Romans 15:14-33
Boasting in the Gospel
Last week we saw that we glorify God as Christians by accepting and loving those whom God has accepted by His grace.
For this particular congregation in Rome that meant that the Jewish Christians should fully accept and welcome the Gentile Christians as full members of God’s family and vice versa. But why should they accept one another?
Well, it all begins with God accepting the Jewish people by sending His own Son to be their servant in fulfilling all the promises He made to the Jewish people (v. 8). But God never intended to serve only Abraham from out among the nations of the world in order to keep the Jewish people eternally separate from the Gentiles.
From the very beginning God chose Abraham as an instrument of blessing to all the nations of the world (v. 9). The Jewish people were called out to serve the nations as God’s voice of redemption and this wasn’t a promise made only in a few isolated places in the OT. Paul takes passages from every portion of the Hebrew Bible – the writings, the prophets, and the law – to show that God’s purpose of blessing the nations has always been God’s plan of the ages.
In vv. 9 and 11, Paul quotes from the writings -- Ps. 18:49 and 117:1. In v. 10, Paul quotes from the law – Deut. 32:43. And in v. 12 Paul quotes from Isa. 11:10. Together these passages remind us that God had chosen the Jewish people to be a blessing to all the nations who had not known the promises of God so that through the promised Seed – the root of Jesse (v. 12) – they might all stand together – Jew and Gentile – in the courts of God’s heavenly throne and praise and glorify him.
And it is the work of Christ alone at the cross that the God of all hope has filled each of you with all joy and peace so that even you Gentiles might abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
Think of that because of the grace that God has shown both to the Jews and the Gentiles in Christ, they have become fellow brothers and sisters of the same family of God. And as we see in 15:7, God delights in us – it brings Him all glory – when he sees his people love one another and accept those he has accepted in His Son.
Now beginning in v. 14, Paul commends the Romans for the spiritual maturity. Even though Paul had never previously visited the church, he knows of their mature faith most likely because he has fellow co-workers in the gospel who are among them, Prisca and Aquila (16:3-5) who are probably reporting back to him regarding the faith of the Roman Christians.
Paul commends them for their “fullness of goodness” and their “being filled with all knowledge.” By “fullness of goodness,” Paul is referring to their incomparable kindness and generosity towards others. Their “being filled with all knowledge” refers to their growth in the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The one so wonderfully flows out of the other. The more and more you grow in the knowledge of your union with Jesus Christ the more and more you grow in your kindness towards others.
And it is because of their knowledge of the gospel and their living out the implications of the gospel in their showing kindness towards others that Paul says they are able to admonish or encourage others with the same words of grace.
So, you may wonder, if the Romans are this knowledgeable of the good news of Christ and it is being worked out so beautifully in their daily lives then why has Paul written such an impressive letter in the first place? Paul says in v. 15 that he has written so boldly in order to “remind” them of the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
You see, this is the heart of the preaching and teaching of the Word. We gather together not to learn something new that no one has ever heard of before, but to be reminded each week that Jesus Christ has done what we could not do. That your life is hidden in Him and that you are now becoming what you already are in Him.
Just look back over the whole letter to the Romans! What is Paul doing but drawing out the full understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ – the power of God to salvation – and its implications for your life?
In fact, we could say that the book of Romans is what Paul went everywhere to preach – it is the full counsel of God that he speaks about in Acts 20:27. When Paul says that he came to Corinth knowing nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2) he was talking about what he wrote in Romans.
But why was Paul so adamant about knowing nothing but Christ and Him crucified? Because what else is there? Paul too was once a sinner trying to work his hardest to get to heaven. In fact, he thought he was doing OK until God interrupted his life on the road to Damascus and like hitting a brick wall Paul was forever changed by the grace of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
And now, by that same grace, God has chosen Paul to take the message of comfort and hope to the nations (v. 16). The same gospel that made Paul a new creature has called him to be a servant of the gospel to the Gentile people. You will remember Paul’s own commission on that day:
Acts 9:15-16 "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; 16 for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake."
Paul himself said in Romans 1:
Romans 1:5-6 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles, for His name's sake, 6 among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ; Romans 1:13-15 And I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented thus far) in order that I might obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 Thus, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
And in Galatians 1:
Galatians 1:15-16 5 But when He who had set me apart, even from my mother's womb, and called me through His grace, was pleased 16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles,
That’s why he is writing to the Roman Christians. A church filled primarily of Gentiles is fully within the scope of Paul’s mission to serve them with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paul further describes his ministry to the Gentiles in priestly terms (v. 16) that he might offer up the newly reborn Gentile people as a sacrifice of praise to God. The means of sacrifice to bring them to God is the gospel of Christ. Jesus Christ is the sacrifice that has fulfilled all the OT temple sacrifices and in Him Paul is now offering up these Christians as a sacrifice of praise that is pleasing to God and who have been sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Imagine the incredible pleasure and joy God receives as he watches from His heavenly throne to see the congregation of His people being filled moment by moment as the church proclaims the good news of Jesus Christ and the Spirit draws each new member of the family of God into His presence of love.
Again we can add that not only do we glorify God by our full enjoyment of Him AND by our acceptance and love of those whom He has accepted in Christ, but as you seek the welfare of the sinner by serving him or her sacrificially with the message of the gospel of Christ. As you take the gospel to your neighbor, as you invite others to come and hear the preaching of the good news of Christ, the Spirit is working through your sacrificial efforts to make them an acceptable offering to God through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
In fact, in v. 17 Paul joins in on the joy of heaven and begins to boast about these things of God which have come to you all through Jesus Christ. There is nothing that fills Paul’s heart with more joy than to see God pleased with the offering he bears to God – the offering of these new believers who have trusted in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.
And notice where Paul’s boasting centers: on Jesus Christ. There is no boasting in his own hands, because he knows that the entire offering from beginning to end is only because of the grace of God.
In v. 18 he makes this clear. All that he has done is simply be a vehicle, a vessel through which Jesus Christ has loved, called, and wooed the Gentile believers until they have rested from their works and rested in Jesus Christ. Even the great signs and wonders that testified to Paul’s unique role as an apostle to the Gentiles was manifested only in the power of the Spirit (v. 19)
Paul’s success in ministry is due only to the fact that he has simply made Christ known and God has done all the rest (vv. 18-19). But as we saw earlier in v. 15 that even Paul’s making Christ known was only by the grace of God. That is why Paul boasts in Jesus alone. It His ministry entirely, Paul just gets to tag along for the ride and rejoice in all that God is doing to make Him happy in the sacrificial work of His beloved Son.
Paul’s mission work has taken him all the way from Jerusalem to Illyricum and everywhere in between (v. 19). He preached the gospel in all these new places where Christ was not yet named because he believed that Christ had specifically chosen him to take the gospel further and further into the world AND Paul sees this as the fulfillment of Isa. 52:15 that those who received no news will hear and those who have not heard will understand (vv. 20-21).
But throughout all of this Paul has longed to come and visit the Christians in Rome. However, the pressing needs of the work in Asia Minor have prevented him from fulfilling his wishes (v. 22).
But now having completed that work, Paul is now free to move on and come and see them on his way to Spain (vv. 23-24a). He is looking forward to coming to them to enjoy their company and receive their support for his mission work in Spain (v. 24b) but before he comes he has one more obligation back in Jerusalem that he must finish first (v. 25).
Paul must take the gift of the Gentile churches to share with the poor in the churches in Jerusalem (v. 26). Jerusalem was currently suffering from a great famine and the Christians there were in need. Throughout his 3rd missionary journey, Paul had been receiving a collection from the Gentile churches to help alleviate the hardship of their brothers and sisters back in Jerusalem.
Now why was Paul sharing all of this with the church at Rome? Most likely because they themselves are struggling with a conflict within their own church between the Jewish and Gentile Christians and Paul saw this gift from the Gentile churches in Macedonia and Achaia to the saints in Jerusalem as a tangible expression of their new found unity in Christ. This is what Paul means in v. 27.
Think of all that the Gentiles have received from the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. They were the recipients of all the promises God made to Israel and it was to them that the Messiah was revealed (cf. Eph. 2). There is a sense in which all these things rightly belonged to the Jewish people but because of the universal scope of the Messiah’s work, the Gentiles have been made to share in all of these incredible blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now, Paul reminds the Roman Christians of this fact and that the Gentile Christians have almost an obligation to care for the needs of their Jewish brothers and sisters as a way of giving thanks and showing their love for the spiritual blessings they have received.
But there is also a sense in which the Jewish Christians must receive the offering from their Gentile brothers and sisters in order to acknowledge that the gospel has indeed gone out into all the earth as God had promised.
In v. 28, Paul once again returns to his main point that he plans to come to Rome on his way to Spain once he has completed his work in Jerusalem. And he is so looking forward to his time with them knowing what a real blessing in Christ he will experience with them (v. 29).
Now in order for Paul to come to them, he has to make it safely to Jerusalem and then to Rome, so Paul asks the Roman Christians to pray for him (vv. 30-33). The language Paul uses is very strong – they are to “strive together” or “wrestle” with Paul in their prayers to God for Paul. They are to do this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and out of the love that flows into our hearts from the Holy Spirit.
Paul’s entire ministry is characterized by striving and much struggles. One thing is for sure, if Paul ever measured his success in ministry by the external circumstances of his life, he would have been a complete favor. But remember from earlier that Paul saw his success in preaching Christ alone. His success was measured by faithfulness to the simplicity of the gospel, not by the results.
Again we see here the nature of our love for one another in the body of Christ. Paul is asking these Romans Christians to help shoulder the burden he is carrying through their prayers to God. He asks for prayer regarding his personal safety as well as his reception in Jerusalem in their acceptance of the gift (v. 31). Paul has in mind the Judaizers who have followed him all over the Roman empire causing great trouble for him. And they were putting pressure on the Jewish believers in Jerusalem to not receive this Gentile gift. So Paul is asking the Romans to specifically ask that God will answer this prayer.
He asks all of this so that he might finally come to them in joy and find refreshment in their presence (v. 32).
At the end of the day, Paul reminds his readers that all his plans are ultimately determined by God’s will (v. 32) as James said:
James 4:13-15 13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that."
Now we can certainly see how God answered Paul’s prayer. Once he completed his ministry to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, he did make his way to Rome, but in chains. And then truly the Roman Christians have an opportunity to shoulder the burdens of Paul and minister to him for the years he is locked up in Rome.
He completes the prayer by asking that the God of peace be with you all. The OT prophets rebuked the false prophets for claiming peace to God’s people when there is no peace. In fact, Paul says in Romans 1:18. How can he encourage the church with such peace now? That is what the whole book is about: what God has done for you to bring you his peace through Jesus Christ.
Amen!
-SDG-
