Romans 15:16

16. The minister Rather, the priest. Being a different Greek word from that rendered minister in Romans 15:8 and elsewhere, it should have been differently rendered. By a grand figure the apostle here makes himself a priest under Christ the high priest, to perform a sacrifice in which the offering to God is the Gentile nations. There is a difference, important to be noticed, between a priest and a minister. A priest is a sacrificer and offerer of victims upon an altar; a minister of the New Testament is purely a preacher and a servitor for the spiritual interests of the people. The Church of Rome, which makes the appalling claim to sacrifice the real body of Christ on the altar in the mass, claims also that her minister is a priest. Whereas Protestantism maintains that Christ, having offered the final sacrifice once for all, (Hebrews 10:10,) is the sole and eternal priest of the new covenant. Yet as consecrating themselves a living sacrifice unto God the entire Church is in a figure not only a chosen generation, but a royal priesthood. (1 Peter 2:9.)

To the Gentiles As the twelve were specifically the apostles of the twelve tribes, so it is the stupendous mission of this one minister to be the apostle of all the nations of the earth. The bridge from one to the other is his living person. At the thought his imagination kindles as he seems to himself to be approaching the altar on which he shall consecrate the Gentile world through Christ to the living God.

Sanctified by the Holy Ghost The victim upon the Jewish altar was fitted for the offering by salt or oil or frankincense. But this living offering is consecrated by the power of the Holy Spirit.