Vigilance, Separation, Discernment and an Assurance
I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. Romans 16:17-20
The transition from greetings to warnings is abrupt but understandable. Paul has moved from the church’s unity in diversity (expressed through the kiss of peace) to the menace of those threatening division. His earlier conciliatory attitude to the weak reflected his respect for a sensitive conscience but his strength against the false teachers comes out of his anger at their disruptive and destructive attitudes and behaviour.
Paul begins with a three-fold appeal – to vigilance, separation and discernment.
He first pleads for vigilance. ‘I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned’ (16:17). Some divisions are inevitable (Matthew 10:34ff our loyalty to Christ) and some obstacles are too (9:32f the stumbling block of the cross). Paul is urging the church here to look out for those who cause them because they contradict the teaching of the apostles. He takes it for granted that even this early in church history there was a doctrinal and ethical norm which all the churches followed.
Secondly, Paul calls for separation from those who deliberately depart from the apostolic faith. ‘Keep away from them’ (16:17). Why? What’s their core problem? ‘For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites’ (literally: their own belly [16:18]). They have no wish to be Christ’s willing slaves. ‘By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people’ (16:18). They seduce the minds of simple people with smooth words.
Thirdly, Paul urges the Romans to grow in discernment. ‘Everyone has heard about your obedience’ (16:19a).But there are two kinds of obedience: blind and discerning and he wants them to choose the second. ‘I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil’ (16:19b). Being wise about what’s good means being able to recognise, love and follow it. Being innocent about evil means shying away from it. ‘I want to see you experts in good, and not even beginners at evil’ (J. B. Phillips).
These three tests can be reduced to three questions: Is it biblical? Does it glorify Christ? Does it promote goodness?
Paul now adds an assurance. Having written about good and evil, he wants the readers to be in no doubt about the ultimate outcome. He sees Satan’s strategy behind the false teachers’ activities. ‘The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet’ (16:20a). This means something like: God will soon throw Satan under your feet so you can trample him. God’s peace allows no appeasement of the devil. Final peace is only possible when evil is finally destroyed.
This is probably an allusion to Genesis 3:15 where God promised the seed of the woman (Christ) would crush the serpent’s head. But it isn’t wrong to read a further reference into the text of the place of man (male and female) who God created to have dominion. Psalm 8:6 says God has put ‘all things under his feet.’ This has clearly been fulfilled in Christ (Ephesians 1:22; cf. Hebrews 2:8f). But this exaltation is incomplete. Christ reigns but He still waits for his enemies to be made his footstool (Psalm 110:1). Paul simply says that this will happen ‘soon.’ Until Christ’s return, the church should expect regular, interim victories over Satan, partial crushings.
Knowing how crucial God’s grace is to see this fulfilled, Paul adds: ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you’ (16:20).