Romans 15:1–7 (ESV)✞: The Example of Christ
Passage
In the last passage Paul talked about the fact that “strong” Christians might have to sometimes give up their “rights” for the sake of “weak” Christians1, out of love for them. He expands upon that topic here, as well as pointing out something that should be obvious (but which we might sometimes forget when talking about doctrinal matters): when we are properly loving toward our fellow Christians, we’re actually following the example of Christ Himself.
The first bit of this is similar to what we’ve been reading:
1 We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”
Much of this is a summary of what Paul has already said, especially in the last chapter. Verses 1–2, especially, feel like a pure recap.
But then Paul reminds us that doing so is also following the example of the One we claim to worship: Jesus. It’s easy to focus on certain moments in Jesus’ life as examples of him “not pleasing himself,” but frankly His entire life was such an example: He gave up being God and came to live as a human being. Pick any moment in Jesus’ life—even the very, very best moments, when He was the most happy and content—and in that moment He was still living as a human, having given up His place at the Father’s right hand. I’m not going to claim I fully understand the mystery that He was “fully God and fully human,” but, at least to some extent, He was not “as much God” as He had been before he was born as a human, as awkwardly worded as that is. That’s before we even get to the obvious, that He lived a perfect life—the only person who ever did!—and then got punished anyway, as if He was as sinful as… well, as I am.
Jesus’ purpose in coming—his main purpose—wasn’t to be an example, it was to die for us – but that doesn’t take away from the fact that He was also an example for us, too. It’s good for me to try and make every facet of my life as much like His as possible. And, to bring us back to the topic at hand, that means worrying less about pleasing myself and more about pleasing others. What is more Christ-like than that?
Paul then takes what feels, at first glance, as a bit of a detour from his main point:
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Now, I don’t think this is a detour—I pretty much never do, I always assume that whatever Paul’s writing he’s writing in context—but it takes a minute to think it through. Why, in the middle of writing about putting others’ pleasure above our own, is Paul talking about the endurance and encouragement?
I think what Paul is doing is reminding his readers that, since all of the promises of Scripture are true, we know that we’ll one day be with God, we’ll have put our sin behind us, and we’ll know pleasures far beyond what we experience in this life – namely, the pleasure of seeing God face to face and basking in His presence!
So… if I go out to dinner with some fellow Christians and have to refrain from taking a drink in case it might offend them, is that really such a hardship in light of all I’ll be experiencing in the life to come? When I will not only be experiencing better pleasure than just having a drink, I’ll also be receiving the reward for loving my brothers and sisters?
Even if I feel it’s a hardship to give up my “rights” or pleasures for the sake of other Christians, more than just not having a drink at dinner, it’s nothing compared to what Christ gave up to be my saviour and nothing compared to the rewards I’ll get from God.
Paul just advocated that we have endurance, given the encouragement of the Scriptures, and then reminds us of the source of all endurance and encouragement:
5 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
And why is He granting us endurance and encouraging us? So that we’ll live in harmony with one another (regardless of our differences). So that, with one voice, we’ll glorify Him (regardless of our differences). That we’ll welcome one another (despite our differences), for the glory of God.
Thoughts
Some topics that didn’t fit cleanly above, are to wonder why we can’t all just agree in the first place (given that we have the Holy Spirit), and reminding ourselves that the benefits aren’t all in the future.
Why is it Like This?
Why, we might ask, does He put us through all of this in the first place? Wouldn’t it be easier for Him to simply give us all unified beliefs, so that we wouldn’t have to go through all of this?
I’m not going to claim this is a fulsome answer to that question, but… suppose He did. Suppose Christians, from the moment they got saved, simply got zapped with knowledge about everything He requires. The minute the Holy Spirit enters our bodies we suddenly agree on what we’re allowed to eat, and when and how people should be baptised, and what type of music we should be listening to in church services, and all the myriad other things Christians disagree about.
If that were the case, and we all got along with each other… so what? What would we really have accomplished? Of course we’d all get along! It would be easy – it would be also be meaningless. If you have certain beliefs about how and when people should get baptised and I have the exact same beliefs as you do on that topic, our agreement isn’t an agreement at all, it’s just recognition that we have the same beliefs. But when we disagree, sometimes about small things and sometimes about big, important things, but still manage to get along and glorify Him with one voice, that’s powerful. That shows the world that our love for Him is bigger than our disagreements about how to worship and follow Him.
As I say, it’s not a full answer to the question, but I think it might be part of it.
The trouble, of course, is that we don’t love each other the way we should, or get along the way we should. It’s something the Church needs to work on as a whole, and that I need to work on as an individual.
Of course, this also fits into the message of the Gospel itself: I wasn’t saved because I was good, and the Church doesn’t worship God because it’s perfect. I was saved because He first loved me, and the Church worships God because He deserves it, regardless of how badly we mess up sometimes. Imperfect people worshipping a perfect God… that’s a huge part of what the Gospel actually is.
Blessings in the Present
Another point that didn’t fit cleanly into the points above: I’ve been focusing on the future rewards for “doing the right thing” here and now; if I have to give some things up, so be it, I’ll get rewards that will far outshine anything I’ve given up. That’s where endurance comes into play.
But… there are also rewards here and now, too! It might feel like it’s onerous to be giving up things, not enjoying pleasures we could have otherwise enjoyed, but there is also pleasure in serving Him, and there is pleasure in loving our brothers and sisters. It’s pleasure of a different kind, of course, but it’s pleasure nonetheless.
I paint a dour picture of grumpy Christians grumbling about having to give up our pleasures (because I think that’s how we often act), but we should all also know the pleasure we get from serving others. Even if we haven’t experienced it personally (to our shame), anyone who spends enough time in a local church will see this joy being experienced by others.
Christians who had a similar story to mine, whereby we came to Christianity later in life instead of being raised in a Christian home, will definitely relate to this. I know when I first started interacting with Christians, when I was a teenager—and, therefore, knew everything—I just thought those Christians didn’t know as much as I did about what “pleasure” is. “Sure,” I thought, “they seem happy, but that’s only because they are so ‘sheltered’ they don’t know what they’ve given up!” But the more I interacted with them the more I started to realise that some of these people had a lot more joy than I did; here I was pitying them (or at least scoffing at them), whereas, if they’d been less charitable, they should have been doing so for me! (And, not to put too fine a point on it, some of those Christians knew exactly what they were giving up, having experienced some of those “pleasures” much more deeply than my teenage self ever had – but they were still happier living lives for God than for experiencing those fleeting and, ultimately unfulfilling, “pleasures” of life.)
My point being that we shouldn’t be so quick to assume that giving up certain pleasures will be a hardship. In a sense, yes, it is, but in another sense it’s often not nearly as painful as we expect it to be, on the whole, when we add in the simple pleasure of having fellowship with other of God’s children and, whether we think of it this way or not, being more like Him in the process.
Not that I want to promote obeying God just for the sake of experiencing this pleasure—I’m not promoting a works-based Gospel whereby we obey God and, therefore, He has to bless us—but in His mercy He often does bless us anyway. And if He doesn’t… then endure, and one day we’ll be with Him face to face, and it will seem worth it.
Footnotes
- Why so many quotation marks? Well… although Paul clearly delineated, over the last few passages, that there are areas where Christians might be “weak” (e.g. not feeling comfortable eating food that Christianity calls clean), I think Christians are too quick to claim we’re “strong” when things might be more nuanced than that, so I keep putting quotation marks around “strong” and “weak” to emphasise that things aren’t so cut and dried. And as for putting quotes around “rights,” I just feel our modern emphasis on “rights” is something we can’t properly overlay over the concepts as outlined in the Bible. Thinking of my ability to eat and drink whatever I want as a “right” is technically correct, but that framing isn’t really one that appears in the Bible, and it also might get in the way of actually carrying out the message Paul is giving us in this passage. ↩
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