Romans 16
It would appear that Paul did not actual write his letters, but dictated them out to someone else. For instance, a few verses later in Romans we have a greeting from Tertius who actually wrote out Romans. There is a popular theory that Paul had poor eyesight and so it was too much of a strain for him to write an entire letter. However, in every letter he did add one part in his own hand as a sort of signature, a mark of authenticity. (see 2 Thessalonians 3:17) This may have been to combat fake letters being sent around, claiming to be from Paul—something we do know was happening in the early church. Barclay argues that Romans 16:17-20 is Paul's personal addition, the part he wrote in his own hand. This would explain why it feels so abruptly disconnected both from what comes before and what comes after.
And whether or not this was written by Paul's own hand, this is Paul's last word--it is his final, closing exhortation to the Romans. Specifically, this is a warning, a warning against those who would bring division and error into the church. It is a warning against false teachers. This is an idea we have met before. Paul has a similar warning in Philippians and the entire book of Galatians is just such a warning.
There has been some debate and disagreement among scholars about exactly who Paul had in mind—about what kind of false teachers he was thinking of. Honestly, I'm not sure there was one specific group in Paul's mind. There were many different false teachings circulating in the early church; many false teachers who were trying to garner support for themselves or for their cause. And Paul didn't want the Romans to be corrupted by any of them. Adam Clarke, in his commentary on this passage, paints a picture of the kind of false teacher who takes advantage of the church and then adds this comment: “Should it be asked, Whom do you intend by this description? I answer: No soul, nor party, but such as the description suits.” I think Paul might have said something similar.
Because this is a general warning. There is no sense here, as there is in Galatians, that these false teachers had already made inroads into the church. We do not even know for sure that they were present in the church—Paul was just wanting to make sure that they didn't become present. The whole of Romans, so far as we can tell, is more about prevention than it is about cure. Paul was giving instructions and warnings not because there was error or corruption within the church, but because he did want there to be error or corruption in the church.
Once again, as we have seen a few times before in Romans, the passage is built around this central phrase: “I beseech you, brethren.” Once again, Paul is appealing to the Romans as his brothers (and sisters), appealing, beseeching, exhorting them to enact a certain course of action.
That phrase “I beseech” is the heart of the passage; that is what the passage is, a passage of appeal or exhortation. But what is Paul beseeching them to do? First mark. The Greek word is skopeo, connected to our English word scope. Strong defines it as: “to take aim at (spy), i.e. (figuratively) regard:--consider, take heed, look at (on), mark.” (#4648) We might make a loose translation, “Keep a sharp eye out for them.”
And who were they to mark? Those who cause divisions and try to pull people away from the gospel which had already been established. As I said before, this is a warning against false teachers, against anyone who would bring division or discord in the church. Paul wanted to make sure the Romans were aware of such people and did not allow them to enter into the church unnoticed. In Galatians, Paul speaks of “false brethren unawares brought in;” the NET Bible translates that: “false brothers with false pretenses who slipped in unnoticed.” This is exactly what Paul did NOT want to happen at Rome.
Paul wanted the Romans to mark such false teachers and avoid them. This may be a call for church discipline, for the church as a body to expel such false teachers—but it reads more like a personal exhortation. We must individually chose to avoid listening to dangerous voices.
At first, this sounds a little strange, perhaps even harsh. To understand this, let's consider some advice Paul gave earlier. When speaking of other Christians who hold different views, Paul made this statement: “Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.” (Romans 14:4) We cannot stand in the place of God and judge other people in their relationship to God as God judges. Even if we had the necessary knowledge and ability to do so, we like the authority. We cannot judge cases not within our jurisdiction.
But when it comes to choosing who we will listen to, what people we allow to influence us, who it is we look to as guides and role models—then we must make a choice. There are some decisions which, for better or for worse, we must make.
And while it is good to try to believe the best of people and to not assume that everyone who is different or even wrong is a sinner—it would be naïve to ignore the fact that sinners and hypocrites exist, to ignore that there are such people as those Paul describes in verse 18. There are those who, despite a profession, are not truly serving Jesus, but themselves. Paul says that they serve their own bellies; they had not come to feed the flock but to feed themselves. This is metaphorical, but sometimes it may have been literal. In early church writings, there is a warning against anyone who claims to have a prophetic vision commanding people to give them food.
These people have no good intentions; their goal is only to deceive. They use good words and fair speeches to deceive the hearts of the simple. The word translated simple is literally 'not evil.'
This makes their crime worse. It is wrong to return evil for evil; it is no excuse to treat a man badly because he is bad. It is wrong to deceive someone even if they are equally willing to deceive you; to cheat one who is trying to cheat you. But it is far worse to return evil for good; to cheat and deceive those who have no intention to do the same. This is the special sin of such people, that they prey on the pure and the innocent, sometimes even taking advantage of their good intentions and willingness to trust and accept others.
This is the kind of man that existed within the early church as they still exist today. This is the kind of man that Paul wanted the Romans to keep an eye out for and avoid.
Paul gives as a reason the fact that their obedience is come abroad unto all men; there were well noted, well known among the Christian world for their faithfulness and obedience to the gospel. They had something valuable and precious; something they must be careful to protect. Once again, Paul seems to be careful to make sure that he does not appear to be insulting the church, not implying that there are in the wrong but instead warning them to keep in the right.
But there might be another thought here. What they are known for was specifically for their obedience, their willingness to listen to instruction. So perhaps Paul was concerned that this very teachable spirit would make them more susceptible to false teachings. They were so willing to hear the truth, they might also be willing to listen to falsehood. This seems to be implied by the rest of the verse.
Their obedience was a cause for rejoicing, and yet it seems to have been a cause for concern. Paul wanted them to be not merely obedient but also wise regarding that which is good. He wanted them to be knowledgeable, discerning. He wanted them to know and understand and study the truth. Listening receptively is an important first step to knowledge, but it is only the first step.
This is a fact that everyone must acknowledge sooner or later. This world is not a safe place. There are dangerous and cunning men in the world who will seek to deceive, even to hurt us. In many ways, life is not fair (at least life as we know it now).
But I am very hesitant to say that, because too many people use the unfairness of life as an excuse to disregard fairness; too many people use the hard truths of life to become hard. It is the moral equivalent of 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.' If others are going to be selfish and dishonest, we might as well be selfish and dishonest to meet them.
Paul did not want the Romans to have that attitude. He didn't want them to be naïve but also didn't want them to be corrupted by the knowledge of evil. He says at the end of verse 19 that he wants them to be simple concerning evil.
What makes a thing simple? Something simple is straightforward, without complications. A simple machine (such as a lever) has only a few parts. A simple sentence has only a single subject/verb unit.
And the word Paul uses here has this idea of singleness; it is pure, unadulterated, unalloyed. Paul did not want the Romans to become complex, a convoluted mixture of good and evil. TNCT translates it “innocent,” but too often people think of innocent as meaning ignorant or naïve. As Paul has been saying, he wanted them to be aware of evil, to be wary of it—but not to give into it. They were to be wise unto good and simple to evil. They were to be seasoned insiders in the world of good but complete outsiders to the world of evil. They should know about evil without knowing it by experience.
So this is the picture we have. We have the Roman church, a church established in the faith. Paul is warning them of the possibility, we might say the probability, of false teachers appearing and trying to corrupt the church. We have to imagine some small, peaceful community being warned of the possibility of an invasion by a powerful enemy. Such a warning might be cause for alarm, even terror. But while Paul did want the Romans to be aware of the danger, he didn't want them to be terrified, certainly not to despair. There was danger but there was also a hope of victory. They were to be aware of evil, precisely because evil would not be victorious. If there was a possibility of evil winning in the end, it might make sense to hedge your bets and try to play both sides. But we know that good will conquer evil in the end, therefore we should be single-minded in our rejection of it.
This is all in verse 20. “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” Behind all the false teachers and enemies of the church, there was one stronger, more powerful enemy. But that enemy would be defeated. In the war of good and evil, the ending has already been written. And not merely here. This had been written millennia before. “And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15)
When Satan won his first victory on earth, God declared that he would be crushed under the foot of the seed of woman. And as Christians, as those who are in Christ, the seed of woman, we share in that victory over Satan.
The God of peace does not mean the God of placidity or even, in this context, of tranquility. God is the center of and giver of peace because He is the God of victory. This is not the peace that ignore turmoil or even that peace (which God can give) that exists in the midst of turmoil—this is the peace that brings an end to turmoil by defeating the enemy.
This is our hope as a church. There may be enemies all around, but we know that God can and will bring victory. It's not entirely clear when Paul means this will happen. If he is speaking of the final victory over Satan at the End of the World it seems a little odd to refer to it as happening 'shortly,' though from the perspective of eternity, everything happens shortly. This is just my idea, but I wonder if Paul has a more immediate meaning.
“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13) We all—either as individuals or collectively as a church—face trials and temptations from the enemy. The promise is that there is victory. God promises us victory, not merely someday in the future, but now. The victory may not always come the we would would like; it may not always look like victory from the the outside, but the promise remains. We have hope of triumph over Satan, not merely in the final battle, but shortly, in whatever battle we are facing right now. But this is not because of our own strength or worthiness—it is because of the that thing which is the driving force behind everything in Romans. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ which is with us.
Reading through Romans, you'll notice there are several places that feel like the end of the letter. Adam Clarke theorizes that Paul intended to close his letter but then kept thinking of more things he wanted to say and so added several postscripts. Whatever the truth of that, we have finally reached the real ending of the letter, beginning with verse 21.
Once again, we have to remember that even though Romans is a doctrinal treatise, it is fundamentally a letter--a letter sent from a particular place at a particular time. For the sake of our exposition on the doctrines of Rome, it doesn't matter exactly where and when Paul wrote it. But Paul was somewhere when he wrote it, and of course, the people who were with him wanted to send their greetings along with it. We have their greetings here. Timotheus (or Timothy) is a very familiar figure to us; one of Paul's closest helpers and the recipient of two other letters. There has been some attempt to identify Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater with other figures in the New Testament, but there is no way to know exactly who these men were, besides the fact that they were Paul's kinsmen.
In verse 22 we have a very interesting note. Here we meet Tertius, a man about whom we know absolutely nothing. We don't know where he was from or who his family was or what he looked like. But he was Paul's scribe or secretary at this point and was the man who actually wrote the bulk of Romans. This unknown man played an important role in the production of this book. Paul may be the author of the book, but he also had help and important help in the production of it. There may be a moral here—just because you are not an apostle or preacher does not mean you cannot have a role in the work of God.
In verse 23 we learn that Paul was staying with a man named Gaius. He is referred to as the host of the whole church, probably meaning that the church met in his house. Since, as we discussed before, Paul was probably in Corinth at this time, this may be the same as the Gaius whom Paul baptized in Corinth.
We also have Erastus who seems to have held an important office in the city. As I mentioned in our introduction, there is archeological evidence of a man named Erastus as something of importance in Corinth at the time of Paul, though, again, we can't be sure it is the same man.
Finally, we have Quartus. It's interesting to note that each of these people is identified in some way since, assumably, they weren't known by most of the Christians in Rome. Timothy is a workfellow; Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater are kinsmen, Tertius is a writer, Gaius is the host, and Erastus is the chamberlain. And then we have Quartus who is simply a brother. Nothing special or of interest about him that would mark him out to the Christians at Rome—nothing aside from the fact that he was a brother.
In verses 25-27 we have the ending words of the epistle. Usually, Paul's letters end with a blessing on his readers, such as in verse 20. But Romans has a longer ending and it is more of doxology—a word of praise to God. But it is also a conclusion to the letter.
I've mentioned before the famous formula for writing a speech or article—you tell people what you're going to tell them, then you tell them, and then you tell them what you told them. While this isn't a full recap of the letter, of course, in these few verses Paul does touch on several of the main themes of the letter.
This is how Paul began the letter: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures).” (Romans 1:1-2) You could argue that the rest of Romans is a development or exposition of that. Paul is describing the plan of salvation; how the righteousness of God is imparted to man—in other words, Paul is describing the gospel. And once again, here in the conclusion, we come back to this idea. Paul speaks of his gospel—the gospel he had been called to preach, the gospel which he had sacrificed everything to preach, the gospel which he had written this letter specifically to preach—the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paul speaks of this gospel as a mystery which had been kept secret but was now revealed. This could refer to the entire gospel, though many commentators that Paul specifically means the acceptance of Gentiles in the covenant of salvation, which is one of the main themes of Romans.
This was something new—to many of the Jews, it was a surprise and not a welcome one. But it wasn't entirely new and perhaps shouldn't have been so unexpected, since it was "by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God.” The gospel is good news and news is, by definition, new. But in a sense it wasn't new—this wasn't a last-minute change of plan on God's part. God did not change and His plan had been laid out long before. As Paul showed in Romans 9-11, God had been working towards this throughout all of history—the patriarchs and prophets, knowingly or not, had always been leading to the cross.
This had been God's plan and now it was revealed to all nations. This may refer to the fact that the gospel was being preached in all the world (or all the world that was known to Paul at the time)--but I think it means more that it could be made known to all nations. All the walls were down. There was no more need for secrecy or restraint. This was no longer a special message for a special people. It was a gospel for whosoever. (Granted, to some extent, that had been true in the Old Testament as well, but there is a special sense in which it is true now.)
Clifton Allen points out that Romans ends with the sense of an unfinished mission. The Gospel was to go out to all nations. Paul wanted to carry the gospel to Spain, but he probably never made it. But someone did carry the gospel to Spain. And the church is still going out to all nations, carrying the gospel, fulfilling the mission which was begun by the apostles.
But what is the gospel which Paul and the other apostles were carrying? What was it intended to do? It was for the obedience of faith. Paul sums up the first eight chapters of Romans in that one phrase. On one hand, salvation is by faith and not by the works of the law. But that faith leads to obedience. God does not save us because we are good people, but He does save us so we may become good people. Salvation does not depend on righteousness but it does impart righteousness. This is the obedience of faith.
But this obedience is not merely a human response. Men usually obey what they believe in—they will support a politician if they believe his promises; men will follow a guide if they believe he knows the way; men will give their money to a stock broker if they have faith in his brokery. But this is something more than that. Of course, if we believe God, we would want to follow Him. But this whole section is a doxology to God; it is God whose commandment created and sent forth the gospel—and God is the one who is of power to establish you. It is God who makes people Christians and it is God who keeps them. God began this work and God continues it.
And therefore, in the closing words (very similar to the closing words of chapter 11), Paul gives praise to God who is only wise, the other source of wisdom, the all-knowing, all-understanding one. To Him should be and to Him is glory—specifically, here, glory through Jesus Christ. I don't know exactly what it means that this glory is 'through Jesus Christ.' It may mean 'because of'--that there is glory to God specifically because of Jesus and His work in the plan of salvation. But 'through' can also mean 'by occasion of' (see Strong #1223), and I wonder if there is some thought that, if it weren't for Jesus and His work, if it weren't for the plan of salvation which changed us from sinners to saints, we would be in no condition and no disposition to praise God. But on the occasion of Christ's work in the plan of salvation, we now can and will be able to give God glory forever.
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