ADDRESSES ON ROMANS
LECTURE XII CONCLUSION Romans 15:8-16:27
PRAISE TO THE GOD OF JEW AND GENTILE 15:8--13 As Paul exhorts his fellow-Christians to "glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" in brotherly love, remembering that "Christ also received us to the glory of God" (15:6, 7); as he contemplates the wonders of the love of God in redeeming us and empowering us to bear witness to Him in love one toward another, he bursts forth in another paean of praise. He has been thinking of the Jewish Christian and his relationship to the Law of Moses in the eating of certain foods and in the observance of days. He has been thinking also of the Gentile Christian, but recently led out of paganism into "the kingdom of God's dear Son." And he sings praise to the God of Jew and Gentile, the God of the whole universe. Let us read 15:8--13, joining Paul in thanksgiving to the God of Israel, who is the God of the Gentile nations as well. These words are all the more significant in view of the fact that they are quotations from the Jewish Scriptures. ..As it ยท is written" in the Old Testament, Jew and Gentile alike were remembered by the God of all grace when He "drew salva- tion's plan." Turn to a marginal reference Bible and read the Old Testament passages, from which these four quotations are taken. Moses, David. and Isaiah; law-giver, psalmist, and prophet, declared hundreds of years before Christ came to earth that He was the God of Jew and Gentile alike. Accordingly, Paul but reiterates the word of the prophets, which is the Word of God, saying that "Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers" (verse 8). To the Jews [Page 245
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