We reflected, a little above, on the true place of"individualism" in the life of grace. We see here that there will indeed be a place for it in the experiences of eternity. The scrutiny of "the tribunal" will concern not the Society, the Organism, the total, but the member, the man. Each will stand in a solemn solitude there, before his divine Examiner. Whathewas, as the Lord's member, that will be the question. Whatheshall be, as such, in the functions of the endless state, that will be the result.
Let us not be troubled over that prospect with the trouble of the worldling, as if we did not know Him who will scrutinize us, and did not love Him. Around the thought of His "tribunal," in that aspect, there are cast no exterminating terrors. But it is a prospect fit to make grave and full of purpose the life which yet "is hid with Christ in God," and which is life indeed through grace. It is a deep reminder that the beloved Saviour is also, and in no figure of speech, but in an eternal earnest,the Mastertoo. We would not have Him not to be this. He would not be all He is to us as Saviour, were He not this also, and for ever.
St Paul hastens to further appeals, after this solemn forecast. And now all his stress is laid on the duty of the "strong" to use their "strength" not for self-assertion, not for even spiritual selfishness, but all for Christ, all for others, all in love.
Ver. 13.Ver. 14.
No more therefore let us judge one another; but judge,decide,this rather—not to set stumblingblock for our(τῷ)brother, or trap. I know—he instances his own experience and principle—and am sure, in the Lord Jesus,as one who is in union and communion with Him, seeing truth andlife from that view-point,that nothing,nothing of the sort in question, no food, no time,is "unclean" of itself;literally, "by means of itself," by anyinherentmischief;only, to the man who counts anything "unclean," to him it is unclean.And therefore you, because you are not his conscience, must not tamper with his conscience. It is, in this case, mistaken; mistaken to his own loss, and to the loss of the Church. Yes, but what it wants is not your compulsion, but the Lord's light. If you can do so, bring that light to bear, in a testimony made impressive by holy love and unselfish considerateness. But dare not, for Christ's sake, compel a conscience. For conscience means the man's best actual sight of the law of right and wrong. It may be a dim and distorted sight; but it is his best at this moment. He cannot violate it without sin, nor can you bid him do so without yourself sinning. Conscience may not always see aright. But to transgress conscience is always wrong.
Ver. 15.
For[240]—the word takes up the argument at large, rather than the last detail of it—if for food's sake your brother suffers pain,the pain of a moral struggle between his present convictions and your commanding example,you have given up walking(οὐκέτι περιπατεῖς)love-wise. Do not, with your food,(there is a searching point in the "your," touching to the quick the deep selfishness of the action,)work his ruin for whom Christ died.
Such sentences are too intensely and tenderly in earnest to be called sarcastic; otherwise, how fine and keen an edge they carry! "For food's sake!" "With your food!" The man is shaken out of the sleep ofwhat seemed an assertion of liberty, but was after all much rather a dull indulgence of—that is, a mere slavery to—himself. "I like this meat; I like this drink; I don't like the worry of these scruples; they interrupt me, they annoy me." Unhappy man! It is better to be the slave of scruples, than of self. In order to allow yourself another dish—you would slight an anxious friend's conscience, and, so far as your conduct is concerned, push him to a violation of it. But that means, a push on the slope which leans towards spiritual ruin. The way to perdition is paved with violated consciences. The Lord may counteract your action, and save your injured brother from himself—and you. But your action is, none the less, calculated for his perdition. And all the while this soul, for which, in comparison with your dull and narrow "liberty," you care so little, was so much cared for by the Lord that He—died for it.
Oh consecrating thought, attached now, for ever, for the Christian, to every human soul which he can influence: "For whom Christ died!"
Ver. 16.toVer. 18.
Do not therefore let your good,your glorious creed of holy liberty in Christ,be railed at,as only a thinly veiled self-indulgence after all;for the kingdom of our(τοῦ)God is not feeding(βρῶσις)and drinking;He does not claim a throne in your soul, and in your Society, merely to enlarge your bill of fare, to make it your sacred privilege, as an end in itself, to take what you please at table;but righteousness,surely here, in the Roman Epistle, the "righteousness" of our divine acceptance,and peace,the peace of perfect relations with Him in Christ,and joy in the Holy Spirit,the pure strong gladness of the justified, as in their sanctuary of salvation they drink the "living water,"and "rejoice always in the Lord."For he who in thisway[241]lives as bondservant to Christ,spending his spiritual talents not for himself but for his Master,is pleasing to his(τῷ)God, and is genuine to his fellow-men(τοῖς ἀνθρώποις). Yes, hestands the test(δόκιμος) of their keen scrutiny. They can soon detect the counterfeit under spiritual assertions which really assert self. But their conscience affirms the genuineness of a life ofunselfishand happy holiness; that life "reverbs no hollowness."
Ver. 19.
Accordingly therefore let us pursuethe interests ofpeace, andthe interests ofan edification which is mutual;the "building up" (οἰκοδομὴ) which looks beyond the man to his brother, to his brethren, and tempers by that look even his plans for his own spiritual life.
Ver. 20.
Again he returns to the sorrowfulgrotesqueof preferring personal comforts, and even the assertion of the principle of personal liberty, to the good of others.Do not for food's sake be undoing(κατάλυε)the work of our God. "All things are pure";he doubtless quotes a watchword often heard; and it was truth itself in the abstract, but capable of becoming a fatal fallacy in practice;butanythingis bad to the man who is brought by a stumblingblock to eat it.[242]Yes, this is bad (κακόν). What is good (καλὸν) in contrast?
Ver. 21.
Good it is not to eat flesh, and not to drink wine(a word for our time and its conditions),and not to do anything in which your brother is stumbled,or entrapped, or weakened.Yes, this is Christian liberty; a liberation from the strong and subtle law of self; a freedom to live for others, independent of their evil, but the servant of their souls.
Ver. 22.
You—the faith you have,[243]have it by yourself, in the presence of your God.You have believed; you are therefore in Christ; in Christ you are therefore free, by faith, from the preparatory restrictions of the past. Yes; but all this is not given you for personal display, but for divine communion. Its right issue is in a holy intimacy with your God, as in the confidence of your acceptance you know Him as your Father, "nothing between." But as regards human intercourse, you are emancipated not that you may disturb the neighbours with shouts of freedom and acts of licence, but that you may be at leisure to serve them in love.Happy the man who does not judge himself,who does not, in effect, decide against his own soul,in that which he approves,δοκιμάζει, pronounces satisfactory to conscience. Unhappy he who says to himself, "This is lawful," when the verdict is all the while purchased by self-love, or otherwise by the fear of man, and the soul knows in its depths that the thing is not as it should be.|Ver. 23.|And the man who is doubtful,whose conscience is not really satisfied between the right and wrong of the matter,if he does eat, stands condemned,in the court of his own heart, and of his aggrieved Lord's opinion,becauseit wasnot the result of faith;the action had not, for its basis, the holy conviction of the liberty of the justified.Now anything which is not the result of faith, is sin;that is to say, manifestly, "anything"in such a case as this;any indulgence, any obedience to example, which the man, in a state of inward ambiguity, decides for on a principle other than that of his union with Christ by faith.
Thus the Apostle of Justification, and of the Holy Spirit, is the Apostle of Conscience too. He is as urgent upon the awful sacredness of our sense of right and wrong, as upon the offer and the security, in Christ, of peace with God, and the holy Indwelling, and the hope of glory. Let our steps reverently follow his, as we walk with God, and with men. Let us "rejoice in Christ Jesus," with a "joy" which is "in the Holy Ghost." Let us reverence duty, let us reverence conscience, in our own life, and also in the lives around us.
[231]Τὸν μὴ(notοὐκ)ἐσθίοντα: theμὴgives "non-eating" as not merely a fact, but acondition, about the man.[232]Readδυνατεῖ ηὰρ ὁ Κύρος.[233]Probably the negative limb of ver. 6. is only an explanatory gloss, not the words of the Apostle.[234]Readκαὶ.[235]There seems to be a broad and intelligible difference between the Sabbath-keepingof the Jewish lawand the Sabbath-keepingof man; the enjoyment and holy use of the primeval Rest for man and beast. We take it thatthatduty and privilege is not in question here at all. The "weak" Christian was the anxious scholar of the Rabbis, not the man simply loyal to the Decalogue.[236]Readἀπέθανε καὶ ἀνέζησε.[237]We transcribe here a few paragraphs from the closing pages of our bookLife in Christ and for Christ.[238]Visitation of the Sick (Prayer for a Sick Child).[239]So read, notτοῦ Χριστοῦ. It is significant meantime, as a testimony to the Apostle's view of his Master's Nature, that in 2 Cor. v. 10, a perfectly parallel passage, he writes, "we must all appear before the tribunalof Christ."[240]Probably readγὰρnotδὲ.[241]Readτούτῳnotτούτοις. Possibly the pronoun refers to "the Holy Spirit" (Πνεῦμα) just mentioned.[242]Lit., "who eats by means of a stumblingblock"; the example, with its weight of "public opinion," beingthe means ofoverriding his conscience.[243]Probably readπίστιν ἣν ἔχεις, κατὰ κτλ.
[231]Τὸν μὴ(notοὐκ)ἐσθίοντα: theμὴgives "non-eating" as not merely a fact, but acondition, about the man.
[232]Readδυνατεῖ ηὰρ ὁ Κύρος.
[233]Probably the negative limb of ver. 6. is only an explanatory gloss, not the words of the Apostle.
[234]Readκαὶ.
[235]There seems to be a broad and intelligible difference between the Sabbath-keepingof the Jewish lawand the Sabbath-keepingof man; the enjoyment and holy use of the primeval Rest for man and beast. We take it thatthatduty and privilege is not in question here at all. The "weak" Christian was the anxious scholar of the Rabbis, not the man simply loyal to the Decalogue.
[236]Readἀπέθανε καὶ ἀνέζησε.
[237]We transcribe here a few paragraphs from the closing pages of our bookLife in Christ and for Christ.
[238]Visitation of the Sick (Prayer for a Sick Child).
[239]So read, notτοῦ Χριστοῦ. It is significant meantime, as a testimony to the Apostle's view of his Master's Nature, that in 2 Cor. v. 10, a perfectly parallel passage, he writes, "we must all appear before the tribunalof Christ."
[240]Probably readγὰρnotδὲ.
[241]Readτούτῳnotτούτοις. Possibly the pronoun refers to "the Holy Spirit" (Πνεῦμα) just mentioned.
[242]Lit., "who eats by means of a stumblingblock"; the example, with its weight of "public opinion," beingthe means ofoverriding his conscience.
[243]Probably readπίστιν ἣν ἔχεις, κατὰ κτλ.
THE SAME SUBJECT: THE LORD'S EXAMPLE: HIS RELATION TO US ALL
Romansxv. 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 anyage 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 pleasenot himself buthis 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 doanything to pleaseremains; onlylimited 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 hisLord(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. Andthe Lordis 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.
"He did not please Himself." "Not My will, but Thine, be done." Perhaps the thought of the Apostle is dwelling on the very hour when those words were spoken, from beneath the olives of the Garden, and out of a depth of inward conflict and surrender which"it hath not entered into the heart of man"—except the heart of the Man of men Himself—"to conceive." Then indeed "He did not please Himself." From pain as pain, from grief as grief, all sentient existence naturally, necessarily, shrinks; it "pleases itself" in escape or in relief. The infinitely refined sentient Existence of the Son of Man was no exception to this law of universal nature; and now He was called to such pain, to such grief, as never before met upon one head. We read the record of Gethsemane, and its sacred horror is always new; the disciple passes in thought out of the Garden even to the cruel tribunal of the Priest with a sense of relief; his Lord has risen from the unfathomable to the fathomable depth of His woes—till He goes down again, at noon next day, upon the Cross. "He pleased not Himself." He who soon after, on the shore of the quiet water, said to Peter, in view of his glorious and God-glorifying end, "They shall carry theewhither thou wouldest not"—along a path from which all thy manhood shall shrink—He too, as to His Human sensibility, "would not" go to His own unknown agonies. But then, blessed be His Name, "He would go" to them, from that other side, the side of the infinite harmony of His purpose with the purpose of His Father, in His immeasurable desire of His Father's glory. So He "drank that cup," which shall never now pass on to His people. And then He went forth into the house of Caiaphas, to be "reproached," during some six or seven terrible hours, by men who, professing zeal for God, were all the while blaspheming Him by every act and word of malice and untruth against His Son; and from Caiaphas He went to Pilate, and to Herod, and to the Cross, "bearing that reproach."
"I'm not anxious to die easy, when He died hard!" So said, not long ago, in a London attic, lying crippled and comfortless, a little disciple of the Man of Sorrows. He had "seen the Lord," in a strangely unlikely conversion, and had found a way of serving Him; it was to drop written fragments of His Word from the window on to the pavement below. And for this silent mission he would have no liberty if he were moved, in his last weeks, to a comfortable "Home." So he would rather serve his beloved Redeemer thus, "pleasing not himself," than be soothed in body, and gladdened by surrounding kindness, but with less "fellowship of His sufferings." Illustrious confessor—sure to be remembered when "the Lord of the servants cometh"! And with what ana fortioridoes his simple answer to a kindly visitor's offer bring home to us (for it is for us as much as for the Romans) this appeal of the Apostle's! We are called in these words not necessarily to any agony of body or spirit; not necessarily even to an act of severe moral courage; only to patience, largeness of heart, brotherly love. Shall we not answerAmenfrom the soul? Shall not even one thought of "the fellowship of His sufferings" annihilate in us the miserable "self-pleasing" which shews itself in religious bitterness, in the refusal to attend and to understand, in a censoriousness which has nothing to do with firmness, in a personal attitude exactly opposite to love?
He has cited Psalm lxix. as a Scripture which, with all the solemn problems gathered round its dark "minatory" paragraph, yet lives and moves with Christ, the Christ of love. And now—not to confirm his application of the Psalm, for he takes that for granted—but to affirm the positive Christian use of theOld Scriptures as a whole, he goes on to speak at large of "the things fore-written." He does so with the special thought that the Old Testament is full of truth in point for the Roman Church just now; full of the bright,and uniting, "hope" of glory; full of examples as well as precepts for "patience," that is to say, holy perseverance under trial; full finally of the Lord's equally gracious relation to "the Nations" and to Israel.
Ver. 4.
For all the things fore-written,written in the Scriptures of the elder time, in the age that both preceded the Gospel and prepared for it,for our instruction were written—with an emphasis upon "our"—that through the patience and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might hold our(τὴν)hope,the hope "sure and steadfast" of glorification in the glory of our conquering Lord. That is to say, the true "Author behind the authors" of that mysterious Book watched, guided, effected its construction, from end to end, with the purpose full in His view of instructing for all time the developed Church of Christ. And in particular, He adjusted thus the Old Testament records and precepts of "patience," the patience which "suffersand is strong," suffers andgoes forward,[245]and of "encouragement,"παράκλησις, the word which is more than "consolation," while it includes it; for it means the voice of positive and enlivening appeal. Rich indeed are Pentateuch, and Prophets, and Hagiographa, alike in commands to persevere and be of good courage, and in examples of men who were made brave and patient by the power of God in them, as they took Him at His word. And all this, says the Apostle, was on purpose,on God's purpose. That multifarious Book is indeed in this sense one. Not only is it, in its Author's intention, full of Christ; in the same intention it is full of Him for us. Immortal indeed is its preciousness, if this wasHisdesign. Confidently may we explore its pages, looking in them first for Christ, then for ourselves, in our need of peace, and strength, and hope.
Let us add one word, in view of the anxious controversy of our day, within the Church, over the structure and nature of those "divine Scriptures," as the Christian Fathers love to call them. The use of the Holy Book in the spirit of this verse, the persistent searching of it for the preceptive mind of God in it, with the belief that it was "written for our instruction," will be the surest and deepest means to give us "perseverance" and "encouragement" about the Book itself. The more we reallyknowthe Bible, at first hand, before God, with the knowledge both of acquaintance and reverent sympathy, the more shall we be able with intelligent spiritual conviction, to "persist" and "be of good cheer" in the conviction that it is indeed not of man, (though through man,) but of God. The more shall we use it as the Lord and the Apostles used it, as being not only of God, but of God for us; His Word, and for us. The more shall we make it our divine daily Manual for a life of patient and cheerful sympathies, holy fidelity, and "that blessed Hope"—which draws "nearer nowthan when we believed."
Ver. 5.
But may the God of the patience and the encouragement,He who is Author and Giver of the graces unfolded in His Word, He without whom even that Word is but a sound without significance in the soul,grant you,in His own sovereign way of acting on and in human wills and affections,to be of onemind mutually(ἐν ἀλλήλοις),according to Christ Jesus;"Christwise," in His steps, in His temper, under His precepts; having towards one another, not necessarily an identity of opinion on all details, but a community of sympathetic kindness. No comment here is better than this same Writer's later words, from Rome (Phil. ii. 2-5); "Be of one mind; having the same love; nothing by strife, or vainglory; esteeming others better than yourselves; looking on the things of others; with the same mind which was also in Christ Jesus," when He humbled Himself for us. And all this, not only for the comfort of the community, but for the glory of God:|Ver. 6.|that unanimously, with one mouth, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ;turning from the sorrowful friction worked by self-will when it intrudes into the things of heaven, to an antidote, holy and effectual, found in adoring Him who is equally near to all His true people, in His Son.
Ver. 7.toVer. 13.
Wherefore welcome one another into fellowship, even as our(ὁ)Christ welcomed you,[246]all the individuals of your company, and all the groups of it,to our(τοῦ)God's glory.These last words may mean either that the Lord's welcome of "you" "glorified" His Father's grace; or that that grace will be "glorified" by the holy victory of love over prejudice among the Roman saints. Perhaps this latter explanation is to be preferred, as it echoes and enforces the last words of the previous verse. But why should not both references reside in the one phrase, where the actions of the Lord and His disciples are seen in their deep harmony?For[247]I say that Christ stands constituted[248]Servant(διάκονον)of the Circumcision,Minister of divine blessings to Israel,on behalf of God's truth, so as to ratifyin actthe promises belonging to the Fathers,so as to secure and vindicate their fulfilment, by His coming as Son of David, Son of Abraham;but(a "but" which, by its slight correction, reminds the Jew that the Promise, given whollythroughhim, was not given whollyforhim)so that the Nations, on mercy's behalf, should glorify God,blessing and adoring Him on account of a salvation which, in their case, was less of "truth" than of "mercy," because it was less explicitly and immediately of covenant;as it stands written(Psal. xviii. 49),"For this I will confess to Thee,will own Thee,among the Nations, and will strike the harp(ψαλῶ)to Thy Name";Messiah confessing His Eternal Father's glory in the midst of His redeemed Gentile subjects, who sing their "lower part" with Him.And again it,the Scripture,says,(Deut. xxxii. 43),"Be jubilant, Nations, with His people."[249]And again(Psal. cxvii. 1),"Praise the Lord, all the Nations, and let all the peoples praise Him again"(ἐπαινεσάτωσαν).And again Isaiah says(xi. 10),"There shall come(literally, "shall be")the Root of Jesse, and He who rises up—"rises," in the present tense of thedivine decree—to rule (the) Nations; on Him (the) Nations shall hope;"with the hope which is in fact faith, looking from the sure present to the promised future.Now may the God of that hope,τῆς ἐλπίδος, "theHope" just cited from the Prophet, the expectation of all blessing, up to its crown and flower in glory, on the basis of Messiah's work,fill you with all joy and peace in your(τῷ)believing, so that you may overflow in that(τῇ)hope, in the Holy Spirit's power;"inHis power," clasped as it were within His divine embrace, and thus energized to look upward, heavenward, away from embittering and dividing temptations to the unifying as well as beatifying prospect of your Lord's Return.
He closes here his long, wise, tender appeal and counsel about the "unhappy divisions" of the Roman Mission. He has led his readers as it were all round the subject. With the utmost tact, and also candour, he has given them his own mind, "in the Lord," on the matter in dispute. He has pointed out to the party of scruple and restriction the fallacy of claiming the function of Christ, and asserting a divine rule where He has not imposed one. He has addressed the "strong," (with whom he agrees in a certain sense,) at much greater length, reminding them of the moral error of making more of any given application of their principle than of the law of love in which the principle was rooted. He has brought both parties to the feet of Jesus Christ as absolute Master. He has led them to gaze on Him as their blessed Example, in His infinite self-oblivion for the cause of God, and of love. He has poured out before them the prophecies, which tell at once the Christian Judaist and the ex-pagan convertthat in the eternal purpose Christ was given equally to both, in the line of "truth," in the line of "mercy." Now lastly he clasps them impartially to his own heart in this precious and pregnant benediction, beseeching for both sides, and for all their individuals, a wonderful fulness of those blessings in which most speedily and most surelythe spiritof their strife would expire. Let that prayer be granted, in its pure depth and height, and how could "the weak brother" look with quite his old anxiety on the problems suggested by the dishes at a meal, and by the dates of the Rabbinic Calendar? And how could "the capable" bear any longer to lose his joy in God by an assertion, full of self, of his own insight and "liberty"? Profoundly happy and at rest in their Lord, whom they embraced by faith as their Righteousness and Life, and whom they anticipated in hope as their coming Glory; filled through their whole consciousness, by the indwelling Spirit, with a new insight intoChrist; they would fall into each other's embrace, in Him. They would be much more ready, when they met, to speak "concerning the King" than to begin a new stage of their not very elevating discussion.
How many a Church controversy, now as then, would die of inanition, leaving room for a living truth, if the disputants could onlygravitate, as to their always most beloved theme, to the praises and glories of their redeemingLordHimself! It is at His feet, and in His arms, that we best understand both His truth, and the thoughts, rightful or mistaken, of our brethren. Meanwhile, let us take this benedictory prayer, as we may take it, from its instructive context, and carry it out with us into all the contexts of life. What the Apostle prayed for the Romans, in view of their controversies,he prays for us, as for them, in view of everything. Let us "stand back and look at the picture." Here—conveyed in this strong petition—is St Paul's idea of the true Christian's true life, and the true life of the true Church. What are the elements, and what is the result?
It is a life lived in direct contact with God. "Nowthe God of hopefill you." He remits them here (as above, ver. 5) from even himself to the Living God. In a sense, he sends them even from "the things fore-written," to the Living God; not in the least to disparage the Scriptures, but because the great function of the divine Word, as of the divine Ordinances, is to guide the soul intoan immediateintercourse with the Lord God in His Son, and to secure it therein. God is to deal direct with the Romans. He is to manipulate, He is to fill, their being.
It is a life not starved or straitened, but full. "The God of hopefill you." The disciple, and the Church, is not to live as if grace were like a stream "in the year of drought," now settled into an almost stagnant deep, then struggling with difficulty over the stones of the shallow. The man, and the Society, are to live and work in tranquil but moving strength, "rich" in the fruits of their Lord's "poverty" (2 Cor. viii. 9); filled out of His fulness; never, spiritually, at a loss for Him; never, practically, having to do or bear except in His large and gracious power.
It is a life bright and beautiful; "filled withall joy and peace." It is to shew a surface fair with the reflected sky of Christ, Christ present, Christ to come. A sacred while open happiness and a pure internal repose is to be there, born of "His presence, in which is fulness of joy," and of the sure prospect of HisReturn, bringing with it "pleasures for evermore." Like that mysterious ether of which the natural philosopher tells us, this joy, this peace, found and maintained "in the Lord," is to pervadeallthe contents of the Christian life, its moving masses of duty or trial, its interspaces of rest or silence; not always demonstrative but always underlying, and always a living power.
It is a life of faith; "all joy and peacein your believing." That is to say, it is a life dependent for its all upon a Person and His promises. Its glad certainty of peace with God, of the possession of His Righteousness, is by means not of sensations and experiences, but of believing; it comes, and stays, by taking Christ at His word. Its power over temptation, its "victory and triumph against the devil, the world, and the flesh," is by the same means. The man, the Church, takes the Lord at His word;—"I am with you always"; "Through Me thou shalt do valiantly";—and faith, that is to say, Christ trusted in practice, is "more than conqueror."
It is a life overflowing with the heavenly hope; "that ye may aboundin the hope." Sure of the past, and of the present, it is—what out of Christ no life can be—sure of the future. The golden age, for this happy life, is in front, and is no Utopia. "Now is our salvation nearer"; "We look for that blissful (μακαρίαν) hope, the appearing of our great God and Saviour"; "Them which sleep in Him God will bring with Him"; "We shall be caught up together with them; we shall ever be with the Lord"; "They shall see His face; thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty."
And all this it is as a life lived "in the power of the Holy Ghost." Not by enthusiasm, not by any stimuluswhich self applies to self; not by resources for gladness and permanence found in independent reason or affection; but by the almighty, all-tender power of the Comforter. "The Lord, the Life-Giver," giving life by bringing us to the Son of God, and uniting us to Him, is the Giver and strong Sustainer of the faith, and so of the peace, the joy, the hope, of this blessed life.
"Now it was not written for their sakes only, but for us also," in our circumstances of personal and of common experience. Large and pregnant is the application of this one utterance to the problems perpetually raised by the divided state of organization, and of opinion, in modern Christendom. It gives us one secret, above and below all others, as the sure panacea, if it may but be allowed to work, for this multifarious malady which all who think deplore. That secret is "the secret of the Lord, which is with them that fear Him" (Psal. xxv. 14). It is a fuller life in the individual, and so in the community, of the peace and joy of believing; a larger abundance of "that blessed hope," given by that power for which numberless hearts are learning to thirst with a new intensity, "the power of the Holy Ghost."
It was in that direction above all that the Apostle gazed as he yearned for the unity, not only spiritual but practical, of the Roman saints. This great master of order, this man made for government, alive with all his large wisdom to the sacred importance, in its true place, of the external mechanism of Christianity, yet makes no mention of it here, nay, scarcely gives one allusion to it in the whole Epistle. The word "Church" is not heard till the final chapter; and then it is used only, or almost only, of the scattered mission-stations, or even mission-groups, in their individuality.The ordered Ministry only twice, and in the most passing manner, comes into the long discourse; in the words (xii. 6-8) about prophecy, ministration, teaching, exhortation, leadership; and in the mention (xvi. 1) of Phœbe's relation to the Cenchrean Church. He is addressing the saints of that great City which was afterwards, in the tract of time, to develop into even terrific exaggerations the idea of Church Order. But he has practically nothing to say to them about unification and cohesion beyond this appeal to hold fast together by drawing nearer each and all to the Lord, and so filling each one his soul and life with Him.
Our modern problems must be met with attention, with firmness, with practical purpose, with due regard to history, and with submission to revealed truth. But if they are to be solved indeed they must be met outside the spirit of self, and in the communion of the Christian with Christ, by the power of the Spirit of God.