As always, in the fine courtesy of pastoral love, he says more, and thinks more, of his own expected gain of refreshment and encouragement from them, than even of what he may have to impart to them. So he had thought, and so spoken, in his opening page (i. 11, 12); it is the same heart throughout.
How little did he realize the line and details of the destined fulfilment of that "home-sick feeling"! He was indeed to "see Rome," and for no passing "sight of the scene." For two long years of sorrows and joys, restraints and wonderful occasions, innumerable colloquies, and the writing of great Scriptures, he was to "dwell in his own hired lodgings" there. But he did not see what lay between.
For St Paul ordinarily, as always for us, it was true that "we know not what awaits us." For us, as for him, it is better "to walk with God in the dark, than to go alone in the light."
Did he ultimately visit Spain? We shall never know until perhaps we are permitted to ask him hereafter. It is not at all impossible that, released from his Roman prison, he first went westward and then--as at some time he certainly did--travelled to the Levant. But no tradition, however faint, connects St Paul with the great Peninsula which glories in her legend of St James. Is it irrelevant to remember that _in his Gospel_ he has notably visited Spain in later ages? It was the Gospel of St Paul, the simple grandeur of his exposition of Justification by Faith, which in the sixteenth century laid hold on multitudes of the noblest of Spanish hearts, till it seemed as if not Germany, not England, bid fairer to become again a land of "truth in the light." The terrible Inquisition utterly crushed the springing harvest, at Valladolid, at Seville, and in that ghastly Quemadero at Madrid, which, five-and-twenty years ago, was excavated by accident, to reveal its deep strata of ashes, and charred bones, and all the débris of the _Autos_. But now again, in the mercy of God, and in happier hours, the New Testament is read in the towns of Spain, and in her highland villages, and churches are gathering around the holy light, spiritual descendants of the true, the primeval, Church of Rome. May "the God of hope fill them with all peace and joy in believing."
[Sidenote: Ver. 25.] =But now I am journeying to Jerusalem,= the journey whose course we know so well from Acts xx., xxi., =ministering to the saints,= serving the poor converts of the holy City as the collector and conveyer of alms for their necessities. [Sidenote: Ver. 26.] =For Macedonia and Achaia,= the northern and southern Provinces of Roman Greece, finely _personified_ in this vivid passage, =thought good to make something of a (τινὰ) communication,= a certain gift to be "_shared_" among the recipients, =for the poor of the saints who live at Jerusalem;= the place where poverty seemed specially, for whatever reason, to beset the converts. [Sidenote: Ver. 27.] ="For they thought good!"= yes; but there is a different side to the matter. Macedonia and Achaia are generous friends, but they have an obligation too: =And debtors they are to them,= to these poor people of the old City. =For if in their spiritual things the Nations shared, they,= these Nations, =are in debt, as a fact, (καί,) in things carnal,= things belonging to our "life in the flesh," =to minister to them;= λειτουργῆσαι, to do them public _and religious_ service.
[Sidenote: Ver. 28.] =When I have finished this then, and sealed this fruit to them,= put them into ratified ownership of this "_proceed_" (καρπὸν) of Christian love, =I will come away by your road (δι' ὑμῶν) to Spain.= (He _means_, "if the Lord will"; it is instructive to note that even St Paul does not make it a duty, with an almost superstitious iteration, always to _say so_). [Sidenote: Ver. 29.] =Now I know that, coming to you, in the fulness of Christ's benediction[255] I shall come.= He will come with his Lord's "_benediction_" on him, as His messenger to the Roman disciples; Christ will send him charged with heavenly messages, and attended with His own prospering presence. And this will be "_in fulness_"; with a rich overflow of saving truth, and heavenly power, and blissful fellowship.