Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

ROMANS
CHAPTER XV.
1. “But we who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves.”
Paul is still on the subject setting forth our responsibilities to the weak believers, to be careful and
not only keep our own consciences clear but theirs too, doing nothing calculated to jostle their faith,
inject doubts or fears; but, on the contrary, do everything possible to build them up.
2. “Let each one of us please his neighbor in that which is good unto edification.” This strikes
the keynote of the gracious economy, adhering rigidly to everything good and avoiding the very
appearance of evil, and everything conducive to edification. So fast as churches get away from God
they depart from this precept, e.g., poor old Romanism holds her service in the old dead Latin
language, so no one receives any edification. In a similar manner all the Protestant churches are
going down in the track of wicked Catholicism, preaching in a highfalutin style on subjects alien to
personal salvation and practical Christianity, and singing operatic songs and solos, so indistinct and
screaming and drowned out with instrumental music as to impart no edification to the audience. We
have no right to do anything in our worship which the people can not hear and understand to their
spiritual edification.
CHRIST THE SAVIOR BOTH OF THE JEWS AND GENTILES.
3-13. As the Jews had established colonies in all the important cities of the Gentile world,
sojourning in all lands for mercantile purposes, and the apostles, who were all Jews, invariably being
to the synagogues and giving their consanguinity their first service in every land whither they
peregrinated; as a result all the so-called Gentile churches throughout Christendom contained a large
Hebrew element. Such was pre-eminently true in Rome, the world’s metropolis, twice as large as
New York at the present day. Hence the pertinency of showing forth in this epistle the magnanimity
of Christ and the perfect availability of His vicarious atonement and redemptive economy to reach
both Jews and Gentiles, as in these verses Paul not only beautifully certifies but corroborates by the
testimony of the prophets.
7. “Therefore receive one another as Christ also received you unto the glory of God.” As the
work ultimates in the glorification of both Jews and Gentiles after the similitude of God Himself,
so all of His disciples are to focalize all their powers of body, mind, spirit and influence to lead all
they possibly can influence so to follow Jesus as to reach this ultimate glorification which Paul and
his comrades hailed in constant anticipation, looking out for the glorified Savior to come and take
them to heaven.
13. “And the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, in that you may abound in
hope through the dynamite of the Holy Ghost.” “Dynamite,” translated power in E.V., is Paul’s
definition of gospel (Romans 1:16), being the irresistible power of the Holy Ghost, by which all sin
is blown out of the human heart, and the soul lifted up on the eagle pinions of superabounding hope,
even bringing heaven down in prelibations.