Romans 16

Wesley: mark them who cause divisions—such there were at Rome also; avoid all unnecessary intercourse with them. The test is the doctrine already taught, not novelty dressed as zeal.

Watching and avoiding are responsibilities under grace. Division contrary to the gospel is not a personality clash; the church can and must refuse it without becoming factious itself.

Calvin: Satan’s ministers sow discord, drawing minds from the unity of truth, or occasion offenses that alienate from the gospel’s love—mixing truth with new dogmas, or making the gospel odious. Observe them lest they catch the unwary; shun them. The force of the passage is “which ye have learnt.”

God guards a taught church. Peace is not union in lies; the Romans must hold the orthodox faith they received and refuse those who tear it.

Wesley: good words concerning themselves, making great promises; fair speeches concerning you, praising and flattering you. The harmless, doing no ill themselves, are not on guard against those who do.

Deception targets the simple. Grace does not cancel vigilance; a sincere heart still needs to refuse flattery. Service of appetites unmasks a ministry that will not serve Christ.

Calvin: an unvarying mark of false prophets—they have no care for Christ’s glory but seek the benefit of their stomach. They creep in by bland address; impostors allure by flattery and indulge vices to keep people attached. He calls simple those not cautious enough to avoid deceptions.

The gospel’s true courtesy is honest. God names the belly so the church will not mistake smoothness for holiness.

Wesley: not only obedient, but discreet also—wise with regard to good as knowing as possible, simple with regard to evil as ignorant as possible. Known obedience is cause for joy, not a reason to drop guard.

Obedience can be authentic and still need wisdom. Grace that produced their famous faith also calls them to refuse naivete; innocence is not gullibility.

Calvin: said to anticipate an objection. Their obedience is commended everywhere, and he rejoices; yet a fall through simplicity might easily happen. Be harmless as to doing evil, most prudent in doing good. The simplicity commended in Christians is not stupid ignorance of the word of God.

Teachableness is gift; caution is duty. God who gave their obedience would have them wise, lest readiness to believe expose them to impostors.

Wesley: the God of peace—the Author and Lover of it—giving a blessing to your discretion, shall bruise Satan under your feet: defeat the artifices of that sower of tares, and unite you more and more together in love. Peace is God’s character and His work among them.

God crushes Satan under the church’s feet—they participate as He blesses their watchfulness. Grace is then wished upon them as the atmosphere in which that victory is lived.

Calvin: a promise to confirm them rather than a prayer. Fight manfully against Satan; you shall shortly be victorious. He was once conquered by Christ, yet renews the war; ultimate defeat does not appear in the midst of the contest. Paul does not speak only of the last day: Satan was then raging, and the Lord would shortly subdue him. Prayer follows—that Christ’s grace would be with them.

The God of peace treads the author of discord. Victory is Christ’s already, and soon under their feet; grace is the blessing that keeps them in the fight.

Wesley: Timothy is named even before Paul’s kinsmen; having never been at Rome, he is not named in the letter’s opening. Greetings now run the other way—from Corinth’s company to Rome.

Gospel partnership is personal. Named coworkers and kinsmen remind the church that the faith is a network of actual people, not an abstraction.

Calvin: the salutations foster union between those far asunder, and let the Romans know their brethren subscribed to the epistle—not that Paul needed others’ testimony, but the consent of the godly is not of small importance.

God binds churches by names. Timothy the fellow worker and the kinsmen are providence’s witness that this gospel is shared, not a private Paul.

Wesley: Tertius, who wrote what the apostle dictated, inserted this by Paul’s exhortation or ready permission. The scribe greets in the Lord.

Even the penman is a brother. Grace includes the unnoticed labor of writing; the church may greet a secretary as a saint, not a tool.

The letter has a human hand and a named scribe, greeting in the Lord. Means are not unholy: dictation, ink, and a brother’s voice.

God uses appointed instruments. Tertius’s greeting is inside the apostolic word, a reminder that providence runs through ordinary work.

Wesley: Gaius the Corinthian (1 Cor 1:14), host of Paul and of the whole church, who probably met for a time in his house; Erastus the chamberlain of Corinth. Hospitality and civic office both appear in the greeting.

Hosting the church is ministry. Grace sanctifies a house and can also claim a city treasurer; Quartus is simply “greets you, as does Quartus, the brother,” honor enough.

Host of apostle and church, city treasurer, and a brother named Quartus: God people His mission from parlor and from city hall.

Providence parks the church in Gaius’s house and can convert an Erastus without needing Rome’s elite. Brother is the title that counts; greeting them binds Corinth’s household to Rome’s.

Most modern critical editions omit v. 24 from the main text; later manuscripts, followed by the WEB, include a grace benediction here: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” The same blessing already sounded in v. 20.

Whether the line is original or a scribe’s echo, the church still lives under that grace. The gospel’s closing word is not a secret for a few; it is Christ’s grace with you all—sincerely spoken, to be received.

Critical editions leave the verse out, following the earliest witnesses. Where later copies add the grace, they repeat the apostolic blessing already given (v. 20): grace with you all, Amen.

A textual footnote does not thin the doxology that follows. God keeps His people by the grace the letter has already announced; the church says Amen to that, manuscript or no extra line.

Wesley: the last words of the epistle exactly answer the first (Rom 1:1–5)—the power of God, the gospel, Jesus Christ, the Scriptures, the obedience of faith, all nations. Establish you: both Jews and Gentiles. The mystery is the calling of the Gentiles, foretold in the Prophets yet still hid from many believing Jews. Strengthening comes according to the preached gospel, not apart from it.

The accent falls on a God able to establish who actually uses the unveiled gospel. Ability is power offered in the preaching of Jesus Christ, received by faith. The church looks to Him to be strengthened, and must keep to that gospel—grace is mighty, and unbelief is still a free refusal.

Calvin: by adding that God was able to confirm the Romans, he made them more certain of their final perseverance. A testimony to that power is borne in the gospel, which not only promises present grace but brings assurance of grace that will endure forever: God declares He is our Father not only now but to the end; adoption extends beyond death.

“Able to establish” is comfort, not a question. The God who hid and then revealed the mystery is able to keep the people that gospel creates. Perseverance rests on His power according to the preaching of Christ.

The once-secret mystery is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings made known to all nations by the commandment of the eternal God, is made known for obedience of faith. Wesley: the commandment is the foundation of the apostolical office; a new dispensation infers no change in God; made known to all nations—not barely that they might know, but enjoy it also, through obeying the faith.

The eternal God commands a public gospel for the nations. “Obedience of faith” is the appointed end: trust that can be rendered or refused. The nations are not told a locked secret; they are commanded to believe and so enjoy what is preached.

Calvin: this did not emerge through men’s haste or chance but through the eternal ordination of God; the prophetic Scriptures show it is no novelty. He refers again to the end named in chapter 1: that God may lead all nations to the obedience of faith. The mystery is more than Gentile calling alone—the prophets taught these things with such obscurity that, beside gospel light, they are rightly said to have been hidden.

Disclosure is God’s timing; the command is His eternal ordination. He leads nations to the obedience of faith—effectual as well as wide in announcement. The “now” is the hour God chose.

Wesley: to the only wise God—whose manifold wisdom is known in the church through the gospel (Eph 3:10). “To him who is able” and “to the wise God” are joined, as in 1 Corinthians 1:24, where Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God. To Him be glory through Christ Jesus forever—and let every believer say Amen.

Wisdom is displayed in a gospel now preached to the nations, not hoarded as a riddle. Glory runs through Jesus Christ; the fitting human word is Amen—faith’s consent to God’s wise mercy.

Calvin: he ascribes all glory to God alone, then names attributes that show it is rightly His. He only is wise—praise taken from all creatures. After speaking of God’s secret counsel, Paul annexes this eulogy to draw all to reverence that wisdom, for men clamor when they can find no reason for God’s works.

The only wise God receives glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Mystery, nations, and perseverance end in worship, not in our mapping of the plan. Amen is the church’s rest in the wisdom it cannot exhaust.