Romans 15:13

Christ received us while we were sinful and weak, and he gave us grace, forgiveness and salvation apart from any merit of ours. His welcome takes in his coming in the flesh, his ministry among sinners, his death on the cross and his standing invitation to all who come to him by faith. During his ministry the tax collectors and sinners drew near to hear him, and the Pharisees complained that he received sinners and ate with them (Luke 15:1–2). He called Levi the tax collector and sat down at Levi’s feast (Luke 5:27–32). He said of himself that the Son of man came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).

The cross is the greatest act of that welcome. There Christ bore our sins, reconciled us to God, and broke down “the middle wall of partition” between Jew and Gentile to make of the two “one new man” (Ephesians 2:11–22). All who believe in him are received into God’s own family as his children (John 1:12–13). So when believers receive one another, they are showing in their life together the reconciling work of Christ himself.

The word dóxa means glory, honour and praise. The welcome believers give each other serves God’s honour, because a church that lives in this way lets the world see who God is and what the gospel does. Jesus prayed that his people would all be one, so that the world might believe the Father had sent him (John 17:21). Paul pictures the church as one body with many members (1 Corinthians 12), held together by a love that lets go of its own way (1 Corinthians 13:5). He asks for the same humble, united mind in Philippians 2:1–4, and for the same patient keeping of the Spirit’s unity in Ephesians 4:1–6.

They are the great covenant promises God gave to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and later to King David. To Abraham he promised a great nation, a land, and blessing for all the families of the earth through him (Genesis 12:1–3). To David he promised a descendant whose throne and kingdom would stand for ever (2 Samuel 7:12–16). All of these pointed forward to the Messiah. Paul says elsewhere that the promised seed of Abraham is Christ (Galatians 3:16), and that every promise of God finds its yea and its Amen in him (2 Corinthians 1:20).

It is the very road by which salvation reached the nations. The promise to Abraham always had the whole earth in view, and when Christ fulfilled it within Israel, the blessing opened to every people. Paul has already worked through this at length in Romans 9–11, where he insists that the word of God to Israel has stood firm (Romans 9:6) and pictures Gentile believers as wild branches grafted into Israel’s olive tree (Romans 11:17–24). Isaiah had heard God say of his Servant, “I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).

This one sentence speaks to both groups in Rome. Jewish believers can see that God has kept faith with them. Gentile believers can see that their salvation grew out of God’s long history with Israel, which keeps them humble toward their Jewish brothers and sisters. Both have been saved by the same faithful God through the same Christ.

The first is from David’s song of deliverance, found in both Psalm 18:49 and 2 Samuel 22:50. David, rescued by God, vows to praise him among the nations. To “confess”, exomologéō, is to acknowledge fully, and to “sing”, psállō, is to make melody or sing psalms. God’s “name” stands for his character and his authority.

Paul hears in David’s words the voice of David’s greater Son. Christ himself leads the praise of God among the Gentiles, and by his saving work he brings them to join in the confession and the song.

The second is from Deuteronomy 32:43. “He saith” refers to God, whose word the Scripture is. “Rejoice” is euphraínō, built from words meaning “well” and “mind”. It means to be glad and to make merry, and here it is a command.

The weight of the line falls on its last three words. “His people”, laós, is the Old Testament’s name for Israel, the nation God chose. The Gentiles are called to rejoice with that people and to share its joy. Paul tells Gentile believers the same thing elsewhere: “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).

The third is Psalm 117:1. “Praise”, ainéō, is the word for praising God, and “the Lord”, kýrios, is the sovereign Master to whom the praise is owed. “All”, pâs, leaves out none of the nations. The second line repeats the first in other words, as Hebrew poetry often does. “Laud” is epainéō, to applaud, a word built on ainéō. “Him”, autós, points back to the Lord, and “people”, laós, here stands side by side with “Gentiles” to take in every people on earth.

In a world where the worship of Israel’s God was thought to belong to Israel alone, this psalm summons everyone. It agrees with the promise God made to Abraham, that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 22:18).

The fourth quotation is the only one that names its author. “Esaias” is Isaiah, and the passage is Isaiah 11:10: “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.”

Jesse was the father of King David. The “root”, rhíza, is a descendant who springs up from David’s family after the royal line looked as if it had been cut down, as fresh growth comes from a living root. It is a title of the Messiah, and it identifies Jesus as the rightful heir to David’s throne, in whom God’s covenant with David is kept for ever.

This king reigns over the Gentiles as well as over Israel. He has risen as Lord, and his authority reaches every nation, as heaven’s song declares when it praises the Lamb for redeeming people “out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Revelation 5:9). John saw the outcome, a multitude beyond counting from all nations, standing before the throne and crying out that salvation belongs to God and to the Lamb (Revelation 7:9–10).

The nations do far better than merely submit to him: “in him shall the Gentiles trust”. The verb elpízō means to hope, to expect and to trust. The Gentiles put their hope in Christ, and that is how they come in, through faith in him. The gospel is for everyone who believes (Romans 1:16), and the risen Christ sent his disciples to all nations (Matthew 28:19). In him the old division is gone: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

Paul is showing that the welcome of the Gentiles was God’s plan from the beginning, announced in Scripture long before it happened. He opened this letter by saying that the gospel was promised beforehand by the prophets in the holy Scriptures (Romans 1:2). For Jewish believers, who revered these books, the proof came from their own Scriptures, so they could receive Gentile believers as people God himself had invited. For Gentile believers, the same texts showed that their place in God’s family was part of his ancient purpose, with nothing second-rate about it. The quotations give both groups one reason to receive each other, which is the word of God.

It means that hope comes from God. He is its source, he sustains it, and he is the one we hope in. Christian hope therefore rests on his unchanging character and his faithful promises, which is why it holds in hard times, when we know that he is working all things together for good to those who love him (Romans 8:28). It is a hope that “maketh not ashamed” (Romans 5:5), and Hebrews calls it an anchor of the soul (Hebrews 6:19). It was given to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3).

Joy and peace come to us “in believing”, that is, as we go on trusting God. Paul asks God to “fill” the believers, and plēróō means to make full, to fill right up, so he is asking for all joy and all peace in generous measure. These are gifts God gives, and faith is the way they are received. Faith has been central to this whole letter, since “the just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17). Because joy and peace are the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23), they can be ours when circumstances are hard. Paul tells the Philippians to bring everything to God in prayer, and promises that the peace of God will keep their hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6–7).

For a church strained by disputes over food and days, this was a very practical prayer. Joy and peace given by God are what make a shared life possible among people who differ.

The filling has a purpose: “that ye may abound in hope”. To abound is to overflow, so this is a hope that keeps growing and spills over. The strength for it is the Spirit’s. dýnamis means power, might or ability, and here it is the power of the Holy Ghost at work in believers. Paul has described that life in the Spirit in Romans 8, where the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in God’s people (Romans 8:11). Jesus promised this power to his disciples before he ascended (Acts 1:8), and it is through Christ that Jew and Gentile alike “have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:18).

The whole Godhead is in this one verse. The God of hope gives, we believe in Christ, and the Holy Ghost supplies the power. With this prayer Paul finishes his appeal for unity, and he turns next to his own mission and his plans to visit Rome on the way to Spain.