THE BOOK OF ROMANS
Lesson 34, Chapter 15
As we continue moving towards the conclusion of our study of Romans and undertake chapter
15, it is helpful to notice that Paul’s instructions to the Believers of Rome shift and become
more general in nature. Up to this point, all through this exceptionally long letter, Paul has
switched back and forth between targeting the gentile part of his audience and then next
targeting the Jewish part. Starting in chapter 15 he is addressing all the Believers of Rome
without distinction.
We barely got started in Romans 15 last time so I’ll briefly review what we discussed. Much of
chapter 14 involved a discussion about the weak in faith versus the strong in faith. And
interestingly in that chapter Paul dealt with the issue of ritual purity (clean and unclean) as the
central focus of his definition of just who is weak and who is strong. As an example he drew
attention to the issue of kosher eating. It is fascinating that almost any commentary on Romans
that one can find will make a remark that it must be the Jews who are weak, and the gentiles
who are therefore strong, because surely Paul is denouncing the Jewish custom of eating
kosher and following the Levitical dietary laws. However if one is to accept that then the first
verse of chapter 15 creates a problem because there Paul the Jew counts himself as among
the strong. And as I pointed out last time, Paul has used multiple opportunities to characterize
himself as a Pharisee of Pharisees, a Jew who continues to believe in and follow the Law
scrupulously, and therefore without doubt he himself eats kosher. Many of the early Church
fathers completely agree with that statement; but some (such as Chrysostom) explain it away
by saying that even though Paul continued to follow the Law of Moses including eating kosher,
he didn’t really believe in it and only did so as a deception in order to keep up appearances of
being a good Jew so that he could evangelize other Jews. I find that ridiculous if not offensive
on its face. However it does demonstrate the length that otherwise excellent commentators will
go to in order to uphold a doctrine they hold dear.
So Paul of course ate kosher and he also categorized himself as one of the strong in faith.
However the difference between the strong in faith and the weak in faith is not so much
whether one eats kosher and the other doesn’t as it is about how bothered and judgmental
they are to others who don’t eat like they do. Thus the strong in faith, many of them personally
eating kosher and knowing that it is God’s command that we do, ought not to demean the
Believing brother (certainly a gentile) who doesn’t eat kosher nor should he demean the
Believing Jewish brother (certainly a Jew) who goes overboard on trying to be nearly perfect in
his diet by eating only vegetables (Romans 14:2) and abstaining from meat altogether. Recall
that generally speaking it was ritually unclean meat that was always the danger in kosher
eating. Vegetables and fruits had no prohibitions against them and extreme mishandling had to
happen in order to render them unclean. But there were a number of Biblical prohibitions on
various kinds of meats and how they were handled that made them legally edible or not.
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So the strong in faith were to be kind and understanding of the weak in faith; not the other way
around. Therefore says Paul in chapter 15 verse 1, the strong should bend towards the weak
wherever possible in order to keep them in the fold. Let’s talk about that for a moment. When
a new Believer comes to faith they are in a vulnerable position. They are operating on the
barest of knowledge and have almost no experience with God at all. The Holy Spirit has wooed
them into the Kingdom of God and the new Believer may have little understanding of much of
anything about the Lord and His ways. Therefore it would not be hard to convince them that
their newfound zeal for God was but a moment of psychological vulnerability; or perhaps they
were just mesmerized by a soaring message of salvation from an especially charismatic pastor
and got caught up in the emotion of a crowd. Even more, to ask the new Believer to
immediately begin to obey a long laundry list of commandments, some of which are daunting
or even nearly impossible in his current environment, is to risk him or her quickly giving up and
deciding that this is simply not doable for them to properly follow this new faith. It is the job of
the strong to lovingly nurture and guide the weak and make allowances for their weaknesses;
not to be harsh and demanding or to browbeat them. A good strong parent knows that you
make the rules and boundaries as few and as simple as possible for a toddler; only the
essentials that guard their safety and acquaint them with the concept of obedience. Otherwise
you risk overwhelming them with things that they are not mature enough yet to do; and they
will certainly fail and incur your wrath and this is bound to do damage to the relationship.
Let’s re-read chapter 15 so we have it fresh in our minds.
RE-READ ROMANS CHAPTER 15 all
We’ve thoroughly discussed the first couple of verses already so let’s move on to verse 3
where Paul uses a quote from Psalm 69:10 to validate his claim that even the Messiah (as an
example of the strong) didn’t please only Himself. The quote is: “The insults of those
insulting you fell on me”. So that we take this in the correct context, we readily know that the
“me” in this verse is Christ, but who is “you”? Who was having insults directed at him, but
Christ intervened and took those insults upon Himself? It is much easier to see when we look
at more of Psalm 69, a Psalm of David.
Psalm 69:6-10 CJB
6
God, you know how foolish I am; my guilt is not hidden from you.
7
Let those who put
their hope in you, Adonai ELOHIM-Tzva'ot, not be put to shame through me; let those
who are seeking you, God of Isra'el, not be disgraced through me.
8
For your sake I
suffer insults, shame covers my face.
9
I am estranged from my brothers, an alien to my
mother's children,
10
because zeal for your house is eating me up, and on me are falling
the insults of those insulting you.
So David was taking upon Himself the insults and offenses that were made against His Father
in Heaven. Paul imputes the same upon Christ. Thus even the strongest man in faith who ever
lived, Yeshua of Nazareth, did not hesitate to be insulted for the sake of another “person”: His
Father. Thus those who are strong in faith ought to bear the insults meant not only for God, but
also for the weak.
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Verse 4 has caused some amount of heartburn among Christians over the centuries, but none
more than in the past hundred years or so with the rise of what could be called modern
Evangelical Christianity. Here Paul refers to everything written in the past in the Scriptures that
was meant to give us (“us” here meaning Believers) encouragement and patience in hope.
The heartburn arises in that Paul of course only ever quotes the Old Testament, at least partly
because there was no such thing as a New Testament in his era; and here he says bluntly that
this is the source of a Christian’s encouragement and hope. But the Evangelical Church says
that while it believes in both the Old and New Testaments, in fact the only relevant testament
for Christians is the New. So this verse is rather at odds with such a doctrine. Perhaps now is a
good time to repeat a hermeneutical principle that is important to the Hebrew Roots approach
to Bible study: it is that in the Bible, Old and New testaments, the term Scriptures only ever
refers to the Old Testament; the New Testament does not reference itself as being “Scripture”.
Thus to read the Bible correctly we must understand that any use of the term Scriptures
automatically means the Old Testament. So to properly analyze the Bible we need to see it as
consisting of two pieces: The Scriptures and the New Testament. And for Paul, the Scriptures
(the Old Testament) is his Bible.
Let’s move along now to verses 5 and 6. Here Paul says that while the Scriptures represent
the words of God, it is God Himself who actually gives us the encouragement for patience of
hope. And so it is God that we are to look to in order that we can obtain the same attitude as
our Messiah Yeshua of constantly wanting to glorify the Father in everything that we do. This is
directly connected to the issue of the strong in faith serving and protecting the weak. Therefore
in this context Paul is telling the strong that it glorifies God the Father for us to bear insults
made against Him, and for us to bend in service to the weaker in faith and to bear their
burdens. What I’d like you to notice here is Paul’s specific reference to God the Father. He
says that our obtaining this attitude of Messiah glorifies the God and Father of our Lord
Yeshua; not that it glorifies Yeshua. Yeshua’s goal, as ours should be, is always to glorify the
Father. I only point this out because too much within modern Christianity there is a belief that
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are co-equal. That is, there is no
hierarchy of authority or order of importance. Yeshua says otherwise and Paul’s every
statement denies this possibility as here he once again puts the Father as above Yeshua and
puts the Father as the one to whom we are to direct our praise and glory. I only say this
because due to the populist doctrines of 21
st
century Evangelical Christianity there is this
subtle implication among Believers that we are essentially replacing God the Father with God
the Son since God the Father is the Old Testament God and God the Son is the New
Testament God. And since the Church is to be a New Testament Church, then obviously we
are to worship the New Testament God: Christ. Yet even Yeshua Himself (the supposed New
Testament God) disputes that when He directs us in just how we are to pray. He begins by
saying: (Matt 6:9-10 CJB)
9
You, therefore, pray like this: 'Our Father in heaven! May
your Name be kept holy.
10
May your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in
heaven.
Christ says we are to pray to the Father; not to Him. We are to endeavor to keep the Father’s
name holy; not His. And this isn’t the first time Messiah has said something like this. In
Matthew 12 we read this:
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Matthew 12:31-32 CJB
31
Because of this, I tell you that people will be forgiven any sin and blasphemy, but
blaspheming the Ruach HaKodesh will not be forgiven.
32
One can say something
against the Son of Man and be forgiven; but whoever keeps on speaking against the
Ruach HaKodesh will never be forgiven, neither in the 'olam hazeh (the present world)
nor in the 'olam haba (the world to come).
I’m certainly not encouraging you to rashly say something against Christ or to diminish His
authority or high position as sitting at the Father’s right hand. But clearly for Yeshua God the
Father and God the Holy Spirit hold a place of preeminence above Him and we need to keep
this in mind. Let us never stop praying IN THE NAME OF YESHUA; but we must always pray
TO the Father. The Old Testament God is the Creator God and the Father of us all; and He
remains as the New Testament God. Let us never try to relegate Him to the dust bin of history
as is all too common in some of the more popular pockets of the modern Western Church.
Verse 7 is essentially the conclusion that we are to draw from all that Paul has taught starting
with chapter 14 verse 1 and proceeding up to this point in chapter 15. The idea is that all
Believers are to welcome all other Believers into the congregation of Believers just as the
Messiah has welcomed all of us. Whether weak or strong in faith, whether brand new in the
faith or having held the faith for some years and thus are more spiritually mature; whether one
regularly stumbles and falls or one is more devout and consistent in their faith, we all belong to
the Kingdom of Heaven thanks to what Christ did for us and we should not be judgmental
towards our fellow Believers or question their place in the Kingdom.
Verse 8 puts the spotlight on the reality that Yeshua is the Messiah of the Jews. Whatever
benefit gentiles receive from Yeshua it is because of the covenants God made with the Hebrew
Patriarchs. I want to quote to you from C.E.B. Cranfield’s commentary on Romans that I’m not
sure can be improved upon as regards this verse.
Christ has become the servant of the Jewish people (the people of the
circumcision)…..inasmuch as He was born a Jew, of the seed of David according to the
flesh, lived almost all His life within the confines of Palestine, limiting His personal
ministry almost exclusively to Jews, and both was in His earthly life and atoning death
and also still is, as the exalted Lord, the Messiah of Israel.
This fits hand in glove with what Paul had to say in Romans 11 about Yeshua being the
Messiah of Israel and that it was for the sake of saving all Israel that God has shown mercy to
the gentiles. Now he adds to it that Yeshua’s advent and life’s mission, and the inclusion of
gentiles into the Kingdom, were also to keep God’s promises that He made to Israel’s
Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Once again, as in Romans 11, we see Paul highlight
the special priority and place of the Jews in God’s eyes so that gentiles won’t get the wrong
idea of where it is that we fit in God’s plan.
What does this mean? It means that Christ is NOT the gentile Messiah because there is no
such thing. It means that the Jews have already received their Messiah even though the vast
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bulk of Jews are still waiting for someone else. If Christ is not the Messiah of the Jews, and if
He is not the fulfillment of the covenant promises made to the Hebrew Patriarchs, then gentile
Christians have no Messiah and our faith is but foolishness. We are alive in our sins and dead
to God. We are doomed to an eternity of torments and without hope. Key to properly
understanding the New Testament is to internalize and realize that Christ was Jewish. Several
years ago I was giving a 10 part lecture at a church and I began my talk with the words that
Christ was, and is, a Jew. An elderly man made a sour looking face, looked over to his wife
and mouthed the words “that’s not true”; she said something back and he got up and left. The
next week as I was starting part 2, to my surprise the man returned and before I could get
started asked if he could speak to the group. He stood up and apologized and said that after
being a church-going Christian for 50 years, he had never understood that Jesus was actually
a Jew. He had never come to grips with the reality that His Savior was Jewish and the initial
thought of it had made him angry and uncomfortable. Understanding Yeshua in His Jewish
context is what helps us to understand His actions and His immutable instructions to us.
In verse 9 Paul gives us a second reason for God the Father making His son Yeshua a servant
to the Jewish people; it was to demonstrate the depth of the Father’s mercy so that seeing it, it
would cause gentiles to seek what the Jews had received and thus glorify the God of Israel.
And even this had a reason behind it: it was to fulfill what had been prophesied in the
Scriptures. Paul paraphrases from Psalm 18:50, which David took from 2
nd
Samuel 22:50, to
make his case: Psalm 18:50 CJB
50
"So I give thanks to you, ADONAI, among the nations;
I sing praises to your name.
I realize that the CJB uses the term “nations” in Psalms 18 but uses the term “gentiles” in
Romans 15:9; however those two terms mean essentially the same thing. The word nations
and the word gentiles are the same word in Hebrew thought: goyim. This is because in the
Bible, since early in the Torah when through Abraham God separated the world into 2 distinct
categories of people (Hebrews and gentiles), the term nations then evolved to automatically
mean gentile nations. This is because prior to the covenant God made with Abraham there
was no need to specify Hebrews versus everyone else because only 1 unified category of
people existed throughout the entire planet. This passage from Psalm 18 is the first of four Old
Testament quotations that Paul is going to use to support his case as concerns the prophetic
inclusion of gentiles into the redemption equation. It is important to notice something that the
Jewish Believers would have caught on to quite quickly: he used quotes from the 3 recognized
divisions of the Hebrew Bible as it was seen in his day: from the Prophets, from the Torah, and
from the Writings. Actually he went so far in his four quotes as to take one from the Former
Prophets plus one from the Latter Prophets, one from the Torah, and one from the Writings
(these are called Torah, Ketuvim and Nevi’im in Hebrew). Why did Paul do this? To show
conclusively how the entire Old Testament pointed not only to Christ, but also to the eventual
inclusion of gentiles as a result of Yeshua’s advent.
Thus Romans 15:10 is a passage taken from Deuteronomy 32; 15:11 is a passage taken from
Psalm 117; and 15:12 is taken from Isaiah 11. And as we see they all prophesy the future
inclusion of gentiles into the congregation of God. So the conclusion is that the Jews of Rome
should welcome gentiles and not look down upon them as suspect, or as unworthy, or as not
belonging, or as the weak in faith just because they know so little about the Hebrew Bible, the
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redemption history of Israel that begins in the Torah, nor even of the Hebrew Prophets who
foretold of gentiles coming to worship the God of Israel. Rather they should be fully welcomed
to join the Jewish synagogue congregations and prayer groups in the same spirit that Messiah
Yeshua welcomed Jews and gentiles alike to participate in the redemption that He brought to
them.
Verse 13 is a rather typical Jewish-style blessing; it is a prayer mixed with a wish. It begins by
speaking of God as the God of hope. I’ll remind you yet again that when Paul speaks of hope
he means it in terms of hope for resurrection from the dead. Little has unnerved and occupied
the minds of humankind as has our own death. Some cultures glorify death, others dread it.
Some welcome death; others see it as unnatural and the result of upsetting the gods. Some
had elaborate death cults (such as the Egyptians), and for others it was simply a mystery and
death rituals were simple (like with the Hebrews). Thus among Jews what happened after
death was mostly unknown; life was, and remains, the most important and pleasant part of
human existence in the Jewish mindset. However the concept of resurrection (reanimation,
coming alive again after death) was a hot topic in Paul’s era. Thus perhaps the most
welcoming and attractive news Paul brought along with the Gospel of Messiah Yeshua was the
hope of bodily resurrection after death. Paul teaches that this hope is available for anyone,
Jew or gentile, who puts their trust in Yeshua as Lord and Savior. However the actual power to
make this hope a reality and not merely a comforting theory is contained in the power of God’s
Holy Spirit; it does not come from within us or from other humans. Once again I’d like to
demonstrate to you that as true and profound as that line of thought is it was not an original
thought of Paul or something that was new to Jewish theology as a result of the advent of
Christ. Redemption and an accompanying hope for resurrection by the power of God is not
something that was born anew from Christianity.
Listen to this excerpt taken from the Dead Sea Scrolls, written by the Essene Jewish
community before the birth of Christ. This is taken from scroll 1QS.
For to God belongs my justification, and the perfection of my way, and the uprightness
of my heart are in His hand; by His righteousness are my rebellions blotted out. For He
has poured forth from the found of His knowledge the light that enlightens me, and my
eye has beheld His marvels and the light of my heart pierces the mystery to come
……From His wondrous mysteries is the light in my heart, in the everlasting Being has my
eye beheld wisdom because knowledge is hidden from men and the counsel of
prudence from the sons of men. The fountain of righteousness, the reservoir of power,
and the dwelling place of glory are denied to the assembly of flesh; but God has given
them as an everlasting possession to those whom He has chosen. He has granted them
a share in the lot of the Saints, and has united their assembly, the Council of the
Community, with the Sons of Heaven. And the assembly of the holy fabric shall belong
to an eternal planting for all time to come.
But now in verse 14 Paul switches both his tone and the subject. It is my opinion that the
purpose of these words is that after considering the forceful thought, theology, and impressive
list of Halakhot (religious rulings) that Paul has laid out for Believers, Paul is now trying to
soften his tone a little. He fears he might have come off too heavy handed, especially
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considering he didn’t start the congregation of Rome and yet is declaring his authority over it.
He doesn’t want the Believers of Rome to think that he thinks they are much in need of a good
dressing down or that they are ignorant, so he says that he is convinced that the Believers of
the Roman congregation are full of goodness, and have a great deal of knowledge, and are
well able to teach one another proper doctrine. However ……there are some things that Paul
thought needed to be addressed as more of a reminder than as teaching new doctrine that
they didn’t know. Paul’s statement goes a long way in destroying the rather standard
contention of most Christian Bible commentators that Romans is essentially a carefully crafted
systematic theology for Christians created from scratch by Paul and he sent it, in full, to the
Believers of Rome (perhaps as a trial balloon to see how well it might be received). Rather it is
clear that the subjects he covered were because of something he must have heard about the
congregation in Rome; things he felt they needed to be reminded of.
But by what right should Paul be able to intervene in a congregation that he had no hand in
creating? He says it is because the grace that God gave him of being a servant of the Messiah
for gentiles, and because he had the priestly duty of presenting the Good News so that gentiles
would be made an acceptable offering, made holy by the Holy Spirit. There’s much here to
discuss. First Paul has taken quite seriously the commission he received on the road to
Damascus by none other than the risen Christ Himself. His commission was to be as the
Apostle to the gentiles. But clearly Paul was not the only Jew who was evangelizing gentiles in
the name of Yeshua. Even so, Paul took Christ’s commission to mean that he was to be the
chief evangelist and was to be head of the spear in taking the Gospel to the gentile world. In
fact, he was to be the authority over the gentiles who came to faith. So he felt that he had been
given the authority to intervene virtually anywhere in the known world outside of the Holy Land
where James, Jesus’ brother, was the head of the congregation of Believers that consisted
almost exclusively of Jews.
So what does Paul mean by his “priestly” duty to present the good news? Here’s the thing to
understand: according to the Torah it was one of the prime duties and great honors of the
Levite Priests to keep and teach God’s Word to God’s chosen people. For centuries they had
failed at that and instead the office of priest had become politicized and an occupation meant
to enrich oneself or merely to gain special privilege and social status. The synagogue was now
where most actual Bible teaching took place and it certainly was not priests who taught in the
synagogues. However in a sort of restoration-of-the-Torah mindset, Paul describes the duty of
preaching the Gospel as being priestly in its fundamental nature since the Gospel is contained
in the Word of God. Thus it was always the priests who had been intended to teach God’s
people the Gospel. So in continuing the metaphor of Temple and priest Paul explains that
those gentiles who come to belief in Yeshua are as an offering made holy by the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit, which is then presented to God. That is, all offerings made to God at the
Temple begin as ordinary and common things; but by setting them apart and devoting them to
God this makes them holy property and thus suitable for presenting them to God. The Holy
Spirit, through Yeshua, makes the gentiles holy and in this way they become an acceptable
offering to God.
Further explaining himself to the receivers of his letter in Rome, in verses 17 and 18 Paul
makes it clear that whatever he has said that might feel to a reader as a personal boast about
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his accomplishments is not. Rather he is proud, or boasting, about what Yeshua has done
through him. As a modern day application it is not at all wrong to be proud of what God has
done with Seed of Abraham Ministries and Torah Class as long as we understand that we are
merely tools in God’s toolbox and everything good that has come from our efforts is Him
operating through His willing vessels. It is God who merits the glory and not us. Philippians
4:13 CJB
13
I can do all things through him who gives me power.
So in verse 19 Paul continues to explain that because of the power of God through him, he has
spread the Gospel to the far reaches, all the way from the center of Yehoveh worship in
Jerusalem to Illyricum in the pagan Roman Empire. We have not seen in any of Paul’s writings
that he had been to the province of Illyricum, but that hardly means he didn’t go there. The
notion that all of Paul’s letters have survived, or all of his writings are known to us, or that
contained within those letters and writings are complete journals of everything that he did, all
the adventures and circumstances that he encountered, and detailed lists of every place that
he ever went cannot be taken seriously. Since Illyricum is north of Macedonia and we know he
was in the area of Macedonia then it is entirely probable that he made it as far as Illyricum;
there is no reason to doubt him in this. The idea is simply to inform his readers of the furthest
reaches of his ministry to the North West.
We’ll pause here for today and finish up chapter 15 next time.
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