Romanos 15

Romanos 15:13

Piper - The pathway that the Spirit cuts through the jungle of our anxieties into the clearing of joy is the pathway of faith. Luke says of Stephen in Acts 6:5, that he was “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit,” and he says of Barnabas in Acts 11:24 that he was “a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith,” The two go together. If a person is filled with faith, he will be filled with the Spirit, the Spirit of joy and peace. The most important text in Paul’s writings to show this is Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Notice that it is in or by believing that we are filled with joy and peace. And it is by the Spirit that we abound in hope. When we put those two halves of the verse together, what we see is that through our faith (our believing) the Spirit fills us with his hope and thus with his joy and peace. And, of course since hope is such an essential part of being filled with joy by the Spirit, what we have to believe is that God is, as Paul says, the God of hope. We have to rivet our faith on all that he has done and said to give us hope. (Be Filled with the Spirit) Dictionary of Biblical Imagery - Joy is a by-product of life with God. Joy is not found by seeking it as an end in itself. It must be given by God (Job 8:21; Ps 4:7; 36:8). Therefore, it is received by faith with the gift of salvation (1 Sam 2:1; Ps 5:11; 13:5; 20:5; 21:1, 6; 33:21; 35:9; 40:16; Is 12:1; 25:9; Hab 3:18; Lk 1:47; 2:10). In the OT, joy comes with God’s presence (1Chr 16:27; Job 22:21–26; Ps 9:2; 16:5–11). In the NT that presence is identified as the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:52; Rom 15:13; Gal 5:22; Eph 5:18, 19; 1Th 1:6). Jerry Bridges - It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we experience the joy of salvation and are enabled to rejoice even in the midst of trials. (cp 1Thes 1:6) The Holy Spirit uses His Word to create joy in our hearts. Romans 15 contains an interesting connection between God and the Scriptures. Ro 15:4 of that chapter speaks of the endurance and encouragement that come from the Scriptures; Ro 15:5 says God gives endurance and encouragement. That God gives endurance and encouragement through the Scriptures should not surprise us. God is the Source. The Scriptures are the means. The same truth applies to joy. Ro 15:13 speaks of the God of hope filling us with joy and peace as we trust in Him. How would we expect God to fill us with joy and hope? The reasonable answer is by means of the comfort of the Scriptures (The Fruitful Life- The Overflow of God's Love Through You) In another book Bridges writes the following on Romans 15:13 - One of the most important aspects of the second bookend is the hope the Holy Spirit provides to believers. Every believer needs this divine encouragement because our opposition is relentless, and there are plenty of disappointments along the way. Sometimes we think we’ve turned the corner on a particular sin, only to discover a few days later that we’ve merely gone around the block and are dealing with it again. But there is hope in our battle with sin, and it lies in placing our dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit, our ever-present Helper (John 14:16, 17). (The Bookends of the Christian Life-Highly Recommended) Warren Wiersbe defines joy as "that inward peace and sufficiency that is not affected by outward circumstances. (A case in point is Paul’s experience recorded in Php 4:1ff-[see notes].) This "holy optimism" keeps him going in spite of difficulties." Donald Campbell - Joy (chara) is a deep and abiding inner rejoicing which was promised to those who abide in Christ (cf. Jn 15:11). It does not depend on circumstances because it rests in God’s sovereign control of all things (cf. Ro 8:28-note). Webster's definition reflects the world's view of joy "the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires". Obviously this is not an accurate description of the JOY independent of circumstances that is available to every believer. Peace (1515) (eirene from verb eiro = binding or joining together what is broken or divided) (10 uses of eirene in Romans - Ro 1:7; 2:10; 3:17; 5:1; 8:6; 14:17, 19; 15:13, 33; 16:20) means literally that which has been bound together. It is freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions. Peace in this verse is that inward state of quiet which is independent of circumstances and is that inner attitude which God's Spirit (Gal 5:22-Ga 5:22, Gal 5:23-note) gives His people. Note that this peace is only possible after one has been justified by faith and experienced peace with God (Ro 5:1-note). In short peace with God must precede and is the basis for the peace of God (Php 4:7-note). Webster defines peace as a state of tranquility or quiet, freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions, harmony in personal relations, a pact or agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity, state of repose in contrast with or following strife or turmoil. (Click for discussion of "gospel of peace" the believer's spiritual "sneakers"). IN (the) believing: en to pisteuein (PAN): In believing - The Greek literally reads "in the believing" or as Kenneth Wuest renders it "in the sphere of the act of habitually believing." THE VITAL ROLE OF FAITH IN FILLING WITH JOY AND PEACE Alexander Maclaren (don't read his explanation too fast) says that here Paul links... man’s faith and God’s filling...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 emphasize 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 fills 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 molds 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 minimizing 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 makes intercession for us.’ (Ro 8:34) 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.’ (From Maclaren's sermon Joy and Peace in Believing) Joy is linked with faith in Paul's letter to the Philippians - "And convinced of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith." (Php 1:25-note) Believing (4100)(pisteuo from pistis; pistos; related study = obedience of faith) means to consider something to be true and therefore worthy of trust. To have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy or ability of something or someone. Pisteuo means to entrust oneself to an entity in complete confidence. To believe in also conveys the implication of total commitment to the one trusted. To be confident about or to be firmly persuaded as to something. Pisteuo is in the present tense which pictures this believing is one's practice or lifestyle. See Ray Stedman's explanation (below) regarding the importance of continually "believing" as it relates to joy and peace and power! William Newell - It is in a believing heart that these blessed results are brought about. When asked by the Jews in the Sixth of John, "What must we do that we may work the works of God ?" our Lord replied, "This is the work of God the one thing He asks of you, that ye believe on Him Whom He hath sent." The believing of Romans 15.13 is, of course, that "living by faith in the Son of God" of which Paul speaks in Gal 2:20. It is stepping out on the facts God reveals about us; and learning to live the life of trust. (Romans Verse-by-Verse) Charles Hodge comments that in believing means to "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. (Commentary of the Epistle to the Romans) James Denney explains that "The joy and peace which He (the God of hope) imparts rest on faith (in believing). 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 (cp the power of the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:8, Luke 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. (Romans 15 - Expositor's Greek Testament) Ray Stedman helps us understand how all joy and peace is related to the phrase in believing... I want to stress that briefly because I think that we have gone astray in this respect. Oftentimes people come to me, and say, "What is the matter with my Christian life? I have come to a plateau where I seem to be so bored, and nothing interesting is happening, and I have lost all vision and joy and victory in my life. It seems to be so dull and lifeless. What can I do?" For years I think I gave a wrong answer to that. I said to them, "Well, are you reading the Bible?" And usually it turned out that they weren't. Or, "Are you having times of prayer?" And I gave the pat answer which is so easily given by most of us, "What you need is time for prayer and reading the Scriptures -- prayer and the Bible." But I have come to see that this isn't the answer. What they need is to believe what they read in Scripture, and believe what they pray--that is the answer. These other things are merely mechanics which make possible the believing, but believing is the real answer. It isn't Bible reading, or prayer or Christian fellowship that unlocks the power of the Holy Spirit. It is believing what you read or what you pray: When you believe that Jesus Christ indwells you, when you believe that He is all that you need, when you believe that He intends to act through you, then you can act! You discover that all that He is becomes visible through you and accomplishes all that needs to be done. The result is power and joy and peace, as Paul prays here.... The God of hope cannot fill us with joy and peace if we don't believe -- which means to act on what we know. But it is when we believe and act that the power of the Holy Spirit begins to work through us and causes us to abound in hope -- for all around us are the evidences that God is at work accomplishing his purposes in our lives. (Read the full message Power to Please) (bolding added) In summary, Christian joy and peace are IMpossible apart from trusting in Him in Whom they are eminently HIMpossible! SO THAT YOU MAY ABOUND IN HOPE: eis to perisseuein ( PAN ) humas en te elpidi: So that (term of purpose or result) is the preposition eis, which is the Greek preposition of motion, and literally can describe motion into any place or thing. Figuratively as used here by Paul eis marks the object toward which his supplication points--abounding hope. May abound (4052)(perisseuo from perissos = abundant, exceeding some number, measure, rank or need, over and above - from peri = in sense of beyond) means to cause to superabound, to be superfluous, to overflow, to be in affluence, to excel or to be in abundance with the implication of being considerably more than what would be expected (and in the present context certainly far more than we deserve!) Notice also that perisseuo is in the present tense which pictures the believers in Rome (and us) as continually abounding in this great quality of Spirit empowered hope. Perisseuo carries the idea of exceeding the requirements or of overflowing and is pictured by a river which overflows its banks! It means to exceed a fixed number or measure and so to be more than enough. Thus perisseuo was used to describe what was "left over" of the loaves after Jesus had fed the 5000 (Mt 14:20)! God's supply exceeded their need. When the God of hope supplies hope there is more than enough so that some is even "left over" so to speak! How quickly we forget the infinite nature of our great God's capability "to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power (dunamis - in the present context the power of the Holy Spirit Who indwells us) that works (energeo in the present tense = is continually "energizing") within us." (Eph 3:20-note) Moulton and Milligan give usages of perisseuo in extracts from secular Greek writings - “more than enough has been written...if you find any purchasers of the surplus donkeys”. And so here we the purpose of Paul's prayer - that they would be continually overflowing with hope. The joy and peace given by God to the believing saint would result in an overflow of hope. As an aside we note that a common goal in Paul's prayers was that the saints would not be "ain'ts" so to speak but that they would ''super abound'' spiritually (See 1Cor 15:58-note Phil 1:9, 10-note, 1Th 3:12-note). In one great passage Paul used perisseuo twice to emphasize our Great God's ability to give and give more... And God is able (present tense = is continually able) to make all grace abound (perisseuo) to you, that (term of purpose or result) always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance (perisseuo) for every good deed (2Cor 9:8) In the context of Paul's argument in Romans 15, saints who abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit have no time to quarrel over nonessentials. Our common hope is a powerful unifying force in the Christian life. Hope binds us together in the midst of a world which without Christ is hopeless! James Witmer writes that... Paul desired God to fill his readers with all joy and peace (Ro 14:17-note). Joy relates to the delight of anticipation in seeing one’s hopes fulfilled. Peace results from the assurance that God will fulfill those hopes (Ro 5:1-note; Php 4:7-note). These are experienced as believers trust in Him (cf. He 11:1-note). As a result believers overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Ro 15:19-note) (Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., et al: The Bible Knowledge Commentary. 1985. Victor) Ray