Paul has just spent a full paragraph greeting dozens of friends by name, Priscilla and Aquila, Phoebe, and more than two dozen others in a church he had never visited. In the middle of all that warmth, his tone turns sharply. 17"watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them." A letter that closes on friendship still has room for a warning, because the unity Paul has spent sixteen chapters building can be undone by people skilled at sounding as though they are building it too.
18"by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive." It is speech engineered to sound plausible to people with no reason to suspect it. Paul is warning against people fluent enough to be mistaken for friends.
19"I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil." Paul asks for both halves at once, wisdom sharp enough to spot danger and innocence clean enough not to go looking for trouble where none exists. Then, in the same breath, a promise. 20"The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." The verse seems to echo the oldest promise in Scripture, that the offspring of the woman would strike the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15). Sixteen chapters after Paul described humanity's fall, that promise surfaces again, still unbroken and aimed at the same enemy.
Then Paul closes with a doxology that answers everything the warning raised. God is able to strengthen you according to my gospel. Smooth talkers might deceive the naive. But the God who is able to strengthen believers in the true gospel is not outmatched by anyone's flattery.
The mystery was 25"kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed." It is the mystery Paul unveiled in chapter 11, Jew and Gentile woven into a single plan of salvation, hidden for centuries and now made known through the prophetic writings to all nations. Every promise scattered through Israel's Scripture, read through the gospel, was pointing here all along.
The purpose is 26"the obedience of faith." Paul used the phrase to open this letter, before a single argument had been made (Romans 1:5). Everything written in between, sin's spread, the law's failure, justification by faith, the Spirit's indwelling, Israel's future, the strong bearing with the weak, arrives at the place where it started, a circle closing on itself.
27"to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen." The last time Paul reached for language this exalted was the doxology of chapter 11, the depth of God's riches and wisdom and knowledge. That one closed the argument about Israel. This one closes the whole letter, and both land on the same word. Wisdom, too deep to be traced, worth nothing less than glory forever.
The letter opened with a Roman church Paul had never met and a thesis he had yet to prove, that the righteous will live by faith. It closes with glory given to the only wise God through the Jesus Christ who made that faith possible. What began as argument ends as worship, the movement this letter has made more than once, because that is where a mind that has reckoned with God always arrives.
Who is able? God is. Rest there this morning.
Prayer
Father, thank you for a gospel strong enough to withstand smooth talk and flattery, and for a promise as old as the garden that is still being kept. Thank you for a mystery once hidden and now disclosed, and for calling us with every nation into the obedience of faith. To you, the only wise God, be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen.