“Now to him who is able to establish you according to my Good News and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret through long ages, but now is revealed, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, is made known for obedience of faith to all the nations; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.”
Romans ends where it began.
Paul opened the letter with the gospel God had promised beforehand through the prophets concerning his Son. He had received grace and apostleship to bring about “obedience of faith among all the nations.” Sixteen chapters later, his final words return to the same themes: the gospel, Jesus Christ, the prophetic Scriptures, the nations, the obedience of faith, and the God whose wisdom stands behind the whole work.
The conclusion is therefore more than a formal blessing attached to the letter. Paul gathers the argument of Romans into a final act of praise. The God who saves is also the God who establishes his people, and the gospel through which he establishes them is the disclosure of a saving purpose that reaches back through the promises of Scripture and has now been revealed in Jesus Christ.
Paul has spent the letter tracing that purpose. Humanity stands together under sin, and God has revealed his righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Those justified by faith have peace with God, are united with Christ, and walk in newness of life through the Spirit. God remains faithful to his promises while extending mercy to the nations, and those who have received that mercy now offer themselves to God and receive one another as members of one body.
At the end of that argument, Paul does not direct attention toward the brilliance of his explanation. He gives glory to the God whose wisdom has accomplished what the letter has described.
Him Who Is Able to Establish You
Romans 16:25
“Now to him who is able to establish you according to my Good News and the preaching of Jesus Christ,”
Paul begins his doxology not with what the Romans must accomplish but with what God is able to do.
He is able to establish them.
That assurance is especially appropriate after everything Paul has addressed. The Roman Christians live among differences of ethnicity, history, conscience, and circumstance. Paul has warned them about sin, pride, division, false teaching, suffering, and the danger of judging or despising one another. Their continued faithfulness cannot finally rest upon their own ability to navigate every threat.
God establishes them “according to my Good News and the preaching of Jesus Christ.” The gospel is therefore not merely the message by which someone enters Christian life before moving on to something else. The same gospel that announces salvation continues to establish the people who have received it.
Calling it “my Good News” does not distinguish Paul’s gospel from that of the other apostles. At the beginning of Romans, Paul identified the gospel entrusted to him as the gospel of God, promised beforehand in the Scriptures and concerning God’s Son. It is “his” gospel because its proclamation has been entrusted to him as an apostle to the nations.
Its center remains Jesus Christ.
Everything Paul has taught about righteousness, justification, reconciliation, resurrection, the Spirit, Israel, Christian obedience, and the nations depends upon what God has accomplished through his Son. The Romans will therefore be established not by progressing beyond Christ but by remaining grounded in the gospel that proclaims him.
The Revelation of the Mystery
Romans 16:25–26
“according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret through long ages, but now is revealed,”
Paul describes the gospel as the revelation of a mystery. The mystery is not something permanently unknowable but something once concealed and now disclosed. God has made known what had previously remained hidden.
Romans has already used this language concerning Israel and the nations. In Romans 11, Paul spoke of a “mystery” involving Israel’s partial hardening and the fullness of the Gentiles. The history of Israel and the salvation of the nations were not competing stories but parts of the saving purpose God was accomplishing through Christ.
The gospel has revealed the shape of that purpose. Gentiles who stood outside Israel’s covenant history have become participants in the blessings promised through Abraham. Jewish and Gentile believers are justified through the same faith, depend upon the same mercy, and belong to the same people of God. The promises have reached the nations without God becoming unfaithful to what he spoke beforehand.
Paul therefore does not present the gospel as a new plan adopted after Israel’s story failed. What has now been revealed belonged to a purpose reaching through the ages. The coming of Christ and the proclamation of the gospel disclose where that history was going.
What was concealed has now been made known.
By the Scriptures of the Prophets
Romans 16:26
“and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, is made known”
The mystery has now been revealed, but it is not disconnected from what God had already spoken. Paul says it is made known “by the Scriptures of the prophets.”
The statement returns directly to the opening of Romans, where Paul described the gospel as something God had “promised before through his prophets in the holy Scriptures.” Throughout the letter, those Scriptures have supplied the framework through which Paul explains what God has accomplished in Christ.
Abraham demonstrates that righteousness is received through faith. David speaks of the blessedness of the person whose sin God does not count against him. Hosea and Isaiah are brought into Paul’s explanation of the people God is calling. Moses and the prophets testify concerning Israel, the nations, judgment, mercy, and the promises upon which Paul’s argument depends.
The revelation of the mystery therefore does not render the Old Testament obsolete. The gospel reveals the accomplishment toward which its promises and patterns were moving.
Paul can consequently proclaim something now revealed while continually arguing from texts written centuries earlier. Promise and fulfillment belong to the work of the same “eternal God.” The gospel is new in its historical accomplishment and disclosure, not because God abandoned one purpose and created another.
The God who promised is the God who fulfilled.
For Obedience of Faith Among All the Nations
Romans 16:26
“is made known for obedience of faith to all the nations;”
The purpose of this revelation is not merely that the nations receive new information. The gospel is made known “for obedience of faith.”
With those words, Paul returns to the commission with which Romans began. In Romans 1:5, he said that he had received grace and apostleship “for obedience of faith among all the nations.” The phrase now appears again as he closes the letter, forming a frame around everything between.
Romans has explained what that obedience does and does not mean. Paul has rejected every attempt to establish righteousness before God through works. Jew and Gentile alike stand under sin, and justification is received through faith apart from works of law.
Yet the faith that receives salvation does not leave the believer unchanged.
Those united with Christ are to consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God. They present their bodies as living sacrifices, serve one another according to their gifts, love without hypocrisy, submit to governing authorities, fulfill the law through love, refuse to destroy fellow believers over matters of conscience, bear with the weak, and pursue peace.
The obedience of faith is therefore not an alternative to faith or a disguised return to justification by works. It is the life that proceeds from faith in response to the mercy already received.
Its scope is “all the nations.”
That makes Paul’s missionary ambition in Romans 15 part of the purpose announced by the gospel itself. His desire to preach where Christ has not been named is not an additional interest attached to his theology. The eternal God has commanded that what has now been revealed be made known among the nations.
The gospel concerning Israel’s Messiah is going into the world.
To the Only Wise God
Romans 16:27
“to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.”
Paul ends Romans with worship.
After sixteen chapters of sustained argument, the final response is not admiration for Paul’s reasoning but glory to God.
He is “the only wise God,” language that recalls the doxology of Romans 11. After considering Israel, the Gentiles, election, hardening, mercy, and the faithfulness of God, Paul responded to the depth of God’s wisdom and knowledge. The closing doxology returns to that same wisdom.
The saving purpose Paul has described could not have been designed by human wisdom. The promises given through Israel reach their fulfillment in Israel’s Messiah. The death of Christ becomes the means through which guilty sinners are justified. Gentiles receive mercy without gaining grounds for boasting over Israel. Jewish and Gentile believers stand together by faith, and the history that seemed capable of raising questions about God’s faithfulness becomes the very history through which his wisdom is displayed.
The proper response is glory.
That glory is given “through Jesus Christ” because Christ stands at the center of everything Romans has proclaimed. Through him sinners are justified and reconciled, death is answered by resurrection, believers receive life in the Spirit, the nations receive mercy, and the promises of God reach their fulfillment.
Romans began with the gospel concerning Jesus Christ our Lord.
It ends with glory to God through Jesus Christ forever.
Amen.
To Him Who Is Able to Establish You
Romans has taken the reader from the guilt of humanity to the glory of God.
Paul began by announcing the gospel promised through the prophets concerning God’s Son, then demonstrated why that gospel is necessary. Gentile rebellion and Jewish possession of the law lead to the same verdict: “all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.” No distinction of ethnicity, possession of Scripture, or human obedience provides grounds for boasting before him.
Into that universal guilt comes the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Sinners are justified freely by grace. Those justified have peace with God, are united with Christ in his death and resurrection, and receive life through the Spirit. The salvation God provides rests upon what he has accomplished rather than what sinners could accomplish for themselves.
That gospel also demonstrates God’s faithfulness. Israel’s unbelief has not caused the word of God to fail, and Gentile inclusion has not replaced the promises with an unrelated plan. Paul traces a saving purpose in which Jews and Gentiles alike stand entirely by mercy. Neither possesses grounds for boasting over the other.
Mercy then becomes the foundation of Christian life. Those who have received it present themselves as living sacrifices, use their gifts for the body, love one another, pursue peace, and receive those whom Christ has received. The gospel creates a people whose shared dependence upon grace reshapes how they live with one another.
It also sends that people outward. Paul has carried the gospel from Jerusalem toward Illyricum and hopes to carry it farther. Churches participate in that mission through giving, hospitality, prayer, labor, and fellowship. By Romans 16, the theological categories have become names: Phoebe, Prisca, Aquila, Mary, Andronicus, Junia, Timothy, Tertius, Gaius, Erastus, Quartus, and many others. The gospel has created an actual people through whom it continues to move among the nations.
Paul’s final doxology gathers those threads together without making either himself or the church the final subject of the letter. The gospel was promised beforehand, has now been revealed in Christ, and is being proclaimed among all the nations for the obedience of faith. The people created through that proclamation are established by the God whose wisdom designed the purpose from beginning to end.
Romans began with “the Good News of God.”
That is where it ends.
The righteousness is his. The mercy is his. The promises are his. The gospel is his. The people are his. The mission proceeds according to his command, and their endurance depends upon his power to establish them.
So Paul gives the final word where it belongs:
“To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.”