Paul’s Final Encouragements: 16:17-27

Welcome to this final episode in our study of the book of Romans. What an amazing journey it has been! Some of you listening to this have been with us all the way and this is your 39^th episode. Can I congratulate you if you are one of those people? Maybe you are just dipping in and this is the very first episode that you have listened to from our collection on the book of Romans; but whatever the case welcome to this final episode as we come to the second half of Romans 16.

Background and Recap

Before Paul wrote this book he clearly had in mind an overall structure of what he wanted to achieve. As I have mentioned before he had not been to Rome. This letter was outlining his message so that it was quite clear what his gospel message was, and that is what he did in the first four chapters in our first series.

In the second series, chapters five to eight, Paul spoke extensively about how to live the Christian life effectively. In our third series, Romans 9 to 11, he spoke about the question of the Jews and their place in God’s purposes during the time of the new covenant and the Church. In this final series, which comes to an end with this episode, we have been looking at a variety of practical questions that Paul discussed with the church in Rome in order to help them be more effective as believers. For example, he spoke to them about their relationships in community, about the importance of love; about how to deal with hostility and persecution; how to deal with the state authorities in the Roman Empire; and how to deal with cultural and religious tensions within the community between different groups of believers who had different practical ways of living.

In the last chapter, in Romans 15, he outlined his missionary strategy telling amazingly of how he had spent many years evangelizing different cities and areas in the Eastern Mediterranean and how he now planned to come to Rome. The most astonishing thing about that chapter is when he reveals the fact that he is intending to go to Spain to make another massive step forward in his missionary work.

In the last episode, we had the wonderful list of people who Paul greeted as friends, colleagues, co-workers, travelling companions, and people he had known and met through his ministry travelling around from place to place. I want to pause for a moment and remind ourselves of some of the themes that came out of that discussion before we move on to our text as we finish this letter. There is a long list of people: there are households, individual people, men, women, missionary couples working with him that he mentions. There are Jews, Greeks, and Romans; people from all sorts of different ethnic groups. He greets whole households, which probably includes the slaves within those households. There is a warmth and a friendship about the way Paul deals with people that is very remarkable in this list of contacts and connections and in the greetings that he is making.

The letter looks as though it is going to come to a very warm and friendly conclusion, and you might almost expect Paul to end his letter where we finished in the last episode. But he has a few final thoughts and the first thought is very surprising!

Wise About What is Good

“I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.”

Romans 16:17-20, NIV

This is very remarkable; there is no suggestion in the text that he is going to deal with this complicated and challenging question of the risk of division in the church as a result of people who come into the church and cause divisions. Why did Paul suddenly mention this to the Romans after such a warm and friendly episode when he is greeting all his friends there and he looks as though he is going to finish writing at that point? There may be some information that had come to him but probably it is a general warning.

For Paul, one of the greatest challenges in planting churches was the situation of leaving, that of not being present, and of negative influences coming into young churches and undermining the work of God. This is what happened with the Galatian churches and in Corinth, which he writes later on and where he is writing about big problems that have developed in the church since he has been there. So probably with those thoughts in mind, he wants to be sure that the church in Rome is aware that there are people who can come into a church and literally destroy them, divide them, and lead them into false teaching and create real problems for the church community. Paul addresses this issue very directly. What sort of people does he have in mind? I would say they fall into two categories.

False Teaching

The first category of people that Paul would be concerned about are those who come in and bring specific teaching which is false, particularly about the gospel and about the person and work of Jesus Christ. Those are the main things that Paul would be concerned about. That is what he experienced with the Galatian churches. When he went to the area which we call Galatia on his first missionary journey, he planted churches in such cities as Lystra and Derbe. He preached the gospel, people were saved - justification by faith - the Holy Spirit came and people were baptized and churches were gathered in a short period of time. But after he had left we know from the book of Galatians when he writes back to these churches that people have come in after he left and they have quite deliberately introduced a different message. In that particular case the message was that salvation is not a free gift of God. Salvation involves obeying Jewish regulations and in fact becoming Jewish first before you can become a Christian, which involved male circumcision, obeying the Jewish food laws, obeying the Sabbath and keeping the other regulations of the Old Testament. Paul wrote the letter to Galatians very urgently, very passionately, saying that this is a false gospel; this is legalism coming in. “You’ve been bewitched,” he says to the Galatians. That is the kind of experience he has. So he is afraid for the Romans that people might come in with a false message.

The experience of the Church over the centuries has suggested that some of the most common risks are if people start teaching that Jesus was not fully divine, or that Jesus was not fully human. That is the beginning of false teaching so that is something we need to be careful about. If people come teaching that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was not a full substitutionary sacrifice on behalf of sinners, by which he takes away our sin by repentance and faith, if people start denying that, then we should be very concerned. One way of denying it is not preaching about it, or to say that it wasn’t sufficient, or to emphasize the doctrine of the love of God to such an extent that God accepts people as they are without the need for repentance, without the need for Jesus’ atonement. That has happened a lot in modern Western Christianity.

Paul was concerned about false teachers. Jesus was also concerned about false teachers and warned in the Sermon on the Mount that there would be true and false prophets.

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruits you’ll recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus by their fruits you will recognize them.”

Matthew 7:15-20, NIV

Jesus identified the difference between true and false prophets, true and false teachers. Paul had that in mind. As soon as that happens in a church and the gospel is changed then it causes divisions, the very thing that Paul spoke of here.

False Motives

The other thing that can happen when people come into the church with false motives is they come into churches to gain something for themselves - money perhaps. Perhaps they want to undermine the sexual integrity of the church by changing morality concerning marriage and singleness. Perhaps they want the power of taking over the leadership of the church and making it more of a personal power base rather than leading by servant leadership. Paul had experience of people like that who came to the churches that he led and tried to manipulate the people for personal gain. Paul knows that false teaching and false motives undermine the integrity of the church.

Be Alert

What can the church do to protect itself? The first thing we can do is to be alert. It is always good to test the preaching that you receive in a church by going back to the Bible, and looking closely at the Bible yourself and checking that the preacher is faithfully teaching what the Bible says. This is not always the case.

What does it mean about ‘Satan being crushed under our feet’? That is a very dramatic image. The context here suggests that if people come and try to bring division, if we are vigilant and alert and don’t let it happen, then not only do we stop damage to the church but we are stopping an infiltration which has demonic origins. It is satanic; the goal of the satanic kingdom is to undermine and destroy the Church of Jesus Christ. One of the ways of doing it is to bring in false teaching and to cause divisions in church. Paul saw it happen in his own day and it can still happen in the Church today. But if we are alert and those who are leaders protect the church then we can cause a defeat for Satan’s attempts to undermine the church.

I give you an example in my own experience from about 30 years ago. In the town that I am in and the church that I am part of, there came a teaching from somebody coming into the town from another country - a particular teaching that was attractive to some of our church members who went to their meetings and heard some unusual teaching about spiritual warfare. It caused division and difficulty in the church. At that time this passage came to my mind. I studied it carefully and thought it is the responsibility of the leaders, myself on that occasion and one or two others, to address this issue. So I went to see the person concerned - the pastor who was bringing this message in. I had listened carefully to some of his preaching, studied it, checked it against the scripture, then I went to him and said, “I don’t think this is a Biblical doctrine.” The matter was discussed between several of us in the room. We met again, and I said “I am not going to allow this teaching in my church; I am going to advise my members not to submit to this teaching,” From the moment of making that decision, the issue died down and people became clear and the situation resolved itself in our church. I think leaders particularly in churches need to be careful to protect the churches and be aware that unbiblical teaching has a very deep impact on their church members and can undermine their faith at a very fundamental level. As we decide not to submit to these things, Satan, so to speak, is crushed under our feet.

Greetings from Paul’s Team

“Timothy my co-worker, sends his greetings to you as to Lucius, Jason and Sosipater, my fellow Jews. I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings. Erastus, who is the city’s director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings.”

Romans 16:21-24, NIV

A very interesting list of co-workers and friends are mentioned here. The first is Timothy. Timothy is one of Paul’s closest associates and friend. He was a convert during one of Paul’s missionary journeys, and Paul took him from the town where he lived to join his team for his second missionary journey, as recorded in the book of Acts. That took Timothy with Paul all the way to Corinth from where he is writing this letter. Timothy is there with him. We know that later on, when Paul was older and in prison, he wrote two letters to Timothy. By then Timothy was looking after the church in Ephesus at a very difficult time. Paul wrote to him and gave him instructions how to lead the church in Ephesus. Timothy was a very faithful servant and friend of Paul’s. Paul treated him like a son. He was younger than Paul, incredibly reliable and stayed with Paul in the most difficult circumstances; he endured a lot of hardships with him and was faithful to him even when he was in prison in Rome and facing execution. Timothy was there carrying out Paul’s ministry knowing that he would never see Paul again. Here is Timothy, some years earlier, greeting the church in Rome and hoping to be there one day with Paul.

These other people mentioned are probably team members of Paul, but we should note Tertius the scribe. If you listened to the first episode, you will remember that I mentioned Tertius. He appears again here in the story. I find this amusing and enjoyable. Here is the man who wrote the book of Romans literally because Paul dictated it to him. He was writing on parchment, dried and treated animal skin, which was used as the main writing material in those days. As Paul was dictating this incredibly long letter, chapter after chapter, Tertius was writing and writing and we know it is the longest known letter in the ancient Roman world. He is entirely invisible to us until now when as Paul says “Right, we’re going to give our team greetings.” Tertius said “Excuse me Paul, can I just write a phrase here on my own?” Paul says “Yes, that’s fine you can write your own little phrase.” “I, Tertius who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord”. Suddenly, out of anonymity, comes the scribe. There are three key people concerning the book of Romans: Paul the author, Tertius the scribe and Phoebe the courier. Let us not forget Tertius and Phoebe without whom we wouldn’t have this book here to study today.

Then there is Gaius, Paul’s host in Corinth; Erastus and Cortus, and we notice that Erastus is a senior civil servant in the city of Corinth. He ran the public works; he organized the roads and the drains and the public buildings. He was a convert from a richer class and there weren’t very many of those in the early days who came to Christ through Paul’s ministry.

The Final Verses

We come to the final three verses, where Paul characteristically turns his attention back to God himself and His amazing grace and power,

“Now to him who’s able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith - to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.”

Romans 16:25-27, NIV

The gospel was a mystery. In other words, something hidden which has now been revealed. Paul is still tremendously excited by the gospel even after all these years of travelling and suffering and preaching and planting churches. He is still so clear that all of this was promised in the Old Testament, was promised at the very beginning. He has in his mind, as I’ve mentioned several times before, the incredibly important words that God spoke to Abraham in Genesis 12, when Abraham was called to be the father of the Jewish people.

“I’ll make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Genesis 12:2-3, NIV

That final phrase is what Paul has in his mind; through the Jewish people, eventually through Christ, all the peoples of the earth are being blessed by the gospel. It is actually happening in Paul’s experience and in his life.

Reflections

As we come to the very end, thank you for joining us on this journey through the book of Romans. I conclude with one or two reflections.

Always check the teaching you are given by referring to the Bible yourself. Read the text; check the doctrine; and make sure preachers are preaching accurately. This is something that Paul has in mind in Romans 16:17 - 20.

Let us thank God that we, two thousand years later, are still in the process of the gospel growing and developing around the world in the way that Paul anticipated all these years ago. He and the other apostles laid an incredible foundation. That foundation is more clearly stated in the book of Romans than anywhere else in Paul’s writings or any other of the apostles.

I conclude by reminding you that Paul states unambiguously and clearly in the book of Romans that all people, from all ethnic backgrounds, in all circumstances, are under the power of sin and in need of salvation. In his thinking there are no exceptions and he makes that very clear in chapters 1 to 3. But Paul makes it clear in Romans 1: 16 - 17, in Romans 3: 1 - 26 and elsewhere, that the gospel is the answer to the power of sin for everybody, for the Jew first and then for the Gentile. He believes that the gospel is the power of salvation for everybody who believes. Paul also believed that once we have been saved we can experience a life of continual transformation and development through the work of the Holy Spirit who is at work in us every day of our lives from the moment that we believe and he makes this very clear in chapters 5 - 8, notably in chapter 8 which appears in Series 2. Paul makes it abundantly clear that although the gospel has come and the church is now multi-ethnic across the nations God has not rejected the Jewish people even though many of them fail to believe, and he anticipates a day in which many Jews will come to salvation in the end times and express a certain fullness of the nations in the Church, as every nation is well-represented. That day is still to come, but the signs of it coming are here already. Then Paul gives practical instructions and encourages the Roman church, and us as well, to see ourselves in this big picture of what God is doing throughout the centuries. What started in Paul’s era is still continuing today and the book of Romans is one of the most important foundational biblical texts to help us understand the gospel and its implication for the world today. So I hope you have enjoyed sharing this book together with me.