Or, The Gift of Conformity
Scripture: Romans 1:8-15
Date: September 19, 2021
Speaker: Sean Higgins
What do you give the city that has everything? As the capital of the Roman Empire, Rome (and her Caesars) didn’t actually have it “all,” but that’s a lot easier to see from our perspective. What would have been harder at the time to see is that the city did have some Christians, and that fact alone was something to celebrate as much as it was surprising. Paul writes to the saints in this moral cesspool (as we’ll read in the second half of Romans 1), to strengthen their grasp of the gift, and because they were strategic to the spread of the gift (Romans 15:24).
Rome was always on Paul’s mind. He writes that the Christians in Rome in particular were always on his mind and in his prayers. He wasn’t just being polite; this is more than Christian-courtesy. He saw them as part of his apostolic charge, those he was to care for and those he was to partner with.
This paragraph communicates his thanks for them, which was typical near the beginning of first-century letters, but, like the previous paragraph, this thanksgiving stands out from the typical.
Every letter written by Paul that we have includes some sort of thanks (except his letter to the Galatians who had abandoned the gospel).
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. (Romans 1:8)
We will look in vain for a “second” to this First. It happens to Paul a few times where his “first” is an only. This is an ordinal orphan, left all by itself.
The thing at the top of his mind is his gratitude. It is not gratitude to them, but gratitude for all of you and to my God. Hold that in mind for a moment.
The reason he’s thankful is because their reputation as believers had spread throughout all the world. The news of their faith in the announced good news was being announced. The fact of their faith, the fact that the gospel was already bearing fruit that far away from Jerusalem, caused a burst of gratitude.
There’s a lot to read still in the letter, and there’s plenty more about God’s sovereignty. But this thanksgiving to God for the testimony of faith means that the presence of faith and the reputation of that faith was gift. God gave it, that’s why God gets the thanks. If faith came from smarts, Paul might have expressed thanks that they were smart. Even then, we’d still need to ask, where did the smarts come from? And we know from too many other places that without grace, the wisdom of man only finds hell.
This isn’t just Pauline politeness, this is praising God for doing what the Caesars couldn’t coerce nor any man could produce. Look! Even in Rome there is faith in Jesus Christ. Their faith was always on Paul’s mind.
Verses 9-10 give some explanation of his thanks, with verses 11-13 giving some explanation of the explanation. Paul defends, so to speak, the fervor of his gratitude by arguing from the fervor of his desire to visit them.
For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. (Romans 1:9–10)
The more their reputation of faith spread from Rome the more the apostle to the Gentiles wanted to go to Rome. He didn’t don the aviators and think to himself, “Mission Accomplished”; they were always on his mind.
What they couldn’t see was how serious he was about seeing them. He called God as his witness that they were always on his mind. Paul served this God with this Son proclaimed in this gospel, and when he prayed mentioned them without ceasing and was always..asking God to get him to Rome. He thought about them as much as my dog thinks about playing, as much as the government thinks about making up new rules. His particular request was that God would enable him to visit Rome. It’s quite a list of qualifications: “if…perhaps…now…at last…by God’s will…may succeed….” He pulls back the curtain a bit on this in verse 13, but for now he defends his thankfulness for them according to his desire to visit them.
Why did he want to get there? He didn’t know them, not personally, so it wasn’t to reminisce for old time’s sake.
For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. (Romans 1:11–13 ESV)
He wanted to bring them a gift. What kind of spiritual gift was he referring to? Some take it that he wanted to bring his authority to make a Legit Church by Apostolic Gift (LCBAG+ for short). But I think he answers what this gift is in the very explanation. The gift was steridzo (στηρίζω).
He thanked God for them and wanted God to enable him to see them because he wanted to strengthen them. He wanted to stimulate their faith, wherever they might have weak spots, and it was his calling to do so.
As he strengthened them he knew it wouldn’t be a one-way street. Verse 12 sort of amends his purpose; he’d come and strengthen them and everyone would be benefited: that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. It’s the culture of gift. This is what happens. Those with faith can’t help but resonate with and rejoice with and encourage others with faith.
Verse 13 discloses more of what they couldn’t know, and provides a defense for why he hadn’t come already. Paul really had made plans to visit them. I have often intended. It wasn’t for lack of interest. He had thus far been prevented. He doesn’t say what prevented him, but it was obviously not God’s will, not yet. Perhaps he had been busy with urgent work in front of him; less demons to blame and more demands. In fact, as he wrote this, he was preparing to go the opposite direction to take support from Corinth to Jerusalem. But it wasn’t because the Romans were out of sight, out of mind.
He reiterates that he wanted to come in order that I may reap some (fruit) among you as well as the rest of the Gentiles. This “harvest” (ESV), better fruit (NASB), is spiritual fruit. What kind? It could be converts, as in, he wanted to be the feet bringing good news that enabled men to hear the word of Christ and believe (Romans 10:15). But the fruit is more than conversion. The fruit is confirmation in the faith and conformity to Christ.
His calling was to bring about the obedience of faith among the nations (Romans 1:5). That starts, just like the commission to make disciples, with calling others to repent and believe. Paul did the work of an evangelist. But that’s not all the evangel did. The gift transforms, and it conforms into the image of God’s Son.
All that to say, they were always on his mind because his obligation was always on his mind.
I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. (Romans 1:14–15)
The demographic taxonomies might not be used by the same people in the same way. I think in verse 14 Paul has three groups in mind, but all three in verse 14 are summarized in verse 5 and in verse 16 under one banner.
The Greeks are the wise. The philosophers of reputation at the time were, of course, Greek. More than philosophy, the Greeks had the gods, so they considered themselves the cultured, the civilized. To the Greeks, all the rest, including the Jews, were Barbarians. The Barbarians were the bumpkins, the foolish. Their language sounded like primitive stammering, bar-bar-bar, their name was onomatopoetic, and mockable, at least to the Greeks.
Paul wasn’t distinguishing the Romans from the Athenians and the country-folk, he was saying both kinds (of Gentiles, non-Jews) existed among the Romans (who were reading Greek even in this letter).
Along with the cultured and the crude is the third category: the Christians. He wanted to preach the gospel to all of them, so that all of them would be Christians. And the gospel is good for Christians, too. It is gift for them to make them better Christians, confirmed in the faith and conformed to Christ.
When I say conformity is a gift, I mean Paul knows what’s coming. He knows what the problem is (sin), the solution (salvation), the troubles (suffering), and the predestined power of the gospel, that God is conforming us to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29).
You can’t be separated from the love of Christ. That is gospel if there ever was. Would that be an itch Paul wanted to preach to the Romans for their encouragement? Yeah. I think that’s what he had in mind.
The gospel is the gift that keeps on giving. It is the good news that keeps on making news.
The gospel “proper,” so to speak, can be summarized like Paul did for the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). The gospel “plenary,” as in, the gospel in fulness when considered complete and in all respects, is the reason the letter to the Romans is so long. It is the reason Christianity is a life, including character and conduct, fueled by faith and summarized by creed. It is the reason that we are living sacrifices, not collectors of sentences.
The gospel converts, gospel confirms/strengthens, gospel conforms to Christ (Romans 8:29). It’s all gift, from faith to faith, from justification through sanctification to glorification.
Paul never stopped thinking about “the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations” (1:5). He was gifted with this obligation to preach the gift of conformity to Christ. What could be more glorious?
It is a triumphal gift. It triumphs over our enmity with God (Romans 5). It triumphs over our lusts (Romans 6). It triumphs over our self-saving attempts (Romans 7). It triumphs over our suffering (Romans 8). It triumphs over cultural abandon (Romans 1). It triumphs over inter-personal judgmentalism (Romans 14-15).
The world is being infiltrated by the news of this gift of God to men, and the news of men with faith in the faith is proclaimed throughout. God through the gospel continues to make a new humanity, renewed, alive, hated and salty and jealousable.
This isn’t just a gift we deliver like so many Amazon drivers, but one to be opened and received and shared. From faith to faith, as the gospel confirms and conforms. There is no need to be ashamed of this gift.
Can you imagine what your soul, fully confirmed in faith, would look like? This is not asking if you have faith in your faith, but what full-formed—faith in Christ in your heart would do. What about confirmed and conformed faith in your family? What about among all the Christians in Marysville?
Does such faith seem uncharted, unimaginable? Great. So incredible was the gospel bearing faith-fruit in Rome when Paul wrote Romans. Don’t shrink back, live by faith.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20–21, ESV)