And all this it is as a life lived "_in the power of the Holy Ghost_." Not by enthusiasm, not by any stimulus which self applies to self; not by resources for gladness and permanence found in independent reason or affection; but by the almighty, all-tender power of the Comforter. "The Lord, the Life-Giver," giving life by bringing us to the Son of God, and uniting us to Him, is the Giver and strong Sustainer of the faith, and so of the peace, the joy, the hope, of this blessed life.
"Now it was not written for their sakes only, but for us also," in our circumstances of personal and of common experience. Large and pregnant is the application of this one utterance to the problems perpetually raised by the divided state of organization, and of opinion, in modern Christendom. It gives us one secret, above and below all others, as the sure panacea, if it may but be allowed to work, for this multifarious malady which all who think deplore. That secret is "the secret of the Lord, which is with them that fear Him" (Psal. xxv. 14). It is a fuller life in the individual, and so in the community, of the peace and joy of believing; a larger abundance of "that blessed hope," given by that power for which numberless hearts are learning to thirst with a new intensity, "the power of the Holy Ghost."
It was in that direction above all that the Apostle gazed as he yearned for the unity, not only spiritual but practical, of the Roman saints. This great master of order, this man made for government, alive with all his large wisdom to the sacred importance, in its true place, of the external mechanism of Christianity, yet makes no mention of it here, nay, scarcely gives one allusion to it in the whole Epistle. The word "Church" is not heard till the final chapter; and then it is used only, or almost only, of the scattered mission-stations, or even mission-_groups_, in their individuality. The ordered Ministry only twice, and in the most passing manner, comes into the long discourse; in the words (xii. 6-8) about prophecy, ministration, teaching, exhortation, leadership; and in the mention (xvi. 1) of Phœbe's relation to the Cenchrean Church. He is addressing the saints of that great City which was afterwards, in the tract of time, to develop into even terrific exaggerations the idea of Church Order. But he has practically nothing to say to them about unification and cohesion beyond this appeal to hold fast together by drawing nearer each and all to the Lord, and so filling each one his soul and life with Him.
Our modern problems must be met with attention, with firmness, with practical purpose, with due regard to history, and with submission to revealed truth. But if they are to be solved indeed they must be met outside the spirit of self, and in the communion of the Christian with Christ, by the power of the Spirit of God.
[244] Observe that St Paul utterly repudiates the thought of "_pleasing_" (ἀρέσκειν) where it means a _servile and really compromising_ deference to human opinion (Gal. i. 10).
[245] The noble word ὑπομονή, as we have remarked already, is rarely if ever _merely_ passive in New Testament usage.
[246] So read, not ἡμᾶς. The point of the mention here of "_you_" is manifest.
[247] Reading γὰρ not δέ, and omitting Ἰησοῦν just afterwards.
[248] Γεγενῆσθαι, the perfect. But perhaps read γενέσθαι.
[249] In the received Hebrew Text the word את, "_with_," is absent, and the rendering may be, in paraphrase, either, "_Ye Nations, congratulate His people_," or "_Rejoice ye Nations, who are His people_." Either the great Rabbi-Apostle read את, or he gave the essence of the Mosaic words, not their form, (using the Lxx. rendering as his form,) to convey the thought of the loving sympathy, before God, of Israel and the Nations.