Romans 15:33

Now the God of peace be with you all, Amen. As God is in this chapter before styled the God of patience, Rom 15:5, and the God of hope, Rom 15:13, because of his concern in these graces; so he is here styled "the God of peace", because of his concern in that peace which is made between him and his people, by the blood of Christ.

Now the God of peace - God, the author or promoter of peace and union. In Rom 15:13, he is called the God of hope. Here the apostle desires that the God who gives peace would impart to them union of sentiment and feeling, particularly between the Jewish and Gentile Christians - the great object for which he labored in his journey to Judea, and which he had been endeavoring to promote throughout this Epistle; see 1Co 14:33; Heb 13:20. This is the close of the doctrinal and hortatory parts of this Epistle.

PAUL ONCE ADVISED the Romans to strive. Three verses before our text he actually gives them an exhortation to strive, and yet he here utters a prayer that the God of peace might be with them all. Lest you should think him to be a man of strife, you must read the verse. He says: “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.”

(4) Formidable designs against the truth and the servants of Christ should, above all other ways of counteracting them, be met by combined prayer to Him who rules all hearts and controls all events; and the darker the cloud, the more resolutely should all to whom Christ's cause is dear "strive together in their prayers to God" for the removal of it (Ro 15:30, 31).

THE Apostle of the Gentiles held a very useful and glorious office, but he had by no means a smooth path in life. When we read the account of his sufferings, persecutions and labors, we wonder how a single individual could have gone through them all. He was a true hero. Though a Hebrew of the Hebrews, he stands in the very front of the whole Gentile Church as its founder and teacher under God. And we owe to him what we can never fully estimate.

PAUL ONCE ADVISED the Romans to strive. Three verses before our text he actually gives them an exhortation to strive, and yet he here utters a prayer that the God of peace might be with them all. Lest you should think him to be a man of strife, you must read the verse. He says: “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.” That is a holy strife, and such a strife as that we wish always to see in the church, a strife in prayer, a surrounding the throne together, besieging God’s mercy seat, a crying out before God, until it actually amounts to a striving together in our prayers. There is also another kind of striving which is allowed in the church, and that is striving earnestly after the best gifts: a sweet contention which of us shall excel all others in love, in duty, and in faith. May God send us more strife of that kind in our churches, a strife in prayer, a strife in duty; and when we have mentioned these strifes we find them of so peaceable a kind that we come back to the benediction of our text: “Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.” Without any preface, we shall consider, first, the title—“the God of peace;” and secondly, the benediction—“the God of peace be with you all. Amen.” I. First of all, the title. Mars amongst the heathens was called the god of war; Janus was worshipped in periods of strife and bloodshed; but our God Jehovah styles himself not the God of war, but the God of peace.

THE Apostle of the Gentiles held a very useful and glorious office, but he had by no means a smooth path in life. When we read the account of his sufferings, persecutions and labors, we wonder how a single individual could have gone through them all. He was a true hero. Though a Hebrew of the Hebrews, he stands in the very front of the whole Gentile Church as its founder and teacher under God. And we owe to him what we can never fully estimate. When we consider the struggles of his life, we do not wonder that the Apostle was, sometimes, in great sorrow of heart and heavily burdened in spirit. He was so at the time when he wrote this Epistle to the Christian friends at Rome. It was a great delight to him to have to go to Jerusalem—it was a place which was much reverenced and loved by him. It was a greater privilege for him to go and exchange salutations with his brother Apostles and it was the most joyous privilege of all to be the bearer of a contribution from the Gentiles to relieve the necessities of the saints at Jerusalem. He rejoiced much more in that gift to Jewish Believers than if it had been anything for himself. But he was well aware that there were those in Judea who hated him with deadly hatred and would seek his life. He had been the rising hope of the Jewish party and he had become a Christian—therefore the bigoted Jews regarded him as an apostate from the faith of their fathers. They had, moreover, a special venom against him, since he was more bold than any other Christian teacher in going among the Gentiles and shaking off, altogether, the bonds of the Ceremonial Law. He also came out more clearly than any other man upon the Doctrines of Grace and salvation by the Cross of Christ— and this provoked the fiercest hostility. Paul had also the apprehension that he would not be well received even by the Brethren at Jerusalem.

The God of peace be with you - The whole object of the epistle is to establish peace between the believing Jews and Gentiles, and to show them their mutual obligations, and the infinite mercy of God to both; and now he concludes with praying that the God of peace - he from whom it comes, and by whom it is preserved - may be for ever with them. The word Amen, at the end, does not appear to have been written by the apostle: it is wanting in some of the most ancient MSS. 1. In the preceding chapters the apostle enjoins a very hard, but a very important and necessary, duty - that of bearing with each other, and endeavoring to think and let think, in those religious matters which are confessedly not essential to the salvation of the soul. Most of the disputes among Christians have been concerning non-essential points. Rites and ceremonies, even in the simple religion of Christ, have contributed their part in promoting those animosities by which Christians have been divided. Forms in worship and sacerdotal garments have not been without their influence in this general disturbance. Each side has been ready to take out of the 14th and 15th chapters of this epistle such expressions as seemed suitable to their own case; but few have been found who have taken up the whole. You believe that a person who holds such and such opinions is wrong: pity him and set him right, lovingly, if possible. He believes you to be wrong because you do not hold those points; he must bear with you. Both of you stand precisely on the same ground, and are mutually indebted to mutual forbearance. 2. Beware of contentions in religion, if you dispute concerning any of its doctrines, let it be to find out truth; not to support a preconceived and pre-established opinion. Avoid all polemical heat and rancour; these prove the absence of the religion of Christ. […]