Romans 16:25-27
Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, song, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Epistle reading for Sunday, December 24, is from Romans chapter 16, verses 25 through 27. Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel, in the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed, and through the prophetic writings, has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ, amen. This reading in Romans, chapter 16, comes near the very end, where St. Paul is doing all of his sort of random stuff at the end of the letter. Romans is almost an introductory letter that Paul writes to the church in Rome, with the hope that he will come and visit them and establish a missionary base, I think. And so, chapter 16 has a lot of greetings, he greets everybody and their brother, because he's trying to say that he knows a whole bunch of people there. And let them know that we've got all these connections, and you can trust me, I'm a good guy, you can you can welcome me and my theology is good. But this doxology at the end is really fascinating. It's only a few lines long, but there is so much going on. So it goes Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ. So it begins by offering up a description of God, and what he does through the gospel and through the preaching of Jesus Christ. And it's to strengthen people, certainly not in in physical strength, but in strength of their spirit, as they grow in their ability to trust in God, as they follow Him faithfully as they deal with persecutions as they struggle with doctrine. It's the gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ that strengthens them in their faith as they hear it, and the Holy Spirit works on them. And then he adds something, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed, and through the prophetic writings, has been made known to all nations. So there's a revelation and a mystery here. This mystery was kept secret for long ages. One of the great mysteries that St. Paul often highlights is the mystery that God has made the Gentiles, co heirs with the Jews. And a big piece of Romans is talking about this Jews and Gentiles thing that the Gentiles have now been brought into the promise given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And the crazy thing is that this seems like the opposite of what the Old Testament was saying. For so many Jews, it was about exclusivity, about being that God's chosen people against the Gentiles against the nation's always fighting them off the enemies, the bad guys coming to invade. And the great mystery of Jesus Christ is that he came, not to destroy the enemies, but to make them friends, to gather them together with the Jews into one, united people. What an amazing mystery. This could be, how crazy this might have sounded to the Jews of old, as they were thinking about the battles they would fight and the persecutions they would face as they're coming back from Babylon and exile. And they're dedicated towards being God's chosen people and following his law, and God sends a savior, to make them one with the dreaded Gentiles. And yet, it's so beautiful, and so wonderful, that you end the hostility not by destroying the enemy, but making them your friend. How amazing. And this has been made known through the prophetic writings. And we see that St. Paul highlights a number of things throughout the Old Testament. And if we look back, especially at books like Isaiah, and it talks about the servant of the Lord coming to be for the Gentiles, for the nations for the coastlands far away We can all of a sudden see the hints of what God had planned, even though it didn't make a ton of sense, when, when it was written. Now, when we see Jesus, when Paul sees Jesus, we can see, loud and clear, amazing. This is what God has planned all along. And now everyone knows through the prophetic writings, and the proclamation of Jesus Christ. The next phrase, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith. And so this mystery was not an accident. It is not like God came down and was like, Oh, those Jews, they just don't like me and they turned away my savior. Now I'm going to go to the Gentiles. It's not an accident. This was God's plan, right from the beginning. And it points back to the prophetic writings, again, two books like Isaiah, two, two books, where it would talk about God's law going out to all nations to, to the places that are far away. God was always about gathering together the people who are outside of his promise into the promise to make them part of it. And as part of that command that happens through Jesus Christ, and it goes to bring about the obedience of faith. Now that phrase, obedience of faith, it could be the obedience that leads to faith, or obedience that comes from faith for me. You know, I'm a Lutheran, we always translated that faith leads to obedience, or faithful obedience comes from the faith that God has already given us. And that's what this gospel and preaching of Jesus Christ does, because it's the gospel that actually brings about faith that leads to obedience. And without it, you've got nothing. There is no faith, there is no obedience. And at the end of this, it's the gospel that produces everything that gathers people together, that contains the mystery that is now revealed, that produces faith. And so St. Paul can only do one thing is praise God for His plan. And that's what he does to the only wise God be glory forever. Through Jesus Christ. Amen. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai