Romans 15

The strong—Wesley says those of a clearer judgment, free from the scruples of Romans 14—are not excused from the table. They have an obligation: bear the weaknesses of the weak, and do not please yourselves. Strength is for carrying, not for winning the argument.

Christlike liberty is liberty to stoop. The able remain responsible; this duty can be taken up or refused. A church is healthy when the strong actually take the weight, not when they lecture the weak from a height.

Calvin: this strength was bestowed so that they might sustain the weak and prevent them from falling. Gifts are for the body of Christ. The stronger anyone is in Christ, the more bound he is to bear with the weak—not merely to tolerate them, but to help carry what they cannot carry.

Obligation here is a trust, not a suggestion. God has committed the strong to the weak as surely as He committed knowledge to those who must teach. Strength is not a private comfort.

Please the neighbor—not to flatter, but for that which is good, to be building him up. Wesley: edification is one species of good. The aim is the other's growth in Christ, not a smoother evening.

The passage carries a wide, practical love: each of us is addressed. Building up is work we can do, and work we can neglect. The neighbor's good is a charge, not a mood.

Calvin: we are under obligations to others, and ought to accommodate ourselves to our brethren according to God's word, to their edification. Two things: do not rest in your own judgment, and do not please people toward their ruin.

Most people cannot be pleased except you indulge their humor. The command is not popularity.

The pattern is not a proverb; it is Christ. He did not please himself. Wesley: He bore not only the infirmities but the reproaches of His brethren, and so fulfilled Psalm 69. The strong are not asked to do what their Lord refused.

If Christ stooped, no one in the church is too free to stoop. Reproach that falls on a weak brother is not beneath the strong. The verse invites imitation, not a shrug that only Jesus could live this way.

Calvin: it would be very strange in us to wish exemption from a duty to which Christ, our Lord and King, submitted Himself. Having no regard for Himself, He gave Himself wholly to this service. Zeal for God's glory absorbed Him.

The servant does not refuse what the Lord has undertaken. Christ's self-emptying is the church's law because He reigns in His people. If He reigns in us, what derogates from God's glory will grieve us as if it struck our own name.

The Old Testament was not a closed file. Wesley: aforetime, in the Old Testament—and through the consolation God gives us by these writings we may have patience and a joyful hope. Scripture is for the living church, not only for the first readers.

Classical Arminians take this as a sincere means of grace: God instructs, encourages, and holds out hope in the Word. Those who attend to the Scriptures are summoned to endure and to hope; the page is not a locked decree but a living comfort.

Calvin: there is nothing vain in the oracles of God. The Scriptures raise those prepared by patience and strengthened by consolation to the hope of eternal life. God alone is the author of patience and consolation; He uses His Word as the instrument.

Hope is not a mood we manufacture from old stories. The Spirit plants what the Word teaches. Former days were written for our salvation, and fanatics who discard the Old Testament rob the church of what God appointed for her.

Paul does not merely command harmony; he asks the God of perseverance and of encouragement to grant it—in accord with Christ Jesus, not in accord with the stronger party's taste. Wesley hears this according to the power of Christ Jesus.

God grants what the church must still live. Prayer and responsibility sit together. Harmony is a gift to be received, not a trophy of the party that won Romans 14.

Calvin: after exhorting them, Paul turns to pray, for he fully understood that to speak of duty was to no purpose except God inwardly effected by His Spirit what he spoke by the mouth of man. God is the author of patience and consolation; the Word is His instrument.

The God who is named from what He produces is asked to produce like-mindedness. Unity according to Christ is not a human truce. God must bring minds to unanimity, or the exhortation dies on the page.

The end of harmony is not a quieter church calendar. It is one voice—Wesley: Jews and Gentiles believing with one mind and confessing with one mouth—glorifying the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Shared praise is the test. If the strong and the weak cannot sing the Father's glory together, the previous verses have not yet landed. Doxology is the point of the patience.

Calvin: God is not truly glorified by us unless the hearts of all agree in giving Him praise, and their tongues join in harmony. He so esteems the unity of His servants that He will not have His glory sounded forth amid discords.

No one may boast that he will glorify God after his own manner. This one thought ought to check the rage for contention. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is praised when the church is one mouth, not a contest of mouths.

Therefore—because Christ is the pattern and the Scriptures give hope—welcome one another. Wesley: weak and strong, with mutual love. The measure is not, Welcome those who have caught up to you, but, As Christ also accepted you.

Christ's welcome is sincere and wide enough for this mixed room. If He received you when you were not yet strong, you may not freeze out a brother whose conscience still trembles. Glory to God is at stake in the greeting.

Calvin: Christ, having received not one or two of us but all together, has connected us so that we ought to cherish one another if we would continue in His bosom. Only thus do we confirm our calling: if we separate not ourselves from those the Lord has bound together.

Welcome is covenant practice. Christ has actually received these people to the glory of God. To refuse a brother He has taken is to tear what He joined. The glory of the Father is made known in that reception.

Paul now shows how Christ received us. Wesley: He was a servant of His Father, of the circumcision, for the salvation of the Jews, to manifest the truth and fidelity of God. The promises to the patriarchs were not a feint; Christ confirmed them.

Classical Arminians gladly confess that God's truthfulness stands: what He promised to the fathers He performed in the Son. Gentile believers do not erase Israel; they meet a Christ who first became a servant to the circumcised.

Calvin: Christ embraced us all, yet in the first place He was promised to the Jewish nation and in a manner peculiarly destined for them. He became servant of the circumcision to accomplish the truth of God by performing the promises given to the fathers. The old covenant was in reality spiritual.

This is no common honor—the Lord of heaven put on flesh to procure salvation for that people. Salvation in Christ belonged by covenant to the Jews; His coming fulfilled what the Father had promised Abraham. Truthfulness here is promise kept.

Christ's servanthood has a second aim: that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy. Wesley hears Psalm 18 as Jews and Gentiles joining in the worship of the God of Israel. Mercy is sung, not merely noted.

The nations are sincerely summoned into praise. Mercy to the Gentiles is not an afterthought God might withhold from those who would come; it is written into the psalm so that outsiders may actually sing His name.

Calvin: this is the second point, and Paul dwells on it longer because it was not so evident. Mercy named the Gentiles' share, as truth named the Jews'—promise kept to the fathers, mercy extended to those who had no such distinct pledge. God's praises are declared in the assembly of those who can hear them.

The calling of the Gentiles is a fulfilled prophecy, not a human expansion of the franchise. They glorify God for mercy because God has brought them into communion with His people so that His name is known among them.

The nations are not a tolerated gallery; they are called to rejoice with Israel, not instead of Israel.

The gospel's table is wide. Gentile joy is commanded joy, an invitation into the people's song. No one in Rome may treat the other half of the church as a guest who should stay quiet.

The Scripture says it again so no one can call Gentile inclusion a Pauline novelty. Gentiles rejoice with His people—joined, not annexed as a rival people of God.

God had already written the mixed choir. What Paul requires in the Roman church is what Moses and the psalms already sang. Unity here is obedience to Scripture, not a modern experiment.

Wesley simply marks the text. The smallest psalm opens the largest door: praise is asked of the nations, not only of Zion.

Here the reader meets a sincere call. Peoples are summoned to extol the Lord; the summons is not theater. Those who hear may praise, and the church that believes this will not hoard the song.

Calvin: how can they who know not God's greatness praise Him? They could no more do this than call on His name when unknown. It is a prophecy most suitable to prove the calling of the Gentiles.

The psalm is not a wish that never lands. God calls the nations because He will have them praise Him. Extolling Him grows from being brought to know His name, not a compliment paid from remaining darkness.

Isaiah 11: the root of Jesse—Wesley notes that kings and the Messiah were promised to Jesse even before David. In Him shall the Gentiles hope, who before had been without hope (Ephesians 2:12).

The nations are not left as spectators of Israel's Messiah. They may actually hope in Him. The root of Jesse arises to rule and to be trusted; former hopelessness is not the last word for those who now look to Christ.

Calvin: this prophecy is the most illustrious of them all. From the dry trunk of David's family a shoot would arise for the Gentiles' salvation. Hope in Christ is an evidence of His divinity. Twice the calling of the Gentiles is confirmed: He is raised as a sign, and they shall hope in Him—which cannot take place without the preaching of the word and illumination of the Spirit.

Gentile hope is Christ's gift, not a native religious talent. He arises to rule; they hope because the Word is preached and the Spirit gives light.

The section closes as it must: a prayer. Wesley: the God of hope—a glorious title, till now unknown to the heathens, whose goddess Hope was nothing. He fills with all joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in hope through the Spirit's power.

Filling is God's, and believing is the appointed way. Hope overflows where people actually trust Him. The Spirit's power is help, not a substitute for faith; the church is invited to abound, not to wait and see whether hope was assigned.

Calvin: Paul desires the Lord to give what He had commanded. The Lord does not measure His precepts according to our strength or the power of free-will; He commands what requires the aid of His grace, that He may stimulate us to prayer. Through the power of the Holy Spirit all these are gifts of divine bounty—that wonderful energy by which the Spirit works in us faith, hope, joy, and peace.

Abounding hope is not the extra mile of hardy souls. The God in whom we hope fills; the Spirit's power does the work. Prayer is the right response because the command outruns us.