8. Christ and the gentiles (15:7–13)
8. Christ and the Gentiles (15:7–13)
‘So then,’ says Paul, ‘follow the example of Christ. As he welcomed us without discrimination, so let us make room for one another without discrimination.
‘This is what I mean,’ he continues. ‘Christ came not to receive service but to give it—first, and directly, to the Jews, in order to fulfil the promises which God had made to their forefathers, and then also to the Gentiles, that they might rejoice in God’s uncovenanted mercy.’ But if the bringing of the gospel to the Jews fulfilled the promises to the patriarchs, the evangelization and conversion of the Gentiles were also foretold in the Old Testament. Paul adduces a catena of Old Testament testimonia in which the Gentiles are presented as praising the God of Israel and placing their hope in Israel’s Messiah.
The manner and extent of the blessing into which God would bring believing Gentiles—their incorporation along with believing Jews in the community of the people of God—might be a mystery concealed from earlier generations until it became a reality through Paul’s ministry (Eph. 3:2–6; Col. 1:25–27); but the fact that Gentiles would be blessed by the gospel Paul sees as something clearly predicted in Old Testament times (cf. Gal. 3:8). This meant that he viewed his own ministry as God’s means towards the fulfilment of his promise to the Gentiles.
A prayer that his readers may abound in joy and peace, faith and hope, concludes this division of the letter in which Paul has presented the Christian way of life.
7. Welcome one another. Take your fellow-Christians to your hearts as well as to your homes. If Christ’s example is followed, as Paul enjoins, the welcome will be unreserved and God will be glorified by his people’s mutual love and kindness, Paul may have in mind especially, though by no means exclusively, the practice of unreserved fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers.
As Christ has welcomed you. For ‘you’ (hymas) there is, as in many other places, a variant reading ‘us’ (hēmas); cf. NEB. ‘This is why it is right that they should remain united together, and not despise one another, because Christ despised neither of them’ (Calvin, ad loc.).1
8. Christ became a servant to the circumcised. That is, ‘of the Jewish people’ (NEB). On his own testimony, during his earthly ministry, Jesus was ‘sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matt. 15:24). The noun translated ‘servant’ is diakonos; compare Jesus’ words: ‘the Son of man came not to be served (diakonēthēnai) but to serve (diakonēsai)’ (Mark 10:45), and ‘I am among you as one who serves’ (diakonōn, Luke 22:27).
To show God’s truthfulness. ‘By making good his promises to the patriarchs’ (NEB)—promises which were fulfilled in Christ.
9. That the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. Christ’s direct ministry to ‘the circumcised’ was continued by the ‘pillar’ apostles (Gal. 2:9); the imparting of his blessing to Gentiles was administered pre-eminently by Paul.
‘Therefore I will praise thee among the Gentiles, and sing to thy name.’ A quotation from Psalm 18:49 (2 Sam. 22:50) where David, having incorporated non-Israelite nations in his empire, counts them as now belonging to the heritage of the God of Israel. For the Christian application of this idea cf. James’s quotation of Amos 9:11–12 (LXX) at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:16–17).
10. ‘Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.’ A quotation from the Song of Moses (Deut. 32:43). (Compare earlier quotations from the same Song in 10:19; 11:11; 12:19.)
11. ‘Praise the Lord, all Gentiles, and let all the peoples praise him.’ A quotation from Psalm 117:1, where the whole world is called upon to praise the God of Israel for his steadfast love and faithfulness.
12. ‘The root of Jesse shall come, he who rises to rule the Gentiles: in him shall the Gentiles hope.’ A quotation from Isaiah 11:10, where the ‘shoot from the stump of Jesse’ (Isa. 11:1), i.e. the expected Messiah of David’s line, ‘shall stand as an ensign to the peoples; him shall the nations seek’. The Targum of Jonathan renders the last clause ‘to him shall kings render obedience’ (cf. Gen. 49:10d). For Jesus’ Davidic descent see 1:3 with comment (p. 78). Paul finds testimonia of the Gentile mission in the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms.
13. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. The title ‘the God of hope’ is perhaps suggested by the mention of ‘hope’ at the end of the immediately preceding quotation from Isaiah 11:10. Cf. 14:17, where peace and joy are blessings of the kingdom of God. Because ‘the God of hope’ gives his children hope in himself, they may enjoy these blessings now.
So that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Once more, it is the Spirit who enables believers to experience in this life the blessings of the life to come. The grand object of their hope is the glory of God (5:2).