Romans 16:21-24

CRITICAL NOTES

Romans 16:21.—Timothy and Sosipater with St. Paul at Corinth, where he wrote this epistle. Lucius perhaps St. Luke.

Romans 16:22.—Tertius, a secretary with a Roman name to write to Romans.

Romans 16:23.—Gains, said to be the first bishop of Thessalonica; but it is a recurring name like Lucius. We need not attempt to attach it to any person, nor make it a cause of perplexity. Quartus a Roman name. Erastus the quæstor of the city, probably Corinth.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 16:21

St. Paul’s honesty.— Romans 16:20 concludes with a benediction, and Romans 16:24 repeats the same benediction. This is not according to the usual style of this epistle; therefore, apart from manuscript evidence, we may conclude that Romans 16:24 is spurious. If not, the repetition shows the intensity of St. Paul’s affection and his high estimate of the need of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We should recognise the need of divine grace. Theophylact says as he began so he ends with prayer. Let all our works be begun, continued, and ended in prayer, that thus we may glorify God’s holy name, and finally by His mercy obtain everlasting life.

I. St. Paul’s honesty.—Some people’s conception of honesty is simply that of rendering legal dues. The man who is honest under compulsion is not honest. Opportunity makes the thief; and the man who does not steal simply because there is not an opportunity, or because he is afraid of consequent disclosures, is not honest. There are many so-called Christians whose conception of honesty is erroneous, at least the conception judged by the practice. What shall we make of the honesty of him who arrogates to himself all the glory of some religious or philanthropic enterprise, and has no meed of praise for his “workfellow”? “Timotheus my workfellow” would by many be passed over in silence. “Timotheus my workfellow!” Quite true; but what could he have done without Paul? I have the pluck and the genius! Timotheus—well, a good sort of fellow enough in his way. Sufficient honour to him that he worked under my leadership. St. Paul’s honesty is to give honour to whom honour is due, to bestow praise where it is due with unsparing hand. He is honest in his fair dealing with the amanuensis. Tertius, who wrote this epistle, is allowed an honourable place. Tertius could not expect much from his writings. It was not a lucrative profession in those days. In fact, theological literature seldom pays even in these Christian times. St. Paul, who dictated the finest epistle of time, and Tertius who wrote, did not receive any emolument: their reward is on high; their treasure is in the heavens. Noble Paul! Worthy Tertius! Better to have written the Epistle to the Romans than the best-paying production of modern literature. Neither St. Paul nor Tertius would have been able to form a successful literary syndicate. They had too many brains to trade on the brains of others. Their moral purpose was too high to let them be mere intellectual sweaters. Neither Paul nor Tertius found a literary Mæcenas. The strains of Virgil and of Horace secured the recovery of lands and a fruitful farm in the Sabine country. The strains of St. Paul secured martyrdom. If Tertius had lived in the Augustine age of Roman literature, he would not have been welcomed at the Roman court. What matters it if Augustus despise, if Mæcenas ignore, if Nero persecute, if moderns scorn, so long as conscience approves. The age is benefited, and the plaudit of heaven is secured.

II. St. Paul’s acknowledgment of hospitality.—“Gaius mine host, and of the whole Church, saluteth you.” St. Paul did not think that his moral life and courteous demeanour were a sufficient compensation for the hospitality of Gaius. It is amusing how much some people take for granted. They appear to think that the world is made for them, and cannot do too much for their selfish individualism. “Gaius mine host.” When they were to depart, Gaius made them (the Christian pilgrims) a feast, and they did eat and drink and were merry. Now the hour was come that they must be gone, wherefore Mr. Greatheart called for a reckoning; but Gaius told him that at his house it was not the custom for pilgrims to pay for their entertainment. He boarded them by the year, but looked for his pay from the good Samaritan, who had promised him at his return whatsoever charge he was at with them faithfully to repay him. Then said Mr. Greatheart to him: “Beloved, thou dost faithfully whatsoever thou dost to the brethren and to strangers, which have borne witness of thy charity before the Church, whom if thou yet bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well.” The Greatheart of St. Paul was gladdened by the hospitality of “Gaius mine host,” and he has been amply repaid by the good Samaritan.

III. St. Paul’s estimate of officialism.—Adulation is not Paul’s characteristic. He is not seen running after and bowing down to the city chamberlain. The gold chains and the purple garments of a state official do not exert an irresistible influence over St. Paul’s nature. Imagine St. Paul preparing a great sermon to be delivered before the mayor and corporation of Corinth! St. Paul respectfully acknowledges Erastus as the chamberlain of the city, but he uses no flattering adjectival epithets. Erastus the chamberlain stands on the same plane as Quartus, a brother. Erastus the chamberlain does not stand so high as “the beloved Persis, which laboured much in the Lord.” Erastus the chamberlain perhaps laboured much in the state, and was made a state dignitary. The Guildhall was open for his reception. But St. Paul does not enlarge on the great honour conferred on the new Christian religion by the adherence of Erastus the chamberlain. It is not Erastus who confers honour on Christianity, but Christianity confers honour on Erastus. The honour that cometh from God is the highest and only enduring. Let us seek to labour much in the Lord.

“Work on, work on, nor doubt, nor fear,
From age to age this voice shall cheer:
Whate’er may die or be forgot,
Work done for God it dieth not.”

Romans 16:22. Tertius, the amanuensis.—“One Paul, a travelling preacher, has written a treatise which will never perish”: such an assertion made in Corinth in the year 58 of our era would have provoked incredulous laughter. Even the apostle himself would have smiled at the suggestion that countless ordinary folk and many scholars in distant ages would study his writings. Although Phœbe, who carried the letter, regarded it as sacred, she knew not that she ministered to the nineteenth century. The Christian faith is enveloped in miracle. Our holy books have had fortunes almost as extraordinary as their contents, for though they were composed to meet some need that was then pressing, their interest is perennial, and they have been copied word by word and letter by letter by innumerable scribes who passed them on and on until they came into our hands. This “passing on” is characteristic of the true religion itself. And further, this gospel of universal importance—this onward marching thing—is always accompanied by illustrations of its beneficent might. There is a Tertius always at hand. Deliverance is proclaimed by freedmen: in truth the gospel is the unfolding of the experience of those who have welcomed Christ. Paul and Tertius write, and Phœbe carries, truths inscribed on the tablets of their hearts. The epistle was a life before it was a record. It is God’s method to make converts by means of converts, and always to ensure that His messages concerning the Physician shall be conveyed by such as can give personal testimony to the Physician’s kindliness and skill, for Christ’s truth cannot be effectually disseminated apart from the presence of Christ’s men. Is Tertius to be censured as intrusive for making mention of himself? The appearance of the personal element is valuable, and sometimes it may even be conspicuous without offence to humility. As a witness, it is never impertinent. It is proper for Tertius, the scribe, to show himself, for he is an instance in point, and has something to say which is important to a right decision. He has a right to lift his head and say, “Amen!”

I. The dwelling-place.—Tertius dwelt “in the Lord.” A careless glance at a man catches only the sight of a material frame and physical relations, but looking with a little more attention you see a soul encompassed by sorrows, joys, doubts, convictions, and busied perhaps with the interests of family, church, nation. Ambitions, lusts, ideals, make many kinds of worlds. How diverse, and in some cases how small, the spheres in which men live! “Where dwellest thou?” is a cardinal question; where the treasure is there will the heart be also. Living in a luxurious and vicious city, it is quite likely that some six years before he sat writing at Paul’s dictation Tertius may have known only the swine’s world; so that afterwards he understood very vividly those sentences read in the congregation to which he belonged—those sentences referring to revelry and devilry, which close with the congratulation, “But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified.” There had been a resurrection unto Christ. I am “in the Lord.” Although the statement has a mystic sound, there should be no complaint on that account, seeing that the true religion must include all noble elements, and must create conditions which need a novel dress as well as some that can be fitly clad in familiar raiment. We sit at Christ’s feet, and yet we are more than pupils, for we are “in Him.” He sends us on errands, and yet we “abide in Him.” Yes, He drew us up into Himself—into His great life. Tertius has found refuge and home in Him who is eternal love. Individuality, instead of being absorbed and lost, becomes more definite and complicated as intellect, conscience, and heart are nourished by the Life indeed. To be in Christ is to begin to realise the significance of the union of the branches with the Vine. It is to be in safety and peace though in the world there may be tribulation. It is to be in fellowship with that compassion which cared for the poor, that wrath which scathed hypocrisy, that prayerfulness which was ever mindful of God, that truth and justice and love which once were condensed into the divine manful history which struck the true keynote for humanity’s song. Christ—what a realm of redeeming and educating forces the capacious name suggests! “It hath pleased the Father that in Him all fulness should dwell.” Tertius, living in the vast world called Christ, dates his work from that abode. The poor man, who a short time since was a Corinthian heathen dwelling in some foul night on which God could look only with condemnation and painful pity, gives us this description of his residence—“in the Lord.” This honour have all the saints, for the phrase on which we dwell occurs scores of times elsewhere in connection with Christians widely apart so far as nationality, character, and knowledge were concerned. Tertius was admitted to some of Christ’s aims and plans, and there ran through the convert’s mind, feeling, and will a current of Christ’s life.

II. Reflect upon the service Tertius rendered.—It might have been irksome to occupy hour after hour in putting down those separate strokes and curves, but the persons for whom we labour, and the objects to be secured, may charm drudgery into a delight. The mood is a magician. Common sounds were music on the day that love was reciprocated, and no cloud could hide the shining sun. We were fenced round from annoyances and saw good in everything. While intrinsically noble engagements are a weariness unless coloured by some affection, tasks otherwise dreary are invested with beauty when associated with persons that are dear. For Paul—beloved for his own sake and for the heaven which was opened by his gospel—it was pleasant to leave ordinary business and to write all day. In the great day there will be wonderful surprise to countless helpers of mankind who have never seen Jesus at the head of their philanthropic enterprises, and to kindly hearts that have never supposed Him to be in the hungry whom they have fed and the oppressed whom they have delivered. They will make a wondrous discovery as they hear Christ’s generous commendations. Tertius writes “in the Lord,” and aids an apostle to get his thoughts circulated throughout the world. The dependence of the great upon the small, how common that is, and how impressive! The artist asks the guidance of a rustic; poets, philosophers, statesmen, are indebted to lowly craftsmen for the publication of their fancies, speculations, and plans. The great admiral is rowed by a common sailor to the ship which is to lead the fleet to victory. The soul of Paul utilises the skill Tertius acquired in his pre-Christian days, a fact reminding us that the employment of common powers is almost or quite as necessary as the exercise of distinguished ability. How often it happens that men who could be public benefactors are chained by circumstances which men of a different order could easily break if they possessed public spirit! What a glorification of lower powers and persons is here exhibited! Penmanship is caught up into the service of Paul’s Spirit-instructed mind: what honour for the simple acquirement! We wonder at the dignity conferred on the brain substances when they are used as the instruments of a soul that shapes far-reaching plans, and is alive with human and divine love; spirit admitting matter to partnership endows it with new virtues, gives it wider influence, and dyes the temporal thing with eternal colours; similarly a holy cause sanctifies and lifts into nobler realms of power men and talents that without it would be of poor account. Tertius becomes a clerk in God’s office, and writes despatches from the heaven in which he dwells. “Did the amanuensis get any blessing in the task he performed?” is not an inquiry which will be made by you who have found God’s truths to open up their preciousness to your own hearts whilst you have striven to make them known. Though he made no bargain, doubtless Tertius was blessed in his deed, for he heard the music that he played for the ears of strangers. Tertius was scarcely the same man after climbing the mountains of truth with Paul. To see those thoughts taking shape was like being present at the creation of a planet. We linger a little longer to note the love of Tertius for men far away. “I, Tertius, greet you.” The love of God is mingled with the love of man, and God’s Bible truths come rich with human sympathies. The Lord’s servants are neither machines nor postmen, seeing that they bring in friendliness a divinely friendly gospel; nor can the message of the living God of love be uttered by unloving lips. Tertius puts the thread of his own love into the cord that binds man to God and man to man. We greet the children of God far away—our kin who should know our Saviour, shelter beneath His cross, and receive the gifts of the Holy Ghost. They belong to us. If they are saints, we greet them as fellow-heirs of the grace of Christ; if they are ignorant, cruel, deceived, hopeless, befouled, we greet them still, and entreat them to receive redemptive advantages. We are their debtors, and owe to them the glad tidings. If God wills to communicate with them, we will write the letter and inscribe therein the testimony of our own good-will, assured that the Father will not erase the greeting. The things of least intrinsic worth involve few incentives to brotherly beneficence, whereas those of highest value invoke all generous sympathies. God’s noblest benefactions are never dumb, nor can they be selfishly entertained, for they refuse to stay with any recipient who will not ask for company in listening to their strains. If we would keep the sounds from passing to other ears, the music ceases.—W. J. Henderson.

Romans 16:20. A fortifying and enduring force.—As we read St. Paul’s not infrequent form of benediction, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,” we have about it a feeling of reality. If some men were to use the form, we should feel that it was inappropriate, because it did not seem to harmonise with their nature. We cannot use such expressions gracefully and fittingly, because we have not a deep, true feeling of religion. What is the religion of most but a mere surface affair? Is there any depth about it? In any practical sense does it appear to us to be the real good for life? Do we feel that to have the good-will of Christ towards us is better than to have the good-will of the great and noble of this world? How much trouble we take to obtain the good-will of those who occupy influential positions; and yet how languid is our zeal, how scanty our efforts, when the good-will of Jesus Christ is concerned?

I. The good-will of Christ is a fortifying force.—Surely not without good reason does St. Paul pray for the favour of Christ to be with His people at the close of his reference to the great adversary Satan, and in connection with his warning against those who wrongfully cause divisions. The grace of Christ only can successfully strengthen. Those in whom the grace of Christ effectually dwells, those who inhabit this strong tower of divine grace, are blessedly safe. Satan may hurl his missiles against the tower, but they only rebound. False teachers may try their delusive words, but gracious souls cling to the true doctrine. They are wise and strong unto that which is good, but simple, innocent, and pure concerning evil. If we would be strong, it must be in and by the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord.

II. The grace of Christ is a uniting force.—It is by the love and favour of Christ that we are united to Christ; and it is as we are united to Christ that we are united to one another. All the branches united to the vine constitute one plant. They are one with the vine and with one another. And so the members of Christ are members of one another. Salutations are abundantly scattered through this closing chapter. The love and favour of Paul run through every verse; but he seems to feel that this is not sufficient, and says all must be united by the grace of Christ. Shall we be surprised at the appearance of these forms so close together? Shall we say there is some error? Shall we not rather say that St. Paul strongly felt the necessity of Christ’s favour? And if we are to be firmly and sweetly united, it must be by the binding power of the favour of our Lord Jesus Christ.

III. The favour of Christ is an exalting force.—Sometimes we seek the favour of great men, that by their influence we may be raised, in our turn, to positions of honour and influence. We play the toady, and our acting meets with neither applause nor emolument. We are something like those poor actors that are hissed from the stage; and the sadness of it is that the hissing comes from our own disappointed hearts. Christ’s favour is life; and life in this sense means, not mere existence, but plenitude of existence, fulness of blessing, exaltation in the largest sense. Oh, what vastness of significance in the prayer, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all”!

IV. The favour of Christ is an enduring quality.—Does St. Paul repeat the prayer because he is afraid that the grace may be withdrawn? By no means. “Christ is the same yesterday and to day and for ever.” His grace is continuous. We may withdraw ourselves from its benign influence. The sweet sun of the Saviour’s grace is shining through the clouds we have formed by our unbelief, or our sins envelop us in dismal darkness. Let us abide in the sunlight. Let us answer apostolic prayers, our own prayers, by keeping our natures open to the reception of Christ’s grace. Oh to be in the grace of Jesus Christ! Oh to feel the fortifying, uniting, exalting, and enduring qualities of our Saviour’s condescending favour!