In the midst of his discussion of the strong, the weak, Christian freedom, and not causing one another to stumble in Romans 14–15, Paul quotes Psalm 69:9 in Romans 15:3. From the way the statement is quoted, some have concluded that Paul presents the Lord Jesus as the speaker of the words of the Psalm. My concern with that interpretation arises from the fact that in Psalm 69, David seems to be speaking out of his own, personal, historical experience. Is there a way to affirm that David speaks of his own experience and that Paul correctly sees that what happened to David is fulfilled in Christ? In this short piece, I say there is a way, and that way is called typology.
Having cited the passage as being typologically fulfilled in Christ, Paul proceeds to inform the Christians in the congregation in Rome that the Old Testament was written for their instruction. We need to understand the typology that we, too, might be instructed by the Old Testament.
Paul writes in Romans 15:4, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” To understand how his words instruct and encourage us that we might endure in hope, we have to understand typology. Paul has just quoted Psalm 69:9 in Romans 15:3 to explain how the example of the Lord Jesus should inform the obligation of the strong in their bearing with the failings of the weak in the church in Rome (Rom 15:1–2). Typology helps us to understand how Psalm 69 is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus, setting us up to be instructed regarding how it applies to us as well.
In what follows, I will define typology before discussing Romans 15:1–7 in more detail.
Defining Typology
Typology is God-ordained, author-intended historical correspondence and escalation in significance between people, events, and institutions across the Bible’s salvation-historical narrative. To explain this definition, I will unpack it phrase by phrase.
The phrase “God-ordained” points to the way that God sovereignly, providentially orchestrated history so that, for instance, there would be real similarities between people like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, and others, and that the patterns seen in the lives of these figures would culminate and be fulfilled when similar things happened to Jesus of Nazareth. These people really lived. These events really happened. And God made it so that patterns would be repeated and then later fulfilled.
Moving to the next phrase, “author-intended,” takes us into the realm of both the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the intellectual labor of the biblical authors. We are affirming that God by his Spirit ensured that the human authors of Scripture, from Moses forward, noticed the parallels, correctly understood them, and wrote their accounts to draw attention to these parallels. This means that Old Testament authors like Moses, Isaiah, David, and the others fully understood that what they were writing was looking back in order to look forward. In the case of someone like David, he understood what Moses wrote in the Torah, saw the parallels, for instance, between Joseph, Moses, and himself, and knew that as he described his own experience, he was contributing an installment in the pattern of the righteous sufferer, fully expecting that pattern to be fulfilled in the one to come.
We will take “historical correspondence” and “escalation” together. Earle Ellis refers to these as the fundamental components of typology. Authors forge historical correspondence by the reuse of key terms and phrases, by the quotation of whole lines from earlier material, and by repetitions in sequences of events—the same things happen in the same, or almost the same, order. As these repetitions occur, a growing sense of expectation, or escalation in significance, builds as the pattern happens over and over, causing the audience’s expectation of fulfillment to grow.
Typology tends to focus on parallels between people, such as those named above (Joseph, Moses, David, Jesus). It also looks at events, such as the exodus, which is previewed in the lives of Abraham and Jacob, then happens in the lifetime of Moses, and then is used to forecast what God will do at the conquest and beyond, culminating in the consummation of salvation. We also see parallels between institutions, such as marriage and the Levitical sacrificial system.
As an example of the kind of thing we have described, let’s consider the God-ordained, author-intended typology that David built into Psalm 69, which Paul correctly sees fulfilled in Christ, even as it also gives instructions to Christians in their walk of faith in the life of the local church.
Psalm 69 in Romans 15
In Psalm 69:1–4, David likens the difficulty his enemies cause him to the Noahic floodwaters. In verse 5, he confesses his own folly and sin, before praying that the believing remnant would not be put to shame because of him in verse 6. In view of what Paul will say in Romans 15, note David’s concern for the good of God’s people.
Then, in verse 7, he asserts that his devotion to the Lord has resulted in those who hate the Lord heaping reproach upon him. Verse 8 details how the rejection extended to his own brothers, recalling both the way that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and the way David’s brothers answered him harshly when he arrived to check on them. In John 7, the brothers of the Lord Jesus are not on board with his program.
The second line of verse 9 is the part quoted in Romans 15:3, and the first line of verse 9 is quoted in John 2:17. The verse reads, “For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me” (Ps 69:9). In context, David explains the hostility of his enemies and how his desire to build the temple, his zeal for God’s house, seems to have dominated his life and thought. As a result, those who were eager to heap reproach on the Lord made David the target for their hatred of God.
David was zealous to build the temple, and that zeal prompted the reproaches of the God-haters in his day. Jesus was zealous to build the fulfillment of the temple, the church, and that zeal prompted the reproaches of the God-haters in his day.
David understood and presented himself as an installment in a pattern already familiar from the experiences of Joseph and Moses. Jesus fulfills the pattern.
Romans 15:1–7
We are now in a position to understand how Paul quotes Psalm 69:9 in Romans 15:3. Paul addresses what seem to be differences in scruple between Jew and Gentile Christians in Romans 14. The strong in faith appear to be those who understand that they have freedom in Christ from the constraints of the Old Testament law. The one who is weak in faith, by contrast, “eats only vegetables” (Rom 14:2), “esteems one day as better than another” (14:5), and continues to regard certain things as “unclean” (14:14). Paul identifies himself with the strong “We who are strong” (15:1), and so “esteems all days alike” (14:5) and knows and is persuaded in the Lord “that nothing is unclean in itself” (14:14).
By writing in this way, Paul indicates that he thinks the believers in the congregation at Rome need to move from a position of weakness to a position of strength. They should fully embrace the new covenant realities about all of life being an opportunity to be a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1–2), making every day holy to the Lord (14:5), and believing that Jesus declared all foods clean (Mark 7:19; cf. Acts 10:15; Heb 7:12).
As the weak are growing in this strength, Paul asserts in Romans 15:1, “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.” These hangups about certain days and foods are regarded as “failings.” When Paul says the strong should “bear with” them, he indicates that rather than excommunicate, ostracize, or shame the weak, the strong should carry the weak forward. The strong have a responsibility to help the weak move toward strength, which in this case involves living out the implications of the new covenant. The strong are to help the weak rather than please themselves. Pleasing themselves would take the form of enjoying all the freedoms of the new covenant with no concern for the sensitive consciences of brothers and sisters in Christ raised under the Mosaic Covenant. These Jewish background believers understandably need time and instruction to grow comfortable with new covenant freedom from the law, and the strong are to carry them forward to that freedom rather than disregarding them while indulging their own freedom.
Paul explains in Romans 15:2 that what he urges the strong to do actually fulfills the law (love God and neighbor, Rom 13:10; cf. Matt 7:12), so the strong should not please himself but “his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” Paul expects the strong to build positive relationships with people weaker in faith, that they might help those weaker in faith move toward the good. Building up one’s neighbor means helping that weak neighbor get to the strong position of freedom in Christ.
The next step in Paul’s argument comes in verse 3, where he asserts that the strong should carry the weak forward, building them up in faith for their good, because to do so is to be Christlike. Paul explains in Romans 15:3, “For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.'”
The strong should not please themselves by indulging their freedoms without reference to helping the weak toward freedom (Rom 15:1). Rather he should please his neighbor for the neighbor’s good, to build him up (15:2), because Christ did not indulge all his freedom and gladness but took on flesh and came to suffer and save to carry us forward to freedom and strength for our good (15:3). The Lord Jesus could have remained in heaven in the fulness of glory and the bliss of his fellowship with the Father and the Spirit, worshiped by the heavenly hosts. Instead, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death on a cross (Phil 2:5–11).
By the quotation of Psalm 69:9, Paul asserts that in the same way that David became the focal point on earth for the hatred of God’s enemies, so the Lord Jesus became the focal point on earth for the hatred of God’s enemies. This aligns the suffering of Jesus with the suffering of all the faithful from Abel to Zechariah, but particularly with David, who presented himself in the Psalms after the pattern of Joseph and Moses.
David’s experience was an installment in the pattern of the righteous sufferer, and the Lord Jesus fulfilled that typological pattern. This is what Paul means to communicate by quoting Psalm 69:9 in Romans 15:3.
When Paul proceeds to say in Romans 15:4, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope,” he essentially says what Matthew presents Jesus saying: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt 5:11–12).
David suffered for his devotion to God, and he did this for the benefit of God’s people; things worked out well for him. Jesus suffered for his devotion to God for the benefit of God’s people, and things worked out well for him. Knowing these patterns from the Scriptures gives hope to God’s people that things will work out well for them as well, and that hope encourages them, powering their endurance through the difficulties of carrying the weak that they might become strong.