Paul writes boldly here as a reminder of the burden that Christ has placed on him as a minister to the Gentiles. As a minister, Paul is to proclaim the Gospel of God. While Paul borrows language from the priesthood, he is emphasizing that his ministry is the sacrifice. Dr. Sproul explains Paul's thinking in this section.

We are continuing now with our study of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, and we are now in chapter 15. I will be reading Romans 15:14–21, but if God is willing, I will get beyond that. Let us stand for the reading of the Word of God:

Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points, as reminding you, because of the grace given to me by God, that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Therefore I have reason to glory in Christ Jesus in the things which pertain to God. For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient—in mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man’s foundation, but as it is written:

“To whom He was not announced, they shall see;
And those who have not heard shall understand.”

This is the Word of God in all the fullness of His truth. Please be seated. Let us pray.

Again, our Father, as we continue our study of this grand book of the New Testament, we pray that we may hear these words and do them. We pray that we may understand the teaching of the Apostle and love what we understand to be true. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Paul’s Reminder

In this portion of the epistle of Romans, you can tell by the very tone of it that the Apostle is beginning to wind this letter down. You can anticipate how he is gradually drawing it to a close.

The weighty theological matters that Paul expounded through the first eleven chapters transitioned to practical application in chapters 12, 13, and 14. Now, in these final pages, Paul begins to speak of his personal relationship to those who are receiving the epistle. Because the epistle is winding down and Paul begins speaking personally of individuals, we tend to skip over these things lightly, as if they had no weight of divine revelation.

I am looking from the pulpit right now at a gentleman who gave me a tape of a classic sermon preached in the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. It was preached by the late, great Clarence Macartney and titled “Come Before Winter.” This magnificent sermon was preached on a simple phrase Paul used in his final requests to Timothy, in the second and last epistle he wrote to his beloved disciple. The treasures found by Macartney in that seemingly desultory statement remind me to this day not to take lightly any of the things Paul seems to simply mention in passing.

Let us look at verse 14 where Paul says, “Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you.” What we find here in verse 14 may be seen as a thinly veiled apology.

In verse 13, Paul said, “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” This is almost a recapitulation of the fruit of the Spirit that Paul set forth to the Galatians. The Christian life is to be manifested by a fullness of joy, a completeness of peace, and a dimension of hope that is worked within our soul by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Continuing, Paul says in essence, “Now I’m confident concerning you, that you also are full of goodness and that you’re filled with all knowledge to the extent that you’re now able to admonish one another.” What Paul is saying to the congregation who is receiving this magnum opus, the weightiest epistle to come from the pen of the Apostle, is this: “I know you already know these things. I know that you can already pass a theological exam on the doctrine of justification by faith alone. I know that you’re all Calvinists. I know that I don’t have to prove the errors of Arminianism and Pelagianism to you. You understand the doctrine of election, the providence of God, and all the things that I have set forth to you. Nevertheless, knowing that you understand these things, I have written more boldly to you on some points to remind you. This is just a reminder.”

Called by Grace

Paul, from the beginning of his ministry to the very end, was acutely conscious of the burden that Christ had put upon him to be an Apostle of the gospel of God. He knew it was his duty to communicate the full counsel of God to those people delivered to his care by the Father. I mention that because that burden was not felt only by the Apostle Paul, but it is a burden that has been felt by any earnest minister of the gospel ever since.

The pulpit is not a place for someone to orate or opine on his personal preferences or insights. The pulpit is a place where the Word of God is to be proclaimed, and the burden of everyone who stands in it is to make sure the whole counsel of God is given to the people of God—not just the favorite topics of the preacher.

So, Paul is saying: “I’m emphasizing boldly some of these points to remind you. Why am I doing that? Because of the grace given to me by God. It’s not just because of the commission given to me by Christ.” Paul understood that his engagement in ministry was a matter of grace. He did not earn his role as Apostle to the gentiles. Christ called him on the road to Damascus in the midst of the hatred and venom he was spewing against the church of Jesus Christ.

What Paul earned was the title that he later gave himself: the chief of sinners. The only way he could become an Apostle, the only way he could become a spokesperson for Christ, was by grace and not by merit. That is not only true for the Apostle Paul; it is true for anyone who dares to open Scripture and presumes to preach or teach from it to anyone.

A Minister of God’s Gospel

Paul continues, “That I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” Here, Paul comes full circle from the first chapter of this epistle, where he introduced himself as Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, and set apart to proclaim the gospel of God.

Do you remember that phrase, “the gospel of God,” and the structures in which Paul uses it? He is saying, “I’m not preaching good news about God.” That is what the term “the gospel of God” does not mean, if you remember. It means that the gospel is God’s possession.

Paul is an Apostle who is called to proclaim not his own message, not his own gospel, but the gospel that is the possession of God and that comes from God. He uses that very same language here, toward the close of the epistle: “That I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God.”

Also notice the use of the word “minister.” In the New Testament, those who are appointed to preach and teach in churches are usually called elders, servants, pastors, or shepherds. On rare occasions, they are called ministers. That is the common term that we use today, but it was not the term most frequently used to describe the role of pastors in the early Christian community.

The Priesthood Fulfilled

Notice the word that is strikingly absent from the description of those who ministered to the people of God. This word is almost completely absent in the New Testament, yet it is the regular term applied to those who stood between the people and God, interceded for the people, and offered the sacrifice of worship in the Old Testament. I am speaking of the word priest.

We do not hear anything about a priesthood in the New Testament, save for Peter’s reference to that royal priesthood to which Israel was called. But the basic office of the pastor in the church is not called the office of the priest. This is because the function of the priest in the Old Testament reached its fulfillment and conclusion in the offering of Jesus on the cross. His perfect sacrifice was offered once and for all. The whole system that we call the sacerdotal system of the Old Testament was done away with.

There are churches today that still practice what we call sacerdotalism, where salvation is mediated through the sacraments and, therefore, through the priesthood. In that view, the church is the one that brings us into salvation. That was one of the central issues in the sixteenth-century Reformation, where we saw the priesthood of Christ being fulfilled on the cross.

A Sacrifice of Praise

We are not priests in the Old Testament or Roman Catholic sense. Paul does not consider himself a priest, but rather calls himself “a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God.” However, in the very next sentence, although Paul does not call himself a priest, here he borrows the language of the priesthood and uses it in a metaphorical way.

The primary function of the priest in the Old Testament was to offer up sacrifices to God on behalf of the people. Remember what Paul says in Romans 12:1, after he finishes expounding the depth and riches of the doctrines in the first eleven chapters: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”

We do not offer up bulls and goats anymore, but we are called upon to make a sacrifice, an offering, an oblation of our lives to Christ. That is the response of the gospel. In that sense, every one of you is a priest, insofar as you offer yourself to God. But that offering is a sacrifice of praise. It is not a sacrifice given to atone for sins. It is a sacrifice of worship, which we are called to do when we gather together as the Lord’s people.

Here Paul uses this concept of an offering in a somewhat unusual way. When he speaks about ministering the gospel of God, he is speaking specifically to his role as the Apostle to the gentiles. He is ministering Jesus Christ to the gentiles, ministering the gospel of God. For what reason? For what purpose? Here it is: “That the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”

There are two ways we could understand this sentence, and they cannot both be right. One way this sentence has been understood is that Paul is asking that the sacrifices, praises, and worship of the gentiles may be made acceptable to God as they are consecrated by the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. That is not how I think the text should be interpreted. I think Paul is talking about his offering of the gentiles to Christ.

Paul’s ministry was that he was set apart to go to the gentiles. He has done that. When Paul proclaimed the gospel of God to the gentiles, the Holy Spirit attached Himself to the proclamation of that word and worked as the power in the gospel, bringing the gentiles to conversion.

Now, Paul says: “This is my sacrifice to You, the fruit of my ministry—these converts from among the gentiles. It’s not as if I had the power to convert them.” Paul knew where the power was. He knew it came through the Holy Ghost. Nevertheless, as a minister, he offers whatever fruit with which God has blessed his ministry to the Lord. In that sense, Paul exercises the office of the priest.

Glory in Christ

“Therefore I have reason to glory in Christ Jesus in the things which pertain to God.” You may remember what he says elsewhere: “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” When Paul says, “I have reason to glory,” he is saying that all the glory he has experienced and all the reasons he has to boast are rooted and grounded in Christ Jesus. Paul understands that it is not of himself. As he wrote elsewhere to the Philippians, essentially: “I didn’t come to you with eloquence; I didn’t come to you with the skills of public orators, but in the power and in the demonstration of the Holy Ghost.”

Paul says, “For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient.” Is he saying, “I can boast in some things that I’ve been able to accomplish, but I didn’t make it in these other areas, and so I can’t boast in them”? No, he is saying here that he cannot speak of anything “which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient.”

In other words: “The only thing I have to talk about is what Christ has done. I can mention nothing that I have brought on my own, but only what has been wrought by the power of Christ.” Paul is not just being humble here. He is being truthful. He is being accurate. He is being theologically sound.

When pastors preach, we work hard with the text. We want to make the sermon as accurate as we possibly can. We also want to make it as interesting as we possibly can. We want to persuade, admonish, and exhort. No minister wants to stand in the pulpit, go through the process of preaching a sermon, and then walk away saying, “I wonder if anything will happen.” But I hope we all know that nothing will happen because of our skill. It cannot happen; at least, nothing good can happen.

The only thing that moves people to changed lives and to growth in the Spirit is the attendance of the Holy Ghost with the preaching of the Word. Again, that is where the power is—in the Word, not in programs, human skills, or oratory. It is in the Word. I can preach this Word till I am blue in the face, but if God the Holy Spirit does not take it to you, nothing happens.

Return God’s Gifts

Paul is looking at the results of his ministry, and he understands that those results were wrought by God Himself. What he is now offering up to God is a return of the gifts that God Himself has given. That is all we can ever do. What can we give to God that we have not first received from His hand?

Many times, when we take the offering on Sunday morning, we make that point. The offering is not a bribe. We are not asking God to make us rich, do this or that, or forgive us of our sins if we give Him our money. No, the motivation is, “We’re acknowledging that You own it all.” Everything that we possess belongs to Him. He has asked for a small portion, one tenth.

Just the other day, I was talking about how we are coming up on our tenth anniversary at Saint Andrew’s Chapel. Do you know how many times I have preached on tithing in those ten years? I know. Once. I keep saying to myself: “Self, how come you’ve only preached on that subject once in ten years? Are you afraid of it? You know it’s not something that people are excited to hear.” I gave myself this excuse: “No, the reason I’ve only preached on it once is because it hasn’t come up in the books that I’ve been giving expository sermons on.” So that leaves me off the hook.

Then I think: “Yes, but the one time you did preach on it, you weren’t in the middle of biblical expositions. If the people don’t respond to things like this, it may be because I haven’t explained their responsibilities and what it is that God expects from them.” At that point, I fail you as well as failing the Lord. We should be ready to give all that we have at a moment’s notice as an offering of praise to the Lord God.

The Purpose of Miracles

Paul continues, saying that he does not dare to speak of any of those things “which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient—in mighty signs and wonders.” He calls attention to the mighty signs and wonders that he performed in his missionary outreach. One of the questions I hate to hear from people more than any other is, “R.C., do you still believe in miracles today, or are you a cessationist?”—that is, “Do you believe that miracles ended with the death of the last Apostles?”

I said to my wife, “I hate when someone asks me that when I don’t have at least an hour to give my answer.” It is hard enough for people to hear it unless you really take the time to explain it. There is no word for miracle in the New Testament. There are three words that are used again and again: signs, wonders, and powers. We extrapolate from those words the concept that we call miracle.

There is the generic word miracle that we use loosely in our culture, and then there is the narrow, technical, theological definition of miracle. If you ask me about miracles in the general sense and if they occur today, I say, “Absolutely they do, all the time.” You see signs in the pastor’s office that read, “Expect a miracle.” When you expect miracles, chances are what you get will not really be a tight, technical kind of miracle.

A miracle in the narrow sense is a sign or power that signifies something. The purpose of the signs of the Apostolic age was to signify the breakthrough of the kingdom of God. Most importantly, the miracles were to signify the agents of revelation that God had set apart to proclaim these things, just as Moses was given the power to perform miracles so that his credentials would authenticate that he was speaking for God. Do you remember?

Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, and what did he say? “We know that You are a teacher sent from God, or You would not be able to do the things that You do.” That was sound thinking. Nicodemus understood that the devil is a liar and the devil can perform lying signs—that is, fraudulent, fake, counterfeit signs like the magicians of Egypt. But Satan, who has more power than we do, does not have the power of God. Satan cannot bring something out of nothing. Satan cannot bring life out of death. Only God can do that, and those whom He empowers to do it. Those He empowers to do it are then authenticated as agents of revelation.

Here is the point: If a non-agent of revelation can do miracles, then what value is it when the New Testament says that God authenticates His Apostles by these works? How are they authenticated if someone else can do them? How are they authenticated if Satan can do them? It would be a false and counterfeit evidence of Apostolic authority.

In any case, without going into the fullness of that discussion, do I think that God answers prayers? Do we have a category called special providence? Yes. Does God heal the sick? Yes. But I do not expect to have someone go to the house of Lazarus, who has been dead for four days, and raise him from the dead. I do not expect to see anyone today bring something out of nothing—not until the Lord comes back—because there was a purpose in redemptive history for that special tight category of miracle.

Not Where Christ Was Named

Before we get carried away with that, Paul references the mighty signs and wonders that accompanied his ministry by the power of the Spirit of God. Again, these were not by Paul’s inherent power, but “by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.”

This place that Paul calls Illyricum is north of Jerusalem in Asia Minor. Paul is saying, “My ministry has gone the whole circuit from Jerusalem all the way north into Asia Minor, and in every place that I have gone, the power of the Holy Ghost has been there to authenticate my ministry with signs, powers, and wonders.” Paul continues:

So that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man’s foundation, but as it is written:

“To whom He was not announced, they shall see;
And those who have not heard shall understand.”

There is nothing wrong with preaching on someone else’s foundation. Just today, I read the history of the church in Pittsburgh in which my family grew up. It went through all of the different ministers who served in that parish. One minister started a program that blessed the church, and then when he moved along, the next man came and built on that foundation. That is what happens in the life of the church.

Very rarely does the life of a church begin and end with one pastor. It is customary in the ministry to build on another’s foundation, but Paul was not a pastor. He was an Apostle, and he was a missionary. He was sent to places where the gospel had not been preached, where no one else had laid a foundation, and where he was the first to announce the gospel. That was his aim, he said, “to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man’s foundation.”

Ministry to the Saints

In verse 22, Paul says it is because he keeps going to all these different places that “I also have been much hindered from coming to you. But now no longer having a place in these parts, and having a great desire these many years to come to you, whenever I journey to Spain, I shall come to you.”

Whether Paul ever got to Spain, we do not know. Scholars are divided on that point, but we have no certain evidence that he ever fulfilled his desire to get to Spain. We do know that he got to Rome, but he did not get to Rome because it was on the way to Spain. Paul went to Rome in chains, after getting himself in trouble first with the Jews and then with the Romans, as we see in the book of Acts.

Paul says, however: “Whenever I journey to Spain, I shall come to you. For I hope to see you on my journey, and to be helped on my way there by you, if first I may enjoy your company for a while.” Here is a church that Paul has heard about, whose fame has gone into the whole world, a church he was not the founder of—the church in Rome. But he writes this letter to the church in Rome. He counts them his brothers and sisters in the Lord, and he longs to see them in person. He tells them that, and he is optimistic that he will be able to see them in the near future.

But first, Paul says: “I am going to Jerusalem to minister to the saints. For it pleased those from Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints who are in Jerusalem.” Paul collected this offering from gentile converts and has now been sent back to Jerusalem to give and distribute this offering to the Jewish believers, who are living in the midst of hostility and poverty.

Is that not something? The believers among the gentiles from Macedonia, Greece, and Asia Minor gave their contributions to the Apostle Paul and said, “Take this back to Jerusalem and give it to the saints there.”

“It pleased them indeed, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have been partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister to them in material things.” Paul is saying of the gentile converts: “We know who we are. We know that we have been supremely blessed because of that which has come to us out of Israel. Salvation is of the Jews.” The gentiles understood that they were the wild olive branch that was grafted into the root of Israel. They were heirs of the spiritual promises of God that the Apostle Paul brought to them.

The gentiles say, “We are debtors to our brothers and sisters of Israel, who are now suffering in Jerusalem.” So, they were pleased to give this contribution for the saints in Jerusalem. “For if the Gentiles have been partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister to them in material things.”

Fullness of the Blessing

“Therefore, when I have performed this and have sealed to them this fruit, I shall go by way of you to Spain.” Essentially, “After I go to Jerusalem, I’m going to stop off at Rome on my way to Spain.” He continues, “But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.”

Do you ever wonder if Paul changed his mind? Did he really feel that he was coming to Rome in the fullness of the blessing of Christ? If you know the Apostle Paul, you know the answer to that question. He could arrive in Rome in chains and still rejoice that he was there because of the privilege of being a minister of the gospel. He continues:

Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, that I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.

Paul begs the Roman Christians to pray for him for the journey to Jerusalem that he is about to undertake. He knows there is a price on his head. He knows there is a bullseye on his back. He knows that there are multitudes of unbelieving Jews who cannot wait to get their hands on him and, if possible, stone him to death. So, he asks the saints in Rome: “Please pray for me. I’m going to Jerusalem to deliver this offering to bring relief to the saints, but I’m going to need safe conduct to get in and out of the city. So, pray hard.”

Paul asks for prayer “that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints”—that is, essentially, “Pray that the Jewish Christians will accept my ministry to the gentiles.” He continues, “That I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you.”

Benediction of Peace

This section closes with a brief benediction. This is not the final, ultimate benediction. It is the penultimate benediction of the epistle to the Romans, where Paul says: “Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.”

The front and center concern of the Apostle and of every Jew was the experience of the peace of God. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. One Jew greets another with, “Shalom aleichem, aleichem Shalom,” peace be unto you and unto you be peace. As the classic benediction says:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace. (Num. 6:24–26)

At the heart of virtually every Jewish benediction was this constant plea that God would give peace to His people. Paul speaks of God as the God of peace: “Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.”

In chapter 16, the Apostle closes the epistle in his standard way by giving individual greetings to this and that person. God willing, the next time that we are together in our study of Romans, we will take a look at some of these intimate greetings and what we can learn from the descriptions of the saints who ministered in Rome. Until then, may the God of peace be with you all. Let us pray.

Thank you, Lord, for this brief look at Paul’s understanding of his own Apostleship, of his own ministry, and what we can learn from that. We understand that anything that is effectual in our ministry is only by Your power. All that is lasting comes from You and from Your Spirit. Give us that grace as we preach Your Word to bring it home to the hearts and souls of those who hear it. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.