Romans 16:25-27

Thirty-first Passage (16:25-27). The Look Upward.

Could the apostle have closed such an Epistle with the words: “and the brother Quartus”? After the final benediction, he had added the salutations of some eminent brethren who surrounded him, and who were connected with certain members of the church of Rome. But could he, having reached the close of such a writing, fail once more to lift his eye upward and invoke on this work, the gravity of which he knew, and on the church for which it was intended, the blessing of Him who alone truly builds up and strengthens? He had done so several times, in the course of his writing, when concluding some important development. How could he avoid doing it with stronger reason at the close of the entire Epistle? In the somewhat exceptional presence of a doxology at the end of this letter, there is therefore nothing which of itself can inspire the least suspicion.

Our one task is to examine whether this passage comes up to the elevation of the apostle's mind, and agrees with his mode of writing; and then, if as a whole and in its details it possesses satisfactory appropriateness.

“ Now to him that is able to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret during the eternal times, but now is made manifest, and by prophetical writings, according to the commandment of the eternal God, published to all the Gentiles for the obedience of faith: to God only wise..., by Jesus Christ, whose is the glory for ever and ever.Amen. ”

Paul had in the preface of the Epistle expressed his desire to visit the Christians of Rome, that they might receive by his means an increase of strength, “ εἰς τὸ στηριχθῆναι ὑμᾶς.” This desire he has partly gratified by addressing to them this letter of instruction. But what are man's words when the obtaining of a true spiritual result is in question? A sounding brass. Hence the need of lifting his soul to Him who can do what man is incapable of producing: τῷ δυναμένῳ, to Him that is able. The particle δέ, now, serves here to form the transition from the weak man who has just been writing, to the Almighty God, who can act. It is exactly the same connection as in the discourse of Paul at Miletus, Acts 20:31-32.

We shall afterward inquire after the verb, expressed or understood, on which this dative depends: to Him that is of power. The verb στηρίζειν, to stablish, is absolute. There is no special reference to stablishing in faith or love. Paul means to speak of the firmness of the inner life in general, of that spiritual consistency against which all attacks from within and from without are defeated. He would have them all to become of the number of those strong, δυνατοί, of whom he has spoken, Romans 15:1. This strength embraces both inward emancipation of conscience in relation to legal forms, and new life by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The increasing communication of this spiritual strength is connected by the apostle with a definite standard: my gospel.

He means thus to indicate the type of Christian doctrine which had been personally revealed to him (Galatians 1:11-16), and the two characteristic features of which were, as we have seen throughout this Epistle, the perfect freeness, and, as a consequence, the absolute universality of salvation. Salvation without any condition of previous working, salvation offered without distinction to all: such is, in two words, what Paul called his gospel; an expression which is found only in our Epistle (Romans 2:16) and 2 Timothy 2:8. The power of God can act only in agreement with the thought of God. Now, Paul's gospel being the supreme thought of God, it follows that God's power can only be put forth in the heart of man in so far as this gospel is by it received and understood. Such is the meaning of the preposition κατά, according to, which must not be confounded either with ἐν, in (stablish in the faith of...), or with διά, through (stablish by means of...).

The following words: and according to the preaching of Jesus Christ, have been understood in this sense: “the preaching of which Jesus Christ is the author;” some, like Meyer, understanding thereby the preaching which Christ causes to sound through the world by the mouth of Paul; others, like Hofmann: the word as Christ preached it while He was on the earth. This last meaning is inadmissible; for Paul never alludes to the earthly preaching of Jesus Christ, which had been circumscribed within limits traced by His pedagogical condescension toward Israel. But neither does Meyer's meaning commend itself. Paul has no motive for here raising the particular idea that it is Christ Himself who preaches by his mouth. If we consider that the words: “the preaching of Jesus Christ,” depend equally with the preceding term: “my gospel,” on the preposition κατά, according to, we shall easily see that this complement: of Jesus Christ, can only designate here the subject of the preaching. The apostle wishes to efface what seemed too strongly personal in the standard: “according to my gospel. ” Hence it is that he takes care to add: “and (in general) according to the preaching of which Christ is the subject.” Indeed, the Christ proclaimed by the Twelve is the same whom Paul preaches; comp. 1 Corinthians 15:11. It is Christ crucified and risen for us. And if the peculiar revelation which Paul received had for its effect to unveil new and unexpected consequences of the work of this Christ, it is nevertheless true that the Christ preached by him is the same as the Christ of apostolic preaching in general. We are not diverted from this so natural sense by the objection which Lucht draws from it: that this expression reveals a conciliatory tendency in regard to the Twelve which is incompatible with St. Paul's character. For we have found that this spirit of union was that of the apostle's whole ministry. Paul and Peter felt themselves radically at one, whatever even M. Renan may say, for each acknowledged the other's ministry as proceeding from the same God, who had confided to each what was peculiarly his own (Galatians 2:7-8).

We again find a clause dependent on the preposition κατά, according to: according to the revelation of the mystery...And the question is, whether this clause is parallel to those which precede, or whether, on the contrary, it depends on them. In the former case, it might be made to depend on the verb stablish (Meyer), or on the whole phrase: to Him that is of power to stablish you (Philippi). But in either construction it is impossible to escape from a sort of tautology with the preceding regimen. And it cannot be allowed that Paul would have thus co-ordinated two κατά, according to, without joining them by a copula. I think, therefore, that the second regimen must be regarded as dependent on the first. There is in the words εὐαγγέλιον and κήρυγμα (gospel and preaching) an active verbal notion: “ the act of evangelizing, preaching,” which allows this grammatical relation. The act of preaching is subject to a standard. The man does not discharge it in an independent and arbitrary manner. So Paul is careful to conform his evangelic preaching to the revelation he has received of the divine mind for the salvation of mankind. The clause: according to the revelation, depends therefore on the two previous substantives.

God from eternity has conceived a plan on our behalf (1 Corinthians 2:7). This plan was kept secret for ages; and so long as man was not initiated into it, it remained a mystery, a thing inaccessible to man left to himself; comp. Romans 11:25. But now this eternal plan has been unveiled. Realized through the appearing and work of Jesus Christ, it has been revealed by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:7-12) to those who are called to make it known to the world, and specially to Paul, so far as concerns the Gentiles (Ephesians 3:2-3).

The contents of this mystery are, generally speaking, salvation in Christ, but more particularly in our passage, that salvation as it is to be preached to the Gentiles (Galatians 1:16) to wit, that through faith they become one body in Christ with Jewish believers (Ephesians 3:4-6).

The eternal times are the numerous ages which have elapsed between the creation of man and the appearing of Christ; comp. Titus 1:2.

Critical conclusion regarding the doxology, Romans 16:25-27, and regarding chaps. 15 and 16

The authenticity of Romans 16:25-27 has been combated in a thoroughgoing way by Reiche, Lucht, and Holtzmann. Hilgenfeld, who against these critics defends the authenticity of chaps. 15 and 16 in general, agrees with them on this point. M. Renan, on the contrary, ascribes the composition of this passage to the apostle; but he regards it as the final particular of the copy addressed to a church unknown. In this copy these verses joined on immediately, according to him, to the end of chap. 14 M. Reuss also supports their authenticity, and regards them as the conclusion of our Epistle, with which, according to him, they are intimately connected.

The following are the principal reasons alleged against the authenticity of the passage: (1) The entire omission of these verses in Marcion and in two Mjj., and their transposal to the end of chap. 14 in three Mjj. and in most of the Mnn. (2) The absence of similar sayings at the end of St. Paul's other Epistles. (3) The emphasis of the style and the heaping up of expressions which contrast with the ordinary sobriety of the Pauline language. (4) Certain echoes of expressions in use in the Gnostic systems of the second century. (5) The want of appropriateness and of all definite object.

1. As to Marcion, it is not surprising that he suppressed this passage, as well as so many others, in the letters of the one apostle whose authority he recognized. For this passage, by mentioning the prophetical writings, appeared to Marcion to connect the new revelation closely with that of the O. T., which absolutely contradicted his system.

We think we have explained at the end of chap. 14 the transference of these verses to that place in some documents, as well as their omission or repetition in a very few documents. The position of the doxology at the end of the Epistle certainly rests on the concurrence of the most numerous and weighty authorities. 2. It is not surprising that in a letter so exceptionally important as this the apostle should not be satisfied with concluding, as usual, with a simple benediction, but that he should feel the need of raising his soul heavenward in a solemn invocation on behalf of his readers. This writing embraced the first full exposition of the plan of salvation. If, on closing the different parts of the statement of this plan, his heart had been carried away by an impulse of adoration, this feeling must break forth in him still more powerfully at the moment when he is laying down his Philemon 1:3. It is true the heaping up of clauses is great; but it arises from the strength of this inward impulse, and has nothing which exceeds the natural measure of Paul's style. The participle γνωρισθέντος, made known, Romans 16:26, is accompanied by four regimens; but in that there is nothing suspicious. The participle ὁρισθέντος, established (Romans 1:4), has three, and an attribute besides; and the verb ἐλάβομεν, we received (i, 5), has three also, and, moreover, two objects. The passage, chap. Romans 5:15-17, has given us a specimen of the way in which Paul's nimble and fertile mind succeeded in cramming into a single sentence a wonderful mass of expressions and ideas. The one question, therefore, is whether there is a superfluous accumulation of identical expressions; now this is what cannot be proved. We have established the deliberate intention and precise import of every term in these verses, 25-27, as well as throughout the rest of the Epistle. 4. The analogies which Lucht thinks he has discovered with certain Gnostic terms are purely imaginary. The reader will judge of this from the examples quoted by Meyer. The expression eternal ages, Lucht would have it, refers to the aeons of the Valentinian system. The term σεσιγημένου, kept secret, is related to the divine principle designated by the name σιγή, silence, in this same system. In speaking of prophetical writings, the author is alluding to the allegorical exegesis in use among the Gnostics.

Such criticism belongs to the domain of fancy, not of science. 5. The absence of definite aim cannot be charged against this passage, except in so far as the critic fails to understand the act of having recourse to God, which forms its essence, and which is intended to bring the whole church to the footstool of the throne from which strength comes down.

According to Reiche, the author of this doxology was an anagnost (public reader), who composed it with the help of the end of Jude's Epistle (Romans 16:24-25), and of the last words of Hebrews 13:21. But when from the parallel in Jude there is removed the word σοφῷ, wise, which is unauthentic, and the τῷ δυναμένῳ, which proves nothing (Acts 20:32; Ephesians 4:20), what remains to justify the supposition of its being borrowed? The liturgical formula, Hebrews 13:21, is so common that it can prove nothing. Would a compiler so servile as the one supposed by Reiche have composed a piece of such originality as this, in which there are found united as in a final harmony, corresponding to the opening one (Romans 1:1-7), all the principal ideas of the preceding composition?

Holtzmann, in his treatise on the letters to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, supposes this passage to be the work of the unknown author, who, about the end of the first century, took to collecting St. Paul's Epistles. He began by giving in the Epistle to the Ephesians an amplification of a very short Epistle addressed by Paul to the Colossians; then he revised this latter by means of his previous work; finally, he set himself also to complete the Epistle to the Romans by this doxology by means of some passages of Ephesians and Colossians, where the same hymnological tone and the same tendency to amplification are to be remarked. The parallels which we have quoted in the course of exegesis undoubtedly prove a certain analogy of thought and expression between our passage and these letters. But if Paul himself composed the latter three years after our Epistle, there is nothing wonderful in this coincidence. If, on the contrary, their author is a forger of the end of the first century, he must have had some point of departure in Paul's authentic writings for a composition of this kind, and the authenticity of our doxology is thus rendered probable by this very forgery. In any case, a forger would hardly have committed the apparent inaccuracy which is remarked in Romans 16:27. For it supposes an exaltation of feeling and thought which is at variance with a composition in cold blood.

Finally, to refute M. Renan's supposition, to which we have referred above, it is enough to read again the last verse of chap. 14: “What is not of faith is sin,” and to attempt to follow it up with our Romans 16:25: “To Him that is of power to stablish you,” etc., to measure the diametrical distance of ideas which separate these two verses, the one of which on this theory would be the sequel of the other!

There is but little more for us to add on chaps. Q5 and 16 taken as a whole. We have stated the numerous and contradictory hypotheses in which critics have indulged for more than a century in regard to these Chapter s. We have examined them passage by passage; they have appeared to us of little weight in detail; is it possible they have more force when applied to the whole? That Marcion rejected all, or perhaps only some parts of these Chapter s, is of no importance; for the dogmatic nature of the motives which guided him is evident. As to the fact that the Tübingen school feel themselves obliged to follow this example, by rejecting the whole or nearly the whole, the reason of this critical procedure is not less clear; for these Chapter s, accepted as authentic, overturn Baur's hypothesis regarding the composition of the church of Rome, the aim of our Epistle, and in general the position taken up by Paul in relation to Judaism.

If Irenaeus and Tertullian do not yet quote any passage from these last two Chapter s, it may only be an accident, like the absence of any quotation from the Epistle to Philemon in Irenaeus or in Clement of Alexandria.

The apparent multiplicity of conclusions is the thing which seems to have told most forcibly on the mind of modern critics. Some have even been led by this circumstance to regard the whole closing part of our Epistle as an accidental collection of detached leaves, unrelated to one another. We think this impression superficial; it is dissipated by a profounder study. We have found that the conclusion, Romans 15:13, is intended to close the exhortation to union begun in chap. 14, and that the prayer, Romans 15:33, is occasioned by the details which Paul has just given about his personal situation, and by the anxious fears he has expressed in regard to the journey which still lies between him and his arrival at Rome. The salutation of the churches, Romans 15:16, naturally attaches itself to those of the apostle. The prayer, Romans 16:20 a, is closely connected with the warning, in the form of a postscript, by which he has just put the church on its guard against the disturbers whose coming cannot be distant. Finally, the prayer which closes this verse is that which in all the other letters concludes the Epistle. As to the passage, Romans 16:23-24, it is an appendix containing salutations of a private nature, of a very secondary character, and which lie, strictly speaking, beyond the Epistle itself. The prayer, Romans 16:24 is certainly unauthentic. Finally, the doxology is a last word fitted to sum up the whole work, by raising the eyes of the readers, with those of St. Paul himself, to the heavenly source of all grace and strength. This forms a natural whole; if we examine the details closely, there is nothing in them betraying a conglomerate. Besides, when indulging in such suppositions as those before us, sufficient account is not taken of the respect with which the churches cherished the apostlic writings which they might possess. They preserved them as precious treasures in their archives, and it would not have been so easy for an individual to introduce into them unobserved changes. The Epistle of Clement of Rome was regularly read at Corinth in the second century. It was therefore always in hand. As much certainly was done for the apostolic writings. We know from declarations of the Fathers that these writings were kept at the house of one of the presbyters, and that they were copied and reproduced for other churches, which asked to have them, only under strict control, and with the sort of attestation formally given: correctly copied. We are therefore entitled to say, that so long as peremptory reasons do not force us to suspect the general tenor of the transmitted text, it has on its side the right of the first occupant.