For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” 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. -Romans 15:3–4
As we have seen previously, Christ is our example in pleasing others before pleasing ourselves and in bearing with the weaker. After all, it is only by his grace that we are as strong as we are in our faith. But from where does Paul draw this example? From Scripture, of course. He cites Psalm 69, applying the truth of the passage to Christ who did indeed lay down his own life for us.
Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel. For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons. For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. -Psalm 69:6–9
Paul is not finished. He doesn’t leave his audience with this lesson alone. Like a good teacher, he shows off the universal truth which has been employed to teach his audience this particular truth about Christ’s example.
It is as if Paul says to his readers,
“Do you see what I just did there? I used Scripture to teach you this lesson. ‘All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness’’ (Cf. 2 Timothy 3:16).”
Hodge explains what Paul was doing in verses 3-4:
“The object of this verse is not so much to show the propriety of applying the passage quoted from the Psalms to Christ, as to show that the facts recorded in the Scriptures are designed for our instruction.”1
Paul uses his example of employing Scripture to make his primary point to also show us that there is nothing in the Scripture that is vain or unprofitable. We should learn the Scriptures so that we might apply the universal truths lifted from the particular occasions for which they were written to give us wisdom in our own generation. This is true both of the Old Testament and of the writings of the Apostles (shame on those “New Testament believes” who posit the OT is of no relevance to us in the church age). He is the same Spirit who authored both, never unlike himself from one generation to another.
It is through the endurance and encouragement of the Scriptures that believers in all ages find their hope!
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John Calvin and John Owen, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010).