Romans 10:15

and how shall they preach, except they be sent? [Sending is the last step as we reason backward, but the first as we look forward toward salvation; for, as Gifford observes, "Paul argues back from effect to cause," so that, turning his series around, it will read, Sending, preaching, hearing, believing, turning to or calling upon God, salvation (Acts 8:4-39). In these days of missions we have grown so familiar with the gospel that the idea of sending has become fairly limited to the transportation of the missionary; when, therefore, we enlarge Paul's sending till it includes the idea of a divine commission or command to go, we feel that we have achieved his conception. But the thought of the apostle is wider still. With him the sending finds its full meaning in that unction of God which provides the messenger with a divine message, a message of good news which only the lips of God can speak, a message which he could gather from no other source, and without which all going would be vanity, a mere running without tidings. Compare Paul's vindication of the heavenly origin of his message (Galatians 1:11-24). To understand the relevancy of the quotation with which the apostle closes the sentence, let us remember that while this is an argument, it is also, by reason of the matter argued, a hymn of praise, a love-song, a jubilation, an ecstasy of joy. How could it be otherwise? Now, at Romans 8:28-30 the apostle presents the heaven-forged links of the unbreakable chain of God's holy and gracious purpose to glorify man. Having presented that chain, he devotes the remainder of the chapter (31-39) to an elaboration of the joyful confidence which wells up within him at its contemplation, for a heart of flesh could not do otherwise. So here the apostle has presented the links of the corresponding chain--the chain of means whereby the purpose is effected or consummated, so that man is saved or glorified; and that chain ends, as Paul inversely counts its links, in the unspeakable honor of being a messenger of God, sent to bear the gospel of Christ to a dying world. Could the apostle pass this by and stick to his argument? (Comp. Ephesians 3:7-12; Acts 26:17-18; Romans 15:15-16; Galatians 1:15-16) Nay, if he did so, would it not weaken his argument? For, while the passage at Romans 8:31-39; and the quotation here about "beautiful feet," may not fit in syllogistically, they have unspeakable power suggestively; for the first pictures that peace of God that passes all understanding, which the Jew was rejecting: and this second depicts the glorious ministry of God's mercy to the lost and life to the dying, which the Jew was missing by his proud unbelief.* Let us note in passing how Paul's argument emphasizes Christ unto the unbelievers. "All this," says Plumer, "relates to Christ, Jehovah. The prayer is to him or through him; the faith is in him; the report respects him; the heralds are his messengers; the sum of all they proclaim relates to his person, work, offices and grace; he is himself the chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely." With this introduction we are ready for the quotation] even as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things! [Isaiah 52:7. Paul quotes enough to suggest the full passage, which reads thus: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!" Paul quotes this exuberant, throbbing joy of Israel's prophet which expressed his own feelings, as a sharp contrast to the sullen, malignant, vindictive spirit of those to whom he prophesied. How acceptable was Paul and how glorious his world-wide message as visioned to the evangelical Isaiah! How despisable was Paul, and how abhorrent his message, to the Israel of the gospel age! The contrast suggests that some one erred: which was it? Were the prophet and apostle indulging in a sinful joy? or were the Jews playing the fool of all fools in excluding themselves from it? Though the citation from Isaiah has a primary reference to the restoration of the Jews from the land of exile, yet it is unquestionable Messianic, for that very restoration from exile "derived all its value," as Hodge observes, "from being introductory to that most glorious deliverance to be effected by the Redeemer." "That return," says Alford, "has regard to a more glorious one under the future Redeemer." Besides, the prophet has been talking of Messianic times, when "the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together" (Isaiah 40:5). "Jewish expositors," says Tholuck, "no less apply to the Messias almost the whole of the chapter (Isa 52), besides the quotation. (See Wetstein, ad h. l.)." The law was to end in the gospel, and Israel was to be the apostles of this joyful development, but failed through blindness as to the personality of the Messiah (a suffering sacrifice for sin, and not a great conqueror and temporal ruler); through ignorance as to the nature of the gospel (salvation by faith and not by the accident of Abrahamic descent); through a bigoted narrowness which took offense at the gospel's universality (a universality which offered salvation to Jew and Gentile on equal terms, and was devoid of all partiality). Thus it happened that Paul ran, and Israel forbore. Finally, as to the words of Isaiah, let us compare them with 2 Samuel 18:26 : "And the king said, He also bringeth tidings. And the watchman said, I think the running of the foremost is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok. And the king said, He is a good man and cometh with good tidings." Here we see that men were known by their running, and their tidings known by their character. With these facts before us, the imagery of Isaiah becomes complete. Jerusalem, the daughter of Zion, bereft of all her children by the Babylonians, sits in sackcloth, covered with the dust of mourning and bowed with grief as though drawn down with chains about her neck. Suddenly the phantom watchmen on her desolated walls see her Ahimaaz--her good man that cometh with good tidings!--tidings of the return of all her lost children! Far off upon the mountains the swift glint of the white feet tell of that speed of the heart which urges to the limit of human endurance. With such a message what place is there for weariness! All the long miles that lie behind are forgotten, and as the goal comes in view the wings of the soul possess the feet, and the pace increases with each step as the runner presses toward the mark or prize of his heart's desires! Ah, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings! Sing! watchmen, for ye shall see face to face how Jehovah returned to Zion to glorify and comfort it with his presence. Awake, awake, O Zion! Shake off thy dust, loose thyself from the bonds of thy neck, and put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, for the messenger of salvation is at thy very gates, and how beautiful is his approach! He tells of thy children who are coming! coming! journeying homeward behind him! No wonder that with this imagery before him Paul clung to the figure of the runner to the very end (Philippians 3:12-14; 2 Timothy 4:7). No wonder, either, that he could not forbear adding this quotation as the climax of his argument, that, having reared a granite mountain, he might cap it with the glorifying coronet of sunshine upon snow, thus making his argument as persuasive by its glory as it was convincing by its power. No wonder that he discerned the Messianic meaning of Isaiah's message, patent even to uninspired eyes. Having thus completed the circle of his argument from the message to the universality of the message, thence to the extension of it, and thence again to the means of extension, and finally back to the message itself as glorified in the vision of the prophet, the apostle is ready once more to grapple the Jew and show his inexcusable sin in rejecting the message. However, before discussing what follows it is well to note that its connection of ideas is uncertain, so much so that Stuart justly complains of not having found a single commentator who gives him satisfaction respecting it. The connection is not stated, and is therefore difficult. To solve the problem we must find the unspoken thought in the mind of the apostle, and we think it is this. The glorious chain of God's purpose to glorify men (Romans 8:28-30) and this equally glorious chain of means to that end, ought to make the gospel as universal as God designed it to be; but, nevertheless, so great is man's sinful perversity, such is not the case; and the Scripture so foretold it, and, in foretelling, explained it, and exposed the reason. Hence he continues]

* To avoid encumbering Paul's argument we have given the briefest possible interpretation of "sending," but as sending is the bottom of the heavenly ladder the top of which reaches unto salvation, it should be fully understood. The first sending was by the Father, and of this sending Jesus was both messenger and message. The next sending was that of the twelve and the seventy, a sending which culminated in the great commission (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15-16; Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8). The first of these sendings was perfect as to sender, message and messenger (John 3:34). The second was perfect as to sender and message, but weak as to the messengers. The third sending was by the Holy Spirit and the church at Antioch (Acts 13:2-3). In this sending the message was practically perfect, but the church participated in the sending, so that the sender and the messengers were imperfect. A little later the message itself became corrupted and imperfect, and from that day to this the weakness of the gospel plan has been at this bottom rung of the great ladder; and the weakness is threefold, being in the sender, the sent and the thing sent. In Paul's day the weakness of the sending churches was the thing to be deplored. For this the Jew was chiefly to blame, for had he appreciated the honor and privilege and answered to the call of Christ, the world could easily have been evangelized by him, for he had synagogues and organized groups of worshipers, and a popular hearing in nearly every city on the habitable globe; but, instead of becoming a help, he, with all his accessories, became a hindrance. For the weakness of evangelism man, and especially Israel, was to blame, for God's part was perfect, being wrought in Christ. Moreover, the commission of Christ was full, sufficient and final. But the few, to whom message, messenger and commission first came, had been a visionless, cold, unappreciative and defective messenger from the beginning. It required a miracle to get Peter to carry the message to the Gentile Cornelius (Acts 10), and even then his Christian brethren found fault (Acts 11), and accepted as an unwelcome but inevitable decree of God, that which should have inspired them to shout for joy. No wonder, then, the Spirit of God ceased to struggle with the Jerusalem church in this matter, and withdrew to Antioch, making it the missionary center of the world. As ordaining and sending were, even in Paul's day, well-nigh wholly in the hands of the church, so that even Paul himself was a church-sent man (Acts 13:2-3), it is hardly likely that Paul's words here are lacking in reference to this fact, for (1) the Jew was extremely culpable in failing to further the sending of the gospel; (2) the Roman church generally needed admonition along this line, for the apostle was looking to them to aid him as Christ's messenger, or missionary, to Spain (Romans 15:22-29). Finally, the weakness of Christ's coworkers, the senders, was the problem in Paul's day, and it is still the problem, just as Jesus covertly prophesied when be said, "Pray ye therefore," etc. (Luke 10:2); for our prayer though directed to God, must be answered by man, for he is de facto the sender (or, more properly, the NON-SENDER) of laborers into the harvest. The world could be evangelized in a single generation if men would only send the gospel to its peoples, but they lack that vision of the feet beautiful which thrilled the mighty soul of the lion of Benjamin, the apostle to the Gentiles.