This section concludes Paul's instructions concerning the importance of accepting one another as Christians that he began in 14:1. In this section the apostle charged both the strong and the weak.
15:7 "Accept"repeats Paul's opening exhortation (14:1). "One another"encompasses both groups, the strong and the weak. It is inconsistent for a Christian to reject someone whom God has accepted. We are to receive one another as Jesus Christ has received us. We are fellow members of the family of God. This results in glory for God.
15:8 Verses 8-10 expand the idea of Jesus Christ accepting us. Verse 8 deals with His acceptance of Jews. He not only accepted Jewish believers but came to serve the Jewish people, as the Old Testament predicted, fulfilling God's promise to the patriarchs (Mark 10:45; Matt. 15:24; cf. Gal. 3:16). Consequently the typically stronger Gentile believers should not despise their sometimes weaker Jewish brethren.
15:9-10 These verses deal with Jesus Christ's acceptance of Gentiles. The citations show that God always purposed to bless the Gentiles. Therefore conservative Jewish believers should not despise their more liberal Gentile brethren. I use these adjectives describing their relationship to amoral matters. Four quotations from the Old Testament ("writings,""law,"and "prophets") follow that support Paul's assertions in verses 8 and 9a as a whole.
Psalm 18:49 pictures David rejoicing in God for his victories among the nations that had become subject to him. In Deuteronomy 32:43 Moses saw the Gentiles praising God with the Israelites. These passages would have encouraged Paul's Jewish readers to accept their Gentile brethren.
15:11-12 Two more quotations picture the Gentiles praising God alone apart from participation in Israel (Ps. 117:1; Isa. 11:10). Perhaps Paul cited them to help his Jewish readers remember that their Gentile brethren did not need to come to God through the Jews or Judaism.
15:13 This verse concludes the section dealing with the practice of God's righteousness (12:1-15:13). It is another pious wish (cf. v. 5).
The mention of hope points forward to the future. Throughout this epistle Paul kept referring to the fact that God had not finished His saving work in his readers' lives. They were still under construction as Christians. There was more to God's salvation than they had experienced yet. In closing his treatise on God's righteousness the apostle focused his readers' attention on the rest of their sanctification and final glorification.
The God of hope is the God who inspires hope in and provides hope for His redeemed ones. Christians can be joyful because of what God has already done for us and is doing for us. We can also be peaceful as we realize what He is doing for us now and what He will do for us in the future. It is possible for us to abound in hope because the omnipotent Holy Spirit is at work in us.
This concludes Paul's exposition of the theme of the righteousness of God that constitutes the heart of this epistle (1:18-15:13). Paul showed man's need of God's righteousness (1:18-3:20), how God imputes it to people who trust in His Son (3:21-5:21), and how He imparts it to those to whom He has imputed it (chs. 6-8). Moreover he demonstrated that God is righteous in doing all this (chs. 9-11). He ended by urging his readers to practice their righteousness in their most important relationships (12:1-15:13).
