Two Ways News is a weekly collaboration between Tony Payne and Phillip Jensen – a newsletter and podcast on a topic to encourage gospel thinking for today (subscribe at twoways.news).
Phillip and Tony discuss Romans 15 where the apostle returns to the purpose for which he was writing to them—which he had broached in chapter 1 but now comes back to, after explaining in majestic terms the gospel that is the foundation of his missionary enterprise.
As Paul does so, he reiterates why the gospel he preaches is for all of humanity and brings hope to every culture, regardless of the differences and distinctive features that different human cultures have. There is hope for every different human culture, but (paradoxically) only by realising that there is in fact only one way to live in God’s world.
For more on Romans 15 listen to Phillip’s sermon Free to be Different.
The next episode is An Unconventional Farewell. The previous episode is A Culture of Debt.
HOPE FOR HUMANITY
Romans 15 and the paradox of universal hope
Phillip Jensen: Hope is a very Christian concept. In fact, without God and Christianity hope for the future is … well, it’s hopeless.
Tony Payne: Wouldn’t you say, though, that ordinary people—Christians and non-Christians—still have hopes and dreams for the future? For their children? For a good life?
PJ: Well, yes, everyone wants their children to have a better life. But in order to hope for that, you’ve got to know what the good life is.
TP: That reminds me of what we talked about a couple of weeks ago in Romans 13, about how we don’t really know what love is until you can identify what the good thing is that we are desiring or want for someone else. Without any objective content, love just comes … ‘love is love’, which then makes it a slightly meaningless concept or simply just a sentiment. And hope is the same.
PJ: Yes. Like the beauty queens who say they’re working for ‘world peace’, but as we can see with Ukraine and Palestine and Darfur and so on, we’re not doing very well at all. In fact, we haven’t done well even in the centuries past, because the world has been deeply divided since the Tower of Babel, with cultures that are antagonistic to each other.
TP: It’s interesting that over the course of our recent Western history, intellectually speaking, hope has been a theme that keeps coming back. We’ve come to believe that history is going somewhere; that even though we’ve abandoned the idea that history is headed towards Christ and the Judgment Day, from Hegel onwards we still believe that history is going somewhere, that it’s improving, and that’s why there’s hope. That’s why you need to be on the ‘right side of history’, as people say, because we sort of have this irrational belief that there is progress in technology, and therefore there’s progress in life. If we just keep working our way between the thesis and the antithesis and coming up with a better synthesis, somehow it’s all going to get better, and we must be better off than people were 100 years ago.
PJ: You got Marx, yes, that’s a great hope for the future. You’ve Hitler, who wanted 1000 years of the Reich, which is a great hope for the future. You’ve got the progressives of today, who in their very name believe in this idea. But you ask, well, what is the progress? What is the end point? This is always the problem with the revolutionaries, isn’t it? They know what they hate, but they can never give you the utopia of what they’re aiming for.
TP: It is a Hegelian sort of belief: to proclaim the opposite of what is, and tear down the current thing, and think that that destruction and rebirth will solve the problem. For example, let’s tear down capitalism, and out of that arose the Soviet Union and the disaster that was–the disaster that any utopia has always ended up being, because it’s a lie.
PJ: Yes, evolution is interesting as a word, isn’t it? Because whenever we use the word evolution, we tend to think of upward improvement, when, just because we’re better than dinosaurs doesn’t mean that evolution will always be better. I mean, what if the ultimate evolution is the climate catastrophe that we’ve been speaking of, and that actually you can’t have humans without the destruction of the whole environment, and the whole world’s going to be destroyed, because that’s the end of our progress.
TP: Dystopian novels are more popular than utopian novels because they resonate with this idea that that despite our longing for hope, we’ve got this sinking feeling that it’s all going to burn, it’s all going to fall apart. This idea that we can be on the ‘right side of history’ and that everything is going to be more enlightened and improved in the future is a bit of a false dream.
PJ: And coming back to culture, culture is a static thing that is taught to me by my parents, from my grandparents, from my great-grandparents. This is the way the world is, rather than what it should be. Culture is not about the utopia; it’s about how you live here and the way we think and relate. And that’s why the clash of cultures comes through colonization and multiculturalism, and makes any attempt to change people to be seen as imperialism.
Now, anthropologists and counsellors are quite right in one sense. They need to suspend all critical judgment and put aside culture in order to investigate the world for study and analysis. For example, in the counseling room, you can say anything, without values or judgment. To say, “My problem is that I’m a pedophile” will be an acceptable thing for you to say because the counsellor is going to help you through that issue. Or an anthropologist could investigate and find that a certain society practices pedophilia, and then analyse the mechanisms and organisation of that particular social culture—without making any judgments. If they bring their own culture into the study, they will distort the study. However, if you apply this into life, it’s a disaster because there are no judgments–pedophilia, cannibalism, binding up women’s feet, suti, offering up children sacrifice for the gods … are all not wrong. I’m sorry, but those things are terrible things and are very wrong.
TP: So the kind of cultural relativism you’re talking about is not possible, because the very attitude that says I’m not going to make any judgments about your culture is a cultural judgment in itself. We think our studied indifference and relativism is somehow aloof objectivity—but it’s a particular cultural value.
PJ: That’s right. Romans addresses all of these issues. Paul is addressing these particular issues, but in the process of it, you get his values and culture on these things, because you see, the gospel gives us what the world wants: world peace. The gospel gives us what the world needs: hope. The gospel, rightly understood, unites people and gives us a reason for living and a purpose for our life. And that’s what we see in Romans 15. You see God’s great plans for the world and our participation in those plans which involve the God of hope, the God of peace. You missed us last week, Tony, when you were tripping overseas, but if you read the first paragraph of chapter 15, you’ll get a bit of a summary of it.
TP: A bit of catch up for me, excellent.
We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbour for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”
PJ: These three verses really summarize what has been said in chapter 14 about the strong–they are strong because they know certain things don’t matter. The kingdom of God is not about what you eat or what you drink or what you wear; the kingdom of God is about much more important things. The weak person is caught under that legalism that every little bit matters (which day of the week, and so on). But the strong know that these things don’t matter, but show their strength by working with the weak.
TP: By bearing with them and by accepting them and by teaching them and by refusing to eat the things that are unhelpful to them in their presence.
PJ: Yes, and by doing so, you are just like Jesus, because Jesus didn’t have to become poor, but he did. He who was rich in glory became impoverished. Jesus didn’t have to place himself under the law, but he did. Jesus didn’t have to accept rejection by people, but he did. And he did it all the time for the sake of the other person. The good is other-person-centredness, not non-judgmentalism.
TP: So it’s not about accepting the other person as they are, as if nothing is right or wrong, or as if there’s no such thing as sin or there’s no such thing as fallenness and weakness. It’s accepting the other person even though they are sinful and even though they do think differently.
PJ: Yes, and Israel received, and Christians also receive, the reproaches of the world all the time, and that’s to be expected, because our Lord and Saviour Christ was crucified. How do you live with the rejections of this world? The answer is: hope.
TP: Indeed. As it says in Romans 15:4-7:
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
There is the content of our hope in verse 5. Through endurance and through the encouragement of Scripture, we might have hope, and that hope seems to be being together in one voice, glorifying the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It resonates with that great picture in Revelation, doesn’t it, of all the nations gathered together with one voice glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ?
PJ: Indeed. You see, our definition of hope is self-centred, whereas the Bible’s hope is God-centred. The end point is the glory of God. And here where it says ‘together’, the Greek actually says ‘with one mind’. So with one mind we can sing together, we can praise together the great, glorious God. Now to do that requires being like Jesus, and that is welcoming one another. ‘Welcoming’, which is different from ‘accepting’. It’s welcoming the weak, the different, the person who’s got other views than ourselves, but yet has the common mind of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the people with whom we can, in Book of Revelation, be singing glory to the lamb. To him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be praise and glory and honour.
TP: It’s just like the Scriptures in so many places, isn’t it? To gain your life you must lose it. To have real hope for a future, a hope of unity and joy and glory, means putting aside our own selfish spin we put on the world and our lives, of trying to craft a hope for ourselves apart from God. In relinquishing that and putting our hope in the scriptures and in God, you actually find a hope and the kind of unity that we’re looking for.
PJ: Now the classic way of this is worked out in the Scriptures is the God-given division between Jews and the nations, whom we call the Gentiles. I don’t think the word ‘Gentile’ occurs anywhere else except in the Bible and Christian conversation, does it?
TP: Not that I know of. It has entered our culture as a description of ‘the other’.
PJ: It is the Greek word for ‘nations’. That’s all it means. A person of a different nation than Judaism.
TP: So the great division this passage talks about being overcome and being joined together in unity is that great division between Jew and Gentile. And that happens in the gospel.
PJ: Yes, but it also happens in the hope—that it’s always been God’s plan. You may think that by choosing the Jews, God’s end aim is the nation Israel, but that’s not the end aim of God. The aim of the one God who created the universe is world peace. There is a phase of Jewish selection, but it is for the salvation of the nations. That has always been the aim, which Paul argues for us in verses 8 to 13.
TP: Indeed. And he quotes Old Testament passages in these verses to show that this was always the plan.
For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,
“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles,
and sing to your name.”
And again it is said,
“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.”
And again,
“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,
and let all the peoples extol him.”
And again Isaiah says,
“The root of Jesse will come,
even he who arises to rule the Gentiles;
in him will the Gentiles hope.”
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
PJ: See, he’s not only the God of encouragement and the God of endurance, but he is also the God of truth, the God of faithfulness. He made his promises to the patriarchs–that is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob–for the future salvation of the Gentiles. And you see this in Genesis 12 where God promises Abraham about the lands, about being a people, but also about the blessing and cursing upon the nations. And in Galatians 3, we’re told that it finds its fulfillment in the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the nations.
TP: That was the gospel preached in advance.
PJ: So having made that promise, God actually fulfills it. But you have to be patient, because the fulfillment takes more than a thousand years. And so one of the emphases of the apostle Paul is the patience of God in 2 Peter 3, which again is brought up in the preaching at the Areopagus in Acts 17, in which he says that God patiently overlooked the sins of the past. Eventually, more than a thousand years after Abraham, Jesus arrives and by his death and resurrection pours out his Spirit, and the Gentiles–the nations–come to new life and the kingdom of God is established. But here in these verses, Paul is saying that that expectation has always been there, the hope has always been the whole world–the nations–gathered together, proclaiming and praising the glory of God. It has also been the theme of Romans 9 to 11.
But also, Paul is an Israelite, so it’s not as if Israel’s been cut off. The plan has always been to bring Israel together with the nations to be praising God. And so here is the great high point of the argument that Paul has been working at from right back in Romans 1:15, about the Jew and the Greek being saved together.
TP: So the two themes that we started off talking about at the beginning of this conversation–hope and cultural imperialism–which at first sounded like two different ideas, turn out to have the same solution to them, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s in the gospel of Christ that all the nations can have hope and a future, God’s future for the world. But that hope, that real hope, is dependent on the one gospel going out to all the world to every culture.
PJ: And so that explains Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles, the apostle to the nations, which is what the chapter goes on with.
TP: Yes, because it almost seems like a change of gear or a new subject, but it’s the same subject. If God’s plan was and the great hope of humanity was with one voice glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ, then what must happen is that the one gospel must go out to all the nations and that’s what Paul goes on to and his role in that proclamation.
PJ: It’s a very distinctive role, isn’t it? So he’s an apostle in the sense that he’s foundational. That is, the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. I’ve always liked the fact that we’ve called Samuel Marsden the apostle of New Zealand, because we know who the very first person was who preached to the Maoris in New Zealand, and that was Samuel Marsden on Christmas Day. And so he’s the foundation of Christianity in New Zealand.
TP: Yes, ‘apostle’ meant ‘the one who was sent’.
PJ: And for Paul, it’s really important that he lays the foundation, rather than building on other people’s foundations.
TP: Which is what he goes on to say from verse 14.
I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written,
“Those who have never been told of him will see,
and those who have never heard will understand.”
Do you know where Illyricum is?
PJ: It’s on the Adriatic, the city between Greece and Italy on the west coast north of Greece. Bosnia, Serbia, that kind of area.
TP: So from Jerusalem all the way around to there.
PJ: And so Italy is next, is what Paul is saying. He’s done the north-eastern section of the Mediterranean, and so now he’s talking about moving on. But notice the reason he’s moving on. Verse 21 is fascinating because he’s quoting Isaiah 52:12, the last verse of Isaiah 52 which is the introduction to Isaiah 53, the great chapter of the suffering servant. But Paul sees that the servant actually has to preach to the nations so those who have never heard about the servant will see him as the servant doing the servant’s job. He sees the role that he’s been called to: to preach on Christ’s behalf where Christ has never been preached before.
TP: So how does that relate to him writing to these Romans? Why is he writing to them about all this?
PJ: It’s funny, isn’t it? He starts of in the first 15 verses of chapter 1 to explain why he is the apostle of the Gentiles and why he hasn’t yet arrived in Rome. Then he goes on to explain what this gospel is that he’s not ashamed of. Then fifteen chapters later, he returns to the reason for the letter, and that is it is a missionary letter. There is this huge theological statement in the middle of it that explains to you why you should be supporting this particular missionary, what he’s believing, why he’s doing it, what he’s doing, and why his work is important. But now he’s coming to tell you about the prayer points that he has, the money he wants you to contribute.
TP: And you can see a connection between all those marvellous passages of theology that we’ve been discussing over the last many weeks, of how both Jew and Gentile, both Jew and Greek together, are alike under sin, both are justified in the same way through the propitiation that comes through Jesus Christ, Abraham becomes the father by faith of all, and so on. You can see that there’s this constant theme of how the gospel, when you understand it properly, leads to the apostle to the nations bringing about the obedience of faith of all the nations, as he says in chapter one. And that teases on into chapters 9-11 about the role of Israel and the nations. It’s been the burbling theme all the way through as he’s explained the inner logic of the gospel. But now he comes back to say that all this means that I’m going to come to you in Rome, but not to lay another foundation in Rome, because someone’s already done that. I’m going to get you to send me off to the next spot.
PJ: Yes, think of it as a missionary letter that expounds the reasons for going to a certain place that has needs and because Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles. Now you might think that’s weird if you’re Jewish, but the nations are the very purposes of God. This is our hope. This is our goal, is to bring the nations together with Israel. Israel is saved by jealousy of the nations that we might together be praising God, and that’s why you need to support the weak. You need to welcome one another and so on. And that’s why you need to understand what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Let’s read the last section of Romans 15:
This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. For they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings. When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.
I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. May the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
You see, this fits with the missionary letter type. Paul is saying, “I want you to support me. Keep praying for me in this.” Having taken the gospel from the Jews to the nations, the nations heard of the difficulty of the Jewish Christians back in Jerusalem with the drought and have raised money to support them. We see the appropriateness of this—that having received spiritual blessing from the Jews, the nations are now sharing physical blessing with the Jews. And now having done that, Paul can go into the new mission field, which is not Rome, rather it’s Spain.
TP: What does this passage tell us about world mission and our ambitions to take the gospel to the world?
PJ: The whole hope of Christianity is that the nations will rise up in praise of the glorious God who sent his Son to die and rise again for us. And you can’t have that hope without working for it in the preaching of the gospel to all the nations, even those who reject God, and even those who are obsessed with their religion and their culture. Our job is to proclaim that. It’s not to proclaim Westernism. It’s not to proclaim Australianism. It’s to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, because there is a right, there is a wrong, there is a true there is a false, and no culture captures what is right and true. All cultures capture what is false and wrong.
TP: And in light of that gospel being preached, you have this great hope of humanity, the hope that we all share that with one voice we might proclaim and praise the Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God. It’s wonderful how much God is active in this passage–the God of encouragement, the God of hope, the God of truth, the God of peace. It’s God who’s doing this amazing thing in the world, through Paul and through us.
PJ: It’s wonderful, isn’t it, because it’s about God. Paul is not imposing his culture of Judaism, rather he’s been liberated by God from much of the Judaistic culture that he’s grown up with. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, but no longer, and he’s not imposing the culture he grew up with coming from Tarsus, but he’s imposing the truth of the gospel of Jesus. We can’t let people continue to live in lies and in evil. And people do live in lies and in evil, and the missionary enterprise of the colonial powers was compromised by colonialism, was also wonderful in liberating people from some of the most evil practices of humanity.
TP: It’s the hope of humanity that we might be liberated to live how God created us to live, and that’s in unity with one another and in glorification of him.
