For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end you may be established;
Read Chapter 1
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
This confirmation requires three persons: God, as helper; the apostle as minister and the people as receiver. Thus he now shows the will of his desire and what his wish for them is. For when he says: “that I might impart some spiritual gift to you,” he means that the Romans have followed carnal ideas, because in the name of Christ they have not followed what Christ taught but those things which had been handed down to them by the Jews. But he wants to come to them as quickly as possible in order to take them beyond that tradition and bestow on them a spiritual gift, that he might win them for God, making them partakers of spiritual grace, that they might be perfect in faith and behavior. From this we learn that he had not praised the content of their faith in the preceding verses but their readiness and devotion to Christ. For calling themselves Christians, they acted just as if they were under the law, as that had been handed down to them. For the mercy of God had been given for this ...
We have in the apostle an unerring witness: "For I desire to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, in order that ye may be strengthened; that is, that I may be comforted in you, by the mutual faith of you and me.".
"In allusion to the gnostic edifice also in the Epistle to the Romans, he says, "For I desire to see you, that I may impart unto you a spiritual gift, that ye may be established."
For it was not merely as many now go travelling in a needless and profitless way that he also went, but for necessary and very urgent ends. And he does not tell them his meaning openly, but by way of hints, for he does not say that I may teach you, that I may instruct you, that I may fill up that which is wanting; but, that I may impart; showing, that it is not his own things which he is giving them, but that he was imparting to them what he had received. And here again he is unassuming, in saying some, he means, a small one, and suited to my powers. And what may this small one be which you are now going to impart? This it is, he says, to the end that you may be established. This then also comes of grace, namely, the being unwavering and standing fast. But when you hear of grace, think not that the reward of resolve on our part is thereby cast aside; for he speaks of grace, not to disparage the labor of resolve on our part, but to undermine (ὑ ποτεμνόμενος, as piercing a thing inflated...
Paul did not travel for no reason, as so many do nowadays, but for a specific and very urgent purpose. And he does not tell them his meaning openly but rather hints at it, for he does not say: “that I may teach you, that I may instruct you, that I may fill up that which is wanting,” but: “that I may impart this spiritual gift,” showing that it was not his own things which he was giving them but what he had himself received.
