ROMANS 15 (NOTES OF A READING)
ROMANS 15 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC It is noticeable how the apostle brings everything into this epistle, we get everything suggested in it.
Rem The foundations are great and comprehensive enough for the superstructure.
CAC Well, they involve the superstructure. So in this epistle the kingdom of God really secures everything, and I suppose the truth of the kingdom of God is the great truth of the epistle. Thus one of the last things spoken of is the testimony of the glad tidings.
Ques. Why the last?
CAC Well, it is noticeable that it is so. The kingdom of God results in that, in universal evangelising. It is good to get the general setting of the epistle before us.
Chapters 3, 4 and 5 are seeing the kingdom of God; they involve new birth.
Chapters 6, 7 and 8 are entering into the kingdom of God; that requires being born of water and of the Spirit, and the presence of the Spirit.
In chapters 12 - 15, it is how it all works out in every sphere of life; that is, in how the saints behave as one body in Christ, in relation to the powers that be, in regard to the weak believer, one weak in the faith and having scruples, and it does not stop short of the service of God, God being praised with one mouth and one voice; and Christ singing praise in the midst of the Gentiles, and the Levites being offered up to God, that great wave-offering of the Gentiles — it seems to widen out, and then finally the glad tidings going out universally.
Rem I suppose the more we grow in the knowledge of God the more universal our outlook is, and the more intense our desire that men should [p. 589] know God.
CAC Yes. The apostle does not tell them to evangelise everybody, but he tells them what he does himself, he leads the way. It is helpful to notice that he secures God’s portion first, the saints being unified in the praise of God.
Ques Would you say the service of God comes before the gospel?
CAC Some of us when we were young had an idea that if we had a good morning meeting the preaching would be all right, and it was a good idea. What you find in this epistle is that everything is secured because the assembly is secured and its service; because, though not formally there, it is there in substance. It is beautiful to think of the apostle going out with this great service to secure the Gentiles and offering them, as Aaron waved the Levites before God — because he is the great Aaron of this dispensation, waving the Levites before God. It has in view that God should be known in the hearts of men so that they cannot help breaking forth in united praise and glory to God.
Rem If the preacher has not the service of God primarily in view, the gospel will fall short of the purpose of God.
CAC Those who do not consider for the service of God cannot present the fulness of the gospel of Christ. The confidence of Paul is delightful. “I know ... I shall come in the fulness of the blessing of Christ”. He has absolute confidence. What God is going to get is what governs him.
Ques Would “the fulness of the blessing of Christ” be greater than ‘the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of the Christ’?
CAC It seems to centre things more in the Person of Christ.
Rem Would this not be what Paul did at Philippi in the prison? He was concerned that God should get His portion, and then men came into blessing.
Ques Are these signs and wonders initial?
CAC I think it is the remarkable testimony that God gave at the beginning, so manifest in signs and wonders there [p. 590] was no getting over it. That is, it was evident there was a power there for the deliverance of man, it was seen outwardly. It was for the obedience of the nations — with that in view. So in Acts 4 they prayed that God would stretch forth His hand to heal, and so forth.
Rem This was a very big circuit.
CAC Yes, and he now has the ends of the earth before him, for Spain was the limit of the Roman world.
Ques Would you think that he refrained from building on another’s foundation because he recognised his service had a peculiar touch and character about it?
CAC Yes, I thought so. He preferred to start at the beginning. It is extraordinary that he can take the place of having fully preached the gospel in this small area; it shows what a small part of Paul’s service has been recorded. We know in our day how difficult it is to help souls that have had a bad start. There are those men going about preaching the gospel who have not been sent. Paul says, “As a wise architect, I have laid the foundation”. He knew then it had been properly laid; he could not have spoken in confidence of the work of others.
Ques Many have been wrongly instructed in the gospel, would you say?
CAC Most of the difficulties believers have today arise from their ignorance of the gospel!
Ques Was it preached right in the first place?
CAC Yes — by the apostles. But if souls have been damaged by a defective gospel it is not at all easy to get them into line for the service of God. Normally the glad tidings secure a company of persons so full of joy in God in the power of the Spirit that they must break forth in praise to Him, and the substance of their praise is Christ and all that God is bringing in through Christ. How can anyone take part in the service of God if he does not know that he is in Christ? A vast majority of believers have no notion of what it means to be in Christ.
[p. 591] Rem You could go on building on that, it would not be a defective gospel.
CAC You might have to go on clearing away a good deal of rubbish, before building on that. Souls need to be instructed in Christ, in the truth of His Person. “Aiming to announce the glad tidings, not where — Christ has been named”. I suppose that an evangelist would instinctively seek to work on this line, he would try to find people who did not know the gospel at all.
Rem Virgin soil would produce a better crop.
CAC No one is in the good of the gospel till he knows in the power of the Spirit that he is in Christ and that Christ is in him; and until he knows that, he could not possibly have liberty Godward.
Ques What do we understand ourselves by being in Christ?
CAC I think we learn first through the glad tidings that we are in Christ for righteousness, that we have a righteousness that could not possibly be improved upon. All centres in a living Person now glorified in heaven; it could not possibly be improved upon. It was a good day for us when we learnt that.
Rem So that faith is in the Person rather than the work.
CAC ‘I am trusting in the finished work of Christ’ is a very common answer, but trusting in the finished work of Christ will not give you the consciousness of being in Christ, and I would not like to say such have the Spirit.
Rem “In whom we have redemption through his blood” (Ephesians 1: 7).
CAC And, “In whom” we are sealed. Paul’s gospel was a wonderful gospel; it concerned a risen and glorified Man.
Rem Otherwise I should fall into the grievous error of bettering myself.
CAC It is quite a different thing to be set up in a different Man altogether. I am not set up in myself, but in [p. 592] a Man that never did sin! All is in the value of the work of Christ, but in Scripture faith is usually connected with Persons: with God or with Christ. It is not believing statements or things, but coming into contact with divine Persons, so that these Persons are the object of faith. The result of the death of Christ is, we can be in Christ and we can have the Holy Spirit. It is the death of Christ that is the foundation for both. Trusting in the finished work of Christ might take us as far as thanksgiving. And God has provided perfectly for His own satisfaction, and those that believe and receive the Spirit He brings into His own satisfaction.
Rem “Who by him do believe on God, who has raised him from among the dead and given him glory, that your faith and hope should be in God” (1 Peter 1: 21). That takes the soul completely outside itself and places it with God.
CAC Then he speaks of the contribution made for the saints at Jerusalem. That was an active result of the kingdom of God being set up, the natural selfishness of the natural mind displaced and believers made willing to contribute to those in need in far-off lands. It is remarkable that he does not say to the Romans that they should have a collection for them; he leaves it entirely to them. I dare say at the first care meeting after, they said to one another, Those Greeks have been sending to Jerusalem and we had better do a bit! In the New Testament, giving is left entirely to their own option.
Rem It is really the principle of the heart offering, according as every man’s heart prompted him.
CAC It is contemptible the way christendom is after people to get money out of them.
Rem It is remarkable that the Gentile contributed to the Jew, thus the other way round; it shows the fruit of the gospel.
Rem It speaks of participation in, there is a sort of mutuality in it.
Rem There is a sharing of what belonged to all.
CAC There is the principle of equality, which is a great principle with God. There will probably be more room [p. 593] for that if the Lord does not come soon. This is the fruit of Paul’s ministry taking form practically, it is the one body tangibly. It was a test to the Gentiles to give, and it was a great test to the poor Jews to receive the gift. There was every possibility that they would spurn it, and the apostle felt that (verses 30, 31).
Ques “The love of the Spirit” (verse 30) — does it refer to it in the saints, or as a divine Person?
CAC My own impression is it refers to the love that the Spirit produced in the hearts of the saints. He brings in our Lord Jesus Christ and then “by the love of the Spirit”. It is what these divine Persons would bring about in the hearts of the saints. It was a great binding together of saints, and we have seen something of it in our times; the affection of our brethren in other lands has gone beyond our needs.
Ques Would you say it was never comely to refuse any ministration offered to us?
CAC It is difficult sometimes to know what to do even on that line.
Rem If divine love prompts to give, divine love would prompt to receive.
CAC Yes, that is just as it ought to be. Sometimes there is a reason not to receive. The apostle said once he would rather die than receive a gift from some. It needs grace on both sides, but on both sides the glory of God is the great end in view. God is to be glorified in the receiving as well as in the giving.
Rem In the first epistle of John it is found in its setting.