[Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =Wherefore welcome one another into fellowship, even as our (ὁ) Christ welcomed you,[246]= all the individuals of your company, and all the groups of it, =to our (τοῦ) God's glory.= These last words may mean either that the Lord's welcome of "_you_" "_glorified_" His Father's grace; or that that grace will be "_glorified_" by the holy victory of love over prejudice among the Roman saints. Perhaps this latter explanation is to be preferred, as it echoes and enforces the last words of the previous verse. But why should not both references reside in the one phrase, where the actions of the Lord and His disciples are seen in their deep harmony? [Sidenote: Ver. 8.] =For[247] I say that Christ stands constituted[248] Servant (διάκονον) of the Circumcision,= Minister of divine blessings to Israel, =on behalf of God's truth, so as to ratify= in act =the promises belonging to the Fathers,= so as to secure and vindicate their fulfilment, by His coming as Son of David, Son of Abraham; [Sidenote: Ver. 9.] =but= (a "_but_" which, by its slight correction, reminds the Jew that the Promise, given wholly _through_ him, was not given wholly _for_ him) =so that the Nations, on mercy's behalf, should glorify God,= blessing and adoring Him on account of a salvation which, in their case, was less of "_truth_" than of "_mercy_," because it was less explicitly and immediately of covenant; =as it stands written= (Psal. xviii. 49), ="For this I will confess to Thee,= will own Thee, =among the Nations, and will strike the harp (ψαλῶ) to Thy Name";= Messiah confessing His Eternal Father's glory in the midst of His redeemed Gentile subjects, who sing their "lower part" with Him. [Sidenote: Ver. 10.] =And again it,= the Scripture, =says,= (Deut. xxxii. 43), ="Be jubilant, Nations, with His people."[249]= [Sidenote: Ver. 11.] =And again= (Psal. cxvii. 1), ="Praise the Lord, all the Nations, and let all the peoples praise Him again" (ἐπαινεσάτωσαν).= [Sidenote: Ver. 12.] =And again Isaiah says= (xi. 10), ="There shall come= (literally, "_shall be_") =the Root of Jesse, and He who rises up=--"_rises_," in the present tense of the divine decree--=to rule (the) Nations; on Him (the) Nations shall hope;"= with the hope which is in fact faith, looking from the sure present to the promised future. [Sidenote: Ver. 13.] =Now may the God of that hope,= τῆς ἐλπίδος, "_the_ Hope" just cited from the Prophet, the expectation of all blessing, up to its crown and flower in glory, on the basis of Messiah's work, =fill you with all joy and peace in your (τῷ) believing, so that you may overflow in that (τῇ) hope, in the Holy Spirit's power;= "_in_ His power," clasped as it were within His divine embrace, and thus energized to look upward, heavenward, away from embittering and dividing temptations to the unifying as well as beatifying prospect of your Lord's Return.
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He closes here his long, wise, tender appeal and counsel about the "unhappy divisions" of the Roman Mission. He has led his readers as it were all round the subject. With the utmost tact, and also candour, he has given them his own mind, "in the Lord," on the matter in dispute. He has pointed out to the party of scruple and restriction the fallacy of claiming the function of Christ, and asserting a divine rule where He has not imposed one. He has addressed the "strong," (with whom he agrees in a certain sense,) at much greater length, reminding them of the moral error of making more of any given application of their principle than of the law of love in which the principle was rooted. He has brought both parties to the feet of Jesus Christ as absolute Master. He has led them to gaze on Him as their blessed Example, in His infinite self-oblivion for the cause of God, and of love. He has poured out before them the prophecies, which tell at once the Christian Judaist and the ex-pagan convert that in the eternal purpose Christ was given equally to both, in the line of "truth," in the line of "mercy." Now lastly he clasps them impartially to his own heart in this precious and pregnant benediction, beseeching for both sides, and for all their individuals, a wonderful fulness of those blessings in which most speedily and most surely _the spirit_ of their strife would expire. Let that prayer be granted, in its pure depth and height, and how could "the weak brother" look with quite his old anxiety on the problems suggested by the dishes at a meal, and by the dates of the Rabbinic Calendar? And how could "the capable" bear any longer to lose his joy in God by an assertion, full of self, of his own insight and "liberty"? Profoundly happy and at rest in their Lord, whom they embraced by faith as their Righteousness and Life, and whom they anticipated in hope as their coming Glory; filled through their whole consciousness, by the indwelling Spirit, with a new insight into CHRIST; they would fall into each other's embrace, in Him. They would be much more ready, when they met, to speak "concerning the King" than to begin a new stage of their not very elevating discussion.