“For I long to see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end you may be established…”
Romans 1:11
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
Romans 1:16
I want to begin by quickly reviewing the points made last week about Paul’s opening address to the Romans so that we can build on that beginning. Here are some things to keep in mind: St. Paul begins by describing himself as the “doulos” of Christ; that is the slave, not merely the servant, of Jesus Christ. And since he belongs to Jesus Christ, since Christ has purchased him with his own blood, he – Paul – and we, all Christians are not free to give our ultimate loyalty to any other King. No other Prince may claim our allegiance, our loyalty, and our fidelity because we already belong to Jesus Christ and no one else. It is also worth noting that Paul saw no conflicting loyalty in describing himself as Jesus’ slave and not the slave of God the Father. Why not? Why isn’t there a conflict? Because Jesus Christ is the Son of God by nature and therefore he is of the very same nature as God the Father – therefore to be the slave of the Son is to be the slave of the Father.
Secondly, Paul writes that he was made an Apostle of the risen Christ not by an election in which men caste votes, but by way of God’s election which trumps polity and politics and furthermore he is emphatic that his election to the Apostolate was for the specific purpose of bringing non-Jews into the circle of salvation that once enfolded only Israel.
Thirdly, we saw that Paul was quick to declare that Jesus Christ did not start a new religion, not even a new version of Old Israel, but rather that he is the completion, the realization of all of God’s promises to Israel. Jesus Christ is Israel’s self-actualization, her perfection, her Messiah: He is the Desire of the Ages promised by God through the prophets of Israel and recorded in the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a new religion; it is the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel.
Finally we saw that Paul did not address the Christians at Rome in the manner he addressed Christians in his other epistles; namely by greeting their clergy, their bishops and deacons, and by addressing them with the title “Church of Rome” as he was used to do when writing his other epistles. Why did he not do that? – Because Paul did not consider Rome to be founded as an apostolic Church
and he seems quite sure that they lacked clergy as in bishops, priests or deacons, those who had been ordained to Holy Orders. In Romans 15 Paul describes his specific manner of fulfilling his ministry to the Gentiles this way:
“Yes, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation…”
There you have it: if there had already been founded an apostolic Church in Rome Paul would not have gone there to impart “some spiritual gifts” because that would have been to transparently build on “another man’s foundation.”
“For I long to see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end you may be established…”
Thus with this statement St. Paul declares one of his central aims in visiting Rome – that is to impart “some spiritual gift” to the Christians at Rome and to establish them on the firm ground of Apostolic faith and order. Paul spoke of his long desired to go to Rome and visit with the Christians there especially since they were largely made up of non-Jews. Remember that the Jews had been banished from the city of Rome for several years but with the death of Claudius in 54tthe edict against Jews living in Rome went by the wayside. For five years St. Paul and Priscilla and Aquila had grown a deep and trusting friendship and reliance upon one another in growing the Church of God and bringing the love and liberty of Christ to the world. By the time of the writing of this letter they had returned to Rome to continue their work among the Gentile Christians and they had paved the way for Paul’s visit. Essentially when Paul had said all he meant to say in this epistle, then once again he tells them how much he wants to come to Rome and that he now has plans in place for another missionary journey and he will come to see them in Rome on his way to Spain. Then he writes:
“But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints. For it has pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make an offering for the relief of the poor saints in Jerusalem… When I have finished that task… I will come to you.”
Well you already know what happened. He was arrested in Jerusalem and it was more like three years before he got to Rome and then not by way of Spain, but by way of being the prisoner of the Emperor.
All that being the case and Paul’s plans being turned upside down, he was going to get to Rome anyway and his mission was to be the same: that is to impart “some spiritual gift” to the Christians at Rome and to establish them on the firm ground of Apostolic faith and order. St. Paul understands that by virtue of his Apostleship he is in a real sense the Spirit-bearer who may by the laying on of hand impart gifts of the Holy Spirit to the churches that he has founded and he intends to do the same for the Romans, thus establishing them in the faith.
We don’t have to wonder too much about what kind of gifts he was talking about because Paul left several lists of spiritual gifts in his other epistles. But this is what I want to suggest, that above all he meant the spiritual gift of Holy Order, of what we call Bishops, Priests and Deacons; because these were meant to provide all the other gifts including unity and this he repeats in his several letters. He list gifts like healing, discernment of spirits, words of wisdom, speaking in tongues and even faith, but he always comes back to the work of the Apostolic ministry as the gift most essential to the Church and that which, if absent, there is no Church as St. Paul knows Church to be, the Body of Christ built on the Apostolic Ministry. Paul cited that first order in his letter to the Corinthians at the end of his long discussion of Spiritual gifts where he makes the preeminence of apostolic ministry clear:
“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit… And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments…”
Then again he cites a similar order in his letter to the Ephesians:
“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…”
Isn’t that essentially what he writes to the Romans?
“For I long to see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end you may be established…”
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
Here is the second point that I want to make: the Jew had priority for St. Paul. The Gospel is not something alien to Israel; rather it is the natural, or ought to have been, her natural treasure. This priority of Israel has a theological meaning – the promises were made to Abraham and through him to Israel – the worship, the Law, the Scriptures were all given to Israel. Jesus is Israel’s Messiah and finally the Gospel was first preached to Israel.
St. Paul literally enacted this priority wherever he went to preach the Gospel by first preaching Jesus Christ to the Jews. As one reads through the Acts of the Apostles whenever Paul goes into a city to preach Christ, he always makes his proclamation first at the synagogue. Even when he finally get to Rome, escorted into the Imperial City by the Roman Christians, he settle into a rented home and then first invites the local Roman Jews to home to have a conversation about Jesus the Messiah. But Jewish priority did not extend to the identity of the Christian himself – that is Gentiles did not have to become Jews in order to become Christians.
The Jews believed that they were the “seed” of Abraham and that through Israel and her Law God will bless the world. Not true, declares Paul! The “seed” of Abraham is Jesus Christ and all the promises God made to Abraham He spoke to Christ.
And what were the promises that God made to Abraham? God promised Abraham a homeland and he promised Abraham that He would bless the whole world through him and that he would father many nations and kings and that he would be his God. God made this promise to Abraham and his seed – the seed that was within Abraham’s old withered body and Abraham believed God. But as St. Paul writes, “that seed was Christ,” not the nation of Israel. Paul’s uncompromising declaration to the Romans is this: The blessings of Abraham, salvation and life and righteousness, have come to the Gentiles in Abraham’s Seed – Jesus Christ. It is not that Gentiles have been granted the possibility of becoming Jews. The Gospel is not the possibility of human beings moving into the blessed Family of Abraham! Not at all! It is greater than that! God has moved into the Family of Humanity through the very flesh, the seed of Abraham.
What we will see St. Paul laying out for the Romans is the meaning of the Gospel, that the moral law, uprightness of life, holiness, beauty and goodness have been infused into your very being by faith in Jesus Christ which is itself a gift from God. What St. Paul understood about the Gospel that seems to have been missed by so many of the Christian back in Jerusalem was that through Jesus Christ man, including the Jew, has been given a new vocation and that vocation is to be God’s own offspring.