Romans 15:13

Rom_15:13

Now the God of hope.

The blessing given to the Church at Rome

I. A benediction pronounced. Filled--

1. With what? joy and peace in believing.

2. By whom? the God of hope.

3. To what end? that ye may abound, etc.

II. A fact stated.

1. The high estimate in which Paul held the Roman converts.

2. The reminder that was needed by them, so that they should not forget Gods grace.

III. A great progress in Christian knowledge implied (Rom_15:14). The Romans were--

1. Filled with knowledge.

2. Able to admonish their erring fellow Christians. (J. Hanson.)

Christian privileges

I. The privileges of true Christians.

1. Joy.

2. Peace.

3. Hope.

II. The method of securing them.

1. God the source.

2. Faith in Christ the means.

3. The Holy Ghost the agent. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

A round of delights

1. The apostle desired for the Romans the most delightful state of mind. See the value of prayer, for if Paul longs to see his friends attain the highest possible condition, he prays for them.

2. Pauls making this state a subject of prayer implies that it is possible for it to be attained. There is no reason why we should hang our heads and live in perpetual doubt. We may not only be somewhat comforted, but we may be full of joy, etc.

3. The fact that the happy condition described is sought by prayer is a plain evidence that the blessing comes from a Divine source. Notice concerning this state:--

I. Whence. It comes. From the God of hope. The connection is instructive.

1. To know joy and peace through believing we must begin by knowing what is to be believed from Holy Scripture (verse 4). Where He is revealed as the God of hope. Unless God had revealed Himself we could have guessed at hope, but the Scriptures are windows of hope to us, and reveal the God of hope to inspire us with hope. Faith deals with the Scriptures and with the God of hope as therein revealed, and out of these it draws its fulness of joy and peace. At least three of the apostles quotations call us to joy (verses 10-12).

2. The apostle leads us through the Scriptures to God Himself, who is personally to fill us with joy and peace; i.e., He is to become the great object of our joy. Our God is a blessed God, so that to believe in Him is to find happiness and rest. When you think of God, the just One, apart from Christ, you might well tremble, but when you see Him in Jesus, His very justice becomes precious to you. The holiness of God which aforetime awed you becomes supremely attractive when you see it revealed in the person of Jesus. How charming is the glory of God in the face of Christ. His power, which was once so terrible, now becomes delightful.

3. God is, moreover, called the God of hope because He worketh hope and joy in us. Peace without God is stupefaction, joy madness, and hope presumption. This blessed name of God of hope belongs to the New Testament, and is a truly gospel title. The Romans had a god of hope, but the temple was struck by lightning, and afterwards burned to the ground. Exceedingly typical this of whatever of hope can come to nations which worship gods of their own making. The hope which God excites is a hope worthy of Him. It is a Godlike hope--a hope which helps us to purify ourselves. He who graspeth this hope hath a soul-satisfying portion. It is a hope which only God would have contrived for man, and a hope which God alone can inspire in men.

II. What it is.

1. It is a state of mind--

(1) Most pleasant, for to be filled with joy is a rare delight, reminding one of heaven.

(2) Safe, for the man who has a joy which God gives him may be quite easy in the enjoyment of it.

(3) Abiding. We may drink our full of it without surfeit.

(4) Most profitable, for the more a man has of this joy the better man he will be. The more happy we can be in our God the more thoroughly will the will of Christ be fulfilled in us, for He desired that our joy might be full.

(5) Which has varieties in it. It is joy and peace; and it may be either. Peace is joy resting, and joy is peace dancing. Joy cries hosanna before the Well-beloved, but peace leans her head on His bosom. We work with joy and rest with peace.

(6) Which is also a compound, for we are bidden at one and the same time to receive both wine and milk--wine exhilarating with joy, and milk satisfying with peace. Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace. You shall lie down in the green pastures of delight, and be led by the still waters of quietness.

2. The joy and peace here spoken of are through believing. You come to know the God of hope through the Scriptures, which reveal Him; by this you are led to believe in Him, and it is through that believing that you become filled with joy and peace. It is not by working nor by feeling.

3. This joy and peace are of a superlative character, Fill you with all joy. He means with the best and highest degree of joy, with as much of it as you can hold.

4. Notice the comprehensiveness of his prayer.

(1) All joy; that is joy in the Fathers love, the Sons redeeming blood, the Holy Ghosts indwelling; joy in the covenant of grace, in the promises, in the doctrines, in the precepts, in everything which cometh from God.

(2) All peace--with God, of conscience, with one another, even with the outside world, as far as peace may be.

5. Observe the degree of joy and peace which he wishes for them--that ye may be filled. God alone knows our capacity and where the vacuum lies which most needs filling. As the sun fills the world with light, even so the God of hope by His presence lights up every part of our nature with the golden light of joyous peace.

III. What it leads to. Lead to? What more is wanted? When a man brings you into a chamber vaulted with diamonds, walled with gold, and floored with silver, we should be astonished if he said, This is a passage to something richer still. Yet the apostle directs us to this fulness of joy and peace that we may by its means reach to something else--that you may abound in hope, etc. How often do great things in the Bible, like the perpetual cycles of nature, begin where they end and end where they begin. If we begin with the God of hope, we are wound up into holy joy and peace, that we may come back to hope again, and to abounding in it by the power of the Holy Ghost.

1. The hope here mentioned, arises, not out of believing, but out of the joy created in us by our having believed. This hope drinks its life at the fountain of personal experience.

2. The text speaks of an abounding hope. Much hope must arise to a Christian out of his spiritual joy. Grace enjoyed is a pledge of glory. Acceptance with God to-day creates a blessed hope of acceptance for ever.

3. By the power of the Holy Ghost, is partially mentioned by way of caution, because we must discriminate between the fallacious hope of nature and the certain hope of grace. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Gospel blessings

I. The blessings derived.

1. Joy.

2. Peace.

3. Hope.

II. The source whence they flow--the God of hope.

III. The measure in which they may be enjoyed.

IV. The means by which they are attained.

V. The power by which they are effected. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

The unbounded beneficence of God in the history of a Christian

This is seen in:--

I. The character He assumes towards them God of hope. In this chapter the apostle speaks of Him as the God of patience, and the God of peace. Patience implies something to provoke, viz., sin. The history of the Almighty towards us and our race is a history of patience. Peace implies benevolence, rectitude, and freedom from all anger, remorse, fear, the necessary elements of inward commotion and outward war. God is peaceful in Himself. The storms of all the hells in His great universe ruffle not the infinite tranquility of His nature. He is peaceful in His aim. The constitution of the universe, the principles of moral law, the mediation of Christ, and the work of the Spirit show, that He desires to diffuse peace throughout this stormy world. He is peaceful in His working. How quietly does He move in accomplishing His sublime decrees. But in the text He is styled, God of hope; an appellation more significant than either of the other two, and more interesting to us as sinners. It does not mean that God is the subject of hope. God is infinitely above hope; Satan is infinitely below it; this is the glory of the one, it is the degradation of the other.

1. God is the object of hope. What is hope? Is it expectation? No. We expect sorrow and death. Is it desire? No. A poor man may desire to live in a mansion, a lost spirit to dwell in heaven. But put these two things together. Hope is the expectation of the desirable--God--His favour, society, friendship. Now that God should thus reveal Himself is a wonderful exhibition of love. The mind never points its hopes to a being that it has offended; it always looks to those that it has pleased. But here is God, whom the world has injured, revealing Himself as the object of its hope.

2. God is the author of hope. Before man can possess real Christian hope he must have--

(1) Ground to expect it. What reason have we to expect that the God of inflexible justice and immaculate purity will be favourable to us? Thanks be to Him, He has given us firm ground in the atonement of His Son.

(2) Appetite to desire it. The reason that there is so little real Christian hope is because men do not want God. This appetite is produced by the Spirit of God.

II. The blessings He imparts to them.

1. The nature of the enjoyment. Joy and peace, i.e., complete happiness. How delightful is the calm of nature after a thunderstorm! How still more precious is the peace of the empire after a long war! But how infinitely more so is the peace that passeth all understanding! The great causes of all mental distress are--

(1) Remorse. God removes this by the application of the sacrifice of Christ. As oil smooths the troubled waters, so the atonement of Christ calms the agitated breast. Being justified by faith, etc.

(2) Anger. God takes this away, and fills the heart with love.

(3) Apprehension. God removes this by assuring us of His constant presence and guardianship. Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace, etc.

2. The plenitude of the enjoyment. Fill you, etc. Not a mere taste, a transient thrill, but a fulness of deep spiritual happiness. Have you ever seen a person filled with delight? The tender mother that clasps in her arms a beloved child, etc. Now God wishes His people always to be filled with all joy--intellectual, social, religious: to have as much joy as their vessels can hold in this world. Christians have not lived up to this, and in consequence have led the world to associate the idea of sadness with that religion whose ways are ways of pleasantness, etc. It is our duty to have joy. Rejoice evermere, etc.

3. The condition of the enjoyment. What is this? Painful penances? Great attainments? Difficult labours? No. Believing. An act that can be performed at any time in any place.

4. The design of the enjoyment. That we may abound in hope, etc. This is very remarkable. God wishes us to be filled with happiness, that we may expect the more. The more favours we receive from an individual the less we have to expect; but the reverse is the case with God. Gods disposition to bestow is infinite, He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all, etc. Let us come to God with enlarged expectations. We can never weary Him, for it is His delight to give. We can never exhaust His fulness, for it is infinite. What a view does this give us of heaven! We shall be always anticipating; and the more we receive the more we shall anticipate.

III. The agency which He employs for them. Through the power of the Holy Ghost. What an exhibition of mercy is this! Had God employed the greatest, the oldest, or the noblest spirit for this purpose, it would have been wonderful mercy; but He employs His Holy Spirit who is equal with Himself. We are not sufficiently impressed with the value of this Infinite gift. We profess to estimate the gift of His Son to bleed and die for us. True, the world could never be saved without that; but it is equally true that the world could never be saved without the operations of the Spirit. (D. Thomas, D.D.)

Prayer to the God of hope

All men desire to be happy; but very few obtain the happiness which they covet. All happiness, except that of the Christian, is but counterfeit. It is like the morning cloud and early dew. Yet even the true Christian often falls short of the blessedness which he might enjoy.

I. The encouraging character here given of God. This manner of speaking expresses somewhat more than if Paul had called God the Author or the Giver of Hope. It is meant to teach us that this is His distinguishing characteristic, that hope springs from Him.

1. Even if we had no revelation of His gracious purposes, the probability would be that there is hope from Him; for we, His guilty creatures, are not yet finally lost--He hath not dealt with us after our sins.

2. This probability is, however, increased to certainty by the gospel. The great design is to encourage our hope. It reveals Gods unspeakable gift to make reconciliation for iniquities. It exhibits God as a present Father and Friend, and assures an eternity of blessedness in Christ.

II. The blessings which may be sought from Him

1. Joy. This may be thought by the penitent too great a blessing to be expected; yet thy Lord allows thee to expect it. Nay, thou art even commanded to rejoice in the Lord. This, however, like all other duties, is hard to fulfil. We are often unfaithful; this unfaithfulness begets distrust; and this interrupts our joy in the Lord. We have, therefore, cause to pray that God would bestow on us, and preserve to us, this inestimable blessing.

2. Peace. This is a gift more common, perhaps, than the other; a gift, also, of a more uniform and abiding nature. The continuance of joy depends in some measure on bodily constitution; but the soul may enjoy peace under the greatest trials. This was, in fact, the dying bequest of Jesus--Peace I leave with you. It is a holy calmness and tranquility, springing from faith in the promises of God. Let the apostles example encourage you in this prayer, both for yourselves and for those whom you love.

3. Hope. Joy and peace are present blessings; but hope has respect to things future. We have already seen that the character of God is calculated to raise our expectation of these future mercies. Now, then, we must pray for strength to hope for them. We are too apt to rest satisfied with the present enjoyments; and, even when we look forward to the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him, this is too often done with a cold heart and a languid eye. This is our infirmity and our sin. We ought rather to forget the things which are behind, etc.

4. The prayer of the apostle implies that we should set no bounds to our requests for these blessings. It is no scanty measure of joy, and peace, and hope, which he prays for. Hath He not said, Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it? If, then, our joy, our peace, or hope be defective, we are not straitened in Him; but we are straitened in our own bowels.

III. The way in which we may expect these blessings to be communicated.

1. On our part, Faith is the instrument. It is faith in His Word, which alone can make known to us the existence of such gifts. When, however, the discovery is made, true faith leads a man one step further, constraining him to say, Here is all my salvation and all my desire.

2. On Gods part, the power of the Holy Ghost is promised, for the communication of His gracious gifts. Faith is, indeed, the band which grasps the gift; but all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally, in such kind and in such proportion, as He will. (J. Jowett, M.A.)

The God of hope

I. What is implied in this title.

1. The expression is peculiar: He is termed the God of peace (verse 33), of grace (1Pe_5:10), of love and peace (2Co_13:11), of patience (verse 5), and the meaning is not only that He is the Author of these graces in us, but also that they exist in Him. But the case is different with respect to hope: this cannot exist in God, as He has every good in possession, and has nothing for which to hope. In this, and in this chiefly, the Creator differs from all His creatures.

II. The reasons why God has this title.

1. There is in Him the most stable foundation for the most glorious Lopes to all His rational creatures. The most solid ground for hope is offered--

(1) In His nature and attributes, e.g., His self-existence, supremacy, eternity; His infinite power, wisdom, love and mercy, and even His justice, Christ having died.

(2) In the relations in which He stands to us. What may not His offspring expect from such a Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer; His subjects from such a King; His servants from such a Master? What may not we, His children, hope for from such a Parent?

(3) In what He has already done. He has given His Son for the redemption of mankind, and His Spirits influence. And He, who withheld not His own Son, what gift can He deny?

(4) In what He has promised still further to do: to receive us to be with Jesus, to raise our bodies, to give us the vision and enjoyment of Himself, and the society of saints and angels for ever!

2. He is the great object of our hope. The main thing we hope for is, the vision, love, and enjoyment of Him (Psa_73:24).

3. He is also the Author of our hope. By freely justifying us, and by giving us peace with Him; by adopting us into His family; regenerating us by His grace; constituting us His heirs, and giving us an earnest of our future inheritance in our hearts (1Pe_1:3; 2Co_4:17).

III. Application and improvement.

1. What an antidote against--

(1) Distress, on account of all present troubles (chap. 8:16, 17; Heb_11:13-16).

(2) Doubt, fear, despondency, and despair.

2. What a deathblow to the carnal expecters of a Mohammedan paradise I God Himself is the true object of hope. And what a help to spiritual-mindedness? How necessary the question, Are we begotten again to a lively hope? (J. Benson.)

Hope

This prayer is closely connected with the preceding (verses 5, 6), and the more obvious link between them is In Him shall the Gentiles hope; but the note of hope had been struck before (verse 4). The apostle, however, loses sight of the connection and gives us his solitary petition for this grace in a manner perfectly independent. Let us study the prayer in regard to--

I. The God to whom it is addressed. Who derives many of His names from the gospel which manifests His glory. As that gospel rests on an accomplished propitiation, He is the God of grace, the Father of mercies; as it displays its present effects in the soul, He is the God of peace, and His name of names is love; as it reserves its blessedness for the future, He is the God of hope, i.e., the Fountain of the entire Christian salvation as it is not yet revealed. This includes--

1. A wide range: there is hardly an aspect of the redeeming work which the God of hope does not preside over. His Son is Jesus Christ which is our hope (1Ti_1:1); the gospel is the foundation of a great hope (Col_1:23); the Christian vocation is summed up in hope (Eph_1:18); salvation is our comprehensive hope (1Th_5:8).

2. An interminable perspective. The future is a glorious sequence of revelations which the God of hope has yet to disclose (Rom_8:20; Rom_8:24). There is the hope of the glorious appearing of our Lord and Saviour (Tit_2:3), the hope of the resurrection (1Th_4:13), the hope of final deliverance from every evil (1Th_5:8), the hope of eternal life (Rom_7:20), the hope of glory (Tit_1:2; Tit_3:7); and it would be easy to show that every one of these forms of the one great gospel blessing is referred to God as its Author (Col_1:27; Rom_5:2; 2Co_3:12).

II. The fulness of the blessing which it asks. Though other terms are found here, they all pay tribute to this grace. Faith is the root of hope; the peace and joy which are the fruits of faith are the nourishment of hope; and the abundance of hope is made the perfection of the Christian life as a state of probation.

1. Faith and hope are so inseparable that their only scriptural definition makes them all but identical (Heb_11:1); and they are one in this that their objects are invisible (Rom_8:25). But they differ in this, that faith has to do with the present, but hope with the future; or faith brings the past and hope the future into the reality of the present moment. Faith rests upon the It is finished already spoken; hope rejoices in the assurance of another It is finished which the creation waits to hear. But faith must have the pre-eminence as the parent of hope; for while we can conceive of a faith without hope, we cannot conceive of a hope that does not believe in its object. Hence the apostle here utters his prayer in a circuitous manner, and takes faith on the way.

2. There is an evident connection in Pauls mind between the fruits of faith and the abounding in hope. He borrows from the previous chapter (verse 17). Peace is the blessed settlement of the controversy between God and the sinner as respects the past; while joy is the present good cheer of the soul as encompassed by mercies, but feeling the present rather than thinking of the past or future. Now these two demand a third to fill up the measure of the Christian estate; peace touching the guilty past, and joy in the fruitful present, do not so much cry out for as naturally produce good hope for the unknown future.

3. But of all these there may be measures and degrees. Nothing is more characteristic of St. Paul than his insistance on the increase even unto perfection of every grace. The notion of fulness enters into every department of his practical theology. Here we have set before us the abundance of peace, joy and hope as the result of the abounding power in us of the Holy Ghost. But the term reluctantly submits to exposition. It is chiefly to be defined by negatives, though they are positive enough for mans desire. To be filled with peace is to be dispossessed of the last residue of a servile dread before God, and to have risen beyond the possibility of unholy resentments towards man; to be filled with joy is to have vanquished the sorrow of the world, to find elements of rejoicing even in tribulation, and to possess a serene contentment that finds nothing wrong in nature, providence, or grace; to abound in hope is expressed by another word that rather brings the answer of the prayer down into the region of our own endeavour. The God of hope bestows its increase rather as the fruit of our patience and fortitude. Hence the marked allusion to the power of the Holy Ghost. Hope is strengthened by the habits of endurance and resistance. While all graces demand His in working, these demand His power.

4. Abounding in hope is prayed for as the end and result of the fulness of joy and peace. This indicates that these more tranquil graces are instruments for the attainment of that more strenuous grace. Joy and peace minister to hope. The assurance of reconciliation cannot rest in itself, but must muse on that which is to come; how can it but encourage the expectation of all the fruits of a justified estate? The soul, no longer weighed down under the burden of sin, by a holy necessity springs upward. Peace is not hope, but it sets hope free. So also joy, by an equally Divine necessity, encourages endurance and fortitude, and the hopeful expectation of the great release. Hope in this case ministers as it is ministered unto (Rom_5:2). Conclusion: Hope is in some sense the highest of the probationary graces. It is the servant of many of them, but is itself served by all. What would everything else be without this? The mere imagination of the withdrawal of hope withers the rest, and wraps all in darkness. Charity, of course, has the pre-eminence by every right; but as the grace of our stern probation--hope has its own peculiar pre-eminence. It imparts its strength to all other graces, so that they without it cannot be made perfect. It divides the triumphs of faith, and enters largely into the self-denials and labours of love. As it respects the present life hope is in some sense the abiding grace. Then comes a supreme moment when hope, or faith working by hope, is the only anchor of the soul; and when it has endured its final strain it will be glorified for ever. With all its fruition it will have its everlasting anticipation of glories not yet revealed. (W. B. Pope, D.D.)

The secret of joy and of hope

Joy, peace, hope: a fair triad which all men seek, and few find and retain. They are, for the most of us, like bright-winged, sweet-voiced birds that dart and gleam about us, and we hear their voices, but nets and cages are hard to find. This prayer opens up the way to find joy, peace, and hope. Notice that the text begins with the God of peace fill you with these things, and it ends with through the power of the Holy Ghost. So, then, there are here three stages. There is, first, the Divine gift, which underlies everything. Then there is the human condition of making that gift our own; and then there is the triumphant hope which crowns joy and peace, and is their result. I ask you, then, to look at these three things with me this morning.

1. The only source of true joy and peace is God Himself. The only way by which God can give any man joy and peace is by giving him Himself. No gifts of His hand, apart from Him; no mere judicial act of pardon, and removal from a state of condemnation, are of themselves enough to fill a human heart with calm gladness. And if there is ever to be tranquillity in this disturbed being of mine, if the conflict between duty and inclination, between passion and principle, between present and future, between flesh and spirit, is ever to be hushed, it must be because God dwells in us. Notice the bold emphasis of the apostles prayer. The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace. So then, where God comes and is welcomed by humble obedience and-trustful love, there is fulness of these precious gifts. So as that a man has as much gladness and peace as he can hold. There is the difference between Christian joy and all other. In all others there is always some part of the nature lacking its satisfaction. Only when we put the colouring matter in at the fountain-head will it tinge every little ripple as it runs. Only when we have God for the joy of our hearts and the peace of our else troubled spirits will the joy be full. Otherwise, however abundant the flood, there will always be some gaunt, barren peak lifting itself parched above the rejoicing waters. No man was ever glad up to the height of his possibility who found his joy anywhere else than in God. And, then, mark that other word, too, all joy and peace. From this one gift comes an infinite variety of forms and phases of gladness and peace. And so it is wise, in the highest regions, to have all our investments in one security; to have all our joy contingent upon one possession. One pearl of great price is worth a million of little ones. One sun in the heavens outshines a million stars; and all their lustres gathered together only illuminate the night, while its rising makes the day. So if we want joy and peace, let us learn that we are too great and too miserable for any but God to give it us.

II. And now the human condition of this Divine gift of full and manifold joy and peace. Fill you with all joy and peace in believing. Believing what? He does not think it necessary to say, partly because all his readers knew who was the object of faith, and partly because there was more prominent in his mind at the moment the act of faith itself than the object on which it rests. They who thus trust in Jesus Christ are they to whom, on condition of, and at the moment of their trust or faith, God gives this fulness of joy and peace. Altogether apart from any consideration of the thing which a mans faith grasps, the very act of trust has in itself a natural tendency to bring joy and peace. When I can shift the responsibility off my shoulders on to anothers, my heart is lightened; and there comes a great calm. Christian faith does not wriggle out of the responsibilities that attach to a human life, but it does bring in the thought of a mighty hand that guides and protects; and that itself brings calm and gladness. You fathers have got far more anxious faces than your little children have, because they trust, and you are responsible for them. Trust God, and it cannot be misplaced, and the vessel can never be swept out of the centre of rest into the hurtling rage of the revolving storm around. Nor need I do more than just remind you of how, in the object that the faith grasps, there is ample provision for all manner of calm and of gladness, seeing that we lay hold upon Christ, infinite in wisdom, gentleness, brotherliness, strength. Oh, if only we keep hold of Him there can be but little in any future to alarm, and little in any present to disturb or to sadden. But note how the communication from God of joy and peace, in their fulness and variety, is strictly contemporaneous with the actual exercise of our faith. Our belief is the condition of Gods bestowal, and that is no arbitrary condition. It is because my faith makes it possible for God to give me Himself that He only gives Himself on condition of my faith. You open the door, and the daylight will come in. You remove the hermetical sealing, and the air will rush into the vacuum. Only mark this, as tong as you and I keep up the continuity of our believing, so long, and not one moment longer, does God keep up the continuity of His giving. Because there are such spasmodic and interrupted acts of faith on our part, we possess such transient and imperfect gifts of joy and peace. Let me drop one more word. Their are other kinds of religion and religious exercise than that of trust. There is no promise of peace and joy to them. Fill you with all joy and peace in poking into your own hearts to see whether you are a Christian or not. That is not the promise. Fill you with all joy and peace in painfully trying, to acquire certain qualities, and to do certain duties. That is not the promise.

III. And so, lastly, the issue of this God-given joy and peace is hope. The apostle did not tell us what was the object of the faith that he enjoined. He does not tell us what is the object of the hope either; and I suppose that is because he is not thinking so much about the object as about the thing. And this is the teaching here, that if a man, trusting in God in Jesus Christ, has all this flood of sunny gladness lying quiet in his heart, there will be nothing in any future that can alarm. For the peace and joy that God gives bear witness in themselves to their own immortality. Ah, there is a difference between all earths gladnesses and the joys that Christian people may possess. In all earthly blessedness there blends ever the unwelcome consciousness of its transiency. Therefore the best demonstration of a heaven of blessedness is the present possession of joy and peace in believing. These are like the floating timber and seeds that Columbus saw the day before he sighted land. But, brother, is there any reason to suppose that you will find a heaven of blessedness beyond the grave, in close contact with the things that you do not like to be in contact with now? We must begin here. We must here exercise the faith. We must here experience the peace and the joy, and then we may have the hope. Then, rich and blessed with such gifts from such a Giver, we may venture to say, To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant, and that hope shall not be put to shame. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Christian hope

I. Comes from God.

1. Worldly hope rests upon favouring circumstances--our own powers. It hangs often upon a slender thread. Hope centred in that child. How often parents with broken hearts have said that.

2. Few are atheists in theory, but many are such in their feelings. They are hopeless because they are godless. On the other hand, the Christian is first of all a believer in God as revealed in Christ. God therefore is the giver and the foundation of his hope.

II. Comes through joy and peace in believing.

1. It comes not to a heart that is without faith. It comes not from a creed repeated, or held merely intellectually. It comes from a faith that yields the affections, the will, the whole life to God. Are there Christians without faith? Then they are also without hope. Are they without joy and peace? Then they are also without hope.

2. Peace and joy in believing make God known. This is the logic of the heart. Such joy and such peace can come only from God. The joy of pardon and cleansing is the faith that only God can pardon and cleanse.

3. Peace and joy in believing are the firstfruits of Heaven. They are like the two faithful spies who came back loaded with the rich clusters of the promised inheritance. Larger faith, permanent faith, mean larger and more permanent hope. Being justified by faith, our tribulations work patience, our patience experience, our experience hope.

4. And this hope is for others as well as for ourselves. The man whose hope is confined to his individual interests is not a Christian. Under the stimulus of joy and peace in believing we argue: The God who has pardoned my sins can pardon others.

III. Is by the power of the Holy Ghost.

1. Like all other elements of the Christian life, hope is inspired. It is not a natural impulse. The lack of hope argues, then, a lack of spiritual life. Do we find persons professing faith in Christ, and yet living drearily? It may mean enfeebled health, or overtaxed nerves. It may mean also that they have not received the Holy Ghost. And when we remember this saintly apostle who writes of hope, yet has an enfeebled body, and nerves constantly taxed by toils and perils, we can conclude what the lack of despondent Christians most commonly is.

2. Our hope is not for the sanguine only, but for persons of every shade of temperament.

Conclusion:

1. Our hope is not a selfish emotion. God never inspires mortals with any sort of selfishness, not even with religious selfishness. The hope we cherish, if it reflects the spirit of Christ, will be large-hearted. It will rest upon the God of Hope, as the God who rules over all the world.

2. It is an exclusively Christian possession. Such is the unavoidable inference from the text. Men who are not Christians are without God and without hope. (E. McChesney, Ph.D.)

Joy and peace in believing.--

Joy and peace in believing

Consider--

I. The source of this desired good. God sometimes permits the use of titles descriptive of what He is in Himself, and sometimes of names denoting His relation to His creatures. In the former sense we apply such designations asthe God of mercy, the God of love, the God of truth. Examples of the latter are the God of peace, the God of patience, the God of all consolation. In the text He is the God of hope, because--

1. He is the Fountain from which all hope must flow. Hope, like its sister Faith, is one of those good and perfect gifts which, pass through what intermediate channels it may, must come down to us from the Father of lights. And this hope, which God begets in us, is a lively hope that is, God invests spiritual objects with a new attractiveness, and creates within us longing desires after their attainment.

2. He is the object on which all hope must terminate. God can never raise an expectation in His creatures for the mere purpose of disappointing them. It might be optional whether He should give to us a ground of hope or not; but having given us cause to hope, it is no longer an option whether such a hope shall be fulfilled. God cannot deny Himself. And although God may and will take His own time, we must not, as in the case of human promises, allow the heart to sicken at hope deferred. Delays with God are but invisible means of hastening mercy. He that believeth must not make haste. In due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

II. The particular blessings.

1. Joy is one of those early fruits of the Spirit which flow from a sense of our interest in the promises--a well-grounded persuasion of our having a part in the great propitiation. It is a joy with which a stranger intermeddleth not, and of which even adversity depriveth us not. Hence this joy is to be distinguished from every other as having God for its object. It is not in riches, which have wings--not in honours, which may fail--not in health, which may languish, etc.; but it is Isaiahs joy when he said, My soul shall be joyful in my God. It is the Virgins joy when she said, My spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour. It is the apostles joy when he said to the Philippians, Rejoice in the Lord alway. And this may serve to explain the paradox, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. For the Christian has meat to eat that the world knows not of.

2. Peace--

(1) The peace of reconciliation with a God offended.

(2) The peace of conscience for a law infringed.

(3) The peace of an assured conscience.

The apostle would have us filled with peace--the true peace--the peace which was the Fathers token, the Sons legacy, the Spirits seal and earnest unto the day of a complete redemption. This is a peace which the world cannot give.

3. In believing. We might have expected after ye have believed, as if joy and peace were net to be looked for at the outset of our Christian course, but the recompense of an advanced and established faith. But no; you should expect the blessing as you believe, and because you believe. Faith is the hand which takes the blessing at Gods hand.

III. The fruit.

1. In verse 4 and here the respective functions of the Word and the Spirit in our salvation are beautifully brought together. Perfectly distinct as these agencies are, yet their joint operation issues in the same result. The reason is, that one is the agent and the other the instrument in this great work. The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit; it is that by which He works. The Word cannot convert without the Spirit; and, as a rule, the Spirit does not convert without the Word. And here the Word and the Spirit join together to make us abound in hope.

2. What is the hope in which we are to rejoice and abound? Why, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God; we rejoice in hope of the glory that shall be revealed. We abound in hope of entering a world without sin, suffering, and death. (D. Moore, M.A.)

The present happiness of believers

I. Faith naturally tends to fill the soul with the most pleasant and delightful fulness, pleasure, and hope.

II. Though faith naturally tends to fill the soul with the most pleasant and delightful feelings, yet even true Christians do not always fully enjoy them.

III. We must labour to remove the obstacles which prevent our full enjoyment of this spiritual happiness. (D. Savile, M.A.)

Joy and peace in believing

There are a large number of persons who profess to have believed in Christ, but who assert that they have no joy and peace in consequence. Now I shall suppose that these are not raising this difficulty by way of cavil, and that they are not labouring under any bodily sickness such as might bring on hypochondriacal feelings. We begin with two observations--

1. That joy and peace are exceedingly desirable for your own sakes and for the sake of your acquaintances, who set down your despondency to your religion.

2. Do not overestimate them; for, though eminently desirable, they are not infallible evidences of safety. Many have them who are not saved, for their joy springs from a mistake, and their peace rests upon the sand of their own imaginations. It is a good sign that the spring is come, that the weather is warm; but there are mild days in winter. A man may be in the lifeboat, but be exceedingly ill, and think himself to be still in peril. It is not his sense of safety that makes him safe. Joy and peace are the element of a Christian, but he is sometimes out of his element. The leaves on the tree prove that the tree is alive, but the absence of leaves will not prove that the tree is dead. True joy and peace may be very satisfactory evidences, but their absence, during certain seasons, can often be accounted for on some other hypothesis than that of the absence of faith.

3. Do not seek them as the first and main thing. Let your prayer be, Lord, give me comfort, but give me safety first. Be anxious to be happy, but be more anxious to be holy.

I. The text may be used to correct two common and dangerous errors.

1. That there is a way of joy and peace through self. Some look for them through good works. Now if we had never sinned, joy and peace would have been the consequences of perfect holiness; but since we have broken Gods law any rational joy and peace are impossible under the covenant of works. You have broken the alabaster vase; you may preserve the fragments, but you cannot make it whole again. Many who are conscious of this say, Then I will do my best. Yes; but a man who is drowning may say that, but it is no solace to him as the billows close over him. Some try the plan of scrupulous observance of all religious ceremonies. These things may be good in themselves; but to rest in them will be your ruin.

2. That of turning the text upside down. There is such a thing as joy and peace in believing, and some therefore infer that there is such a thing as believing in joy and peace. You will get peace just as the florist gets his flower from the bulb; but you will never get the bulb from the flower. To trust Christ because you just feel happy is--

(1) Irrational. Suppose a man should say during a panic, I feel sure that my bank is safe, because I feel so easy about my money; you would say to him, That is no reason. Suppose he said, I feel sure that my money is safe, because I believe the bank is safe. That is good reasoning. But here you put the effect in the place of the cause. If a man should say, I have got a large estate in India, because I feel so happy in thinking about it, that is no proof whatever. But if he says, I feel very happy, because I have got an estate in India, that may be right enough.

(2) Irreverent. You say to God, Thou tellest me to trust Christ and I shall be saved. Well, I cannot trust Christ, but I can trust my own feeling, and if I felt very happy I could believe that He would save me.

(3) Egotistical. Here is a person who has the Divine promise--He that believeth on Him is not condemned; and instead of confiding in this, he says, No, I shall believe nothing which I do not feel.

II. The great truth of the text is, that believing in Christ is the true ground for joy and peace. Believing in Christ is trusting Christ, But what sort of a Christ is this I am to confide in? Is He worthy of my trust? The reply is this, We have trusted Christ--

1. Because of the wonderful union of His natures. He is God, and whatever God undertakes He is able to accomplish. But He is man, and has the requisite tenderness to deal with sinners.

2. Because of the evident truthfulness of His character. Could we suspect the Saviour we should find it difficult to trust Him; but as we cannot imagine a cause for suspecting Him, we feel shut up to believing Him. Millions of spirits boar witness to the trustworthiness of Christ. He did not fail one of them.

3. Because He was sent of God on purpose to save. Now if this be so, and Christ comes into the world and says, Trust, and I will save you, He has God to back Him, and the honour of the Trinity is pledged to every soul that comes to Christ.

4. Because the merit of His sufferings must be great enough to save us.

5. Because He rose again from the dead, and now He ever liveth to make intercession for us. Wherefore, He is able to save to the uttermost.

III. The principle of the text is of constant application : joy and peace always come through believing. We do not always have joy and peace, but still, in the main, joy and peace are the result of believing. E.g.

1. As soon as a person is saved, one of the earliest evidences of spiritual life is a great battle within. Some have the notion that as soon as they are saved they shall never have to fight. Why, it is then that you begin the campaign. But you shall have joy and peace while the fighting is going on.

2. Remember that even after you are secure in Christ, and accepted before God, you may sometimes get despondent. Christian men may have a bad liver, or some trial, and then they get depressed. But what then? Why then you can get joy and peace through believing. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Joy essential

Joy has been considered by Christian people very largely as an exceptional state; whereas sobriety--by which is meant severity of mind, or a non-enjoying state of mind--is supposed to be the normal condition. I knew a Roman Catholic priest that was as upright and conscientious a man as I ever met, who said he did not dare to be happy; he was afraid that he should lose his soul if he was; and he subjected himself to every possible mortification, saying, It is not for me to be happy here; I must take it out when I get to heaven. There I expect to be happy. That was in accordance with his view of Christianity. Now, it is of the utmost importance that it should be understood that health of soul and joyfulness are one and the same thing. You cannot be healthy in soul and not be happy. The true idea of religion is one that makes men happy by making them happiable; that brings them into that soul-knowledge, and into that concord of soul, out of which comes happiness. Remember that the state of suffering, if you must suffer, is the abnormal state, and that a true Christian is a man who is a happy Christian. You may say, I cannot be happy. Very well, then you cannot be an ideal of true Christianity. You are not able to reach the highest condition of which the human soul is capable. It does not follow because a man has one leg shorter than the other, and is obliged to limp, that limping is a part of the best state of man. The man whose legs are lithe, and who can run like a roe, is a true man physically, in so far as that is concerned; and the man who is maimed, and cannot do this, is physically so much less than a true man as he falls short of the possibility of it. (H. W. Beecher.)

A cheerful hope

A hopeless life is a bitter life. Surely the heart is broken when hope is gone. Thank God, this is a rare thing. You tread upon the wild flower in the field, and for a time it is crushed; but ere the next morning comes, when the dew is on the grass, it stands erect again. And when deep trouble comes the heart may be crushed for a time, but it is generally only for a time. It is wonderful how people will recover and see there is still something left. Here is a bankrupt: his plans are frustrated, his heart is bruised. For a time he droops his head despondently, but he is soon ready to make another start. He adapts himself to his circumstances, and finds hope rising within him. I may yet be in comfortable circumstances, he says, and again he can work with a will. It is beautiful, though sometimes very sad, to see how the poor consumptive patient will retain hope to the last. It is only a little cold, she says; I shall soon be strong again. We are saved by hope, says Paul, and there is a depth of meaning in his words. People often say, While there is life there is hope; but would it not be truer still to say, While there is hope there is life? This cheerful hope is the Christians. All things are his, not in possession, but in prospect. The heart can cherish no desire which is not abundantly spread out before him. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, what things God hath prepared for those who love Him. (J. Matthews.)

Through the power of the Holy Ghost.--

The power of the Holy Ghost

Power is the peculiar prerogative of God. Twice have I heard this, etc. If He delegates a portion of it to His creatures, yet still it is His power. This prerogative is to be found in each of the three persons of the Trinity. We shall look at the power of the Holy Ghost in--

I. The outward and visible displays of it.

1. In creation works (Job_26:13; Psa_104:29; Gen_1:2). But there was one instance of creation in which the Spirit was more especially concerned, viz., the formation of the body of Christ. The power of the Highest shall overshadow Thee, etc.

2. In the resurrection of Christ. Sometimes this is ascribed to Himself, sometimes to God the Father. He was raised by the Father, who said, Loose the Prisoner--let Him go. Justice is satisfied. He was raised by His own majesty and power because He had a right to come out. But He was raised by the Spirit as to the energy which His mortal frame received (Rom_8:11; 1Pe_3:18).

3. In works of witnessing. When Jesus went into Jordan the Spirit proclaimed Him Gods beloved Son. And when afterwards Jesus raised the dead, healed the leper, etc., it was done by the power of the Spirit, who dwelt in Him without measure. And when Jesus was gone the master attestation of the Spirit was when He came like a rushing mighty wind, and cloven tongues. And all through the apostles ministry mighty signs and wonders were clone by the Holy Ghost, and many believed thereby.

4. The works of grace. Under the power of the Holy Ghost the uncivilised become civilised, the savage polite, the drunkard sober, etc.

II. The inward and spiritual manifestation. The former may be seen, this must be felt. The Holy Ghost has a power over--

1. Mens hearts. Now these are very hard to affect. If you want to get at them for any worldly object you can do it. But there is not a minister breathing who can win mans heart himself. He can win his ears, his eyes, his attention; but he cannot reach the heart. The Holy Spirit can. He can Speak with that voice which wakes the dead.

2. The will. This, especially in some men, is a very stubborn thing. I can bring you all to the water, and a great many more; but I cannot make you drink; and I dont think a hundred ministers could. But the Spirit of God can make us willing in the day of His power.

3. The imagination. Those who have a fair share of imagination know what a difficult thing it is to control. It will sometimes fly up to God with such a power that eagles wings cannot match it; but it is also potent the other way, for my imagination has taken me down to the vilest kennels and sewers of earth. Can you chain your imagination? No; but the power of the Holy Ghost can.

III. Its future and desired effects. He has--

1. To perfect us in holiness. The Christian needs two kinds of perfection-of justification in the person of Jesus, of sanctification by the Holy Spirit. At present corruption still rests even in the breasts of the regenerate, but the day is coming when God shall finish the work which He has begun.

2. To bring on the latter-day glory.

3. To raise the dead. That same power which raised Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies.

Practical inferences:

1. The Spirit is very powerful, Christian!

(1) Then you never need distrust the power of God to carry you to heaven.

(2) Why should you doubt anything?

2. Sinners, there is some hope for you. I cannot save you, but I know my Master can. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Our urgent need of the Holy Spirit

(text, and verse 19):--

1. The Spirit of God is necessary to the Church for its own internal growth in grace. Hence verse 13, where the apostle attributes the power to be filled with joy and peace in believing, and to abound in hope, to the Holy Ghost. But the power of the Church outside, to be aggressive, is this same energy (verse 19). If the Church is to be happy and holy within herself, and if she is to conquer the world for Christ, she must have the power of the Holy Ghost.

2. The power of the Church for external work will be proportionate to the power within.

(1) There are two cottages in winter. From the roof of one the snow has disappeared, while the other is still covered with it. The reason is that there is a fire burning inside the one, but the other is untenanted. So where worldliness and formalism lie thick upon Churches there is not the warmth of Christian life within; but where hearts are warm with Divine love through the Spirit of God, evils vanish and beneficial consequences follow.

(2) Here is a trouble arising between different nations. Everybody knows that one of the hopes of peace lies in the bankrupt condition of the nation which is likely to go to war. Thus is it in the great battle of truth. The strength or weakness of a nations exchequer affects its army in its every march, and in like manner its measure of grace influences the Church of God in all its actions.

(3) The rising of the Nile depends upon those far-off lakes in the centre of Africa. If there be a scanty supply in the higher reservoirs, there cannot be much overflow in the course of the river through Egypt. So if the upper lakes of fellowship with God are not well-filled the Nile of practical Christian service will never rise to the flood. You cannot get out of the Church what is not in it. We must ourselves drink of the living water till we are full, and then out of the midst of us shall flow rivers of living water. Out of an empty basket you cannot distribute loaves and fishes, however hungry the crowd may be. The power of the Holy Ghost is manifested in--

I. The quickening of souls to spiritual life.

1. All the spiritual life which exists in this world is the creation of the Holy Spirit. Every growth of spiritual life, from the first tender shoot until now, has also been His work. You will never have more life, except as the Holy Ghost bestows it upon you.

2. The Holy Spirit is absolutely needful to make everything that we do to be alive. We are sowers, but if we take dead seed in our seed-basket there will never be a harvest. How much there is of Church work which is nothing better than the movement of a galvanised corpse. How much of religion is done as if it were performed by an automaton, or ground off by machinery.

3. As the Spirit is a quickener to make us and our work alive, so must He specially be with us to make those alive with whom we have to deal for Jesus. As well may you try to calm the tempest with poetry or stay the hurricane with rhetoric as to bless a soul by mere learning and eloquence. We are utterly dependent here, and I rejoice in this. If I could have a stock of power all my own apart from the Spirit, I cannot suppose a greater temptation to pride and to living a distance from God.

II. The enlightenment of His people.

1. This He has done by giving us His Word; but the Book, inspired though it be, is never spiritually understood by any man apart from His personal teaching. The letter you may know, but no man knows the things of God save he to whom the Spirit of God has revealed them.

2. If professors be not taught of the Spirit their ignorance will breed conceit, pride, unbelief. Sorrow too comes of ignorance. Hadst thou known the doctrines of grace thou hadst not been so long a time in bondage! Half of the heresy in the Church of God is not wilful error, but error which springs of not submitting the mind to the light of the Holy Ghost. If He will but enlighten the Church thoroughly there will be an end of divisions. Practical unity will exist in proportion to the unity of mens minds in the truth of God.

3. We find in this gracious operation our strength for the instruction of others; for how shall those teach who have never been taught? Son of man, eat this roll; for until thou hast eaten it thyself thy lips can never tell it out to others. It is the law of Christs vineyard that none shall work therein till first of all they know the flavour of the fruits which grow in the sacred enclosure. An ignorant Christian is disqualified for great usefulness; but he who is taught of God will teach transgressors Gods ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Christ.

III. The creation in believers of the spirit of adoption.

1. We are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and so receive the nature of children; and that nature He develops and matures. This is of very great importance, for sometimes the spirit of slaves creeps over us.

2. This will have a great effect upon the outside world. A body of professors performing religion as a task can have but small effect upon the sinners around them. But bring me a Church made up of men who know they are accepted and beloved, and are perfectly content with the great Fathers will; put them down in the midst of ungodly ones, and they will begin to envy them their peace and joy.

IV. Sanctification.

1. Holiness is the entirety of our manhood fully consecrated to the Lord and moulded to His will. This is the thing which the Church of God must have, but it can never have it apart from the Sanctifier, for there is no holiness but what is of His operation.

2. And if a Church be destitute of holiness what effect can it have upon the world? Scoffers utterly despise professors whose lives contradict their testimonies.

V. Prayer.

1. The strength of a Church may pretty accurately be gauged by her prayerfulness. But all acceptable supplication is wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost.

2. Furthermore, when we come to deal with sinners we know that they must pray. Behold he prayeth is one of the earliest signs of the new birth. But can we make the sinner pray?

VI. Fellowship.

1. In the apostolic benediction we pray that we may receive the communion of the Holy Ghost. He gives us fellowship with God Himself. Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. So, too, our fellowship with one another is always produced by the Spirit.

2. If you are to tell upon the world you must be united as one living body. A. divided Church has long been the scorn of Antichrist.

VII. In His office of paraclete.

1. The Holy Spirit is our friend and Comforter. Many a heart would break if the Spirit of God had not comforted it. This is a very necessary work, for if believers become unhappy they become weak for service.

2. He is the Advocate of the Church--not with God, for there Christ is our sole Advocate, but with man. The grandest plea that the Church has against the world is the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. All the evidences of the truth of Christianity which can be gathered from analogy, history, and external facts, are nothing whatever compared with the operations of the Spirit of God. If we have the Spirit of God amongst us, and conversions are constantly being wrought, the Holy Spirit is thus fulfilling His advocacy, and refuting all accusers. (C. H. Spurgeon)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 15:13. Now the God of hope — A glorious title of God, but till now unknown to the heathen; for their goddess Hope, like their other idols, was nothing, whose temple at Rome was burned by lightning. It was indeed built again not long after, but was again burned to the ground. It is with great propriety that Jehovah is termed the God of hope, for there Isaiah , 1 st, In his nature and attributes; 2d, In the relations in which he stands to mankind in general, as their Creator, Preserver, Benefactor, Governor, and Judge; and to his own people in particular, as their Redeemer, Saviour, Friend, and Father; 3d, In what he hath already done for them in giving his Son for their redemption, and in sending them the gospel light, and his Spirit’s aid; and, 4th, In what he hath promised still further to do for such as do not reject his counsel against themselves; — there is, in these particulars, a most sure and glorious foundation laid for the most firm, lively, enlarged, and blessed hope, for all who will be persuaded to come to it and build thereon, by true repentance, living faith, and new obedience. And we may assure ourselves beyond a doubt, that

“No man too largely from his love can hope, If what he hopes he labours to secure.”

He is also called the God of hope, because, by raising his Son from the dead, and bringing life and immortality to light by the gospel, he hath presented to our view the most glorious object of hope possible to be presented to us; and because, by adopting believers into his family, regenerating them by his grace, constituting them his heirs, and giving them an earnest of their future inheritance in their hearts, he hath begotten them again to a lively hope of an incorruptible inheritance, an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. Fill you with all joy — True spiritual joy, at all times, Php 4:4; and in all things, 1Th 5:16; 1Th 5:18; joy arising from the sources mentioned in the note on Rom 14:17: and peace, of all sorts, in believing — In or by the exercise of your faith in God and Christ, and the truths and promises of the gospel. That ye may abound in hope — In a lively expectation of eternal life, felicity, and glory, and of continued, increasing grace, to help you in every time of need — And of all things necessary for life and godliness. Through the power of the Holy Ghost — Enlightening and quickening, renewing, strengthening, and comforting you.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_15:13

The divine antidote against despair.—It is difficult to lead a truly religious life. This arises from our proneness to evil and from the influences working to draw us away from the path of rectitude. There are great forces against us; but, rightly considered, there are mightier forces engaged on our behalf. This text is in itself a shield of protection. An apostle prays. A God of hope encourages. The power of the Holy Ghost is engaged. The essentials of the Christian life are being developed to establish in that hope which is the crown and guarantee of safety and of ultimate triumph.

I. The apostle prays.—Spiritual earnestness is characteristic of all his supplications. He prays for moral advancement. Too oft we pray for worldly good, and not to be filled with joy and peace in believing. We pray thus, if prayer be the real expression of our hearts. The apostle’s prayer was intercessory. We need to know more truly the blessing of intercessory prayer. It would remove our selfishness, make us possess more of the diffusive spirit of Christianity, enlist our sympathies on behalf of the erring, prevent us being so censorious, tend to make us love the brethren, and cause us to dwell together in Christian unity.

II. A God of hope encourages.—There are divine agents working for the expansion of Christian hope—the God of hope and the power of the Holy Ghost. How appropriate the term when we remember the apostle’s object to inspire with hope! God is not the subject but the object of hope. Hope is the faculty or grace exercised by the creature who cannot see the future. God sees the future, and has no need to overcome the cloud of the present by drawing from the future the light of hope. God, as the object of hope, is a reason for gratitude. Nature and philosophy may teach a dread abstraction, and may thus induce a desire for atheism. Revelation declares a God of hope. There is hope in the fulness of the divine promises, in the pages of the sacred record, in the cross of our Saviour, and by the power of the Holy Ghost. It is the gracious province of the divine Spirit to work in and upon the human spirit, so that it may abound in hope. There is not often a superabundance of hope; it is too rare a possession. Abound in hope. How excellent the nature that abounds in hope!

III. The essentials of the Christian life are being developed.—Faith, peace, and joy are essential elements of the Christian character. These are to be increased, and then there follows the enlargement of hope. A man filled with joy and peace has no room for despair. Peace and joy constitute the favourable sphere in which hope may abound. Peace, joy, and hope do not spring from a desire, however earnest, after righteousness. A longing after the harmony with the eternal law of moral order will fill us with despair as we feel that we are incapable of satisfying the soul’s infinite longings. Peace, joy, and hope come to the soul in and through believing. The truth of this cannot be tested by any scientific method, but it is affirmed by experience.

IV. The blessed processes employed for the attainment of a great result.—The blessed processes are both external and internal, both human and divine, and all spiritual. All intercessory prayers are external to the objects of such petitions. Paul prays; the Mediator intercedes. The divine Spirit is external to the human spirit, and works in external spheres, even when that divine Spirit has put itself into blessed union with the human spirit. The divine Spirit is filling. When the divine Spirit fills the human spirit, then it fills with joy and peace. The very presence of the Spirit is joy and peace, for the Holy Ghost is a peaceful and joyful Spirit. All are moving towards the blessed result—superabundance of hope.

V. The result reacts beneficially on the processes.—Abundance of hope strengthens faith, deepens peace, enlarges joy. Beneficial reactions are to be expected in Christian processes; while maleficent reactions too often occur in other spheres. Do evil, and evil rebounds. Work in material spheres, and though the work be legitimate, harm and damage may recoil. Do good, and good beyond our doing accrues. Work in moral spheres, and though the work be imperfect, there will be a beneficial reaction beyond the measure of our efforts. Seek for more faith; cultivate peace; enlarge joy. Then hope will abound. And abounding hope will sweetly nourish all graces, like the prospering sunlight of heaven. The apostle abounded in hope in darkest scenes; and why may not we? The heathen wept amid the ruins, but the apostle could sing amid the ruins of worldly hopes; and why may not we?

Rom_15:13. Religion and pleasure.—It is a remarkable fact that St. Paul, whose record was so stormy, can rejoice. Sketch his chequered life. Yet he speaks of the joy of faith even while the chains about his wrists are clanking. He is a happy Christian, praising God in spite of his uncomfortable quarters and his perilous position. The secret of this? That he weighed consequences before experience: the sufferings of the present not worthy of comparison with the glory that should follow.

I. St. Paul sought to teach men that religion is a thing of joy.—The general notion among the worldly runs in the opposite direction. Some say of St. Paul that his exultation was due to his natural temperament, to the atmosphere of controversy and opposition, which he dearly loved. But thousands of others have believed that religion is the groundwork of the world’s joy. Sceptics and others say that they have joy—deep, solemn, self-respecting, abiding—in looking into the heavens and nature as mysteries, the delight coming from the endeavour to solve them. But the fact is indisputable that their joy is marred by this—that shutting out God they shut out all hope and encouragement.

II. The text leaves no room for the false ideal of gloomy sainthood.—One of the greatest injustices that can be done to the Christian cause is to take as one’s ideal Christian the melancholy, wasted saint who frowns on everything but the Bible or hymn-book—the grim, gloomy creatures, extreme Puritans, who frown on laughter and lightheartedness. They do not truly reflect the religion Jesus set up among men. Nothing in Christianity to refute Solomon’s saying, “To everything there is a season”; but we may make one exception there—namely, no time for the gospel of gloom. Reading between the lines of religion, you come upon the philosophy of right things in right places; but everywhere in religion you find the word “cheerfulness.”

1. To be cheerful is a duty which you owe to God. He has placed you in a beautiful world with power to enjoy it. If you go complaining and wearing a gloomy face, it is a constant denial that God has done all things to make you happy.

2. To be cheerful is a duty you owe to your neighbour. By being cheerful you contribute to the happiness of those around you. We are so constituted that we are always affected by our associates and associations.

3. Cheerfulness a duty you owe to yourself. Life is what we make it.

III. Religion is pleasurable, notwithstanding the element of discipline.—Discipline an absolute necessity, otherwise many would carry their pleasures into licence. Religion has its pleasure; but it draws a necessary line somewhere. It will not tolerate forgetfulness of God and duty, laxity of service, questionable fraternity with the world that opposes God.

IV. No real pleasure apart from religion.—Some say the world would be just as happy without Christ’s religion as with it. History gives this the lie. Were the pagans a happy race? Were the Greeks with their full pantheon happy? Think of the picture of the Christless world! Suicide resorted to and praised as a means of escape from misery. It is false to impute gloom to Christianity. Rightly interpreted, it does not sanction a single doctrine or utter a precept which is meant to extinguish one happy impulse or dim one innocent delight. “What it does is to warn us against seeking and following the lowest and most shortlived pleasures as a final end.” Since all that “makes life tolerable and society possible” is due to Christ’s religion, it is but another step to say that it is only through that religion that there can by any possibility be any real joy and peace.

V. The false representations have done great mischief.—Some have held aloof, refusing the yoke of Christ, and have lost much abiding peace. The joy and peace of religion consist in an enlarged view of life, a wider conception of the duties demanded of it, a real comfort in the day of sorrow: these have been lost to many because of misrepresentation. It is something to lose companionship of a Saviour ready to meet our sinfulness and purge it—one ready to meet our feebleness, especially since we are made up of needs.—Albert Lee.

Rom_15:13. God has no unfulfilled desires.—Jesus Christ exercised His ministry amongst the Jews, and chose His apostles from the same people. The far larger proportion of primitive Christians were Jews; but the full and final commission to His disciples was to “preach the gospel to every creature.” It was necessary that Christ should be of some nation: He came unto the Jews to fulfil the prophecies concerning Him, and to establish the new covenant, for which the old was a preparation. The new covenant was for the benefit of all, according to the prediction of Isaiah: “There shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and His rest shall be glorious.” Thus is He set forth as the hope, or the object of hope, for all people. His ministers are sent for this purpose—to lead men to Him, that they may be induced to hope in Him and through Him. There is no exception or exclusion, except that which individuals themselves unwisely make. “I, if I be lifted up from the earth,” Christ said, “will draw all men unto Me.” The attraction of His love produces hope. The divine Being is not called a God of hope because He has unfulfilled desires; for He is possessed of all things, and has the universe under His control. The very perfection of His nature must be a source of happiness, and excludes the hope so necessary to men, and without which energy would be dissipated and purposes made vain. Hope implies that there is some good not yet in possession, but in God are “hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” But God is the giver of all that is worth having: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” To Him rational beings must look, in Him must trust. On Him we are dependent, and even “the power to get wealth” is received from Him. He permits evil. Why? It is not for us to say; but often what appears so is not so absolutely. He “out of seeming evil still educeth good.” He is called “the God of hope” in view of the fact that our state morally is desperate, and that no power less than His can deliver us from it and put us in a condition acceptable to Himself. His good-will towards us is so great as to be incomprehensible. For acceptance in the Beloved, for spiritual renewal, and for life eternal we are to hope in Him. He is not like the fabled deities of old, pleased to execute vengeance; He delights in mercy, “showing it to thousands of them that love Him.” But He does not show mercy to penitents that they may continue in sin: “He that confesseth and forsaketh it shall find mercy.” It is desirable and possible to abound in hope, even in the most troublesome events of life. Sometimes it may be dimmed or clouded through “manifold temptations,” when a resort to the very Source of hope becomes especially necessary. How many have been sustained by hope in the most fearful difficulties! Take only one example. Carlyle says; “John Knox had a sore fight for existence, wrestling with principalities in defeat, contention, lifelong struggle, rowing as a galley-slave, wandering in exile. A sore fight, but he won it. ‘Have you hope?’ he was asked in his last moments, when he could no longer speak. He lifted his finger, pointed upward with it, and so died.” The God of hope makes His servants to abound in hope through His gracious Spirit by filling them with the joy of forgiveness, giving them His abiding presence, and strengthening the desire to “purify themselves, even as He is pure.” From Him too cometh a sweet and sacred peace, which is diffused through the whole spiritual nature—a “peace which passeth all understanding.” This peace cannot exist where sin reigns, and the conscience is not sprinkled as with the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. The peace that abideth and flourisheth comes through believing, not merely through consenting to certain truths, or accepting revelation as from God, but through “believing with the heart unto righteousness.” “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.”—Dr. Burrows, Ashtabula, New York.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom_15:13

Paul’s cheerfulness in affliction.—What can be more free and buoyant, with all their variety, than his writings? Brilliant, broken, impetuous as the mountain torrent freshly filled, never smooth and calm but on the eve of some bold leap, never vehement but to fill some receptacle of dearest peace, they present everywhere the image of a vigorous joy. Beneath the forms of their theosophic reasonings, and their hints of deep philosophy, there may be heard a secret lyric strain of glorious praise, bursting at times into open utterance, and asking others to join the chorus.… His life was a battle from which, in intervals of the good fight, his words arose as the song of victory.—Albert Lee.

The world without Christ.—“Their hearts became surcharged with every element of vileness,—with impurity in its most abysmal degradations, with hatred alike in its meanest and its most virulent developments, with insolence culminating in the deliberate search for fresh forms of evil, with cruelty and falsity in their most repulsive features. And the last crime of all, beyond which crime itself could go no further, was the awfully defiant attitude of moral evil, which led them, while they were fully aware of God’s sentence of death pronounced on willing guilt, not only to incur it themselves, but with a devilish delight in human depravity and human ruin to take a positive pleasure in those who practise the same.” The moral emptiness and desolation of the ancient world is evident to all eyes. It had no moral and spiritual purpose by which to solve the problems that are vital to the very existence of the State. The upbuilding of political life with all its earnestness and struggle and end avour was over. Many things sank into the mere shows and semblances of realities; and, in truth, this was the case with the assemblies of the people, the senate, and the high officers of religion and the State. Everything was sacrificed to appetite, enjoyment, and play. Because heathenism had no goal beyond the grave, it had no worthy purpose and aim on this side of it.—Seidel.

Going without religion.—I fear that when we indulge ourselves in the amusement of going without a religion, we are not perhaps aware how much we are sustained at present by an enormous mass all about us of religious feeling and religious conviction; so that, whatever it may be safe for us to think, for us who have had great advantages and have been brought up in such a way that a certain moral direction has been given to our character, I do not know what would become of the less favoured classes of mankind if they undertook to play the same game. The worst kind of religion is no religion at all; and these men who are living in ease and luxury, indulging themselves in the “amusement of going without religion,” may be thankful that they live in lands where the gospel they neglect has tamed the beastliness and ferocity of the men who but for Christianity might long ago have eaten their carcases like the South Sea islanders, or cut off their heads and tanned their hides like the monsters of the French Revolution. When the microscopic search of sceptioism, which had hurled the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of the Creator, has turned its attention to human society, and has found a place on this planet ten miles square where a decent man can live in decency, comfort, and security, supporting and educating his children, unspoiled and unpolluted—a place where age is reverenced, infancy respected, manhood respected, woman honoured, and human life held in due regard—when sceptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe where the gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared the way, and laid the foundations, and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for (sceptics) to move thither, and then ventilate their views. But so long as these very men are dependent upon the religion which they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate a little before they seek to rob the Christian of his hope, and humanity of its faith in that Saviour who alone has given to man that hope of life eternal, which makes life tolerable and society possible, and robs death of its terrors and the grave of its gloom.—James Russell Lowell.

The joy of believing.—Some, because religion has been shamefully misrepresented, have stood afar off, dreading to take upon themselves the yoke of Christ. They may well consider that the joy and peace of religion consist in an enlarged view of life, a wider conception of the duties demanded of it, a real comfort in the day of affliction, a real light in the hour of darkness. There is to the Christian all the joy that is worth the name. There is a Saviour ready to meet our sinfulness, ready to purge it; there is a God willing to meet our feebleness, helping those who are weak in faith, compassed about with difficulties and infirmities, men and women made up of needs. There is surely joy and peace in believing and realising this. But what joy for the man who will meet his own needs? Dares he to defy the help of One who is mighty, and from whom all real good proceeds?—never once to have a whisper of encouragement, nor a word of sympathy, nor one kindly touch of help; no great Master on whom to cast the heavy burdens of care; no one to whom to turn and say, “Thou art my glory, and the lifter-up of my head”; no God to be a refuge and strength, a present help in the dark days of trouble! Verily, they have failing hearts who seek for pleasure at other hands than those of the crucified One!—Albert Lee.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Romans

TWO FOUNTAINS, ONE STREAM

JOY AND PEACE IN BELIEVING

Rom 15:13.

With this comprehensive and lofty petition the Apostle closes his exhortation to the factions in the Roman Church to be at unity. The form of the prayer is moulded by the last words of a quotation which he has just made, which says that in the coming Messiah ‘shall the Gentiles hope.’ But the prayer itself is not an instance of being led away by a word-in form, indeed, it is shaped by verbal resemblance; in substance it points to the true remedy for religious controversy. Fill the contending parties with a fuller spiritual life, and the ground of their differences will begin to dwindle, and look very contemptible. When the tide rises, the little pools on the rocks are all merged into one.

But we may pass beyond the immediate application of these words, and see in them the wish, which is also a promise, and like the exhibition of every ideal is a command. This is Paul’s conception of the Christian life as it might and should be, in one aspect. You notice that there is not a word in it about conduct. It goes far deeper than action. It deals with the springs of action in the individual life. It is the depths of spiritual experience here set forth which will result in actions that become a Christian. And in these days, when all around us we see a shallow conception of Christianity, as if it were concerned principally with conduct and men’s relations with one another, it is well to go down into the depths, and to remember that whilst ‘Do, do, do!’ is very important, ‘Be, be, be!’ is the primary commandment. Conduct is a making visible of personality, and the Scripture teaching which says first faith and then works is profoundly philosophical as well as Christian. So we turn away here from externals altogether, and regard the effect of Christianity on the inward life.

I. I wish to notice man’s faith and God’s filling as connected, and as the foundation of everything.

‘The God of hope fill you . . .’-let us leave out the intervening words for a moment-’in believing.’ Now, you notice that Paul does not stay to tell us what or whom we are to believe in, or on. He takes that for granted, and his thought is fastened, for the moment, not on the object but on the act of faith. And he wishes to drive home to us this, that the attitude of trust is the necessary prerequisite condition of God’s being able to fill a man’s soul, and that God’s being able to fill a man’s soul is the necessary consequence of a man’s trust. Ah, brethren, we cannot altogether shut God out from our spirits. There are loving and gracious gifts that, as our Lord tells us, He makes to ‘fall on the unthankful and the evil.’ His rain is not like the summer showers that we sometimes see, that fall in one spot and leave another dry; nor like the destructive thunderstorms, that come down bringing ruin upon one cane-brake and leave the plants in the next standing upright. But the best, the highest, the truly divine gifts which He is yearning to give to us all, cannot be given except there be consent, trust, and desire for them. You can shut your hearts or you can open them. And just as the wind will sigh round some hermetically closed chamber in vain search for a cranny, and the man within may be asphyxiated though the atmosphere is surging up its waves all round his closed domicile, so by lack of our faith, which is at once trust, consent, and desire, we shut out the gift with which God would fain fill our spirits. You can take a porous pottery vessel, wrap it up in waxcloth, pitch it all over, and then drop it into mid-Atlantic, and not a drop will find its way in. And that is what we can do with ourselves, so that although in Him ‘we live and move and have our being,’ and are like the earthen vessel in the ocean, no drop of the blessed moisture will ever find its way into the heart. There must be man’s faith before there can be God’s filling.

Further, this relation of the two things suggests to us that a consequence of a Christian man’s faith is the direct action of God upon him. Notice how the Apostle puts that truth in a double form here, in order that he may emphasise it, using one form of expression, involving the divine, direct activity, at the beginning of his prayer, and another at the end, and so enclosing, as it were, within a great casket of the divine action, all the blessings, the flashing jewels, which he desires his Roman friends to possess. ‘The God of hope fill you . . . through the power of the Holy Ghost.’ I wish I could find words by which I could bear in upon the ordinary type of the Evangelical Christianity of this generation anything like the depth and earnestness of my own conviction that, for lack of a proportionate development of that great truth, of the direct action of the giving God on the believing heart, it is weakened and harmed in many ways. Surely He that made my spirit can touch my spirit; surely He who filleth all things according to their capacity can Himself enter into and fill the spirit which is opened for Him by simple faith. We do not need wires for the telegraphy between heaven and the believing soul, but He comes directly to, and speaks in, and moves upon, and moulds and blesses, the waiting heart. And until you know, by your own experience rightly interpreted, that there is such a direct communion between the giving God and the recipient believing spirit, you have yet to learn the deepest depth, and the most blessed blessedness, of Christian faith and experience. For lack of it a hundred evils beset modern Christianity. For lack of it men fix their faith so exclusively as that the faith is itself harmed thereby, on the past act of Christ’s death on the Cross. You will not suspect me of minimising that, but I beseech you remember one climax of the Apostle’s which, though not bearing the same message as my text, is in harmony with it, ‘Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.’ And remember that Christ Himself bestows the gift of His Divine Spirit as the result of the humiliation and the agony of His Cross. Faith brings the direct action of the giving God.

And one more word about this first part of my text: the result of that direct action is complete-’the God of hope fill you’ with no shrunken stream, no painful trickle out of a narrow rift in the rock, but a great exuberance which will pass into a man’s nature in the measure of his capacity, which is the measure of his trust and desire. There are two limits to God’s gifts to men: the one is the limitless limit of God’s infinitude, the other is the working limit-our capacity-and that capacity is precisely measured, as the capacity of some built-in vessel might be measured by a little gauge on the outside, by our faith. ‘The God of hope’ fills you in ‘believing,’ and ‘according to thy faith shall it be unto thee.’

II. Notice the joy and peace which come from the direct action of the God of hope on the believer’s soul.

Now, it is not only towards God that we exercise trust, but wherever it is exercised, to some extent, and in the measure in which the object on which it rests is discovered by experience to be worthy, it produces precisely these results. Whoever trusts is at peace, just as much as he trusts. His confidence may be mistaken, and there will come a tremendous awakening if it is, and the peace will be shattered like some crystal vessel dashed upon an iron pavement, but so long as a man’s mind and heart are in the attitude of dependence upon another, conceived to be dependable, one knows that there are few phases of tranquillity and blessedness which are sweeter and deeper than that. ‘The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her’-that is one illustration, and a hundred more might be given. And if you will take that attitude of trust which, even when it twines round some earthly prop, is upheld for a time, and bears bright flowers-if you take it and twine it round the steadfast foundations of the Throne of God, what can shake that sure repose? ‘Joy and peace’ will come when the Christian heart closes with its trust, which is God in Christ.

He that believes has found the short, sure road to joy and peace, because his relations are set right with God. For these relations are the disturbing elements in all earthly tranquillity, and like the skeleton at the feast in all earthly joy, and a man can never, down to the roots of his being, be at rest until he is quite sure that there is nothing wrong between him and God. And so believing, we come to that root of all real gladness which is anything better than a crackling of thorns under a pot, and to that beginning of all true tranquillity. Joy in the Lord and peace with God are the parents of all joy and peace that are worthy of the name.

And that same faith will again bring these two bright-winged angels into the most saddened and troubled lives, because that faith brings right relations with ourselves. For our inward strifes stuff thorns into the pillow of our repose, and mingle bitterness with the sweetest, foaming draughts of our earthly joys. If a man’s conscience and inclinations pull him two different ways, he is torn asunder as by wild horses. If a man has a hungry heart, for ever yearning after unattained and impossible blessings, then there is no rest there. If a man’s little kingdom within him is all anarchical, and each passion and appetite setting up for itself, then there is no tranquillity. But if by faith we let the God of hope come in, then hungry hearts are satisfied, and warring dispositions are harmonised, and the conscience becomes quieted, and fair imaginations fill the chamber of the spirit, and the man is at rest, because he himself is unified by the faith and fear of God.

And the same faith brings joy and peace because it sets right our relations with other people, and with all externals. If I am living in an atmosphere of trust, then sorrow will never be absolute, nor have exclusive monopoly and possession of my spirit. But there will be the paradox, and the blessedness, of Christian experience, ‘as sorrowful yet always rejoicing.’ For the joy of the Christian life has its source far away beyond the swamps from which the sour drops of sorrow may trickle, and it is possible that, like the fabled fire that burned under water, the joy of the Lord may be bright in my heart, even when it is drenched in floods of calamity and distress.

And so, brethren, the joy and peace that come from faith will fill the heart which trusts. Only remember how emphatically the Apostle here puts these two things together, ‘joy and peace in believing.’ As long as, and not a moment longer than, you are exercising the Christian act of trust, will you be experiencing the Christian blessedness of ‘joy and peace.’ Unscrew the pipe, and in an instant the water ceases to flow. Touch the button and switch off, and out goes the light. Some Christian people fancy they can live upon past faith. You will get no present joy and peace out of past faith. The rain of this day twelve months will not moisten the parched ground of to-day. Yesterday’s religion was all used up yesterday. And if you would have a continuous flow of joy and peace through your lives, keep up a uniform habit and attitude of trust in God. You will get it then; you will get it in no other way.

III. Lastly, note the hope which springs from this experience of joy and peace.

‘The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope.’ Here, again, the Apostle does not trouble himself to define the object of the hope. In this, as in the former clause, his attention is fixed upon the emotion, not upon that towards which it goes out. And just as there was no need to say in whom it was that the Christian man was to believe, so there is no room to define what it is that the Christian man has a right to hope for. For his hope is intended to cover all the future, the next moment, or to-morrow, or the dimmest distance where time has ceased to be, and eternity stands unmoved. The attitude of the Christian mind ought to be a cheery optimism, an unconquerable hope. ‘The best has yet to be’ is the true Christian thought in contemplating the future for myself, for my dear ones, for God’s Church, and for God’s universe.

And the truest basis on which that hope can rest is the experience granted to us, on condition of our faith, of a present, abundant possession of the joy and peace which God gives. The gladder you are to-day, if the gladness comes from the right source, the surer you may be that that gladness will never end. That is not what befalls men who live by earthly joys. For the more poignant, precious, and, as we faithlessly think, indispensable some of these are to us, the more into their sweetest sweetness creeps the dread thought: ‘This is too good to last; this must pass.’ We never need to think that about the peace and joy that come to us through believing. For they, in their sweetness, prophesy perpetuity. I need not dwell upon the thought that the firmest, most personally precious convictions of an eternity of future blessedness, rise and fall in a Christian consciousness with the purity and the depth of its own experience of the peace and joy of the Gospel. The more you have of Jesus Christ in your lives and hearts to-day, the surer you will be that whatever death may do, it cannot touch that, and the more ludicrously impossible it will seem that anything that befalls this poor body can touch the bond that knits us to Jesus Christ. Death can separate us from a great deal. Its sharp scythe cuts through all other bonds, but its edge is turned when it is tried against the golden chain that binds the believing soul to the Christ in whom he has believed.

So, brethren, there is the ladder-begin at the bottom step, with faith in Jesus Christ. That will bring God’s direct action into your spirit, through His Holy Spirit, and that one gift will break up into an endless multiplicity of blessings, just as a beam of light spilt upon the surface of the ocean breaks into diamonds in every wave, and that ‘joy and peace’ will kindle in your hearts a hope fed by the great words of the Lord: ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you,’ ‘My joy shall remain in you, and your joy shall be full,’ ‘He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 15:13. Ἐλπίδος, of hope] Comp. they shall hope, in the preceding verse and immediately after, in hope. The God of hope, a name glorious to God; a name heretofore unknown to the Gentiles. For Hope had been one of their false divinities, whose temple, Livy mentions in the 21st book of his history, was struck with lightning, and, again in the 24th book, was burnt with fire.—χαρᾶς καὶ εἰρήνης, with joy and peace) We may look back to ch. Rom 14:17. Concerning joy comp. Rom 15:10, Rejoice ye; concerning peace, ibid. with [His people].—ἐν δυνάμει) construed with περισσεύειν.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_15:13. As Rom_15:1-4 passed into a blessing (Rom_15:5-6), so now the hortatory discourse, begun afresh in Rom_15:7, passes into a blessing (δέ), which forms, at the same time, the close of the entire section (from chap. 14 onwards).

ὁ Θεὸς τῆς ἐλπίδος] God, who produces the hope (of eternal glory), namely, through His Spirit; see the closing words of the verse. This description of God (comp. on Rom_15:5) attaches itself formally to ἐλπιοῦσιν, Rom_15:12,[18] but rests upon the deeper substantive reason, that the becoming filled with joyfulness and peace here wished for is not possible without having hope as its basis, and that, on the other hand, this becoming filled produces the rich increase of hope itself (εἰς τὸ περίσς. κ.τ.λ.).

πάς. χαρᾶς κ.τ.λ.] with all, i.e. with highest joyfulness. Comp. Theile, ad Jac. p. 8; Wunder, ad Soph. Phil. 141 f. χαρά and εἰρήνη (peace through concord), as Rom_14:17.

ἐν τῷ πιστεύειν] in the believing, to which without χαρά and εἰρήνη the fruits would be wanting, and without which no χαρά and εἰρήνη could exist. Comp. Rom_14:17.

εἰς τὸ περισς. κ.τ.λ.] Aim of the πληρῶσαι κ.τ.λ.: in order that ye, in virtue of the power (working in you) of the Holy Spirit, may he abundant in hope, may cherish Christian hope in the richest measure (comp. 1Co_15:58; 2Co_8:7; Php_1:9; Col_2:7).

[18] An attachment which, since ὑμᾶς then addresses the church, does not suit the view which holds the latter to be a Jewish-Christian one (Mangold).

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 15:13 . Prompted by ἐλπιοῦσιν , the Apostle closes this section, and the body of the epistle, by calling on “the God of hope” to bless those to whom it is addressed. For the expression ὁ θεὸς τῆς ἐλπίδος cf. Rom 15:5 : it means the God Who gives us the hope which we have in Christ. The joy and peace which He imparts rest on faith ( ἐν τῷ πιστεύειν ). Hence they are the joy and peace specially flowing from justification and acceptance with God, and the more we have of these, the more we abound in the Christian hope itself. Such an abounding in hope, in the power of the Holy Ghost (Act 1:8 , Luk 4:14 ), is the end contemplated in Paul’s prayer that the God of hope would fill the Romans with all joy and peace in believing. For the kind of supremacy thus given to hope compare the connection of Rom 15:5 with Rom 15:2 in chap. 5.

The rest of this chapter is of the nature of an epilogue. It falls into two parts: (1) Rom 15:14-21 , in which Paul, while apologising for the tone which he has occasionally employed, justifies himself for writing to the Romans by appealing to his vocation as an Apostle; and (2) Rom 15:22 ; Rom 15:33 , in which he explains to them the programme of his future work, including his long-deferred visit to them, and begs their prayers for a successful issue to his visit to Jerusalem.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vv. 13. “Now the God of hope fill you with every kind of joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit!”

God is described here as the God of hope, evidently in relation to the last words of the preceding quotation: “In Him shall the Gentiles hope.” The apostle could not more clearly designate his readers as former Gentiles, than he does by this connection.

The richer the possession of present blessings (peace and joy) which the believer derives by the ever-renewed act of faith (ἐν τῷ πιστεύειν, literally, by believing), the more does his soul rise to the lively view of future blessings, and according to the expression of the apostle, superabounds or overflows with hope.

The last words: the power of the Holy Spirit, point out to the reader once more, as in Rom 14:17, the true power which they ought to seek, in opposition to the factitious power by which one exalts himself so easily above others. The former unites, for it strives to serve (Rom 15:1), whereas the second disunites.

From the very marked connection of this whole last passage with the apostle’s ministry, it forms at once the conclusion of the didactic part of the Epistle to the Romans and the transition to the epistolary conclusion in which Paul proceeds to treat of the present situation of his apostolic work.

The reasons alleged by Baur against the authenticity of the first part of this chapter have appeared to us without force. The spirit of conciliation in regard to Judaism, which Baur judges incompatible with Paul’s character, never ceased to be that which inspired his work. It was because he felt the need of keeping up union with the Twelve, that after each of his missions he returned to Jerusalem, “lest,” as he says himself, Gal 2:2, “he had run in vain.” The collections which he made in the churches of the Gentile world in behalf of the Judeo-Christians of Palestine had the same object. This was also the object of the personal concessions of which he speaks 1Co 9:21-22, and by which he became “to the weak as weak,” exactly as he recommends to the strong in this passage. Hilgenfeld rightly says: “What is looked upon as not possibly Paul’s, to my conviction only proves one thing: that since the days of Marcion there has been formed an inexact idea of the apostle to which it is still sought at the present day to conform the real Paul” (Einleit. p. 323). It will be seen that this observation applies equally to the criticism of Baur and Lucht in regard to the second part of this chapter.

According to Schultz, it is from Rom 15:7 that the real Epistle to the Romans recommences, to which the whole moral treatise, Rom 12:1 to Rom 15:6, was originally foreign. It would follow therefrom that the wherefore of Rom 15:7 was immediately connected with the end of chap. 11. There is something seductive at first glance in this combination. The mercy shown both to the Gentiles and to the Jews (Rom 11:32) is well adapted to justify the invitation to the mutual receiving spoken of in our Rom 15:7. But it is nevertheless true that this relation is factitious—1st. Because the object of chap. 11 was to justify God’s dispensations toward the people of Israel, and not to endeavor the union of Jews and Gentiles in the church; 2d. Because Rom 15:7 is in evident, and we might say literal correlation, not with any saying whatever of chap. 11, but with the first three verses of chap. 14.

Finally, we have an inference to draw from this whole piece, Rom 14:1 to Rom 15:13, as to the composition of the church of Rome. We appropriate the observation of Hilgenfeld, who declares that in this passage, as nowhere else, there is revealed the true composition of this church; but we apply it in a very different sense from his. While confessing, indeed, that Paul is addressing the Roman Christians in a body as strong (Rom 14:1 and Rom 15:1), this critic refuses to conclude therefrom that the majority of the church were Pauline by conviction and Gentile-Christian by origin. How does he escape from this consequence, which is yet so evident? By supposing that Paul expresses himself thus: “as conceiving good hopes of them”—that is to say, describing them here not as they are, but as he hopes they will become. This critical subterfuge will deceive no one.

M. Reuss experiences no less embarrassment in view of our passage. In his Histoire des écrits du N. T. he expressed himself thus: “This passage is cleverly turned, so as to make believe that the freer opinion was dominant at Rome, while the contrary was assuredly the case.” Reuss thus ascribed tactics to the apostle unworthy of his character, rather than abandon his preconceived opinion of a Judeo-Christian majority in this church. In his Commentaire sur les épîtres pauliennes he expresses himself somewhat differently: “It is thus evident,” he says, “that the author considers the Christian community of Rome as not being exclusively composed of Jews.” That is certainly very evident, and no one ever denied that there were at Rome other Christians than those of Jewish origin. But this confession is altogether insufficient. Instead of not exclusively, he should have said not essentially, to deal fairly with the text before us. The violent expedient attempted by Mangold, in his desire to evade this conclusion, demonstrates it better than anything else. And when Schultz, acknowledging that the strong are Paulinists, and at the same time that they form the majority in the church, concludes therefrom that the whole passage, Rom 14:1 to Rom 15:6, cannot have been addressed to the church of Rome, seeing that the majority of it was Jewish-Christian, he will allow us to regard this simply as a naive confession of the falsity of the latter opinion, and to conclude by saying, to the contrary effect: As this passage cannot have been written to a Jewish-Christian church, and as it is addressed to the church of Rome, the majority of this church was not Jewish-Christian.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_15:13

Now then the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. All joy means all possible joy. Paul here, as in Rom_15:5, concludes by praying that God would grant them the excellencies which it was their duty to possess. Thus constantly and intimately are the ideas of account ableness and dependence connected in the sacred Scriptures. We are to work out our own salvation, because it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do, according to his good pleasure. The God of hope, i.e. God who is the author of that hope which it was predicted men should exercise in the root and offspring of Jesse.

Fill you with all joy and peace in believing, i.e. fill you with that joy and concord among yourselves, as well as peace of conscience and peace towards God, which are the results of genuine faith. That ye may abound in hope. The consequence of the enjoyment of the blessings, and of the exercise of the graces just referred to, would be an increase in the strength and joyfulness of their hope; through the power of the Holy Ghost, through whom all good is given and all good exercised.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Abundantly and plentifully.

In whom we hope.

He sealeth up as it were all the former treatise with prayers, wishing all that to be given them of the Lord, that he had commanded them.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Here is another prayer directed to God, as the God of hope; and it is, as the former (Rom 15:5, Rom 15:6), for spiritual blessings: these are the blest blessings, and to be first and chiefly prayed for.

I. Observe how he addresses himself to God, as the God of hope. It is good in prayer to fasten upon those names, titles, and attributes of God, which are most suitable to the errand we come upon, and will best serve to encourage our faith concerning it. Every word in the prayer should be a plea. Thus should the cause be skilfully ordered, and the mouth filled with arguments. God is the God of hope. He is the foundation on which our hope is built, and he is the builder that doth himself raise it: he is both the object of our hope, and the author of it. That hope is but fancy, and will deceive us, which is not fastened upon God (as the goodness hoped for, and the truth hoped in), and which is not of his working in us. We have both together, Psa 119:49. Thy word - there is God the object; on which thou hast caused me to hope - there is God the author of our hope, Pe1 1:3.

II. What he asks of God, not for himself, but for them.

1. That they might be filled with all joy and peace in believing. Joy and peace are two of those things in which the kingdom of God consists, Rom 14:17. Joy in God, peace of conscience, both arising from a sense of our justification; see Rom 5:1, Rom 5:2. Joy and peace in our own bosoms would promote a cheerful unity and unanimity with our brethren. Observe, (1.) How desirable this joy and peace are: they are filling. Carnal joy puffs up the soul, but cannot fill it; therefore in laughter the heart is sad. True, heavenly, spiritual joy is filling to the soul; it has a satisfaction in it, answerable to the soul's vast and just desires. Thus does God satiate and replenish the weary soul. Nothing more than this joy, only more of it, even the perfection of it in glory, is the desire of the soul that hath it, Psa 4:6, Psa 4:7; Psa 36:8; Psa 63:5; Psa 65:4. (2.) How it is attainable. [1.] By prayer. We must go to God for it; he will for this be enquired of. Prayer fetches in spiritual joy and peace. [2.] By believing; that is the means to be used. It is vain, and flashy, and transient joy, that is the product of fancy; true substantial joy is the fruit of faith. Believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable, Pe1 1:8. It is owing to the weakness of our faith that we are so much wanting in joy and peace. Only believe; believe the goodness of Christ, the love of Christ, the promises of the covenant, and the joys and glories of heaven; let faith be the substance and evidence of these things, and the result must needs be joy and peace. Observe, It is all joy and peace - all sorts of true joy and peace. When we come to God by prayer we must enlarge our desires; we are not straitened in him, why should we be straitened in ourselves? Ask for all joy; open thy mouth wide, and he will fill it.

2. That they might abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. The joy and peace of believers arise chiefly from their hopes. What is laid out upon them is but little, compared with what is laid up for them; therefore the more hope they have the more joy and peace they have. We do then abound in hope when we hope for great things from God, and are greatly established and confirmed in these hopes. Christians should desire and labour after an abundance of hope, such hope as will not make ashamed. This is through the power of the Holy Ghost. The same almighty power that works grace begets and strengthens this hope. Our own power will never reach it; and therefore where this hope is, and is abounding, the blessed Spirit must have all the glory.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Now, &c.--This seems a concluding prayer, suggested by the whole preceding subject matter of the epistle.

the God of hope--(See on Rom 15:5).

fill you with all joy and peace in believing--the native truth of that faith which is the great theme of this epistle (compare Gal 5:22).

that ye may abound in hope--"of the glory of God." (See on Rom 5:1).

through the power of the Holy Ghost--to whom, in the economy of redemption, it belongs to inspire believers with all gracious affections.

On the foregoing portion, Note, (1) No Christian is at liberty to regard himself as an isolated disciple of the Lord Jesus, having to decide questions of duty and liberty solely with reference to himself. As Christians are one body in Christ, so the great law of love binds them to act in all things with tenderness and consideration for their brethren in "the common salvation" (Rom 15:1-2). (2) Of this unselfishness CHRIST is the perfect model of all Christians (Rom 15:3). (3) Holy Scripture is the divine storehouse of all furniture for the Christian life, even in its most trying and delicate features (Rom 15:4). (4) The harmonious glorification of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by the whole body of the redeemed, as it is the most exalted fruit of the scheme of redemption, so it is the last end of God in it (Rom 15:5-7).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 13. Now the God of hope, c.] Ὁ δε Θεος της ελπιδος, May the God of this hope-that God who caused both Jews and Gentiles to hope that the gracious promises which he made to them should be fulfilled and who, accordingly, has fulfilled them in the most punctual and circumstantial manner;

Fill you with all joy] Give you true spiritual happiness; peace in your own hearts, and unity among yourselves; in believing not only the promises which he has given you, but believing in Christ Jesus, in whom all the promises are yea and amen.

That ye may abound in hope] That ye may be excited to take more enlarged views of the salvation which God has provided for you, and have all your expectations fulfilled by the power of the Holy Ghost, enabling you to hope and believe; and then sealing the fulfilment of the promises upon your hearts.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13. And may the God, etc. He now concludes the passage, as before, with prayer; in which he desires the Lord to give them whatever he had commanded. It hence appears, that the Lord does in no degree measure his precepts according to our strength or the power of free-will; and that he does not command what we ought to do, that we, relying on our own power, may gird up ourselves to render obedience; but that he commands those things which require the aid of his grace, that he may stimulate us in our attention to prayer.

In saying the God of hope, he had in view the last verse; as though he said, — “May then the God in whom we all hope fill you with joy, that is, with cheerfulness of heart, and also with unity and concord, and this by believing:” for in order that our peace may be approved by God, we must be bound together by real and genuine faith. If any one prefers taking in believing, for, in order to believe, the sense will be, — that they were to cultivate peace for the purpose of believing; for then only are we rightly prepared to believe, when we, being peaceable and unanimous, do willingly embrace what is taught us. It is however preferable, that faith should be connected with peace and joy; for it is the bond of holy and legitimate concord, and the support of godly joy. And though the peace which one has within with God may also be understood, yet the context leads us rather to the former explanation.

He further adds, that ye may abound in hope; for in this way also is hope confirmed and increased in us. The words, through the power of the Holy Spirit, intimate that all things are the gifts of the divine bounty: and the word power is intended emphatically to set forth that wonderful energy, by which the Spirit works in us faith, hope, joy, and peace.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(13) Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace. . . . hope.—Hope, joy, and peace, form a triad which represents the attitude of the Christian in looking towards the future, and so far as that future is reflected on the present. Hope may be taken as including the other two, as it is upon the certainty of the Messianic promises that they all depend, just as it is through the constant energising power of the Holy Ghost that they are kept alive.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. the God of hope] Lit. of the hope; i.e. of our hope, the special hope in question; the Christian’s hope of glory. So just below, that ye may abound in the hope.

St Paul takes up the last word of the last quotation, and applies it in this expression of holy and loving desire. He ceases now to speak of controversy, and looks joyfully heavenward. On the whole ver., cp. ch. Rom_5:1-5.

in believing] The word seems to sum up the great argument of the Epistle. Here closes its course of explicit Instruction, whether concerning Doctrine or Practice. The remainder is devoted to personal and other incidental topics. Meyer calls the passage, Rom_15:14-33, the “Epilogue” of the Epistle.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And I myself also am persuaded of you,.... This is said by way of prevention to an objection that might he made to the apostle's prayers and exhortations by the Romans. What does the apostle mean by all this? what does he think of us, or take us to be? men that live in malice to one another, devoid of all humanity, and mutual respect? a parcel of fools and ignorant men, that know nothing of divine things? and though there may be some that are much to be blamed for their conduct and carriage to their fellow Christians, what, are there none among us fit to give advice and admonition? To which the apostle replies, that he was far from entertaining such thoughts of them; that though he had not seen them in person, yet he had had such an account of their faith and practice, which were famous throughout the world, that he was thoroughly persuaded of better things of them, though he thus spake; and therefore, to mollify them, and abate their resentment, he adds,

my brethren; testifying his affection to them, owning the spiritual relation they stood in to him, and declaring the great esteem he had for them, and the high opinion he had of them: saying,

that ye also are full of goodness; not naturally, for there is no good thing in men by nature, but what they had was from the Spirit of God, whose fruit is "goodness": and by which may be meant, either the good gifts of the Spirit of God, or rather his graces, even the good work of grace in general, and which is goodness itself: it comes from a good cause, the good Spirit of God; is good in its own nature, not having the least mixture or tincture of evil in it; and good in its effects, since it makes and denominates a man a good man; now these saints might be said to be full of this, to denote the abundance, the superabundance of grace in this work: or particularly beneficence, humanity, and sympathy to fellow Christians, may be intended. The Vulgate Latin version reads, "full of love": but the copies and eastern versions read as we do.

Filled with all knowledge; not with every sort of knowledge, with the knowledge of all languages, or of all the arts and sciences, of all things, natural and political; but with all spiritual knowledge relating to God, his nature and perfections, his mind and will; to Christ and the work of redemption by him; to the Spirit, and the operations of his grace; to the Gospel, and the doctrines of it; to their duty to God, fellow creatures, and fellow Christians; in short, with all knowledge necessary to salvation, though as yet not perfect, and which will not be in this world, but in another:

able also to admonish one another; as they must be, since they were both good and knowing; goodness and knowledge are necessary to admonition, and qualify persons for it: if a man is not a good man himself, he is not fit to admonish another; and if he has not knowledge, he will not be able to do it as it should be; and without humanity and tenderness, he will not perform it aright, and with success; but all this being in these persons, they were able and fit for it. Some copies read it, "able also to admonish others"; so the Syriac version renders; which makes the expression still stronger, and enlarges their praise and commendation.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

Ver. 13. Fill you with all joy, &c.] Note here that joy and peace are the means whereby faith worketh hope.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Now the God of hope - The God who “inspires,” or “produces” the Christian hope.

All joy and peace - Rom 14:17. If they were filled with this, there would be no strife and contention.

In believing - The effect of believing is to produce this joy and peace.

That ye may abound ... - That your hope may be steadfast and strong.

Through the power ... - By means of the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit. It is by his power alone that the Christian has the hope of eternal life; see Eph 1:13-14; Rom 8:24.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

He finisheth here his long discourse about brotherly love and concord with a short and pithy prayer. Having said before, that the Gentiles should hope in God, he takes occasion from hence to style him,

The God of hope. He is so, both objective, as being the only object of our hope, see Psa 146:5; Jer 17:7; 1Ti 6:17; and effective, as being the only author of it, 1Pe 1:3.

With all joy and peace in believing; i.e. with much inward joy and peace, which riseth in the heart through a lively faith in Christ; or else, with all comfort and concord in the Christian faith. In this he prays they may abound; instead of those contentions that had been amongst them, he desires they may be filled with those things, wherein he told them, Rom 14:17, the kingdom of God consisted.

That ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost; he doth not say, that you may have hope, but that you may abound therein, that you may arrive to a plerophory or full assurance of hope, as it is in Heb 6:11. Such hope as may be like an anchor to the soul, to keep it safe and steady in the midst of storms and tempests. This hope is wrought in us by no less power and virtue than that of the Holy Ghost. See before.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13, 14. In these two verses the apostle, in view of this unity, prays for the Roman Church, and expresses his joyous trust in the excellence and perfectness of their Christian union.

13. Now—In view of this predictive unity I offer this prayer.

God of hope—To the God of hope he prays that they may abound in hope, both of the accomplishment of this predicted unity on earth, and of the perfected unity above.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Now the God of hope - A glorious title of God, but till now unknown to the heathens; for their goddess Hope, like their other idols, was nothing; whose temple at Rome was burned by lightning. It was, indeed, built again not long after, but was again burned to the ground.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Observe here, 1. How the apostle closes his exhortation to brotherly concord and unity with a pithy and pathetic prayer; his example herein is instructive.

Observe, 2. The title or appellation which he gives unto God in prayer, The God of hope; sometimes he styles him the God of peace, sometimes the God of patience; here the God of hope; he being so objectively, the only object of our common hope, and also effectively, as he is the author and producer of hope in us.

Observe, 3. The mercies he prays for: 1. That they may be filled with all joy and peace in believing; that their hearts may overflow with peace from God and one towards another; and with all that joy which results from both.

2. That they may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost, where by hope understand the good hoped for, namely, heaven and eternal life, a firm expectation of which is wrought in us by the Holy Spirit.

Learn, 1. That God is the object of a Christian’s hope, and if so, the sin of despair is a most unreasonable sin; for why should any despair of his mercy who is the God of hope, who commands us to hope in his mercy, and takes pleasure in them that do so? Psa 147:11

Learn, 2. That the grace of hope, together with joy and peace in believing, are wrought in the Christian’s heart through the power of the Holy Ghost, that is, through the sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost enlightening the understanding, inclining the will, rectifying the affections, and reducing all the rebellious powers and faculties of the soul (in concurrence with our endeavours) under the government and dominion of reason and religion.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 (Rom 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.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit . [The apostle concludes the hortatory part of his letter with this solemn petition for his readers' welfare. Note what beautiful names for God are derived from the attributes which he inspires. "God of hope," "God of patience" ( Rom_15:5 ), "God of peace"-- Rom_15:33 ]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13–16. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy. Paul has quoted from Isaiah, “In him shall the Gentiles hope,” and follows it by a prayer that the God who has given them the blessed hope may fill them with joy and peace, so that they may abound in hope. The hope we have in Christ is the source of a great part of our joy.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

fill you with all joy and peace

Paul exaggerates here to emphasize his point. AT: "fill you with great joy and peace" (See: Hyperbole and Generalization)

translationWords

God

confidence

joy

peace

believe

power

Holy Spirit

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

13. ὁ δὲ θεὸς τῆς ἐλπίδος. The GOD who gives us this hope; cf. on Rom 15:5. τῆς ἐλπίδος suggested by ἐλπιοῦσιν Rom 15:12 must refer definitely to the hope of the gathering of all to Christ, Jew and Gentile (cf. Rom 11:13-16; Rom 11:25 ff.) as already there has been a representative gathering (v.7).

πληρώσαι κ.τ.λ. Joy and peace are the proper consequences of such a hope, as fulfilling what love makes desirable, and putting men at peace with each other in view of the event.

ἐν τῷ πιστεύειν = in the active exercise of faith in GOD, that He will accomplish this promise.

εἰς τὸ περ. The result of this faith, invigorated by the temper of joy and peace, is to increase the activity of this hope in them: their hope in this accomplishment will be more real and vigorous.

ἐν δυνάμει πν. ἁγ. The original power of all exercise of Christian grace—in power from the Holy Spirit; cf. 19, Luk 4:14 only; cf. Eph 3:16; 2Th 1:11; cf. Hort on 1Pe 1:5.

πνεύματος ἁγίου. The Holy Spirit: for abs. of article cf. 1Pe 1:5 ἐν δυνάμει θεοῦ; 1Co 2:5, 2Co 6:7; so 2Co 13:4 (ἐκ); 2Ti 1:8 (κατὰ) and without preposition; 1Co 1:18; 1Co 1:24: in fact the combination is always anarthrous.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13.] The hortatory part of the Epistle, as well as the preceding section of it (ver. 5), concludes with a solemn wish for the spiritual welfare of the Roman church.

The words τῆς ἐλπίδος connect with ἐλπιοῦσι of the foregoing verse, as was the case with τῆς ὑπομονῆς κ. τῆς παρακλήσεως in ver. 5.

χαρᾶς κ. εἰρήνης, as the happy result of faith in God, and unanimity with one another; see ch. 14:17.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. The Apostle concludes by invoking on his hearers a blessing—that their faith may give them a life full of joy and peace, that in the power of the Holy Spirit they may abound in hope.

ὁ Θεὸς τῆς ἐλπίδος: cf. ver. 5. The special attribute, as in fact the whole of the benediction, is suggested by the concluding words of the previous quotation.

πάσης χαρᾶς καὶ εἰρήνης. The joy and peace with God which is the result of true faith in the Christian’s heart. On εἰρήνη see 1:7.

For πληρῶσαι (most MSS.) B F G have the curious variant πληροφορῆσαι. B reads ἐν πάσῃ χάρᾳ καὶ εἰρήνῃ and omits εἰς τὸ περισσεύειν: the peculiarities of this MS. in the last few verses are noticeable. D E F G omit ἐν τῷ πιστεύειν.

The general question of the genuineness of these last two chapters is discussed in the Introduction (§ 9). It will be convenient to mention in the course of the Commentary some few of the detailed objections that have been made to special passages. In 15:1-13 the only serious objection is that which was first raised by Baur and has been repeated by others since. The statements in this section are supposed to be of too conciliatory a character; especially is this said to be the case with ver. 8. ‘How can we imagine,’ writes Baur, ‘that the Apostle, in an Epistle of such a nature and after all that had passed on the subject, would make such a concession to the Jewish Christians as to call Jesus Christ a minister of circumcision to confirm the promises of God made to the Fathers?’ To this it may be answered that that is exactly the point of view of the Epistle. It is brought out most clearly in 11:17-25; it is implied in the position of priority always given to the Jew (1:16; 2:9, 10); it is emphasized in the stress continually laid on the relations of the new Gospel to the Old Testament (ch. 4, &c.), and the importance of the promises which were fulfilled (1:2; 9:4). Baur’s difficulty arose from an erroneous conception of the teaching and position of St. Paul. For other arguments see Mangold, Der Römerbrief, pp. 81-100.

What sect or party is referred to in Rom_14?

There has been great diversity of opinion as to the persons referred to in this section of the Epistle to the Romans, but all commentators seem to agree in assuming that the Apostle is dealing with certain special circumstances which have arisen in the Church of Rome, and that the weak and the strong represent two parties in that Church.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.