Romans 12:4-10

CRITICAL NOTES

Romans 12:5.—We are knit together in Christ, as the head in the organic life.

Romans 12:6.—Prophesying is both foretelling and forthtelling. Hence preaching and expounding make the prophet. We must expound according to the rule of faith. Pleasant doctrines must not have undue prominence. We must take the word of God as a whole, and thus avoid heresies.

Romans 12:9. Cleave to that which is good.—κόλλα, glue. Keeping yourselves glued to the good. Hold firmly to the true.

Romans 12:10.—Strive to anticipate each other. Set the example of honour. When a man knows that his neighbour is accustomed to salute him, let him be the first to give the salutation. φιλόστοργοι, tenderly loving, perhaps towards one’s kindred, in New Testament towards Christian brethren. Word only used in this verse.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 12:4

Love cements unity.—The organisation of the human body should be an example to the believer to make him perceive the necessity of limiting himself to the function assigned him. Not only, indeed, is there a plurality of members in one body, but these members also possess special functions. So in the Church there is not only a multiplicity of members, but also a diversity of functions, every believer having a particular gift whereby he ought to become the auxiliary of all the rest, their member. Hence it follows that every one should remain in his function: on the one hand, that he may be able to render to the rest the help which he owes them; on the other, that he may not disturb those in the exercise of their gifts (Godet).

I. Love makes unity.—Life unites together the several members of the human body. There may be contact, but not true unity, where there is no life. There must be love sincere in the Church if there is to be unity. Some Churches seem to have outward coherence and no inward unity. Love does not unite the whole body. We cannot be one body in Christ without love. Faith and love make us members of the mystical body.

II. Discriminating love recognises diversity in unity.—The human body is one; its members are many. Nature is one; its parts are various. The Bible is one; its records stretch over the centuries: there are manifest proofs of different writers. The ocean is one; its separate waves constitute its unity. The Church is divided, and yet united: diversities of gifts and of modes of operation. Love may overlook seeming discrepancies and recognise the Church as a glorious unity.

III. Sincere love cements unity.—

1. It removes envy. The minister does not envy the prophet; the intellectual preacher does not spurn the emotional; while the emotional preacher does not envy the high gifts of the intellectual. He that is ruled does not treat with contempt the authority of the ruler.

2. It makes each man seek to fit into his place. Every man a place from God, and every man seeking to fill his place.

3. It imparts diligence and cheerfulness. Our teachers should be both diligent and cheerful. A cheerful voice is a blessed tonic. Amid the sad voices of a weary humanity we need the joyful voices of messengers from the land of blessedness. Songs of hope should be sung in a despairing world. Diligence and cheerfulness are specially needed in these days, when scepticism is so diligent, when the press is so diligent, when a pessimistic tone is pervading society. If one man cannot be both diligent and cheerful, let two men unite their forces. “He that ruleth, with diligence; he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness.” Pompous and hard-hearted beadles are not sent by St. Paul on errands of mercy. They are to be cheerful messengers, taking good cheer to sad hearts and homes. Giving is to be done with simplicity. Love, and not the stately banquet, not the eloquent speech, not the prospect of an advertisement, must elicit and give the subscription. The prophet and the humblest teacher, the ruler and the ruled, the giver of alms and the receiver, meet on the one blessed plane of brotherhood.

IV. Love beautifies unity.—

1. Love to the Church prompts to the gracious spirit of detesting that which is evil and cleaving to that which is good. What a beautiful aspect the Church would present if each member were glued to that which is good! Modern glue is poor stuff; it fastens to the good, but the fastening is weak. The prospect of gain or fame makes the glue wither and lose its hold. Is there any modern glue to stand the heat of persecution? Ah! there may be faithful ones in modern as in ancient times.

2. Love to the Church generates kind affections. “Be kindly affectioned one to another.” Sweetly smooth words for rough times. There may be a need for a modern enforcement. Be kindly affectioned. How about the modern cynic? How about the morose ecclesiastic? How about the dignified official? How about the purse-proud man who condescends to say, ’Ow do? These all need the lesson taught by St. Paul of being kindly affectioned one to another.

3. Love to the Church provokes holy emulation. “In honour preferring one another.” The emulation of love is to show the brightest example of kindness; the ambition of loving Christians is to excel each other in all acts of mutual kindness and respect. What a beautiful society! Will earth ever witness such a social paradise? Is this ecclesiastical ideal the utopia of a vain dreamer? Will earth ever thus taste the bliss of heaven? Let us not despair. Diligence and cheerfulness will accomplish much. Let each seek to do his or her duty in the allotted sphere; let us live in the love of Christ; let us love, and the grace will grow by gracious and consistent exercise.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 12:4

Explanation of terms.—In the Epistle to Titus there occurs the expression προϊστάσθαι καλῶν ἔργων,” to be occupied with good works”; whence the term προστάσος, patroness, protectress, benefactress, used in our epistle to express what Phœbe had been to many believers, and to Paul himself. Think of the numerous works of private charity which believers then had to found and maintain! Pagan society had neither hospitals nor orphanages, free schools nor refuges, like those of our day. The Church, impelled by the instinct of Christian charity, had to introduce all these institutions into the world; hence, no doubt, in every community spontaneous gatherings of devout men and women who, like our present Christian committees, took up one or other of these needful objects, and had of course at their head directors charged with the responsibility of the work. Such are the persons certainly whom the apostle had in view in our passage. Thus is explained the position of this term between the preceding “he that giveth” and the following “he that showeth mercy.” The same explanation applies to the following regimen ἐν σπουδῇ, “with zeal.” This recommendation would hardly be suitable for one presiding over an assembly. How many presidents, on the contrary, would require to have the call addressed to them, “Only no zeal”! But the recommendation is perfectly suitable to one who is directing a Christian work, and who ought to engage in it with a sort of exclusiveness, to personify it after a manner in himself. The last term ὁ ἐλεῶν, “he that showeth mercy,” denotes the believer who feels called to devote himself to the visiting of the sick and afflicted. There is a gift of sympathy which particularly fits for this sort of work, and which is, as it were, the key to open the heart of the sufferer. The regimen ἐν ἱλαρότητι, literally, “with hilarity,” denotes the joyful eagerness, the amiable grace, the affability going the length of gaiety, which make the visitor, whether man or woman, a sunbeam penetrating into the sick-chamber and to the heart of the afflicted.—Godet.

Abhorrence of evil.—It is the peculiarity of the Christian religion that while its aim is to exclude all sin from the heart, it does not dismember the soul by severing from it any faculty that is natural to it. Religion is a revolution, but its effect is only to suppress and exclude evil and establish the sovereignty of God to the heart of man. Hatred is a faculty given to us by the Creator for good. It is difficult at first, perhaps, to see its place in religion, because we see in it so plainly the evidence of man’s fall Hatred in men ordinarily is hateful, because it is vile passion, impulse, or impatience of contradiction, and is directed mainly against me, and not evil principles, evil habits, and evil things. It is a faculty liable to abuse, and the Christian man requires great grace to use it well. It has its place, however, in the Christian system, and rightly used is a potent instrument in the suppression of evil. Let us consider the direction of the text.

I. What is evil?—Now and then “a case of conscience” may occur in which the casuist’s skill is indispensable to obtain relief from perplexity, but for the most part the knowledge of good and evil is found in every human breast. There is at work in society what may be termed an educational agency, that is teaching men in various ways what is evil and what is good. The preaching of the word and teaching of the Bible and prayer as it deprecates evil; the opposition to and exposure of evil by good men; an enlightened public opinion; the administration of the law in connection with crime; the godly training of children and conscience,—these and other influences are pervading human society, so that none can plead ignorance of the vital question before us. But for the sake of clearness let us now briefly define the term “evil.” Evil is twofold,—existing as a hidden power in the soul, like the poison in the berry, the deadly forked lightning hid in the thundercloud, the dagger in its sheath; and as it assumes a concrete form in the world of men and things—evil books, institutions, principles, habits, language, etc. In other words, evil appears in character and conduct, answering to the theological terms of guilt and pollution. The sinner has a corrupt heart and guilty life. Or again, evil may be regarded as vice and crime, and its essential characteristic is lawlessness in principle and passion. “The energetic use of faculties created for God alone.” Vice is personal; crime has reference to others, to society in its organised state.

“Of every malice that wins hate in heaven
Injury is the end; and all such end,
Either by force or fraud, afflicteth others.”

All men are vicious, few in proportion criminal; but vice is the root of crime, and all in whose hearts evil is to be found may become “guilty of deadly sin.” “Crimes sometimes shock us too much; vices almost always too little.” “God hath concluded all under sin,”—“there is none righteous, no, not one.” What an appalling fact!—evil has established itself in every soul; all are under its curse, and need deliverance.

II. What is to “abhor” evil?—Dislike, repugnance, abhorrence, hatred. To abhor evil is not only to cast it out of our own bosom, but also to strive against it until it is chased out of the world. To abhor is the opposite of to love. Love seeks, first of all, to possess the object loved, and then to perpetuate it; abhorrence, on the contrary, first separates, and then seeks to destroy. This, then, is the position we take up when we are “changed from nature to grace.”

“The thing my God doth hate, that I no more may do,
Thy creature, Lord, again create, and all my soul renew;
My soul shall then, like Thine, abhor the thing unclean,
And, sanctided by love divine, for ever cease from sin.”

III. The reasons why we should hate evil.—

1. This is the very “end” for which Christ died, that He might “destroy in us the works of the devil.”
2. It is implied in sanctification, separation to God, and therefore separation from evil in thought, affection, purpose, and practice.

3. Your personal safety lies along that line. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”
4. God employs the hatred of good men to sin as an instrument for its suppression in others. You are called upon to speak against it, to frown upon it, to expose and condemn it, and thus help to drive it out of men’s hearts.
5. Again let us inquire if there is any alternative course that may be adopted.

(1) May we compromise evil? But this would be to confuse and confound all moral distinctions, and would constitute you the basest of all evil characters—a hypocrite.

(2) Can we utilise evil? In one sense we may, if we make it a stimulus to prayer and activity, if it stir us up to watchfulness and caution, if we strive to “overcome evil with good,” and so develop our spiritual strength as “not to be overcome with evil.” But it belongs to God alone to overrule evil for good in the world. The lightning that blinds and terrifies, the ethereal light, can be utilised by science; but a map may as well try to harness an untamed tiger out of the jungle, to silence the thunder, and stop the roar of the ocean, as try to control his evil passions or govern his impulses unassisted by divine grace. The sinner is ever the victim of evil against his will and conscience.

(3) Is it possible so to control evil in the soul as to be able to silence it at pleasure, to have it in abeyance? No; for evil thoughts spring up within us involuntarily, and often in spite of the strongest resolutions and the most sacred vows; malign spirits suggest evil in a mysterious manner to us; evil associations hold many in thrall; and it is impulse that leads to the commission of the most violent and shocking crimes.

(4) Shall we then yield to this power? Then you will be unhappy, impure, degraded, forsaken, and ruined for ever. A gentleman who had resided many years in Egypt once showed me a dagger of Syrian manufacture whose blade was of poisoned steel, and he assured me that it could deal a wound which never could be healed. It is evil that can destroy “both body and soul in hell,” “where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.” “Abhor that which is evil.”

IV. Difficulties and dangers.—This course is not easy when:

1. Evil is associated with fine qualities. Don Juan and Hebrew Lyrics bound together in the same volume. There are paintings in the first style of art which would be best seen at midnight and without a light. Burke once said, “Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.” But refined and cultivated evil is the same in principle with evil in its most revolting forms, and will end as wretchedly.

2. Spurious charity. Ignorance, weakness, may be used as a shield and pleaded as an excuse.

3. Social connections.

4. Self-interest.

5. Temperament is sometimes a difficulty. The violent and hasty put a plea of extenuation in the mouth of the guilty; the easy and indolent pass over a fault; the sympathetic and charitable are too ready to condone evil.

6. Timidity which shrinks from the consequences of active strife against sin.

7. Familiarity with evil.
8. We are secretly in love with evil, and nothing but the regenerating, sanctifying influence of the Spirit of God can remove the love of sin. There is salvation in Jesus. “His blood cleanseth from all sin.” “Our Father which art in heaven … deliver us from evil.”—William Bell.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 12

Romans 12:4. “Members one of another.”—That is a touching story which Dickens tells of two London ’busmen, who passed each other every day for years on the same road. They never spoke, and their only recognition was a slight elevation of their whips, when they met, by way of a salute. At length one of the coachmen disappeared, and the other, upon making inquiries, heard that he was dead. The survivor began to fret, and at last became so miserable that he actually pined to death. He could not live without the silent sympathy of his friend. Is not this an illustration of the enormous power which silent sympathy has in helping fellow-travellers over the dry, dusty, and commonplace stretches of life’s journey? Comforting, encouraging words in times of sorrow, need, sickness, and other kinds of distress, have perhaps a greater influence than those who speak them know; but sometimes greatest of all is the influence for good of little acts of sympathy of the silent sort, the hand-pressure, the look that shows you understand, the encouraging smile. This is to give the cup of cold water of which our Lord speaks; this is the little service which shall be rewarded.—Elsie Croydon.