Romans 12 is founded on the doctrine of Romans 1-8. The believers at Rome are thus described as having obeyed the form of doctrine delivered unto them. They had been justified and saved in Christ on the ground of His death and resurrection, and by faith in Him. All was on the ground of pure mercy and grace as we have just seen in Romans 11:31. The Gentiles who once disbelieved had obtained mercy through Israel’s unbelief; so now, Israel had disbelieved in the mercy extended to the Gentile that they also might obtain mercy, that is, might come in at the end, on the ground of pure sovereign mercy, after having utterly failed in their responsibility, and rejected the promises. Now in this practical part of the epistle he applies all this compassion of God shown to objects who had utterly failed in their responsibility, and yet had been picked up and saved and made objects of God’s mercy, as a motive to entire devotedness to Him.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the tender mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. What different morality to that under law! Under it, man in the flesh had to obey given commands, and so give a righteousness to God; here the flesh is given up! I am laid on the altar of God, and my body is presented on the ground of the death and resurrection of Christ a living sacrifice, set apart, acceptable to God, which is our intelligent service. It is as we bear about in the body the dying or putting to death of the Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus will be manifested in our bodies. The ministry of righteousness has written Christ on our hearts, and it is as the death has power over the old nature that the life will manifest itself. We are called to be imitators of that devoted One who offered Himself to God for a sweet smelling savor. We are associated with Christ dead and risen; let our walk be worthy of this position and flowing from it! This is Christian morality!
But if I am dead and risen, what have I got to do with the world? I am out of it, just as Israel after having crossed the Red Sea was out of Egypt! What have I to do with Egypt’s fashions, Egypt’s clothes, Egypt’s flesh pots! Conformity to the world is a shame for a Christian! It is linked with the flesh, on which the ministry of the Spirit writes death! But if I let that Spirit work, I am transformed by the renewing of my mind; and the power to do this, is to have the heart occupied with Christ in glory, (see 2 Cor. 3:18). In that way I learn now what good and evil is; it is by a new rule, even by Christ in glory! I prove daily what the will of God is! Thus the body presented a living sacrifice to God, nonconformity to the world, and being transformed by the renewing of the mind fill up the Christian morality of this passage.
When we are thus devoted to the Lord we find ourselves amongst a new set of people, unknown before but now known to us. They are members of the body of Christ. Are we to seek high things for ourselves here, like we did when in the world? No, just the contrary. We are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith! We are to find out each our place in the body and to fill; it up to God’s glory.
Romans 12:4. The truth of the Assembly being the body of Christ, is here brought in to show the relative bearing of Christians one to another. All members have not the same office. Thus we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. The members of our bodies, though many, do not interfere one with another; so is it in the assembly of God! There are different gifts; whether prophecy, or service, or teaching, or exhortation, or giving, on ruling, let each one use his gift according to his faith in responsibility to the Head alone. Here, perfect liberty of ministry is brought out. There is no mention here of man’s interference and man’s ordination. Every one if he has a gift is responsible to the Lord alone to use it. This is not the license of the flesh but the liberty of the Spirit. Notice also, these gifts flow out from one body, not from many bodies. We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
Exhortations follow which enter into the minutest concerns of daily life. Let love be without hypocrisy, let not shyness, conventional usages, or selfishness hinder me showing it. Abhorring evil, and cleaving to that which is good, be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love. In honor each one taking the lead to pay it to the other. As to diligent zealousness, not slothful, in spirit fervent, serving the Lord. As regarded hope, rejoicing; as regarded tribulation enduring, persevering in prayer. Is a saint in need? Help him. Is a saint or even a stranger passing by the road? Open thy house to him. Are you persecuted? Bless them that curse you; Do any rejoice? Rejoice with them; Do any weep? Weep with them. In respect to one another, think the same thing, not thinking high things, but going along with the lowly. Not wise in our own eyes, recompensing to no man evil for evil; providing things honest in the sight of all men. Everything is summed up in the little verse, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” If I am insulted, trampled upon, spitted upon like the Lord, what matters it? He gives His power. When He was reviled, He reviled not again, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. He overcame evil with good in His life; He overcame it in death and rose conqueror over it all. Having been made conquerors through His victorious life, let us be followers of Him Subjection to the higher powers, owing nothing to any but to love one another, and watchfulness in the anticipation of our full salvation, fill up chapter 8. Let every soul be subject to the authorities that are above him. There is no authority except from God, and those that exist are set up by God; rulers and magistrates are the ministers of God in temporal matters for good. If I resist them I resist the ordinance of God.
Second, owe no man anything unless it be to love one another. He that loveth another has fulfilled the law. All the commandments mentioned are summed up in the word, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Love therefore is the fulfilling of the law; it is the character of the new nature; it fulfills it by the power of the Spirit without being under it. It is literally the fullness of it.
Third, and now, knowing the time, it was high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation (that of the body when the Lord comes), nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Paul exhibits himself here as the servant waking up God’s household in view of the coming of the Lord; “Wake up,” put off your night clothes, put on your day clothes, the Lord is coming. Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof. Practical Christian life shows itself in starving the flesh, and putting on more of Christ every day.
One more thing remained, and that was a matter of minor differences between Jews and Gentiles. There were questions of meats and observing days, which brought out the need of forbearance one with another (Rom. 14). The Jews coming out of Judaism had especially difficulties about these matters. Those who saw their liberty are exhorted to forbearance, and to receive the weak brother. Who were they to judge another man’s servant? To his own master he stood or fell. Jesus was their Lord.
If we live, we live to the Lord; if we die, we die to the Lord, living and dying, we are the Lord’s. To this end Christ died and rose again that He might rule over dead and living. Why dost thou then judge thy brother? for we shall all be placed before the judgment seat of Christ. Everyone there would have to give an account of himself to God. This is applied wholly here to those questions that might arise amongst brethren. The judgment of the dead wicked will not take place till one thousand years after this. (See Rev. 20).
The great thing, instead of judging, was not to be a stumbling-block or occasion of falling to my brother. If my brother is offended with my meat, I give it up rather than stumble him. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. We are not to let our good be evil spoken of. The kingdom of God was not meat or drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
The great thing was to follow after the things that made for peace, and that edified one another. It is not right to eat meat or drink wine nor anything whereby my brother is stumbled or made weak. If I have faith, have it to myself before God. Blessed is he that does not judge himself in what he allows. But he that doubts is condemned if he eat, because it is not of faith, but whatever is not of faith is sin.
If I am strong, and through this see my liberty in such matters, yet I am to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not please myself. We should seek to please our neighbor for his edification by the example of Christ, who in pleasing His Father brought Himself under the reproach of them that reproached God. (Comp. Psa. 69:9, with John 2:17.)
A quotation of the Scriptures is here brought in, and it is connected with the God of the Scriptures, who wrote everything for our learning, that we through endurance and the comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. And then God is shown to be the God of patience or endurance, and consolation. Might He cause the saints to be like-minded according to Christ Jesus, that we may with one accord and one month glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In this spirit of forbearance the Christians were to receive one another, even the weakest, as Christ also received them to the glory of God.
The general subject of the epistle here closes. The apostle just gives a summing up of what he had said before as to the ministry of Jesus Christ. He was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers. (Comp. Acts 13:32-35.) The Gentiles only had a part through mercy, and through Israel (see Psa. 18:49; Dent. 32:43; Psa. 117:1; Isaiah 9:1-10). The apostle looks on here to the millennial day, and prays that the God of hope might fill the believers with all joy and peace in believing, that they might abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit! Beautiful connection between the God of hope and the coming scene of blessing into which believers are to be introduced.
From Romans 15:14-21 he excuses his writing to them by setting before them his own ministry. God had called him by His grace to be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. He likens himself, in Romans 15:16, to a priest offering up the Gentiles to God through the gospel service as an accepted offering, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. This was his special service, as Peter’s was to the Jews, as we have already seen, and distinctly marking off the heavenly character of the present dispensation from all preceding, even from the ministry of Jesus Christ whilst He was on earth, which was in connection with confirming the promises made to the fathers, as we have seen. Thus a heavenly people are being called out to have their part in the future scene, besides the earthly blessing coming to Jew and Gentile mentioned in Romans 15:8-12.
In connection with this ministry to the Gentiles he speaks of his work (Rom. 15:17-22), and then speaks of his coming to them at Rome. But in the meanwhile he was going up to Jerusalem to minister to the saints. There had been a contribution made for them by the Gentile assemblies. When therefore he had performed this ministry he would come to them by God’s will, and in connection with this visit to Jerusalem he prays to be delivered from the unbelievers in Judæa, ending up with the salutation, “Now the God of peace be with you.” He is the God of patience and consolations, if there are difficulties betwixt brethren (Rom. 5:5). He is the God of hope when a coming Christ, and the future blessing of Jew and Gentile are looked for (Rom. 15:13); and the God of peace when he looks for turmoil and trouble in Judæa (Rom. 15:33).
Salutations to various saints, and exhortations to beware of those who cause divisions, close the epistle. A blessed ending! We are introduced into the family circle, and shown God’s delight in His people. The earthly kings of Israel and Judah had chronicles written of them. God writes chronicles of His heavenly saints. Every one of their characters and deeds is written in heaven. The sisters are especially mentioned here. They all have their sphere of services for the Lord. They may be servants of the assembly, (like Phoebe,) succorers of many; helpers in Christ Jesus like Priscilla, who with her husband Aquila, were the first with whom the apostle sojourned in Corinth. These were willing to lay down their necks for the apostle, for whom the whole assembly gave thanks. The assembly apparently met in their house (Rom. 16:5). Others also bestowed much labor on these servants of the Lord, labored much in the Lord like the beloved Persia. Nothing is too little to be put down. Epænetus was the firstfruits of Achaia unto Christ. Amplias is his well-beloved in the Lord. Apelles is approved in Christ. What a bond! The little words, “in the Lord,” “in Christ,” are mentioned ten times in the first 16 verses. They speak of unity! Of Him in whom the saints find their common place above. They speak of the ground of all their union and blessing. Christ is in them all; they are in Christ. The world has no part in this holy circle. They are outside it all, they are “in Christ.”
But if they are “in Christ,” and thus separated, men causing trouble may still come in. He exhorted the saints to beware of those causing divisions and contention, contrary to the doctrine they have learned, and to avoid them. By such strange doctrines parties would be formed, and the doctrine was to be the test. The saints were expected to prove that doctrine, and thus to be able to test the teachers by it. What is it, my reader, as set forth in this blessed epistle?
First (Rom. 1:18; 3:20), the necessity for the gospel is brought out, man, whether Gentile or Jew, being looked at as guilty and under sentence of death for his sins, with no righteousness for God, and God as a Judge going to judge him.
Second (Rom. 3:20; Rom. 8), God is revealed in His righteousness and love, as Justifier, Reconciler and Deliverer through Jesus and His blood. First (up to Rom. 5:12), justifying the believer from his sins, and reconciling him to Himself. Second (from Rom. 5:12; 8), delivering from the power of sin, (man being looked at in this part as a slave of sin by birth) and giving him a new standing in justification of life in Christ before Him, in a life to which no condemnation can be attached, and from which there can be no separation. The Holy Spirit seals faith in the death and resurrection of Christ for justification and peace in Romans 5:5, and deliverance and a new standing in Christ in Romans 8:2-9. Third (Rom. 9-11), Israel as a nation had the place of privilege and the promises, but they failed in responsibility, and were now for a time set aside, the Gentiles taking their place on the ground of sovereign grace, and the righteousness which is by faith; but to be finally restored on the ground of sovereign mercy at the second coming of the Lord from heaven.
Fourthly, the mercies of God are now applied to the believer’s walk. On the ground of his place in Christ dead and risen, his body is to be presented to God a living sacrifice. The world left behind, he is not to be conformed to, but Christ being his present object, he is to be transformed by the renewing of his mind. He has got a new corporate place, too, outside the world, as a member of the body of Christ, and he is to realize his place in it, and act it out as in relationship with Christ and all the members of His body. He is to be subject to the powers that be, owing no man anything but love, watching for the coming of the Lord; tender to and ready to receive his weak brethren, and respecting their consciences, in view of the judgment seat of Christ. Such in short summary is the doctrine of the epistle.
If teachers as tested by this doctrine did not bring it they were to be avoided, as causing division. They might belong to the saints themselves, and even arise amongst the elders (see Acts 20:30). They were to be avoided. No office or gift was to hinder the saints in carrying out this rule. A great mark would be, they serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly. In the midst of divisions the saints are thrown upon the God of peace. He will bruise Satan, the author of divisions, under their feet shortly. Different salutations ensue which close the epistle.
A little appendix is added in which the mystery of the assembly is alluded to (Eph. 3:3-11; 5:32; Col. 1:26-28; 2:2). The apostle desires the establishment of the saints, first, according to his gospel; second, according to the mystery.
The general subject of the epistle has been to individuals. Their corporate relationships have hardly been touched. These are however founded on the truths brought out in this epistle. The doctrine of the assembly is fully brought out in the Epistle to the Ephesians. The mystery had been hid up to this time, but was now made manifest in the prophetic scriptures. Up to Christ God had been dealing with man, or with a nation called out from the other nations, but still, good and evil all mixed up together, and separated from the Gentiles by their legal system.
Now the gospel went out to Jew and Gentile alike, and those who received it were saved out of the world and out of Judaism, and united to Christ in heaven by the Holy Spirit, in which unity they formed one body, to be manifested in this world as such; such was the mystery that was unknown in the Old Testament times. It was now revealed, and all nations were required to obey; God was to have all the glory.
“Now to Him that is able to stablish you according to my gospel,” says the apostle, (this is the first thing); then, secondly, “according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret before the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the prophetic scriptures, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith; to God only wise be glory through Christ Jesus forever. Amen.”
May the reader be led on to see the beauties of this mystery, and to learn all the spiritual blessings in heavenly places he has in Christ.
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