Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Good News of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was born of the offspring of David according to the flesh, who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we received grace and apostleship for obedience of faith among all the nations for his name’s sake; among whom you are also called to belong to Jesus Christ; to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Parallel Translations
-
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Good News of God,
which he promised before through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,
concerning his Son, who was born of the offspring of David according to the flesh,
who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
through whom we received grace and apostleship for obedience of faith among all the nations for his name’s sake;
among whom you are also called to belong to Jesus Christ;
to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
-
Paul the seruaut of Iesus Christ called to be an Apostle put a parte to preache the Gospell of God
which he promysed afore by his Prophetes in the holy scriptures
that make mension of his sonne the which was begotte of the seed of David as pertayninge to the flesshe:
and declared to be the sonne of God with power of the holy goost that sanctifieth sence the tyme that Iesus Christ oure Lorde rose agayne from deeth
by whom we have receaved grace and apostleshyppe to bringe all maner hethe people vnto obedience of the fayth that is in his name:
of the which hethen are ye a part also which are Iesus christes by vocacion.
To all you of Rome beloved of God and saynctes by callinge. Grace be with you and peace from God oure father and from the Lorde Iesus Christ.
Show all 3 translations
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Paul a seruant of Iesus Christ called to be an Apostle, put apart to preache the Gospel of God,
(Which he had promised afore by his Prophetes in the holy Scriptures)
Concerning his Sonne Iesus Christ our Lord (which was made of the seede of Dauid according to the flesh,
And declared mightily to be the Sonne of God, touching the Spirit of sanctification by the resurrection from the dead)
By whom we haue receiued grace and Apostleship (that obedience might be giuen vnto ye faith) for his Name among al ye Gentiles,
Among whom ye be also the called of Iesus Christ:
To all you that be at Rome beloued of God, called to be Saints: Grace be with you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Iesus Christ.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (245)
- Acts 9:15 (vv1, 5) But the Lord said to him, “Go your way, for he is my chosen vessel to bear my name before the nations and kings, and the children of Israel.
- Titus 1:2 (v2) in hope of eternal life, which God, who can’t lie, promised before time began;
- Romans 15:16 (v1) that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the Good News of God, that the offering up of the…
- 1 Corinthians 1:1 (v1) Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
- Galatians 4:4 (v3) But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born to a woman, born under the law,
Show all 100 cross-references
- Jeremiah 1:5 (v1) “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
- Matthew 1:1 (v3) The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
- Luke 1:70 (v2) (as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been from of old),
- Colossians 1:1 (v1) Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
- Jeremiah 23:5-6 (v3) “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and he will reign as king and deal wisely, and will…
- Titus 1:1 (v1) Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s chosen ones, and the knowledge of the truth which…
- John 1:14 (v3) The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
- Romans 3:21 (v2) But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets;
- Hebrews 9:14 (v4) how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without defect to God, cleanse your conscience from…
- Romans 16:26 (vv2, 5)
- Acts 6:7 (v5) The word of God increased and the number of the disciples greatly multiplied in Jerusalem. A great company of the priests were obedient to…
- Ephesians 1:19-23 (v4) and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might which he…
- Hebrews 5:5-6 (v4) So also Christ didn’t glorify himself to be made a high priest, but it was he who said to him, “You are my Son. Today I have become your…
- Romans 1:9 (vv1, 3) For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the Good News of his Son, how unceasingly I make mention of you always in my prayers,
- Malachi 1:11 (v5) For from the rising of the sun even to its going down, my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my…
- Acts 10:43 (v2) All the prophets testify about him, that through his name everyone who believes in him will receive remission of sins.”
- Acts 13:33-35 (v4) that God has fulfilled this to us, their children, in that he raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second psalm, ‘You are my Son.…
- Romans 3:2 (v2) Much in every way! Because first of all, they were entrusted with the revelations of God.
- 2 Corinthians 1:1 (v1) Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the assembly of God which is at Corinth, with all the…
- 2 Corinthians 13:4 (v4) For he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives through the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we will live with him…
- Colossians 1:2 (v7) to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
- 1 Peter 2:9 (v6) But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of…
- Luke 1:31-33 (v3) Behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and shall name him ‘Jesus.’ He will be great and will be called the Son of…
- Revelation 17:14 (v6) These will war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings, and those who are with him…
- Luke 24:26-27 (vv2, 4) Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?” Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to…
- Matthew 1:20-23 (v3) But when he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be…
- 1 Corinthians 9:1 (v1) Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen Jesus Christ, our Lord? Aren’t you my work in the Lord?
- 2 Peter 1:10 (v6) Therefore, brothers, be more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble.
- Jude 1:1-2 (v7) Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ:…
- Isaiah 9:6-7 (v3) For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor,…
- Amos 9:11 (v3) In that day I will raise up the tent of David who is fallen, and close up its breaches, and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it…
- Acts 5:30-32 (v4) The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed, hanging him on a tree. God exalted him with his right hand to be a Prince and a…
- Acts 26:6 (v2) Now I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers,
- 1 Corinthians 15:10 (v5) But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but…
- Ephesians 1:2 (v7) Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
- 1 Timothy 1:1 (v1) Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ our hope;
- Hebrews 3:1 (v6) Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus,
- 1 Corinthians 1:9 (vv3, 6) God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
- Genesis 3:15 (v3) I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise…
- Psalms 2:7 (v3) I will tell of the decree: Yahweh said to me, “You are my son. Today I have become your father.
- John 1:49 (v3) Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are King of Israel!”
- John 2:18-21 (v4) The Jews therefore answered him, “What sign do you show us, seeing that you do these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple,…
- 2 Corinthians 13:14 (v7) The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s love, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
- Galatians 1:1 (v1) Paul, an apostle—not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—
- 1 Thessalonians 1:1 (v7) Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the assembly of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace from…
- 2 Timothy 1:11 (v1) For this I was appointed as a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
- Hebrews 5:9 (v5) Having been made perfect, he became to all of those who obey him the author of eternal salvation,
- 1 John 4:9-10 (v3) By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is…
- 1 Timothy 1:11-12 (vv1, 5) according to the Good News of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. I thank him who enabled me, Christ Jesus our…
- Psalms 89:36-37 (v3) His offspring will endure forever, his throne like the sun before me. It will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in…
- Luke 1:35 (v3) The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one…
- Acts 2:24 (v4) whom God raised up, having freed him from the agony of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it.
- Acts 2:32 (v4) This Jesus God raised up, to which we all are witnesses.
- Acts 3:15 (v4) and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, to which we are witnesses.
- Acts 4:10-12 (v4) may it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God…
- Acts 17:31 (v4) because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given…
- Romans 1:3 (v4) concerning his Son, who was born of the offspring of David according to the flesh,
- Romans 1:5 (v1) through whom we received grace and apostleship for obedience of faith among all the nations for his name’s sake;
- Romans 12:3 (v5) For I say through the grace that was given me, to every man who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think;…
- Ephesians 3:5-7 (v1) which in other generations was not made known to the children of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the…
- 1 Thessalonians 2:2 (v1) but having suffered before and been shamefully treated, as you know, at Philippi, we grew bold in our God to tell you the Good News of God…
- 2 Thessalonians 3:16 (v7) Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways. The Lord be with you all.
- 1 Timothy 2:7 (v1) to which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle—I am telling the truth in Christ, not lying—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
- 1 Peter 1:11 (v4) searching for who or what kind of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, pointed to, when he predicted the sufferings of Christ, and…
- 2 Peter 1:21 (v4) For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit.
- 2 John 1:3 (v7) Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
- James 1:1 (vv1, 7) James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings.
- Jeremiah 33:15-17 (v3) “In those days and at that time, I will cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up to David. He will execute justice and righteousness in…
- Jeremiah 33:26 (v3) then I will also cast away the offspring of Jacob, and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his offspring to be rulers over the…
- Matthew 1:16 (v3) Jacob became the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
- Luke 18:31-33 (v4) He took the twelve aside, and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written through the prophets…
- John 10:30 (v3) I and the Father are one.”
- John 20:28 (v3) Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”
- Acts 1:25 (v5) to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas fell away, that he might go to his own place.”
- Romans 9:5 (v3) of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen.
- Galatians 1:15-16 (v5) But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through his grace to reveal his Son in me,…
- 1 Thessalonians 1:10 (v3) and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead: Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 (v7) Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your…
- 2 Thessalonians 3:18 (v7) The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
- Philemon 1:3 (v7) Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
- 1 Peter 2:9-10 (v5) But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of…
- 2 Peter 1:1 (v1) Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a like precious faith with us in the righteousness of our…
- 2 Peter 1:2-3 (v7) Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us all…
- Jude 1:1 (v1) Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ:
- Revelation 1:18 (v4) and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
- Numbers 16:9-10 (v1) Is it a small thing to you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, to do…
- John 15:15 (v1) No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I…
- Acts 20:24 (v1) But these things don’t count; nor do I hold my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I…
- Acts 22:7 (v1) I fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’
- Acts 22:21 (v1) “He said to me, ‘Depart, for I will send you out far from here to the Gentiles.’”
- Romans 1:16 (v1) For I am not ashamed of the Good News of Christ, because it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first,…
- Romans 8:28-30 (v6) We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. For whom he…
- 1 Corinthians 1:2-9 (v7) to the assembly of God which is at Corinth—those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all who call on the name of our…
- 1 Corinthians 15:8-10 (v1) and last of all, as to the child born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, who is not worthy to…
- 2 Corinthians 4:5 (v1) For we don’t preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake,
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (245 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 With regard to the excellency of this Epistle, I…
With regard to the excellency of this Epistle, I know not whether it would be well for me to dwell long on the subject; for I fear, lest through my recommendations falling far short of what they ought to be, I should do nothing but obscure its merits: besides, the Epistle itself, at its very beginning, explains itself in a much better way than can be done by any words which I can use. It will then be better for me to pass on to the Argument, or the contents of the Epistle; and it will hence appear beyond all controversy, that besides other excellencies, and those remarkable, this can with truth be said of it, and it is what can never be sufficiently appreciated — that when any one gains a knowledge of this Epistle, he has an entrance opened to him to all the most hidden treasures of Scripture.
The whole Epistle is so methodical, that even its very beginning is framed according to the rules of art. As contrivance appears in many parts, which shall be noticed as we proceed, so also especially in the way in which the main argument is deduced: for having begun with the proof of his Apostleship, he then comes to the Gospel with the view of recommending it; and as this necessarily draws with it the subject of faith, he glides into that, being led by the chain of words as by the hand: and thus he enters on the main subject of the whole Epistle justification by faith; in treating which he is engaged to the end of the fifth chapter.
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The subject then of these chapters may be stated thus, — man’s only righteousness is through the mercy of God in Christ, which being offered by the Gospel is apprehended by faith.
But as men are asleep in their sins, and flatter and delude themselves with a false notion about righteousness, so that they think not that they need the righteousness of faith, except they be cast down from all self-confidence, — and further, as they are inebriated with the sweetness of lusts, and sunk in deep self-security, so that they are not-easily roused to seek righteousness, except they are struck down by the terror of divine judgment, — the Apostle proceeds to do two things — to convince men of iniquity, and to shake off the torpor of those whom he proves guilty.
He first condemns all mankind from the beginning of the world for ingratitude, because they recognized not the workman in his extraordinary work: nay, when they were constrained to acknowledge him, they did not duly honor his majesty, but in their vanity profaned and dishonored it. Thus all became guilty of impiety, a wickedness more detestable than any thing else. And that he might more clearly show that all had departed from the Lord, he recounts the filthy and horrible crimes of which men everywhere became guilty: and this is a manifest proof, that they had degenerated from God, since these sins are evidences of divine wrath, which appear not except in the ungodly. And as the Jews and some of the Gentiles, while they covered their inward depravity by the veil of outward holiness, seemed to be in no way chargeable with such crimes, and hence thought themselves exempt from the common sentence of condemnation, the Apostle directs his discourse against this fictitious holiness; and as this mask before men cannot be taken away from saintlings, (sanctulis — petty saints,) he summons them to the tribunal of God, whose eyes no latent evils can escape. Having afterwards divided his subject, he places apart both the Jews and the Gentiles before the tribunal of God. He cuts off from the Gentiles the excuse which they pleaded from ignorance, because conscience was to them a law, and by this they were abundantly convicted as guilty. He chiefly urges on the Jews that from which they took their defense, even the written law; and as they were proved to have transgressed it, they could not free themselves from the charge of iniquity, and a sentence against them had already been pronounced by the mouth of God himself. He at the same time obviates any objection which might have been made by them — that the covenant of God, which was the symbol of holiness, would have been violated, if they were not to be distinguished from others. Here he first shows, that they excelled not others by the right of the covenant, for they had by their unfaithfulness departed from it: and then, that he might not derogate from the perpetuity of the divine promise, he concedes to them some privilege as arising from the covenant; but it proceeded from the mercy of God, and not from their merits. So that with regard to their own qualifications they were on a level with the Gentiles. He then proves by the authority of Scripture, that both Jews and Gentiles were all sinners; and he also slightly refers to the use of the law.
Having wholly deprived all mankind of their confidence in their own virtue and of their boast of righteousness, and laid them prostrate by the severity of God’s judgment, he returns to what he had before laid down as his subject — that we are justified by faith; and he explains what faith is, and how the righteousness of Christ is by it attained by us. To these things he adds at the end of the third chapter a remarkable conclusion, with the view of beating down the fierceness of human pride, that it might not dare to raise up itself against the grace of God: and lest the Jews should confine so great a favor of God to their own nation, he also by the way claims it in behalf of the Gentiles.
In the fourth chapter he reasons from example; which he adduces as being evident, and hence not liable to be cavilled at; and it is that of Abraham, who, being the father of the faithful ought to be deemed a pattern and a kind of universal example. Having then proved that he was justified by faith, the Apostle teaches us that we ought to maintain no other way of justification. And here he shows, that it follows from the rule of contraries, that the righteousness of works ceases to exist, since the righteousness of faith is introduced. And he confirms this by the declaration of David, who, by making the blessedness of man to depend on the mercy of God, takes it away from works, as they are incapable of making a man blessed. He then treats more fully what he had before shortly referred to — that the Jews had no reason to raise themselves above the Gentiles, as this felicity is equally common to them both, since Scripture declares that Abraham obtained this righteousness in an uncircumcised state: and here he takes the opportunity of adding some remarks on the use of circumcision. He afterwards subjoins, that the promise of salvation depends on God’s goodness alone: for were it to depend on the law, it could not bring peace to consciences, which it ought to confirm, nor could it attain its own fulfillment. Hence, that it may be sure and certain, we must, in embracing it, regard the truth of God alone, and not ourselves, and follow the example of Abraham, who, turning away from himself, had regard only to the power of God. At the end of the chapter, in order to make a more general application of the adduced example, he introduces several comparisons.
In the fifth chapter, after having touched on the fruit and effects of the righteousness of faith, he is almost wholly taken up with illustrations, in order to make the point clearer. For, deducing an argument from one greater, he shows how much we, who have been redeemed and reconciled to God, ought to expect from his love; which was so abundantly poured forth towards us, when we were sinners and lost, that he gave for us his only-begotten and beloved Son. He afterwards makes comparisons between sin and free righteousness, between Christ and Adam, between death and life, between the law and grace: it hence appears that our evils, however vast they are, are swallowed up by the infinite mercy of God.
He proceeds in the sixth chapter to mention the sanctification which we obtain in Christ. It is indeed natural to our flesh, as soon as it has had some slight knowledge of grace, to indulge quietly in its own vices and lusts, as though it had become free from all danger: but Paul, on the contrary, contends here, that we cannot partake of the righteousness of Christ, except we also lay hold on sanctification. He reasons from baptism, by which we are initiated into a participation of Christ, (per quem in Christi participationem initiamur;) and in it we are buried together with Christ, so that being dead in ourselves, we may through his life be raised to a newness of life. It then follows, that without regeneration no one can put on his righteousness. He hence deduces exhortations as to purity and holiness of life, which must necessarily appear in those who have been removed from the kingdom of sin to the kingdom of righteousness, the sinful indulgence of the flesh, which seeks in Christ a greater liberty in sinning, being cast aside. He makes also a brief mention of the law as being abrogated; and in the abrogation of this the New Testament shines forth eminently; for together with the remission of sins, it contains the promise of the Holy Spirit.
In the seventh chapter he enters on a full discussion on the use of the law, which he had pointed out before as it were by the finger, while he had another subject in hand: he assigns a reason why we are loosed from the law, and that is, because it serves only for condemnation. Lest, however, he should expose the law to reproach, he clears it in the strongest terms from any imputation of this kind; for he shows that through our fault it is that the law, which was given for life, turns to be an occasion of death. He also explains how sin is by it increased. He then proceeds to describe the contest between the Spirit and the flesh, which the children of God find in themselves, as long as they are surrounded by the prison of a mortal body; for they carry with them the relics of lust, by which they are continually prevented from yielding full obedience to the law.
The eighth chapter contains abundance of consolations, in order that the consciences of the faithful, having heard of the disobedience which he had before proved, or rather imperfect obedience, might not be terrified and dejected. But that the ungodly might not hence flatter themselves, he first testifies that this privilege belongs to none but to the regenerated, in whom the Spirit of God lives and prevails. He unfolds then two things — that all who are planted by the Spirit in the Lord Jesus Christ, are beyond the danger or the chance of condemnation, however burdened they may yet be with sins; and, also, that all who remain in the flesh, being without the sanctification of the Spirit, are by no means partakers of this great benefit. He afterwards explains how great is the certainty of our confidence, since the Spirit of God by his own testimony drives away all doubts and fears. He further shows, for the purpose of anticipating objections, that the certainty of eternal life cannot be intercepted or disturbed by present evils, to which we are subject in this life; but that, on the contrary, our salvation is promoted by such trials, and that the value of it, when compared with our present miseries, renders them as nothing. He confirms this by the example of Christ, who, being the first-begotten and holding the highest station in the family of God, is the pattern to which we must all be conformed. And, in the last place, as though all things were made secure, he concludes in a most exulting strain, and boldly triumphs over all the power and artifices of Satan.
But as most were much concerned on seeing the Jews, the first guardians and heirs of the covenant, rejecting Christ, for they hence concluded, that either the covenant was transferred from the posterity of Abraham, who disregarded the fulfilling of the covenant, or that he, who made no better provision for the people of Israel, was not the promised Redeemer — he meets this objection at the beginning of the ninth chapter. Having then spoken of his love towards his own nation, that he might not appear to speak from hatred, and having also duly mentioned those privileges by which they excelled others, he gently glides to the point he had in view, that is, to remove the offence, which arose from their own blindness. And he divides the children of Abraham into two classes, that he might show that not all who descended from him according to the flesh, are to be counted for seed and become partakers of the grace of the covenant; but that, on the contrary, aliens become his children, when they possess his faith. He brings forward Jacob and Esau as examples. He then refers us back here to the election of God, on which the whole matter necessarily depends. Besides, as election rests on the mercy of God alone, it is in vain to seek the cause of it in the worthiness of man. There is, on the other hand, rejection (rejectio), the justice of which is indubitable, and yet there is no higher cause for it than the will of God. Near the end of the chapter, he sets forth the calling of the Gentiles and the rejection of the Jews as proved by the predictions of the Prophets.
Having again begun, in the tenth chapter, by testifying his love towards the Jews, he declares that a vain confidence in their own works was the cause of their ruin; and lest they should pretend the law, he obviates their objection, and says, that we are even by the law itself led as it were by the hand to the righteousness of faith. He adds that this righteousness is through God’s bountiful goodness offered indiscriminately to all nations, but that it is only apprehended by those, whom the Lord through special favor illuminates. And he states, that more from the Gentiles than from the Jews would obtain this benefit, as predicted both by Moses and by Isaiah; the one having plainly prophesied of the calling of the Gentiles, and the other of the hardening of the Jews.
The question still remained, “Is there not a difference between the seed of Abraham and other nations according to the covenant of God?” Proceeding to answer this question, he first reminds us, that the work of God is not to be limited to what is seen by our eyes, since the elect often escape our observation; for Elias was formerly mistaken, when he thought that religion had become wholly extinct among the Israelites, when there were still remaining seven thousand; and, further, that we must not be perplexed by the number of unbelievers, who, as we see, hate the gospel. He at length alleges, that the covenant of God continues even to the posterity of Abraham according to the flesh, but to those only whom the Lord by a free election hath predestinated. He then turns to the Gentiles, and speaks to them, lest they should become insolent on account of their adoption, and exult over the Jews as having been rejected since they excel them in nothing, except in the free favor of the Lord, which ought to make them the more humble; and that this has not wholly departed from the seed of Abraham, for the Jews were at length to be provoked to emulation by the faith of the Gentiles, so that God would gather all Israel to himself.
The three chapters which follow are admonitory, but they are various in their contents. The twelfth chapter contains general precepts on Christian life. The thirteenth, for the; most part, speaks of the authority of magistrates. We may hence undoubtedly gather that there were then some unruly persons, who thought Christian liberty could not exist without overturning the civil power. But that Paul might not appear to impose on the Church any duties but those of love, he declares that this obedience is included in what love requires. He afterwards adds those precepts, which he had before mentioned, for the guidance of our conduct. In the next chapter he gives an exhortation, especially necessary in that age: for as there were those who through obstinate superstition insisted on the observance of Mosaic rites, and could not endure the neglect of them without being most grievously offended; so there were others, who, being convinced of their abrogation, and anxious to pull down superstition, designedly showed their contempt of such things. Both parties offended through being too intemperate; for the superstitious condemned the others as being despisers of God’s law; and the latter in their turn unreasonably ridiculed the simplicity of the former. Therefore the Apostle recommends to both a befitting moderation, deporting the one from superciliousness and insult, and the other from excessive moroseness: and he also prescribes the best way of exercising Christian liberty, by keeping within the boundaries of love and edification; and he faithfully provides for the weak, while he forbids them to do any thing in opposition to conscience.
The fifteenth chapter begins with a repetition of the general argument, as a conclusion of the whole subject — that the strong should use their strength in endeavours to confirm the weak. And as there was a perpetual discord, with regard to the Mosaic ceremonies, between the Jews and the Gentiles, he allays all emulation between them by removing the cause of contention; for he shows, that the salvation of both rested on the mercy of God alone; on which relying, they ought to lay aside all high thoughts of themselves and being thereby connected together in the hope of the same inheritance, they ought mutually to embrace one another. And being anxious, in the last place, to turn aside for the purpose of commending his own apostleship, which secured no small authority to his doctrine, he takes occasion to defend himself, and to deprecate presumption in having assumed with so much confidence the office of teacher among them. He further gives them some hope of his coming to them, which he had mentioned at the beginning, but had hitherto in vain looked for and tried to effect; and he states the reason which at that time hindered him, and that was, because the churches of Macedonia and Achaia had committed to him the care of conveying to Jerusalem those alms which they had given to relieve the wants of the faithful in that city.
The last chapter is almost entirely taken up with salutations, though scattered with some precepts worthy of all attention; and concludes with a remarkable prayer.
1. Paul, etc. — With regard to the word Paul, as it is a subject of no such moment as ought to detain us, and as nothing can be said which has not been mentioned by other expounders, I should say nothing, were it not proper to satisfy some at small expense without being tedious to others; for the subject shall be despatched in a very few words.
They who think that the Apostle attained this name as a trophy for having brought Sergius, the proconsul, to the faith of Christ, are confuted by the testimony of Luke, who shows that he was so called before that time. (Acts 13:7, 9.) Nor does it seem probable to me, that it was given him when he was converted to Christ; though this idea so pleased Augustine, that he took occasion refinedly to philosophize on the subject; for he says, that from a proud Saul he was made a very little (parvulum ) disciple of Christ. More probable is the opinion of Origen, who thought that he had two names; for it is not unlikely to be true, that his name, Saul, derived from his kindred, was given him by his parents to indicate his religion and his descent; and that his other name, Paul, was added, to show his right to Roman citizenship; they would not have this honor, then highly valued, to be otherwise than made evident; but they did not so much value it as to withhold a proof of his Israelitic descent. But he has commonly taken the name Paul in his Epistles, and it may be for the following reasons: because in the churches to which he wrote, it was more known and more common, more acceptable in the Roman empire, and less known among his own nation. It was indeed his duty to avoid the foolish suspicion and hatred under which the name of a Jew then labored among the Romans and in their provinces, and to abstain from inflaming the rage of his own countrymen, and to take care of himself.
A servant of Jesus Christ, etc. — He signalizes himself with these distinctions for the purpose of securing more authority to his doctrine; and this he seeks to secure by two things — first, by asserting his call to the Apostleship; and secondly, by showing that his call was not unconnected with the Church of Rome: for it was of great importance that he should be deemed an Apostle through God’s call, and that he should be known as one destined for the Roman Church. He therefore says, that he was a servant of Christ, and called to the office of an Apostle, thereby intimating that he had not presumptuously intruded into that office. He then adds, that he was chosen, (selectum — selected, ) by which he more fully confirms the fact, that he was not one of the people, but a particular Apostle of the Lord. Consistently with this, he had before proceeded from what was general to what was particular, as the Apostleship was an especial service; for all who sustain the office of teaching are to be deemed Christ’s servants, but Apostles, in point of honor, far exceed all others. But the choosing for the gospel, etc., which he afterwards mentions, expresses the end as well as the use of the Apostleship; for he intended briefly to show for what purpose he was called to that function. By saying then that he was servant of Christ, he declared what he had in common with other teachers; by claiming to himself the title of an Apostle, he put himself before others; but as no authority is due to him who willfully intrudes himself, he reminds us, that he was appointed by God.
Then the meaning is, — that Paul was a servant of Christ, not any kind of servant, but an Apostle, and that by the call of God, and not by presumptuous intrusion: then follows a clearer explanation of the Apostolic office, — it was ordained for the preaching of the Gospel. For I cannot agree with those who refer this call of which he speaks to the eternal election of God; and who understand the separation, either that from his mother’s womb, which he mentions in Galatians 1:15, or that which Luke refers to, when Paul was appointed for the Gentiles: but I consider that he simply glories in having God as the author of his call, lest any one should think that he had through his own rashness taken this honor to himself.
We must here observe, that all are not fitted for the ministry of the word; for a special call is necessary: and even those who seem particularly fitted ought to take heed lest they thrust themselves in without a call. But as to the character of the Apostolic and of the Episcopal call, we shall consider it in another place. We must further observe, that the office of an Apostle is the preaching of the gospel. It hence appears what just objects of ridicule are those dumb dogs, who render themselves conspicuous only by their mitre and their crook, and boast themselves to be the successors of the Apostles!
The word, servant, imports nothing else but a minister, for it refers to what is official. I mention this to remove the mistake of those who too much refine on this expression and think that there is here to be understood a contrast between the service of Moses and that of Christ.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 The first part of the Epistle containing a most…
The first part of the Epistle containing a most profitable preface unto verse 16.
He moving the Romans to give diligent ear unto him in that he showeth that he cometh not in his own name, but as God’s messenger unto the Gentiles, entreateth with them of the weightiest matter, that is promised long since by God, by many fit witnesses, and now at length performed indeed.
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A Minister, for this word servant, is not taken in this place, as set against this word, Freeman, but declareth his ministry and office.
Whereas he said before in a general term, that he was a minister, now he cometh to a more special name, and saith that he is an Apostle, and that he took not upon him this office of his own lead, but being called of God, and therefore in this his writing to the Romans, doeth nothing but his duty.
Appointed of God to preach the Gospel.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–7 1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to…
1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,
Ver. 1. Paul] A little man, it should seem by his name (such as was James the Less, Mar 15:40): but as the Church of Philadelphia (discommended for nothing), though she had but a little strength, yet had a great door set open; and as Bethlehem was the least, and yet not the least among the princes of Judah; so was this apostle the last, 1Co 15:8; (and perhaps the least in stature), as one born out of due time. {a} But God (who loves to be maximus in minimis the greatest in the least) had designed him to great services, and gifted him accordingly, so that he was no whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles, 2Co 11:5; and for painstaking, he laboured more abundantly than they all, 1Co 15:10. Hence Chrysostom calleth him insatiabilem Dei cultorem, an insatiable servant of Christ. And himself seems as insatiable a praiser of this apostle (the apostle he commonly nameth him "by an excellency"), for he hath written eight homilies in his commendation. And if any think he hath said too much, it is because either they have not read him, or cannot judge his worth. Qui tricubitalis caelos transcendit (as the same father saith), little though he were, yet he got above the heavens. {b}
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A servant of Jesus Christ] This is a higher title than monarch of the world, as Numa, second king of Rome, could say. {c} Constantinus, Valentinus, and Theodosius, three emperors, called themselves Vasallos Christi, the vassals of Christ, as Socrates reporteth.
{a} {See Trapp on "Act 13:9"} Rev 3:9; Mat 2:6; cf. Mic 5:2; 1Co 15:8.
{b} Grandior solet esse Deus in parvulis quam in magnis. In formicis maior anima quam in elephantis, in nanis quam in gigantibus. Aut illum non audierunt, aut iudicare non possunt, ut olim de Crasso et Antonio dixit. Cicero de Orat.
{c} του θεου υπηρεσιαν βασιλευειν ενομιζεν. Plut.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–7 A servant of Jesus Christ, is a higher title…
A servant of Jesus Christ, is a higher title than monarch of the world: several great emperors styled themselves Christ's vassals. He so calls himself, either in respect of his condition, which was common with him to all true Christians; or else in respect of his office. Of old, they who were in great offices were called the servants of God: see Jos 1:1; Neh 1:6; Psa 132:10. Or else in respect of his singular and miraculous conversion: by reason of which, he thought himself so obliged to Christ, that he wholly addicted or devoted himself to his service.
Called to be an apostle; appointed to that high office by the immediate call of Christ himself: see Gal 1:1; Tit 1:3. The history of this call you have in Act 9:15.
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Two things are couched in this phrase:
1. That he did not take this honour to himself, but was thereunto appointed and called of God.
2. That this apostolical dignity was not by any desert of his, but by grace only, and the free gift of him that calleth.
It was formerly matter of admiration, and so it became a proverb in Israel: Is Saul also among the prophets? And we may say, with great astonishment, Is Saul also among the apostles? He that a little before had seen him doing what he is recorded to have done, Act 26:10,11, would never have dreamed of any such thing.
Separated; either from his mother's womb, in the purpose of God, Gal 1:15; so Jeremiah of old, Jer 1:5. Or else it may have respect to Act 13:2, where the Holy Ghost did actually order he should be separated for the work to which he had called him. The Greek word, in both places, is the same. Or else it may respect the more immediate commission he had from Christ himself, Act 9:15; 26:16-18. Some think he alludes to the name of Pharisee, which is from separating: when he was a Pharisee, he was separated to the law of God; and now, being a Christian, he was separated to the gospel of God.
Unto the gospel of God; that is, to the preaching and publishing of it. The gospel is sometimes called the gospel of God, as in this place; and sometimes the gospel of Christ, as in Rom 1:16; it is said to be the gospel of God, because he is the author of it, it is not a human invention; and it is said to be the gospel of Christ, because he is the matter and subject of it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7 Observe here, The author and penman of this epistle…
Observe here, The author and penman of this epistle described:
1. By his name, Paul. Before his conversion he was called Saul, then Saul the persecuter; after his conversion he was Paul the professor, Paul the preacher, Paul the great doctor of the Gentiles. O wonderful power of the heart-changing grace of God! which is able to turn Sauls into Pauls; persecuters into professors; faithless sinners into faithful servants of Jesus Christ.
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Observe, 2. He is described by his general office; a servant of Jesus Christ: an higher and more honourable title than that of emperor of the whole earth. Servire Christo est regnare: to serve Christ, especially in the quality of an ambassador, is a greater honour than to have the monarchs of the world to serve us, and bow the knee before us.
Observe, 3. He is described by his particular office, Called to be an apostle; that is, constituted and appointed by Christ to that holy function, without any merit or desert of his own. He did not assume the honour of an apostle till called; and when called, it was not any desert of his own, but the free and undeserved grace of God that called him.
Observe, 4. That as he was called to, so he is said to be separated for, the great work of preaching the gospel: separated unto the gospel of God; that is, set apart in the purpose and decree of God; separated from his mother’s womb, Gal 1:15. Immediately and extraordinarily called by Christ himself to this great work, Act 9:15 and mediately by the officers of the church, Act 13:2-3 &c.
The work of dispensing the mysteries of the everlasting gospel is to be undertaken by none but those who are solemnly separated and set apart for it, and regularly called to it. I would to God the herd of lay-preachers at this day would consider this. These usurpers of the sacred function can neither pray in faith for a blessing upon what they undertake, because they have no promise to bottom their faith upon, nor can the people expect to profit by what they hear from them; for this would be to expect God’s blessing out of God’s way.
Read with trembling what God says, I sent them not, neither commanded them, therefore shall they not profit this people at all. Jer 23:32
Where mark, That the people’s not profiting by these men, is not charged upon their false doctrine, but upon their want of a call and commission. It is not said, that their doctrine is unsound, but they preach unsent; therefore they shall not profit this people at all. These men contradict the command of God, the universal practice of the Christian church, violate the rules of order and right reason, and expose a most awful and tremendous ordinance of God to contempt and scorn; yea, lay it open to the bold presumption of every ignorant and impudent pretender.
Observe, 5. The glorious title given to the gospel, which St. Paul was called forth to preach: it is here styled the gospel of God, and elsewhere the gospel of Christ. It is the gospel of God, as he was the author and contriver of it; it is the gospel of Christ, as he is the subject-matter and scope of it. As Jesus Christ was the sum of the law, so is he the substance of the gospel. Indeed St. Paul sometimes calls it his gospel,Rom 2:16 because he was the dispenser and promulger of it; it was Depositum fidei suae commissum; "A divine treasure committed to his care and trust."
And if the gospel preached be the gospel of God, let us entertain it in our judgments, retain it in our memories, embrace it in our affections, hide it in our hearts, confess it in our mouths, and practise it in our lives.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 In this paragraph we have,
In this paragraph we have,
I. The person who writes the epistle described (Rom 1:1): Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ; this is his title of honour, which he glories in, not as the Jewish teachers, Rabbi, Rabbi; but a servant, a more immediate attendant, a steward in the house. Called to be an apostle. Some think he alludes to his old name Saul, which signifies one called for, or enquired after: Christ sought him to make an apostle of him, Act 9:15. He here builds his authority upon his call; he did not run without sending, as the false apostles did; klētos apostolos - called an apostle, as if this were the name he would be called by, though he acknowledged himself not meet to be called so, Co1 15:9. Separated to the gospel of God. The Pharisees had their name from separation, because they separated themselves to the study of the law, and might be called aphōrismenoi eis ton nomon; such a one Paul had formerly been; but now he had changed his studies, was aphōrismenos eis to Euangelion, a gospel Pharisee, separated by the counsel of God (Gal 1:15), separated from his mother's womb, by an immediate direction of the Spirit, and a regular ordination according to that direction (Act 13:2, Act 13:3), by a dedication of himself to this work. He was an entire devotee to the gospel of God, the gospel which has God for its author, the origin and extraction of it divine and heavenly.
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II. Having mentioned the gospel of God, he digresses, to give us an encomium of it.
1. The antiquity of it. It was promised before (Rom 1:2); it was no novel upstart doctrine, but of ancient standing in the promises and prophecies of the old Testament, which did all unanimously point at the gospel, the morning-beams that ushered in the sun of righteousness; this not by word of mouth only, but in the scriptures.
2. The subject-matter of it: it is concerning Christ, Rom 1:3, Rom 1:4. The prophets and apostles all bear witness to him; he is the true treasure hid in the field of the scriptures. Observe, When Paul mentions Christ, how he heaps up his names and titles, his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, as one that took a pleasure in speaking of him; and, having mentioned him, he cannot go on in his discourse without some expression of love and honour, as here, where in one person he shows us his two distinct natures. (1.) His human nature: Made of the seed of David (Rom 1:3), that is, born of the virgin Mary, who was of the house of David (Luk 1:27), as was Joseph his supposed father, Luk 2:4. David is here mentioned, because of the special promises made to him concerning the Messiah, especially his kingly office; Sa2 7:12; Psa 132:11, compared with Luk 1:32, Luk 1:33. (2.) His divine nature: Declared to be the Son of God (Rom 1:4), the Son of God by eternal generation, or, as it is here explained, according to the Spirit of holiness. According to the flesh, that is, his human nature, he was of the seed of David; but, according to the Spirit of holiness, that is, the divine nature (as he is said to be quickened by the Spirit, Pe1 3:18, compared with Co2 13:4), he is the Son of God. The great proof or demonstration of this is his resurrection from the dead, which proved it effectually and undeniably. The sign of the prophet Jonas, Christ's resurrection, was intended for the last conviction, Mat 12:39, Mat 12:40. Those that would not be convinced by that would be convinced by nothing. So that we have here a summary of the gospel doctrine concerning Christ's two natures in one person.
3. The fruit of it (Rom 1:5); By whom, that is, by Christ manifested and made known in the gospel, we (Paul and the rest of the ministers) have received grace and apostleship, that is, the favour to be made apostles, Eph 3:8. The apostles were made a spectacle to the world, led a life of toil, and trouble, and hazard, were killed all the day long, and yet Paul reckons the apostleship a favour: we may justly reckon it a great favour to be employed in any work or service for God, whatever difficulties or dangers we may meet with in it. This apostleship was received for obedience to the faith, that is, to bring people to that obedience; as Christ, so his ministers, received that they might give. Paul's was for this obedience among all nations, for he was the apostle of the Gentiles, Rom 11:13. Observe the description here given of the Christian profession: it is obedience to the faith. It does not consist in a notional knowledge or a naked assent, much less does it consist in perverse disputings, but in obedience. This obedience to the faith answers the law of faith, mentioned Rom 3:27. The act of faith is the obedience of the understanding to God revealing, and the product of that is the obedience of the will to God commanding. To anticipate the ill use which might be made of the doctrine of justification by faith without the works of the law, which he was to explain in the following epistle, he here speaks of Christianity as an obedience. Christ has a yoke. "Among whom are you, Rom 1:6. You Romans in this stand upon the same level with other Gentile nations of less fame and wealth; you are all one in Christ." The gospel salvation is a common salvation, Jde 1:3. No respect of persons with God. The called of Jesus Christ; all those, and those only, are brought to an obedience of the faith that are effectually called of Jesus Christ.
III. The persons to whom it is written (Rom 1:7): To all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints; that is, to all the professing Christians that were in Rome, whether Jews or Gentiles originally, whether high or low, bond or free, learned or unlearned. Rich and poor meet together in Christ Jesus. Here is, 1. The privilege of Christians: They are beloved of God, they are members of that body which is beloved, which is God's Hephzibah, in which his delight is. We speak of God's love by his bounty and beneficence, and so he hath a common love to all mankind and a peculiar love for true believers; and between these there is a love he hath for all the body of visible Christians. 2. The duty of Christians; and that is to be holy, for hereunto are they called, called to be saints, called to salvation through sanctification. Saints, and only saints, are beloved of God with a special and peculiar love. Klētois hagiois - called saints, saints in profession; it were well if all that are called saints were saints indeed. Those that are called saints should labour to answer to the name; otherwise, though it is an honour and a privilege, yet it will be of little avail at the great day to have been called saints, if we be not really so.
IV. The apostolical benediction (Rom 1:7): Grace to you and peace. This is one of the tokens in every epistle; and it hath not only the affection of a good wish, but the authority of a blessing. The priests under the law were to bless the people, and so are gospel ministers, in the name of the Lord. In this usual benediction observe, 1. The favours desired: Grace and peace. The Old Testament salutation was, Peace be to you; but now grace is prefixed - grace, that is, the favour of God towards us or the work of God in us; both are previously requisite to true peace. All gospel blessings are included in these two: grace and peace. Peace, that is all good; peace with God, peace in your own consciences, peace with all that are about you; all these founded in grace. 2. The fountain of those favours, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. All good comes, (1.) From God as a Father; he hath put himself into that relation to engage and encourage our desires and expectations; we are taught, when we come for grace and peace, to call him our Father. (2.) From the Lord Jesus Christ, as Mediator, and the great feoffee in trust for the conveying and securing of these benefits. We have them from his fulness, peace from the fulness of his merit, grace from the fulness of his Spirit.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,.... The name of…
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,.... The name of the author of this epistle is Paul, who formerly was called Saul. Some think his name was changed upon his own conversion; others, upon the conversion of the Roman deputy Sergius Paulus, Act 13:7; others, that he was so called from the littleness of his stature; but rather it should seem that he had two names, which was usual with the Jews; one by which they went among the Gentiles, and another by they were called in their own land; See Gill on Act 13:9. "A servant of Jesus Christ"; not a servant of sin, nor of Satan, nor of man, nor of Moses and his law, nor of the traditions of the elders, but of Jesus Christ; and not by creation only, but by redemption, and by powerful efficacious grace in conversion; which is no ways contrary to true liberty; nor a disgraceful, but a most honourable character; and which chiefly regards him as a minister of the Gospel:
called to be an apostle: an apostle was one that was immediately sent by Christ, and had his authority and doctrine directly from him, and had a power of working miracles from him, in confirmation of the truth of his mission, authority, and doctrine; all which were to be found in the author of this epistle, who did not thrust himself into this office, or take this honour to himself, of which he always judged himself unworthy, but was "called" to it according to the will, and by the grace of God:
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separated unto the Gospel of God. This may regard either God's eternal purpose concerning him, his preordination of him from eternity to be a preacher of the Gospel, to which he was separated from his mother's womb, Gal 1:15; or the separation of him to that work made by the order of the Spirit of God, Act 13:2. The phrase used is either in allusion to the priests and Levites, who were separated from their brethren the children of Israel, to their sacred employments; or rather to the apostle's having been "a Pharisee", which signifies "one separated", as he was now; only with this difference, before he was separated to the law, but now "to the Gospel", to preach and defend it, which he did with all faithfulness and integrity; the excellency of which Gospel is signified by its being called "the Gospel of God": he is the author of it; his grace is the subject of it; and he it is who commits it to men, qualifies them for the preaching of it, and succeeds them in it.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ -To this introduction…
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ -To this introduction the conclusion answers, chap. xv, 15, &c. Called to be an apostle - And made an apostle by that calling. While God calls, he makes what he calls. As the Judaizing teachers disputed his claim to the apostolical office, it is with great propriety that he asserts it in the very entrance of an epistle wherein their principles are entirely overthrown. And various other proper and important thoughts are suggested in this short introduction; particularly the prophecies concerning the gospel, the descent of Jesus from David, the great doctrines of his Godhead and resurrection, the sending the gospel to the gentiles, the privileges of Christians, and the obedience and holiness to which they were obliged in virtue of their profession. Separated - By God, not only from the bulk of other men, from other Jews, from other disciples, but even from other Christian teachers, to be a peculiar instrument of God in spreading the gospel.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–7 -Year of the Constantinopolitan AEra of the World, 5566.
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE ROMANS.
-Year of the Constantinopolitan AEra of the World, 5566.
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-Year of the Alexandrian AEra of the World; 5560.
-Year of the Antiochian AEra of the World, 5550.
-Year of the Julian Period, 4768.
-Year of the Usherian AEra of the World, 4062.
-Year of the two hundred and ninth Olympiad, 2.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to the Roman account, 811.
-Year of the AEra of the Seleucidae, 370.
-Year of the Caesarean AEra of Antioch, 106.
-Year of the Julian AEra, 103.
-Year of the Spanish AEra, 96.
-Year from the birth of Christ, 62.
-Year of the vulgar AEra of Christ's nativity, 58.
-Year of the Dionysian Period, or Easter Cycle, 59.
-Year of the Grecian Cycle of nineteen years, 2, or the first embolismic.
-Year of the Jewish Cycle of nineteen years, 18.
-Year of the Solar Cycle, 11.
-Dominical Letter, A.
-Epact, or the Moon's age at the commencement of the year, 11.
-Jewish Passover, Saturday, March 25.
-Easter Sunday, March 26.
-Year after Bissextile, or Leap-year, 2.
-Year of the reign of the Emperor Nero Caesar, 5.
-Year of Claudius Felix, the Jewish Governor, 6.
-Year of the reign of Vologesus, king of the Parthians, 9.
-Year of Caius Numidius Quadratus, Governor of Syria, 8.
-High Priest of the Jews, Joseph.
-Consuls, Nero Augustus the third time, and Valerius Messala.
CHAPTER I.
St. Paul shows the Romans his Divine call to the apostleship,
and for what end he was thus called, 1-6.
His salutation to the Church at Rome, and his commendation of
their faith, 7, 8.
His earnest desire to see them, that he might impart to them
some spiritual gifts, 9-15.
His description of the Gospel of Christ, 16, 17.
The crimes and profligacy of the Gentile world, which called
aloud for the judgments of God, 18-32.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.
DIFFERENT interpreters have divided this epistle into certain parts or divisions, by which they suppose its subject and matter may be the better understood. Some of these divisions have been mentioned in the preceding preface.
The epistle contains three grand divisions.
I. The PREFACE, Ro 1:1-17.
II. The TRACTATION, or setting forth of the main subject, including two sections:
1. Dogmatic, or what relates to doctrine.
2. Paraenetic, or what relates to the necessity and importance of the virtues and duties of the Christian life.
The dogmatic part is included in the first eleven chapters, the grand object of which is to show that eternal salvation cannot be procured by any observance of the Jewish law, and can be hoped for only on the Christian scheme; for by the works of the law no man can be justified; but what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God has accomplished by sending his Son into the world, who, becoming an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. The paraenetic part commences with Ro 12:1: I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, c. and extends to Ro 15:14.
III. The peroration or epilogue, which contains the author's apology for writing; his commendation of his apostolical office; his promise to visit them; his request of an interest in their prayers; his commendations of certain persons, and his salutations to others. These points are contained in the succeeding parts of the epistle, from Ro 15:14 to Ro 16:24. The 25th, 26th, and 27th verses Ro 16:25-27 of this chapter evidently belong to another part of the epistle, and should come in, as they do in a vast majority of the best MSS., after Ro 14:23.
For every thing necessary to a general knowledge of the epistle itself, see the preceding preface.
The inscriptions to this epistle are various in the different MSS. and versions. The following are the principal: - To the Romans - The Epistle of Paul to the Romans - The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans - The Epistle of the Holy Apostle Paul to the Romans. The word αγιος, holy, we have translated saint; and thus, instead of saying the holy Paul, c., we say Saint Paul, c. and this is now brought into general use. The older the MSS. are, the more simple the appellatives given to apostles and apostolic men.
NOTES ON CHAP. I.
Verse 1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ] The word δουλος, which we translate servant, properly means a slave, one who is the entire property of his master and is used here by the apostle with great propriety. He felt he was not his own, and that his life and powers belonged to his heavenly owner, and that he had no right to dispose of or employ them but in the strictest subserviency to the will of his Lord. In this sense, and in this spirit, he is the willing slave of Jesus Christ; and this is, perhaps, the highest character which any soul of man can attain on this side eternity. "I am wholly the Lord's; and wholly devoted in the spirit of sacrificial obedience, to the constant, complete, and energetic performance of the Divine will." A friend of God is high; a son of God is higher; but the servant, or, in the above sense, the slave of God, is higher than all; - in a word, he is a person who feels he has no property in himself, and that God is all and in all.
Called to be an apostle] The word αποστολος, apostle, from αποστελλειν, to send, signifies simply a messenger or envoy; one sent on a confidential errand: but here it means an extraordinary messenger; one sent by God himself to deliver the most important message on behalf of his Maker; - in a word, one sent by the Divine authority to preach the Gospel to the nations. The word κλητος, called, signifies here the same as constituted, and should be joined with αποστολος, as it is in the Greek, and translated thus: Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, constituted an apostle, c. This sense the word called has in many places of the sacred writings e. g. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called, κληθωμεν, CONSTITUTED, or made the sons of God. As it is likely that no apostle had been employed in founding the Church of Rome, and there was need of much authority to settle the matters that were there in dispute, it was necessary he should show them that he derived his authority from God, and was immediately delegated by him to preach and write as he was now doing.
Separated unto the Gospel] Set apart and appointed to this work, and to this only; as the Israelites were separate from all the people of the earth, to be the servants of God: see Le 20:26. St. Paul may here refer to his former state as a Pharisee, which literally signifies a separatist, or one separated. Before he was separated unto the service of his own sect; now he is separated unto the Gospel of God. On the word GOSPEL, and its meaning, see the preface to the notes on St. Matthew; and for the meaning of the word Pharisee, see the same Gospel, Mt 3:7.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 7 Rom 1:1-2. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ —…
Rom 1:1-2. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ — Though once a bitter persecutor; called to be an apostle — And made an apostle by that calling. The Greek, κλητος αποστολος, is literally, a called apostle, or an apostle called, namely, expressly, as the other apostles were. When God calls he makes what he calls. The name apostle was sometimes given to different orders of men, Rom 16:7, but in its highest sense it was appropriated to the twelve, whom Christ appointed to be with him, Mar 3:14, and whom, after his resurrection, he sent forth to preach the gospel. As the Judaizing teachers disputed his claim to the apostolical office, it is with great propriety that he asserts it in the very entrance of an epistle wherein their principles are entirely overthrown. And various other proper and important thoughts are suggested in this short introduction: particularly the prophecies concerning the gospel; the descent of Jesus from David; the great doctrines of his Godhead and resurrection; the sending the gospel to the Gentiles; the privileges of Christians; and the obedience and holiness to which they were obliged, in virtue of their profession. Separated unto the gospel of God — Namely, to preach and propagate it. Separated by God, not only from the generality of other men, from other Jews, from other disciples, but even from other Christian teachers, to be a peculiar instrument of God in spreading the gospel. It is said, Act 13:2, Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them. But, this being nothing but a separation of Paul from the teachers at Antioch, to go and preach to the Gentiles, the higher separation, mentioned Gal 1:15, is here intended. The gospel is here said to be God’s, because it is good news from God, than which a greater commendation of it cannot be conceived. Which he had promised afore — Of old time, frequently and solemnly: and the promise and accomplishment confirm each other. The promise in the Scriptures, that the gospel should be preached to the Gentiles, is taken notice of by the apostle, to convince the unbelieving Jews that in preaching to the Gentiles he did not contradict, but fulfil the ancient revelations.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Paul - The original name of the author of…
Paul - The original name of the author of this Epistle was “Saul.” Act 7:58; Act 7:1; Act 8:1, etc. This was changed to Paul (see the note at Act 13:9), and by this name he is generally known in the New Testament. The reason why he assumed this name is not certainly known. It was, however, in accordance with the custom of the times; see the note at Act 13:9. The name Saul was Hebrew; the name Paul was Roman. In addressing a letter to the Romans, he would naturally make use of the name to which they were accustomed, and which would excite no prejudice among them. The ancient custom was to begin an epistle with the name of the writer, as Cicero to Varro, etc. We record the name at the end. It may be remarked, however, that the placing the name of the writer at the beginning of an epistle was always done, and is still, when the letter was one of authority, or when it conferred any special privileges. Thus, in the proclamation of Cyrus Ezr 1:2, “Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia,” etc.; see also Ezr 4:11; Ezr 7:12. “Artaxerxes, king of kings, unto Ezra the priest,” etc. Dan 4:1. The commencement of a letter by an apostle to a Christian church in this manner was especially proper as indicating authority.
A servant - This name was what the Lord Jesus himself directed His disciples to use, as their general appellation; Mat 10:25; Mat 20:27; Mar 10:44. And it was the customary name which they assumed; Gal 1:10; Col 4:12; 2Pe 1:1; Jud 1:1; Act 4:29; Tit 1:1; Jam 1:1. The proper meaning of this word servant, δοῦλος doulos, is slave, one who is not free. It expresses the condition of one who has a master, or who is at the control of another. It is often, however, applied to courtiers, or the officers that serve under a king: because in an eastern monarchy the relation of an absolute king to his courtiers corresponded nearly to that of a master and a slave. Thus, the word is expressive of dignity and honor; and the servants of a king denote officers of a high rank and station. It is applied to the prophets as those who were honored by God, or especially entrusted by him with office; Deu 34:5; Jos 1:2; Jer 25:4. The name is also given to the Messiah, Isa 42:1, “Behold my servant in whom my soul delighteth,” etc.; Isa 53:11, “shall my righteous servant justify many.” The apostle uses it here evidently to denote his acknowledging Jesus Christ as his master; as indicating his dignity, as especially appointed by him to his great work; and as showing that in this Epistle he intended to assume no authority of his own, but simply to declare the will of his master, and theirs.
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Called to be an apostle - This word called means here not merely to be invited, but has the sense of appointed. It indicates that he had not assumed the office himself, but that he was set apart to it by the authority of Christ himself. It was important for Paul to state this,
Because the other apostles had been called or chosen to this work Joh 15:16, Joh 15:19; Mat 10:1; Luk 6:13; and, Because Paul was not one of those originally appointed.
It was of consequence for him therefore, to affirm that he had not taken this high office to himself, but that he had been called to it by the authority of Jesus Christ. His appointment to this office he not infrequently takes occasion to vindicate; 1Co 9:1, etc.: Gal 1:12-24; 2Co 12:12; 1Ti 2:7; 2Ti 1:11; Rom 11:13.
An apostle - One sent to execute a commission. It is applied because the apostles were sent out by Jesus Christ to preach his gospel, and to establish his church; Mat 10:2 note; Luk 6:13 note.
Separated - The word translated “separated unto,” ἀφορίζω aphorizō, means to designate, to mark out by fixed limits, to bound as a field, etc. It denotes those who are “separated,” or called out from the common mass; Act 19:9; 2Co 6:17. The meaning here does not materially differ from the expression, “called to be an apostle,” except that perhaps this includes the notion of the purpose or designation of God to this work. Thus, Paul uses the same word respecting himself; Gal 1:15, “God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,” that is, God designated me; marked me out; or designed that I should be an apostle from my infancy. In the same way Jeremiah was designated to be a prophet; Jer 1:5.
Unto the gospel of God - Designated or designed by God that I should make it “my business” to preach the gospel. Set apart to this, as the special, great work of my life; as having no other object for which I should live. For the meaning of the word “gospel,” see the note at Mat 1:1. It is called the gospel of God because it is his appointment; it has been originated by him, and has his authority. The function of an apostle was to preach the gospel Paul regarded himself as separated to this work. It was not to live in splendor, wealth, and ease, but to devote himself to this great business of proclaiming good news, that God was reconciled to people in his Son. This is the sole business of all ministers of “religion.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Called to be an apostle,[1] or a called apostle.…
Called to be an apostle,[1] or a called apostle. That is, not only having the name of an apostle, but having a his call to this high function, and his mission from God. --- Separated unto the gospel of God. He means that he was separated from others, and appointed by the Holy Ghost to preach the gospel, as we read Acts xiii. 2. when the Holy Ghost to those of the Church at Antioch, said, Separate me Saul and Barnabas, for the work unto which I have taken them. (Witham)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Vocatus, Greek: kletos Apostolos. Also ver. 6. and 7. Greek: kletoi.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Romans Chapter 1
Romans Chapter 1
There is no epistle in which the apostle places his apostleship on more positive and formal ground than in this; for at Rome he had no claim in virtue of his labours. He had never seen the Romans. He was none the less their apostle; for he was that of the Gentiles. He was a debtor to the Gentiles. He writes to them because he had received a mission from the Lord Himself towards all the Gentiles. They were in his allotted sphere of service as being Gentiles. It was his office to present them as an offering sanctified by the Holy Ghost (chap. 15:16). This was his commission. God was mighty in Peter towards the Jews; the mission of Paul was to the Gentiles. It was to him this mission was entrusted. The twelve moreover acknowledged it. If God has ordained that Paul should accomplish his mission in direct connection with heaven and outside the secular influence of the capital, and if Rome was to be a persecutor of the gospel, that city was not the less Gentile on this account. It belonged to Paul with reference to the gospel. According to the Holy Ghost Peter addresses the Jews in the exercise of his apostleship; Paul, the Gentiles.
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This was the administrative order according to God; let us now come to the substance of his position. Paul was the servant of Christ-that was his character, his life. But others were, more or less, that. He was more than that. He was an apostle by the call of the Lord, a “called apostle”; and not only that, and laborious as occasion presented itself, he was nothing but that in life here below. He was set apart for the glad tidings of God.
These two last characters are very definitely warranted by the revelation of the Lord to Paul on the way to Damascus-his call, and his mission to the Gentiles on that occasion; and by setting apart by the Holy Ghost at Antioch, when he went forth to fulfil his mission.
He calls the gospel to which he was set apart, the gospel or glad tidings “of God”: the Holy Ghost presents it in its source. It is not that which man ought to be for God, nor yet the means merely by which man can approach Him on His throne. It is the thoughts of God, and His acts, we may add, towards man-His thoughts in goodness, the revelation of Him in Christ His Son. He approaches man according to that which He is and that which He wills in grace. God comes to him; it is the gospel of God. This is the true aspect: the gospel is never rightly understood until it is to us the gospel of God, the activity and revelation of His nature, and of His will in grace towards man.
Having pointed out the source, the Author of the gospel, the One whom it thus reveals in His grace, the apostle presents the connection between this gospel and the dealings of God which historically preceded it-its promulgation here below, and at the same time its own proper object; that is to say, its subject properly so called, and the place held with regard to it by that which preceded it (the order of things which those to whom they belonged sought to maintain as a substantive and independent system by rejecting the gospel). He here introduces that which preceded, not as a subject of controversy, but in its true character, to enforce the testimony of the gospel (anticipating objections, which are thus solved beforehand).
To the Gentile it was the revelation of the truth, and of God, in grace; to the Jew it was indeed that, while also putting everything that regarded him in its right place. The connection of the Old Testament with the gospel is this: the gospel of God had been announced beforehand by His prophets in holy writings. Observe here, that in these holy scriptures the gospel of God was not come, nor was it then addressed to men: but promised or announced beforehand, as to be sent. The assembly was not even announced: the gospel was announced, but as being yet to come.
Moreover, the subject of this gospel is, first of all, the Son of God. He has accomplished a work: but it is Himself who is the true subject of the gospel. Now He is presented in a twofold aspect: 1st, the object of the promises, Son of David according to the flesh; 2nd, the Son of God in power, who, in the midst of sin, walked by the Spirit in divine and absolute holiness (resurrection being the illustrious and victorious proof of who He was, walking in this character). That is to say, resurrection is a public manifestation of that power by which He walked in absolute holiness during His life-a manifestation that He is the Son of God in power. He is clearly shewn forth as Son of God in power by this means Here it was no question of promise, but of power, of Him who could enter into conflict with the death in which man lay, and overcome it completely; and that, in connection with the holiness which bore testimony during His life to the power of that Spirit by which He walked, and in which He guarded Himself from being touched by sin. It was in the same power by which He was holy in life absolutely that He was raised from the dead.
In the ways of God on the earth He was the object and the fulfilment of the promises. With regard to the condition of man under sin and death, He was completely conqueror of all that stood in His way, whether living or in resurrection. It was the Son of God who was there, made known by resurrection according to the power that was in Him, a power that displayed itself according to the Spirit by the holiness in which He lived. [5] What marvellous grace to see the whole power of evil-that dreadful door of death which closed upon the sinful life of man, leaving him to the inevitable judgment that he deserved-broken, destroyed, by Him, who was willing to enter into the gloomy chamber it shut in, and take upon Himself all the weakness of man in death, and thus completely and absolutely deliver him whose penalty He had borne in submitting to death! This victory over death, this deliverance of man from its dominion, by the power of the Son of God become man, when He had undergone it, and that as a sacrifice for sin, is the only ground of hope for mortal and sinful man. It sets aside all that sin and death have to say. It destroys, for him who has a portion in Christ, the seal of judgment upon sin, which is in death; and a new man, a new life, begins for him who had been held under it, outside the whole scene, the whole effect of his former misery-a life founded on all the value of that which the Son of God had there accomplished.
In fine, we have, as the subject of the gospel, the Son of God, made of the seed of David after the flesh; and, in the bosom of humanity and of death, declared to be the Son of God in power by resurrection, [6] Jesus Christ our Lord. The gospel was the gospel of God Himself; but it is by Jesus Christ the Lord that the apostle received his mission. He was the head of the work, and sent forth the labourers into the harvest which they were to reap in the world. The object of his mission, and its extent, was the obedience of faith (not obedience to the law) among an nations, establishing the authority and the value of the name of Christ. It was this name which should prevail and be acknowledged.
The apostle’s mission was not only his service; the being trusted with it was at the same time the personal grace and favour of Him whose testimony he bore. I am not speaking of salvation, although in Paul’s case the two things were identified-a fact that gave a remarkable colour and energy to his mission; but there was grace and favour in the commission itself, and it is important to remember it. It gives character to the mission and to its execution. An angel performs a providential mission; a Moses details a law in the spirit of the law; a Jonah, a John the Baptist, preaches repentance, withdraws from the grace that appeared to falsify his threatenings against the wicked Gentiles, or in the wilderness lays the axe to the root of the unfruitful trees in God’s garden. But by Jesus, Paul, the bearer of the glad tidings of God, receives grace and apostleship. He carries, by grace and as grace, the message of grace to men wherever they may be, the grace which comes in all the largeness of the rights of God over men, and in Himself as sovereign, and in which He exercises His rights. Among these Gentiles, the believing Romans also were the called of Jesus Christ.
Paul therefore addresses all the believers in that great city. They were beloved of God, and saints by calling. [7] He wishes them (as in all his epistles) grace and peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, on whose part he delivered his message. The perfect grace of God by Christ, the perfect peace of man, and that with God; it was this which he brought in the gospel and in his heart. These are the true conditions of God’s relationship with man, and that of man with God, by the gospel-the ground on which Christianity places man. When an individual is addressed, another consideration comes in, namely, that of his own weaknesses and infirmities: therefore “mercy” is added to the wish of the sacred writers in the case of individuals. (See the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, and the Second Epistle of John.) [8] If the love of God is in the heart, if He has His place there, it is before God that one is occupied with the objects of grace; and then, the work of God in them, the grace that has been displayed is the first thing that comes into the mind, whether in love or in thankfulness. The faith of the Romans ascends in thanksgivings from the heart of the apostle, whom the report of it had reached.
He then expresses his desire to see them, a desire that often occupied his mind. Here he brings out his apostolic relationship towards them, with all the tenderness and all the delicacy that belong to the grace and the love which had formed this relationship and which constituted its strength. He is apostle by right to all the Gentiles, even although he may not have seen them; but in heart he is their servant; and with the most true and ardent brotherly love, flowing from the grace that had made him apostle, he desires to see them, that he might impart to them some spiritual gift, which his apostleship put him in a position to communicate. What he had in his heart in this was, that he might enjoy the faith which was common to him and to them-faith strengthened by these gifts-for their mutual comfort. Often he had purposed coming, that he might have some fruit in this part also of the field which God had committed to him; but he had been hindered until now.
He then declares himself a debtor to all the Gentiles, and ready, as far as in him lay, to preach the gospel to those of Rome also. The way in which the apostle claims the whole field of the Gentiles as his own, and in which he was prevented by God from going to Rome until he arrived there at the end of his career (and then only as a prisoner), is worthy of all attention.
However it might be, he was ready, and that because of the value of the gospel-a point which leads him to state both the value and the character of this gospel. For, he says, he was not ashamed of it. It was the power of God to salvation. Observe here the way in which the apostle presents everything as coming from God. It is the gospel of God, the power of God to salvation, the righteousness of God, and even the wrath of God, and that from heaven-a different thing from earthly chastisement. This is the key to everything. The apostle lays stress upon it, putting it forward from the commencement of the epistle; for man ever inclines to have confidence in himself, to boast of himself, to seek for some merit-some righteousness, in himself, to Judaise, to be occupied with himself, as though he could do something. It was the apostle’s joy to put his God forward.
Thus, in the gospel, God intervened, accomplishing a salvation which was entirely His own work-a salvation of which He was the source and power, and which He Himself had wrought. Man came into it by faith: it was the believer who shared it, but to have part in it by faith was exactly the way to share it without adding anything whatsoever to it, and to leave it wholly the salvation of God. God be praised that it is so, whether for righteousness or for power, or for the whole result; for thus it is perfect, divine. God has come in, in His almighty power and in His love, to deliver the wretched, according to His own might. The gospel is the expression of this: one believes it and one shares it.
But there is an especial reason why it is the power of God in salvation. Man had departed from God by sin. Righteousness alone could bring him back into the presence of God, and make him such that he could be there in peace. A sinner, he had no righteousness, but quite the contrary; and if man were to come before God as a sinner, judgment necessarily awaits him: righteousness would be displayed in this way. But, in the gospel, God reveals a positive righteousness on His part. If man has none, God has a righteousness which belongs to Him, which is His own, perfect like Himself, according to His own heart. Such a righteousness as this is revealed in the gospel. Human righteousness there was none: a righteousness of God is revealed. It is all-perfect in itself, divine and complete. To be revealed, it must be so. The gospel proclaims it to us.
The principle on which it is announced is faith, because it exists, and it is divine. If man wrought at it, or performed a part of it, or if his heart had any share in carrying it out, it would not be the righteousness of God; but it is entirely and absolutely His. We believe in the gospel that reveals it. But if it is the believer who participates in it, every one who has faith has part in it. This righteousness is on the principle of faith. It is revealed, and consequently to faith, wherever that faith exists.
This is the force of the expression which is translated “from faith to faith”-on the principle of faith unto faith. Now the importance of this principle is evident here. It admits every believing Gentile on the same footing as the Jew, who has no other right of entrance than he. They both have faith: the gospel recognises no other means of participating in it. The righteousness is that of God; the Jew is nothing more in it than the Gentile. As it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” The scriptures of the Jews testified to the truth of the apostle’s principle.
This is what the gospel announced on God’s part to man. The primary subject was the Person of Christ, son of David according to flesh (accomplishment of promise); and the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness. But the righteousness of God (not of man) was revealed in it. This is the grand theme of all that follows. The apostle had indeed reason not to be ashamed of it, despised as it was by men.
But this doctrine was confirmed by another consideration, and was based on the great truth contained in it. God, in presenting Himself, could not look at things according to the partial communications adapted to the ignorance of men, and to the temporary dispensations by which He governed them. Wrath was not merely His intervention in government, as by the Assyrian or Babylonish captivity. It was “wrath from heaven.” The essential opposition of His nature to evil, and penal rejection of it wherever it was found, was manifested. Now God manifested Himself in the gospel. Thus divine wrath does not break forth indeed (for grace proclaimed the righteousness of God in salvation for sinners who should believe) but it is revealed (not exactly in the gospel-that is the revelation of righteousness; but it is revealed) from heaven against ungodliness-all that does not respect the presence of God-against all that does not comport with the presence of God, and against all unrighteousness or iniquity in those who possessed the truth but still dishonoured God; that is to say, against all men, Gentile or otherwise, and particularly the Jews who had the knowledge of God according to the law; and, again (for the principle is universal, and flows from that which God is, when He reveals Himself), against every one who professes Christianity, when he walks in the evil that God hates.
This wrath, divine wrath, according to God’s nature as in heaven, against man as a sinner, made God’s righteousness necessary. Man was now to meet God fully revealed as He is. This shewed him wholly a sinner, but paved the way in grace for a far more excellent place and standing-one based on the righteousness of God. The gospel reveals the righteousness: its opportuneness and necessity are demonstrated by the state of sin in which all men are, and by occasion of which wrath was revealed from heaven. Man was not merely to be governed by God, and find governmental wrath, but to appear before God. How could we stand there? The answer is the revelation of God’s righteousness by the gospel. Hence, too, even in speaking of resurrection Christ is declared to be the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness. God has to be met such as He is. The revelation of God Himself in His holy nature went necessarily farther than mere Jews. It was against the thing sin, wherever it was, wherever it met sin, to make good what God is. It is a glorious truth; and how blessed that thus divine righteousness in sovereign grace should be revealed! And, God being love, we can say that it could not be otherwise; but how glorious to have God thus revealed!
The thesis of the epistle then is in Rom 1:17, that which proved its need in Rom 1:18. From Rom 1:19 to the end of verse 20 in chapter 3, the condition of men, Jews and Gentiles, to whom this truth applies, is given in detail, in order to shew in what way this wrath was deserved, and all were shut up in sin (Rom 1:19 and Rom 1:21 of this chapter giving the leading principles of the evil as regards the Gentiles). From verse 21 to 31 of chapter 3, the answer in grace by the righteousness of God, through the blood of Christ, is briefly but powerfully declared. For we first get the answer by Christ’s blood to the old state, and then the introduction, by death and life through Christ, into the new.
The apostle begins with the Gentiles-”all ungodliness” of men. I say the Gentiles (it is evident that if a Jew falls into it, this guilt attaches to him; but the condition described, as far as Rom 2:17, is that of Gentiles); afterwards that of the Jews, to Rom 3:20.
Rom 1:18 is the thesis of the whole argument from Rom 1:19 to Rom 3:20, this part of the epistle shewing the ground of that wrath.
The Gentiles are without excuse on two accounts. First, that which may be known of God has been manifested by creation-His power and His Godhead. This proof has existed since the creation of the world. Secondly, that, having the knowledge of God as Noah had it, they had not glorified Him as God, but in the vanity of their imaginations, reasoning upon their own thoughts on this subject and the ideas it produced in their own minds, they became fools while professing themselves to be wise, and fell into idolatry, and that of the grossest kind. Now God has judged this. If they would not retain a just thought of the glory of God, they should not even retain a just idea of the natural honour of man. They should dishonour themselves as they had dishonoured God. It is the exact description, in a few strong and energetic words, of the whole pagan mythology. They had not discernment, moral taste, to retain God in their knowledge: God gave them up to a spirit void of discernment, to boast themselves in depraved tastes, in things unbecoming nature itself. The natural conscience knew that God judged such things to be worthy of death according to the just exigencies of His nature. Nevertheless they not only did them, but they took pleasure in those who did them, when their own lusts did not carry them away. And this left no excuse for those who judged the evil (and there were such), for they committed it while judging it. Man then by judging condemned himself doubly: for by judging he shewed that he knew it to be evil, and yet he did it. But the judgment of God is according to truth against those who commit such things: they who acquired credit by judging them should not escape it.
Footnotes for Romans Chapter 1
5: This puts us, since it is for us, in connection with a holiness (as does the revelation of righteousness farther on, but there more openly) which implies connection with God as He is in Himself fully revealed-not like the Jews outside the veil.
6: It is not said “by His resurrection,” but “by resurrection” abstractly. His own was the great proof, but that of every man is a proof likewise.
7: The reader must take notice that, in Rom 1:1 and Rom 1:7, it is not “called to be an apostle,” nor “called to be saints,” but apostle by call, saints by call. They were the thing declared, and they were so by the call of God. A Jew was not holy by call; he was born holy, relatively to the Gentiles. These were the called of Jesus Christ; but they were not simply called to be holy, they were so by call.
8: The Epistle to Philemon might appear at first sight to be an exception; but it confirms this remark, for it will be seen that the assembly in his house is included in the wish. This makes the address of Jude the more remarkable. There is however a question of a various reading in Tit 1:4.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1
THE INSCRIPTION, INTRODUCTION, AND FUNDAMENTAL THEME
Rom_1:1-17
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THE APOSTLESHIP OF PAUL, APPOINTED FOR THE GLORY OF THE NAME OF GOD THROUGH THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST, AND FOR THE REVELATION OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD FOR FAITH IN ALL THE WORLD, AMONG THE JEWS AND GENTILES, AND ESPECIALLY ALSO IN ROME
I
Inscription and Salutation
Rom_1:1-71
TO THE Romans
1Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,3 called to be an apostle [a called, chosen apostle, κλητὸς ἀπόστολος], separated [set apart, ἀφωρισμένος] unto the gospel of God 2(Which he had promised afore [which he promised beforehand, προεπηγγείλατο] by [through] his prophets in the holy Scriptures4) [omit parenthesis], 3Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord [omit here the words:Jesus Christ our Lord, and transfer them to the close of Rom_1:4], which [who] was made [born5] of [from, 4ἐκ] the seed of David according to the flesh; And [omit And] declared to be [who was installed]6 the Son of God with [in] power,7 according to the Spirit of holiness, by [from, ἐξ]8 the resurrection from [of] the dead9 [—Jesus Christ our 5Lord]: By [through] whom we have received [we received] grace and apostleship, for [unto, εἰς, i.e., for the purpose of, with a view to, in order to bring about] obedience to the faith [of faith]10 among all [the] nations, for his name [name’s sake]: 6Among whom are ye also the called [, the chosen ones] of Jesus Christ:11 7To all that be in Rome,12 beloved of God [To all the beloved of God who are in Rome], called to be [chosen] saints: [.]13
Grace to you,14 and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
First Section.—Inscription and greeting.—Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God.—His gospel in harmony with the Old Testament (of the Jews): A gospel of Christ, who, in His human nature and His historical pedigree, is the Son of David; but who, in His spiritual glory, appears as the principle of the resurrection of the dead, and as the one appointed to be the Son of God in power (majesty). By this glorified Christ the Apostle has received his Christian and apostolic call, for the purpose of calling all nations to obedience to the faith.—All the believers in Rome belong to this totality. He accordingly greets the Christians in Rome with the apostolic salutation.
[General Remarks on the Apostolic Salutations.—On the grammatical structure of the two sentences, Rom_1:1-7, see textual note 12to Rom_1:7. St. Paul opens his Epistles with his name and official title, by which he challenges respectful attention to his inspired teaching, and with the assurance of his brotherly regard and love for the readers, by which he wins their affections. The ancient epistolary style unites in a brief inscription what we now distinguish as address, greeting, and subscription. Paul combines the heathen and the Hebrew form of salutation, and inspires both with a deep Christian meaning.
The Greek and Roman epistolary inscription contained simply the name of the writer in the nominative, and the name of the receiver in the dative (e.g., Πλἀτων Διονυσἰω, Cicero Attico), frequently with the addition of the wish for health and prosperity, by the words εὖ πρἀττειν, more usually χαίρειν, or χαίρειν λέγεν, satutem, or salutem dicit. This form we find in the New Testament three times: once in the heathen sense, in the letter of Lysias to the Roman governor Felix, Act_23:26 (Κλαὐδιος Λυσίας τῶ ... Φήλικι χαίρειν), and twice in the Christian sense, namely in the circular letter of the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem, which was probably written by James, Act_15:23 (οἱ ἀπόστολοι ... τοῖς ... ἀδελφοῖς τοῖς ἐξ ἐθνῶν χαίρειν), and in the Epistle of James, Rom_1:1 (Ἰἀκωβος ... ταῖς δώδεκα φυλαῖς ... χαίρειν).15 From 2 John, Rom_1:10 (χαίρειν αὐτῶ μὴ λέγετε), it appears that Greek Christians were in the habit of greeting one another with the usual χαῖρε (Vulg., ave, comp. Mat_26:49; Mat_27:29; Mat_28:9; Mar_15:18; Luk_1:28; Joh_19:3). But the heathen formula, as implying a prayer to the gods, had in it a taint of idolatry, or, at all events, it referred only to temporal prosperity, and had to give way before long to a change in accordance with Christian feeling.
The Hebrew (and Arabic) form of salutation is שָׁלוֹם, εἰρήνη, Peace, or שָׁלוֹם לְךָ, LXX., εἰρήνη σοι, Peace be with you; comp. Gen_29:6; Gen_43:23; Exo_18:7; Jdg_6:23; 1Sa_10:4; Dan_10:19 : Luk_10:5-6, &c. (With the later Jews the usual formula was יישׁר). The risen Saviour greeted thus the assembled disciples, Joh_20:19; Joh_20:26, bringing the true peace of the soul with God, which He, the Prince of Peace, had bought by His atoning death and triumphant resurrection (comp. Joh_14:27; Joh_16:33; Mat_10:12-13).
Combining the Græco-Roman inscription and the Hebrew salutation, we would have this form: “Paul to the Romans. Health and peace be with you.”
But Paul transforms the Greek χαίρειν and the Hebrew shalom from the prevailing idea of physical health and temporal comfort, into the deep meaning of the saving grace and peace of God in Christ, and comprehends in the two words χάρις and εἰρήνη the richest blessings of the gospel; χάρις being the objective cause of the Christian salvation, and ειρήνη its subjective effect in the soul of man. At the same time, there is, no doubt, a reference in this epistolary greeting to the Mosaic, or rather Aaronic benediction, Num_6:25-26 : “The Lord make His grace shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee (וִיחֻנּךָּ, from חָנַן, gratiosus fuit, hence חֵן, χάρις), the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace (שָׁלוֹם, LXX., εἰρήνην).” We find this salutatory grace and peace not only in the Epistles of Paul, but also in those of Peter and of John in the Apocalypse. In the Pastoral Epistles, 1Ti_1:2; 2Ti_1:2, and Tit_1:4 (text, rec.), Paul, with reference probably to the Greek version of the Aaronic benediction, Num_6:25 (ἐλεήσει σε for וִיחֻנֶּךָּ), adds to the prayer for grace and peace that of mercy (ἔλεος), which ministers of the gospel need more than any other class of men. This threefold blessing, corresponding to the threefold Aaronic benediction, we find also in 2 John 3.16
In the Epistle to the Romans, where Paul, contrary to his habit, addressed a congregation which he had not founded, or even visited, he amplifies the Græco-Hebrew inscription and salutation still more, and inserts parenthetically some of the fundamental doctrinal ideas of the Epistle, as suggested by the mention of “the gospel of God,” namely: (1) The connection of the gospel with the Old Testament revelation, Rom_1:2; (2) the divine-human nature of Christ, who is the subject of that gospel, Rom_1:3-4; (3) his call to the apostleship of all the Gentiles by Christ, which gives him a right to address himself also to the Romans, Rom_1:5. In the richness of this salutation we see the overflowing fulness of Paul’s mind, and the importance he attached to this Epistle. Calvin: Epistola tota sic methodica est, ut ipsum quoque exordium ad rationem artis compositum sit.—P. S.]17
Rom_1:1.—Paul.—Saul as Paul, i.e., the Small, in opposition and contrast to Bar-Jesus, Elymas the Sorcerer of Cyprus, Act_13:8. [Saul and Paul. Paulos is the Hellenistic, Paulus the Latin form for the Hebrew Saul, though differing from it in meaning. It was chosen as the nearest allusive and alliterative equivalent, and as a name already familiar to the Greeks; while Saul, as a proper name, was unknown to them. The name Saul—the most distinguished name in the genealogy of the tribe of Benjamin, to which Paul belonged (Rom_11:1; Php_3:5; comp. Act_13:21)—the Apostle used among the Jews, the name Paul among the Gentiles, and in the later part of his life exclusively. The Jews and early Christians often had two names, either similar in sound and identical in meaning, as Silas and Silvanus (the former occurring uniformly in the Acts thirteen times, the latter four times in the Epistles), Lucas and Lucanus18 (Col_4:14; 2Ti_4:11; Phm_1:24); or similar in sound but different in meaning, as Jesus and Justus (Col_4:11), Saul and Paul, Hillel and Pollio; or different in sound but identical in meaning, as Cephas (Hebrew) and Peter (Greek); or different both in sound and meaning, as Jacob and Israel, Simon and Peter, Bartholomew and Nathanael, John and Mark (Act_12:12; Act_12:25), Simeon and Niger (Rom_13:1), Barsabas and Justus (i. 23). It is possible that the Apostle Paul, as a Roman citizen, received this name in early youth in Tarsus (Lightfoot), or inherited it from some ancestor, who may have adopted it in becoming a freedman, or in acquiring the Roman citizenship; Paul being the well-known cognomen of several distinguished Roman families, as the gens Æmilia, Fabia, Julia, Sergia, &c. It is more probable, however, that he chose the name himself after he entered upon his labors among the Gentiles, as a part of his missionary policy to become a Greek to the Greeks, in order to gain them more readily to Christ (1Co_9:19-23). At all events, the name Paul is first mentioned during his first great missionary journey, when he, taking henceforth precedence of Barnabas in words and in acts, struck Elymas the sorcerer with blindness, and converted Sergius Paulus, the pro-consul of Cyprus, to the Christian faith (Act_13:8). After this striking fact, he is uniformly called Paul in the latter chapters of the Acts, and in all the Epistles. But we have no right, for this reason, to infer (with Jerome, Olshausen, Meyer, Ewald, and others) that the name Paul was a memorial of the conversion of Sergius Paulus as his first-fruit. For (1) he may have converted many Jews and Gentiles before that time; (2) pupils are called after their teachers and benefactors, and not vice versâ; (3) Luke gives no intimation to that effect, and connects the name Paul, not with that of the proconsul of Cyprus (Rom_13:7; Rom_13:12), but with that of Elymas the sorcerer (Rom_1:8). The last circumstance favors the ingenious hypothesis of Dr. Lange, that the name expresses the symbolical significance of the victory of Paul, the small man of God, over Elymas, the mighty magician of the devil, as a New Testament counterpart of the victory of David over Goliath, or of Moses over the sorcerers of Egypt. Dr. Lange, however, admits the probability that Paul had his Roman name before this occasion. At all events, the change of name has nothing whatever to do with his conversion; and all allegorical interpretations of Chrysostom, Augustine, Wordsworth, and others, which go on this assumption, are merely pious fancies, which are sufficiently refuted by the fact that the Apostle is repeatedly called Saul long after his conversion, as in Act_9:25; Act_9:30; Act_12:25; Act_13:1-2; Act_13:7; Act_13:9; and that it is said of Saul in one passage (Rom_13:9), that he was “filled with the Holy Ghost.”—P. S.]19
A servant of Jesus Christ.—עֶבֶר יְהוָֹה. This is not merely the general designation of the pious man (Fritzsche: Christi cultor, Eph_6:6), but the designation of his office (Tholuck); 1Co_4:1; Php_1:1; Jam_1:1. Reiche: The word implies unlimited obedience. Schott: “δοῦλος denotes the Christian, so far as he, in the discharge of a special Christian calling, surrenders himself completely to God’s will, and excludes his own preference.” Here the Christian call in its universal character is meant, just as it appears in the apostleship, after the absolute service of the one great servant of God, Isaiah 53. Nevertheless, there is no tautology in the addition: called to be an apostle. Calvin: Apostolatus ministerii est species. The same office, related to Christ, makes the δοῦλος, in the absolute sense (comp. Isaiah 53.); but, related to the world, it makes the ἀπόστολος. [A servant, literally bondsman (δοῦλος, from δέω, to bind), denotes generally, like the corresponding Hebrew עֶבֶד יְהוָֹה, a relation of dependence on God, and cheerful obedience to His will. Paul glories in this service, which is perfect freedom. The more we feel bound by the authority of Christ, the more we are free from the bondage of men. Deo servire vera libertas est (Augustine). In a wide sense, the term applies to all believers, who are both children and servants of God (Isa_65:13; Dan_3:26; Rom_6:22; Rom_14:4; Eph_6:6; 1Co_7:22; 1Pe_2:16; Rev_19:2; Rev_19:5); in a special and emphatic sense, it is used of the chosen office-bearers in the kingdom of God, as Moses, the prophets, and kings in the Old Testament (Deu_34:5; Jos_1:1; Isa_49:5; Jer_25:4), and the ministers of the gospel in the New, particularly the apostles (so here; Php_1:1; Tit_1:1; Col_4:12; Jam_1:1; 2Pe_1:1; Rev_1:1). Hodge: “Servant is a general official designation, of which, in the present case, apostle is the specific explanation.” Paul “rejects all human authority in matters of faith and duty, and yet professes the most absolute subjection of conscience and reason to the authority of Jesus Christ.” Wordsworth: “Other men, in the beginning of their epistles, especially those which they addressed to the Roman people, recited their own titles as rulers, kings, or conquerors; but the apostles claim to be heard as δοῦλον, bondsmen, bondsmen of Jesus Christ.” Comp., however, my annotation on ἀπόστολος, which is a title of dignity and authority.—P. S.]—Jesus Christ. That is, Jesus is the Christ. Dealing with the Roman Christians, the Apostle had no ground for saying the reverse: Christ Jesus, i.e., The Christ is Jesus.
Called to be an apostle.—As he had had to defend his call before the Corinthians and Galatians on account of opponents, he does it here because he was not yet personally known to the Roman Church. [Called; chosen, appointed, not self-called, but called by Christ, in opposition to an arbitrary self-constituted authority (αὐτό–κλητος, self-appointed), and called directly by Christ, without the intervention of church authority, comp. Gal_1:1 : “Not of men (ἀπ̓ ἀνθρώπων), nor by any man (δἰ ἀνθρὠπου), but by Jesus Christ,” &c. The word refers to the historical call, not to the eternal election. Calvin: Neque enim iis assentior, qui eam de qua loquitur vocationem ad eternam Dei electionem referunt.—P. S.] The expression, apostle, has here its widest significance. Christ, the Risen One, has called him; he is therefore, in the most positive sense, a witness of His resurrection, and this implies the apostolic witness of the whole of His miraculous person and work. [Apostle is a title of dignity, signifying the highest order of servant; every apostle being a servant of Christ, but not every servant an apostle of Christ. The one brings out the dependence of Paul on Christ, the other his authority over the congregations, and the latter is conditioned by the former. The term apostle may designate, etymologically, any delegate, commissioner, or missionary, but more particularly, as here, and in most passages, a chosen eye and ear witness of the life of Christ, who was personally instructed and selected by Him for the work of laying the foundation of the Christian Church, and teaching her through all subsequent generations. The apostles were inspired messengers of Christ, not to a particular charge, but to the whole world. The term is therefore generally restricted to the twelve (Luk_6:13), and to Paul, who was likewise directly called by the Lord (Gal_1:1; Gal_1:12; Act_9:15; Act_26:17). The sudden call of the persecuting Paul to the apostleship of the Gentiles corresponds to the sudden call of the Gentiles to Christianity, just as the gradual instruction of the Jewish apostles accords with the long training of the Jewish nation for the gospel.—P. S.]
Separated, set apart.—Not equal to chosen of God (De Wette), nor to appointed by the Church (with reference to Act_13:2; Olshausen),20 but directed to and appointed for this particular calling, through the whole providential course of his life (comp. Gal_1:15). An ἀφορίζεσθαι first took place with him [at his birth, comp. Gal_1:15 : ὁ ἀφορἰσας με ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός μου, καὶ καλέσας, κ.τ.λ.; then.—P. S.] when he was sent from Tarsus to Jerusalem [?]; a second [third], at his conversion and retreat into Arabia; and a third [fourth], at his special appointment as the Apostle to the Gentiles (Act_13:2 ff.; Galatians 2.). The biblical ὁρίζειν must be distinguished from προγινὠκειν or ἐκλέγεσθαι as well as from καλεῖν; it denotes the Divine determination of the historical career of the man (see Act_17:26). [Meyer refers ἀφωρισμένος to the historical call at Damascus, and compares σκεῦος ἐκλογῆς, Act_9:15; Act_26:16 ff. The word is an explanation of κλητὸς ἀπόστολος, and gives us the additional idea of destination. It implies that Paul was selected from the world, singled out, consecrated to, and destined for the gospel service, at the time of his conversion. It refers to the Divine appointment for the apostolic office in general, while ἀφορίσατε, in Act_13:2, refers to a special mission, ἀφορὶζειν, like καλεῖν, looks to the historical call, προορίζειν to the eternal decree, but the former is only an execution in time or actualization of the latter.—P. S.]
Unto the gospel of God.—That is, not the gospel having God for its object (Chrysostom), but the gospel given by God (2Co_11:7) for promulgation. [It is the genitive, not of the object, but of origin and possession; God’s gospel, whose author is God, and whose theme is Christ and His salvation by free grace; comp. Rom_1:3-4; Rom_15:16; 1Th_2:2; 1Th_2:8-9.—P. S.] Gospel.21 Without the article.22 According to De Wette and Schott, it is here not the internal matter or contents of the gospel, but the εὐαγγελίζεσθαι. [De Wette: zur Verkündigung des Evangeliums.—P. S.] Tholuck, on the contrary: “Εὐαγγέλιον does not stand for the infinitive εὐαγγελίζεσθαι, as we learn from the relative ὅ, but it is only an indefinite method of expression, as 2Co_2:12; 2Co_10:14.” We would say, rather, that it is the concrete method of expression, implying that the knowledge of salvation cannot be without preaching, and preaching cannot be without the matter of the gospel.
Rom_1:2. Which He promised before by His prophets in the holy Scriptures.—[So that God stood pledged, as it were, to reveal the gospel.] The second verse must not be read, with Beza [and the authorized English version, which often closely follows Beza], as parenthesis. The same expression occurs, 2Co_9:5 [τἡν προεπηγγελμένην εὐλογίαν ὑμῶν, your bounty before promised.—P. S.] The mention of the Old Testament promise of the gospel must not only authenticate the Apostle to the Jewish Christians, but it must also enforce the gospel for the Gentile Christians. This preceding promise lay specifically in the Messianic passages (De Wette); and, at the same time, according to the New Testament view, in the meaning of the whole of the Old Testament, which promised the universal Pauline gospel (see Romans 10.). The expression γραφαί, without the article, does not denote passages of Scripture (Dr. Paulus [Meyer] ), but γραφαί ἅγιαι has become, according to De Wette, a nomen proprium.23 [The second verse teaches that the gospel is no abrupt innovation or afterthought, but the forethought of God, the fulfilment of His promise, and “the desire of all nations.” This harmony of the New and Old Dispensations should be a convincing proof of the Divine origin of Christianity, not only to the Jews, who already believe in the Old Testament, and need only be convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was really the promised Messiah, but also to the heathen, who well know that it is the exclusive prerogative of God to foresee and prearrange the future. In this view, Christianity is the oldest as well as the latest religion, going back to the first promise in Paradise, and even beyond the beginning of time, to the eternal counsel of God. Augustine says: “The New Testament is concealed in the Old; the Old Testament is revealed in the New.” By his prophets, is not to be confined, of course, to the sixteen prophetical books, but extends to the whole Old Testament Scriptures, as far as they contain the gospel, from the promise of the serpent-bruiser, Gen. 3:25, to Mal_4:2. In fact, the entire Scripture is one organic system of prophecies and types bearing testimony to Christ; Joh_5:39.—P. S.]
Rom_1:3. Concerning his Son.—This refers to εὐαγγέλιον, gospel, Rom_1:1; Rom_1:24 and not to promised, Rom_1:2, as Tholuck, Meyer [Alford, Hodge], and others would have it. For the question further on is concerning the gospel in its complete New Testament development, and not merely in its Old Testament outline. Meyer says that the connection of περὶ with εὐαγγέλιον [instead of the gen. objecti] does not elsewhere occur in the New Testament. But it must be noticed that here the act of preaching the gospel of evangelization is connected with the gospel itself. Besides, the parenthesis has its influence upon the expression.
Rom_1:3-4. Who was born, &c.—The words from γενομένου to νεκρῶν (Rom_1:3-4) are not an abrupt parenthesis (according to Griesbach and Knapp), but part of the sentence.25 They characterize the Son of God, not according to the antithesis of the human and divine nature of Christ in itself, but according to the revelation of this antithesis in the national Old Testament limitation, and in the universal New Testament expansion and elevation of the person of Christ to heavenly majesty, in accordance with the analogy of Php_2:6. Yet that ontological antithesis is reflected in this historical antithesis. The historical Christ has a double genealogy and history, which is represented in the following analogies and antitheses:
γενόμενοςἐκ σπέρματος Δαυείδκατὰ σάρκαὁρισθεὶς υἱὀς θεοῦ ἐν δυνάμειἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρωνκατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσὺνης.[This antithetic parallelism, already hinted at by Bengel, is also brought out by Forbes (Analyt. Com., p. 97), and may be more clearly and fully set forth in this way:
“Concerning His Son,
Who was born [Son of Man in weakness]
from the seed of David,
as to the flesh,
Who was installed Son of God in power
from the resurrection of the dead,
as to the Spirit of holiness,—
Even Jesus Christ our Lord.”—P. S.]
The γενόμενος denotes not merely the being born, but, in a wider sense, the genealogical procession from the seed of David (see Mat_1:1 ff.). [The house of David represented the flower of the Jewish nation, and foreshadowed the kingdom of Christ. That the Messiah was to proceed from this royal family, was predicted in the Old Testament, Isa_11:1; Jer_23:5; Psa_132:11; and generally expected by the Jews, Mat_22:42; Joh_7:42; Act_13:23. Meyer, without good reason, confines ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυείδ to the male line of descent, and refers both genealogies of Matthew and Luke to Joseph; Melanchthon, on the contrary, identifies ex sem ne David with ex virgine Maria; and Wordsworth infers from the words that Mary, as well as Joseph, was of the lineage of David. Comp. Com. on the genealogies in Matthew 1. and Luke 3. Alford: “The words ἐκ σπέρματος Δ. cast a hint back at the promise just spoken of. At the same time, in so solemn an enunciation of the dignity of the Son of God, they serve to show that, even according to the human side, His descent had been fixed in the line of him who was Israel’s anointed and greatest king.”—P. S.]
In distinction from this appearance of Christ in human nature, the idea of the exalted Christ is expressed by the words, ὁρισθεὶς υἱός θεοῦ ἐν δυνάμει, established as Son of God in power. The attempt to analyze and divide this one conception (for example, in Luther’s German translation) has obscured the passage very much. The Son of God, in distinction from His Old Testament origin, is absolutely destined (ὡρισμἑνος, Act_10:42) to be the Son of God in majesty, or in the majestic exercise of his power (see Php_2:6 ff.) The ὁρίζειν of God constitutes the central point of all kindred conceptions—of the ὁροθεσίαι, Act_17:26; of the προορίζειν, Rom_8:29; and of the ἀφορίζειν, Gal_1:15. It expresses here God’s absolute determination or establishment concerning Christ as the centre of all the historical developments of the new world, the Head of all things (Mat_28:18; Eph_1:20 ff.). The expression refers not to the Son of God as such simply, but to the Son of God as exalted to heavenly majesty. As such, He is ὀρισθείς, not merely προορισθείς, prœdestinatus (Ambrose, Augustine,26 Vulgate, &c., according to the Greek fathers, and the gloss προορισθέντος). But as He is the γενόμενος έκ σπέρματος Δαυείδ, his descent from David being the human and historical antecedence for his higher dignity; so is He ὁρισθεὶς υἱός θεοῦ ἐξ ἀναστἀσεως νεκρῶν. The ἐκ, according to the analogy of ἐκ σπέρματος, cannot merely mean since the resurrection, or through (by) the resurrection, but it indicates the origin: out of the resurrection. The σπέρμα Δαυείδ is the whole genealogy, or “the root of Jesse” (Rom_15:12), as it became manifest by the birth from the Virgin. Thus, likewise, the resurrection is not merely the fact of the resurrection of Christ, but with the fact of the resurrection there are brought to light the strength and root of the resurrection of the dead in the world, (Eph_1:19 ff.). It is in accordance with this that Christ can say: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Deep in the heart of the first world—for which Christ is the first-born of every creature (πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, Col_1:15)—there is at work the power, proceeding from the Logos, of a new world (Rom_8:23), for which Christ is the first-born from the dead (πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, Col_1:18). And this world of the resurrection, which became manifest in His personal resurrection, continues now to operate dynamically, and will continue to do so until the flower of the new world appears in the first resurrection of the elect (1Co_15:23), and the fruit in the last general resurrection. The Apostle therefore means here the power of the resurrection as the christological principle of life in the world, which has become manifest by the resurrection of Christ, and acts and works as the historical principle of the universal resurrection of the dead. Christ arose from his death and resurrection as the fixed and established, or instituted Son of God in power. (Comp. the Messianic passage, Psalms 2.: “This day have I begotten Thee;” which denotes the very day of the seditious rebellion against the Messiah as the grand day of his glorification). The destination which Christ had from the beginning, became inauguration or institution at His resurrection. The ὁριο̈θείς therefore, does not merely mean “shown,” “declaratively established” (Meyer, according to Chrysostom, δειχθέντος);27 the ἐκ does not mean merely since or after (Theodoret, Erasmus, and others); and the ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν does not mean merely ἀνάστασις ἐκ νεκρῶν. And Philippi, following Melanchthon, and others, has very properly connected the ἐν δυνάμει with υἱοῦ θεοῦ, and did not follow Luther, Meyer, and others in connecting it with ὁρισθέντος. Meyer has therefore no ground for opposing the explanation of Bengel—that our resurrection is comprehended in Christ’s resurrection—by remarking that the term the resurrection from the dead is only the general expression of the category.
In the third antithesis, κατὰ σάρκα, “according to the flesh,” means the fleshly or physical origin of Christ, but not according to the first conception of σάρξ, i.e., the sensuous, susceptible, vital fulness of corporeity, as distinct from and subjected to the spirit, or, in a more general sense, the “earthly man,” ἄνθρωπος χοϊκός (1Co_15:47; Genesis 2). Still less has flesh here the second meaning, viz., sinful sensuousness and susceptibility, as opposed to the spirit, and without it; or, in the more general sense, the “natural man,” ἄνθρωπος ψυχικός (Joh_3:6; 1Co_2:14). But σάρξ has here its third meaning, and expresses the physical human nature under the influence of the spirit (Joh_1:13; Joh_6:51), yet in historical relations, or man in his historical finiteness, limitation, and qualification (Gal_4:4). For Christ’s incarnation, and the growth of His physical nature, evidently involved no opposition to the “Spirit of holiness,” but took place under its consecrating influence.
[Flesh (σάρξ, בָּשָׂר) is here, and in all the passages where it is used of the incarnation (Rom_9:5; 1Ti_3:16; Joh_1:14; 1Jn_4:2), a strong Hebraizing term for human nature, with the implied idea, perhaps, of weakness and frailty, though not necessarily of sin (somewhat analogous to the occasional use of the German der Sterbliche, and the English mortal, for man). It is as correct to say: Christ became man (Menschwerdung), as to say: Christ became flesh (incarnatio, incarnation, Fleischwerdung), but the latter expression is more emphatic; it exhibits more strongly the condescension of Christ, the identity of His nature with our own, and the universalness of His manhood. The word σάρξ, therefore, when applied to Christ, must not be understood in an Apollinarian sense, as if Christ merely assumed a human body with the animal soul, but not the rational soul, whose place was supplied by the divine Logos. It implies the entire human constitution, body, soul, and spirit, sin only excepted, which does not originally and necessarily belong to man. It is not the flesh, as opposed to the spirit, that is here intended, but the human, as distinct from the divine. The flesh, as an organized system of life, is the outward tabernacle and the visible representative of the whole man to our senses. The σάρξ of Christ was the seat of a human ψυχή, with its affections, and of a human νοῦς or πνεῦμα, with its intelligence (comp. Mat_27:50; Joh_11:33; Joh_19:30), but not of the ἁμαρτία. He was subject to temptation, or temptable (Heb_2:18; Heb_4:15), but neither σαρκικός (Rom_7:14), nor ψυχικός (1Co_2:14). He appeared not “in the flesh of sin,” but only “in the likeness of the flesh of sin” (Rom_8:2). At the same time, the limitation, κατὰ σάρκα, plainly implies the divine nature of Christ. “Were He a mere man,” says Hodge, “it had been enough to say that He was of the seed of David; but as He is more than man, it was necessary to limit His descent from David to His human nature.”—P. S.]
Rom_1:4. According to the Spirit of holiness, κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης.—We accept, with Bengel, against Tholuck, that the ἁγιωσύνη is certainly distinguished from the ἁγιότης—just as sanctimonia is from sanctitas—in expressing the operation of the Spirit, though in a more comprehensive relation. This is the Spirit of God, who, as the sanctifying Spirit in the world, constitutes the complete opposition and counteraction to the entire corruption of sin; who was first the cause of the holy birth of Christ, and then of His resurrection; and who now proceeds from the glorified Christ as the principle of the sanctification of humanity and the world. Bengel: Ante resurrectionem latebat sub carne Spiritus; post resurrectionem carnem penitus abscondit Spiritus sanctimoniœ.28 We accept this statement in a wider sense. From the divina natura of Christ as sanctificationis omnis causa (Melanchthon, Calov, [Bengel, Olshausen], and others), we must distinguish the expression so far as it does not denote the individual, but the universal vital principle of the new birth of humanity. And we must distinguish it from the Holy Spirit, the πνεῦμα ἅγιον (Chrysostom, and most commentators; see Meyer),29 so far as it denotes this principle, not merely according to its complete New Testament revelation, but also according to the Old Testament preparation of the divine-human life. But we must not make the distinction so that the πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης will represent the difference between the absolute communication of the Spirit to Christ and the relative operation of the πνεῦμα ἅγιον (Tholuck, Baur). We shall be secure against confounding the ideas, πυεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης, λόγος or εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ (Rückert, Reiche), if we observe the difference between the universal and individual divine principle of life in revelation. This difference is most decidedly ignored by Baur, when he understands by the πνεῦμα ἁγ. the Messianic Spirit. When Clemens Romanus, Ephesians 2., terms Christ the first Spirit,30 he means the individual designation of the divine nature of Christ, yet according to its universal relation, just as the spirit of a man is the individual himself, but according to his universal relation.
[Κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης is evidently the antithesis or counterpart of κατὰ σάρκα, and as σάρξ here means the human nature of Christ, πνεῦμα must mean His divine nature, which is all Spirit, and intrinsically holy. ἁγιωσύνης is the genitive of qualification, showing that holiness is the essential characteristic of Christ’s Spirit, and yet it distinguishes this from the πνεῦμα ἅγιον, which is the technical designation of the third person of the Trinity. Comp. Joh_4:24 : “God (i.e., the divine being or nature which the three persons of the Trinity have in common) is Spirit;” 2Co_3:17, where Christ Himself is called “the Spirit;” 1Ti_3:16 : “justified in Spirit” (ἐν πνεὺματι); Heb_9:14 : “Who with an eternal Spirit (διά πνεύματος αἰωνίου) offered Himself without spot to God;” and 1Pe_3:18, where a somewhat similar distinction is made between the flesh and the spirit, or the human and divine nature of Christ: “Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit,” although this passage is not exactly parallel. Meyer takes πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης to mean the ἔσω ἄνθρωπος, the whole inner life of Christ, which was elevated above all purely human spirits, filled with the Spirit of God, sinless and perfect. De Wette: “The spiritual side of the life of Christ, yet with the attribute of holiness partly as a quiescent quality, partly as an efficacious power emanating from it.” Substitute for this: “The Divine side of Christ’s person with the essential characteristic of holiness,” &c., and we can adopt this explanation. If flesh means the whole human nature, it implies a human spirit, but not the πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης, which is essentially Divine.—P. S.]
Of Jesus Christ our Lord.—[Ἰησοῦ Χρισ τοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν, Rom_1:4, in apposition with τοῦ υἱοῦ θεοῦ, anticipated in the E. V. Rom_1:3]. This expresses the relation of the exalted Son of God to the Apostle and the Roman Christians as the ground and bond of their union. They together accepted Jesus as the Christ of God, and served Him as their common Master. [Alford: “Having given this description of the person and dignity of the Son of God, very man and very God, he now identifies this divine person with Jesus Christ, the Lord and Master of Christians—the historical object of their faith, and (see words following) the Appointer of himself to the apostolic office.” De Wette: “ ’̓Ιησ.Χρ. bezeichnet den Sohn Gottes als historisch-kirchliche Erscheinung.” So Tholuck, Philippi. Jesus is the personal, Christ the official name; the former expresses His true character and mission and relation to the world, the latter His connection with the Old Testament and the promise of God. Jesus, i.e., Saviour, was the Hebrew name, announced by the angel before His birth, Mat_1:25; Luk_1:31, and given at His circumcision, Luk_2:21; Christ, the Greek equivalent for the Hebrew Messiah, i.e., the Anointed, exhibits Him as the fulfiller of all the prophecies and types of the Old Testament, as the divinely promised and anointed Prophet, Priest, and King of Israel, who had for ages been the desire of all nations and the hope of all believers. Lord is here, and often, applied to Christ in the same sense in which the Septuagint uses κύριος for the Hebrew אֲדוֹנָי and יְהוָֹה. See the Lexica. Christ is so called as the supreme Lord of the New Dispensation, or the sovereign Head of Christendom, to whom all believers owe allegiance and obedience.—P. S.]
Rom_1:5. Through whom we received.—After stating the common relation of believers to Christ, there follows the account of the special relation of the Apostle to Him. It is plain that neither Rom_1:5 nor Rom_1:6 can be parenthetical; but here is prepared the whole treatment of the Epistle on the relation between the call of the Apostle and the call of the church at Rome. δἰ οὖ. Christ is the personal means of communicating his call on God’s part [or the mediatorial agent in conferring grace from God to man, comp. Gal_1:1; 1Co_1:9.—P. S.]. ἐλάβομεν (received) denotes not only the free divine gift, but also the living religious and moral appropriation by faith. It is plain that the plural here has reference to the call of Paul alone (not to the apostles in general, according to Bengel), from the following signature of his apostleship, by which he is the Apostle to the Gentiles.31
Grace [in general] and apostleship [in particular.—P. S.]. Grace, as the operative call to salvation and to the full experience of salvation in justification, is the preliminary condition for every Christian office, and, above all, to the apostleship. The grand unfolding of his apostleship was therefore preceded by an extraordinary degree of grace [in his conversion]. The explanation, χάριν ἀποστολῆς, grace of apos leship (Hendiadys, so Chrysostom, Beza, Philippi, and others), obliterates the force of that preliminary condition;32 but when the grace is regarded merely as pardoning grace (Augustine, Calvin), the fundamental part is mistaken for the whole. Thus, also, the extraordinary apostolic gifts (χαρίσματα) to which Theodoret, Luther, and others refer χάριν, presuppose grace (χάρις) already. Meyer understands the expression to mean Divine grace in general; that is, the translation into the communion of the beloved of God.
Unto obedience of faith [εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως, zum Glaubensgehorsam, comp. Rom_16:26.—P. S.]. That is, for the purpose of establishing obedience to the faith. The εἰς denotes not merely the purpose, but also the operation of the apostleship;—an instance of Pauline conciseness. It may be asked here, whether the genitive πίστεως indicates the object, or must be read as apposition: the faith which consists in obedience [to the Word and Will of Christ.—P. S.].33 But this question is limited by the second, whether πίστις can stand in the objective sense as fides quæ creditur [quod credendum est, doctrina Christiana.—P. S.]? Meyer denies this, and asserts that πίστις, in the New Testament, is constantly subjective faith [fides qua creditur, fides credens.—P. S.], though it is often made objective, as here, and is regarded a power, or controlling principle.34 But this would give us the idea of obedience toward the faithful. The obedience here meant is either identical with faith (the obedience which consists in faith, according to Theophylact, Calvin35 ), or it is obedience to faith in its objective form. The latter interpretation is supported by the expressions ὑπακοὴ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, 2Co_10:5 [ὑπακοἠ τῆς ἀληθεὶας, 1Pe_1:22], and particularly Act_6:7 [“a great company of priests ὑπήκουον τῇ πίστει, became obedient to the faith,” comp. Rom_10:16 : ὑπήκουσαν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ.—P. S.]. Comp. 1Pe_1:2; 1Pe_1:14. But this πίστις cannot mean only doctrina fidei. Even obedience to the gospel (Rom_10:16) does not express the most definite form of the objective πίστις: this is Christ Himself. An Epistle, sent to Rome by the ambassador of a Lord and King, who declared himself appointed to call all the peoples of the Roman Empire to obedience or allegiance, must have been planned in full consciousness of the antithesis, as well as of the analogy, between the earthly Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Christ. Therefore the Apostle expresses the analogy when he characterizes himself as an ambassador who appeals to the nations to be obedient to his Lord. But the antithesis lies in his denoting this obedience as an obedience to the faith. We must admit that the idea of the subjective faith also has here a good sense in itself. Faith is not at all arbitrary, but an obligatory obedience incumbent upon the inmost soul and conscience; yet its obedience is not slavish, but the joyous act of free faith, as it is assensus and fiducia. And if we accept this, the expression would be an oxymoron, like the expression: law of the Spirit. But since the question is concerning a characterization of the apostleship, the fuller idea must be expected: obedience toward the object of faith, especially as the freedom of faith is thereby also declared. Even the Christian’s hope can be used in an objective sense (Col_1:5).
Among all the nations (ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν).—Since this expression constitutes one definition with the preceding, it is an improper alternative to refer it either to ἐλάβ. (Beza) or to εἰς ὑπακ. πίστεως (Meyer [Hodge]). We translate here, among all the nations (with Rückert, Reiche, Baur); not among all Gentiles (Tholuck, Meyer), because, from the following salutation, the Jews are included in the designation, and because it is in harmony with the purpose of the whole Epistle to establish a united congregation from among Jews and Gentiles. With this view, the subordinate idea of heathen nations is immediately introduced, yet not clearly before Rom_1:13-14, &c. [Hodge: “The apostles were not diocesans, restricted in jurisdiction to a particular territory. Their commission was general. It was to all nations,”—yet with an amicable division of the immense field of labor; comp. Gal_2:9; Rom_15:20; 2Co_10:16.—P. S.]
For the sake of his name.—(See Act_5:41). Not for “the good” of His name; nor for the glorifying of the same (Meyer), which would have been expressed in the form of a doxology,36 but for the spread of His name (Php_2:10). Therefore the words are not an addition, but an explanatory parallel to the expression, “for obedience to the faith” &c., and relate, in common with this, to the antecedent. His name is the object of the faith to which the nations should render obedience in His name.
Rom_1:6. Among whom are ye also.—We place here a comma, and read the words, the called, the chosen ones of Jesus Christ, as an address (with Rückert, Philippi, &c.); but not, among whom are ye also called of Jesus Christ (with Lachmann, Meyer [Alford], and others). For the principal weight rests on the thought, that the Roman Christians were included in the totality of nations to which the Apostle was sent. He did not need to say first to them that they were the called of Jesus Christ. Thus we have the beautiful antithesis: I am the chosen Apostle for all nations: you are the chosen believers in the midst of all nations: we are therefore directed toward each other.
The called of Jesus Christ.—Not, whom Christ has called (Luther, Rückert, and others); but who, as the called [by the accepted call of God through the gospel], belong to and are subject to Him (the genitive of possession; Erasmus [Calvin, De Wette], Meyer, and others).37 Paul refers the call (through Christ) to God (Rom_8:30, &c.; see Meyer). The Apostle seems, by this address, to anticipate the salutation itself; but the address must prepare the way for the salutation by the reminder that he can salute them as pertaining to him. [Hodge: “Οἱ κληψοί, the called, means the effectually called; those who are so called by God as to be made obedient to the call. Hence the κλητοὶ are opposed to those who receive and disregard the outward call. … Hence, too, κλητοὶ and ἐκλεκτοὶ are of nearly the same import; κατἁ πρόθεσιν κλητοί, Rom_8:28; comp. Rom_9:11; 1Co_1:26-27. We accordingly find κλητοί used as a familiar designation of believers.” This is not quite correct. κλητοί and ἐκλεκτοί (a paronomasia in Greek, like the German erwählt and auserwählt) are clearly distinguished, Mat_20:16; Mat_22:14 : πολλοὶ γὰρ εἰσιν κλητοὶ, ὀλἱγοι δἑ ἐκλεκτοὶ, many are called, but few chosen; in the last passage they are even put in antithesis. All the members of the visible Church are κλητοί, though they may ultimately be lost; but only the members of the invisible Church, or the true believers, are ἐκλεκτοὶ, or κλητοὶ κατὰ πρόθεσιν (Rom_8:28). Comp. the notes on Mat_20:16, in vol. i. p. 352 and 354 f.—P. S.]
Rom_1:7. To all that are in Rome.—The address and the salutation.38 The Epistle is addressed to all Christians in Rome. Residence in Rome and connection with the body of Roman Christians are certainly presupposed (see Rom_1:8). But the Roman Christians are saluted according to the condition of things, as an incipient church not yet fully organized, but destined to become so—an end to which this very Epistle was directed. The Apostle expresses himself otherwise in the Epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians, and Thessalonians. There he salutes the Christians as a church, or churches. [The Christians residing at Rome, whether born there or not, are viewed as one community, however imperfectly they may have been organized at the time; but they no doubt worshipped in different parts of the city, and were thus divided into various domestic congregations, ἐκκλησίαι κατ̓ οἶκον, Rom_16:5. The population of the city of Rome at the time of Christ is variously estimated from one to two millions. In his earliest five epistles, Paul addresses himself τῆ ἐκκλησίᾳ, κ. τ. λ.; in all the others, τοῖς ἁγίοις.—P. S.]
Beloved of God, called to be saints.—The root of their Christian faith is, that they know themselves beloved of God by the experience of His reconciliation; the goal and crown of their Christian faith is holiness. But they are not merely called to be saints (De Wette). As truly called, they are actually saints first in this sense: that, according to the analogy of theocratic holiness, they are separated from the ungodly world and consecrated to God; secondly, in the sense that Christ dwells in them as the principle of increasing holiness, and that they are characterized according to the ruling principle of their new life (1Co_7:14). This general designation does not imply that the Apostle could say it of every individual, still less that he should ascribe to individuals a personal holiness of life. [κλητοί has the same relation to ἅγιοι as κλητός has to ἀπόστολος, in Rom_1:1, and expresses the vocation of the Roman Christians to holiness, which is both an actual possession as to principle, and a moral aim to be realized more and more by daily growth in Christ.—P. S.]
Grace to you and peace.—The Greek καίρειν (Act_15:23; Jam_1:1), and the Hebrew שָׁלוֹס לָכֶּם, are here reflected unitedly in the infinitely richer Christian salutation. The grace which, as the cause of peace, has its source in God and Christ; the peace, as the operation of this cause, which becomes the source of new life in believers. The more definite Christian conception is destroyed if we substitute (with Meyer, against Olshausen, Philippi, and many others) salvation instead of peace, and kindness instead of grace. [Grace and peace are related to each other as cause and effect, and constitute the chief blessings of Christianity, embracing all that we need. The profound Christian meaning of χάρις—the redeeming love of God in Christ—and of εἰρήνη—the peace with God by the redemption—compared with the ordinary meaning of the Greek καίρειν and the Hebrew shalom, affords a striking example of the transforming power which the genius of Christianity exercised over ancient language and custom. See the General Remarks on p. 57.—P. S.]
From God our Father.—The expression of the specifically Christian consciousness of God. The experience of pardon through Christ produces the consciousness of the υἱοθεσία (sonship, adoption) as a result.
And [from] the Lord.—[Κυρίου Ἰ. Χρ. is not dependent on Πατρός and parallel with ἡμῶν, but is ruled by ἀπο and is coördinate with Θεοῦ πατρός. God is nowhere called “our and Christ’s Father,” and Christ never addresses God “our,” but “My Father,” owing to His peculiar relationship which is rooted in the ὁμοουσία, or equality of essence. This frequent coördination of Christ with the Father, as equally the object of prayer and the source of spiritual blessing, implies the recognition of the divinity of Christ. No Hebrew monotheist could thus associate, without blasphemy, the eternal Jehovah with a mere man. So also Philippi, Hodge, and others.—P. S.] Not of the Lord (Erasmus, Glöckler). Nevertheless, we would not read, with Meyer: καὶ ἀπὸ κυρὶου, and not merely view Christ as causa medians, in distinction from the Father, as the causa principalis. For the dominion of the exalted Saviour must be distinguished from the mediatorship of Christ as causa medians. [God the Father is the author, Christ the mediator and procurer, the Holy Spirit the applier or imparter, of grace and peace. The Spirit takes them from Christ and shows them to the believer (comp. Joh_16:14). The latter may be the reason why the Holy Spirit is not especially mentioned in the epistolary salutations, except 2Co_13:13-14; 1Pe_1:2.—P. S.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The Epistle of the Apostle to the Romans on the righteousness of faith is still in a special sense a new message to the Romans, and a witness against Romanists. [It connects admirably with the concluding verses of the Acts, Act_28:30-31, as a specimen of Paul’s preaching in Rome, and to the Romans.—P. S.]
2. The significance of the Epistle to the Romans: (1.) As the first of the New Testament Epistles; (2) in the group of the Pauline Epistles; (3) as an original record of the missionary activity of the Apostle, and as an example for evangelical missions; (4) as the central point of the Christian doctrine of salvation, and thus as the starting-point of the Western (Latin) Church, and especially of the Protestant Evangelical Church (see the Introduction).
3. The epistolary inscription of ancient writers contrasted with the subscription of recent ones. The former characterizes the Epistle as a substitute for personal intercourse; the latter has become an independent form of personal communication. Frankness predominates in the former, courtesy in the latter.
4. Servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle. The extent of one idea is determined by that of the other.—Gospel of God: glorious unity.—Connection of the Old and New Testaments.—The apostles, unlike the Pharisees, acknowledge no traditions in connection with the Old Testament.—Grace and office must not be separated.—Just as little can we separate the experience of God’s love and the beginning of sanctification.—Neither can grace and peace be separated; nor the paternal authority of God and the authority of Christ.
5. The importance of the inscription of this Epistle. The importance of the salutation. The adaptation of the great Apostle of the Gentiles and of the Christian congregation of the great metropolis to each other. See the Exeg. Notes.
6. The antithesis: Christ born of the seed of David, and appointed the Son of God in majesty and honor (also over the Roman world), is an economical antithesis, at the foundation of which lies the ontological antithesis: that Christ is the temporal Son of David and the eternal Son of God.
7. The resurrection was historically accomplished and essentially finished in Christ. As the ideal and dynamical productive energy of the Logos, its roots and impulse pervade the whole history of the world and of man, and especially the history of the kingdom of God. The same may be said of the Spirit of holiness. See the Exeg. Notes. The Logos lighteth every man that cometh into the world (Joh_1:9).
8. Paul, as the ambassador of Jesus Christ, the Son of God in regal power, announces to the believers of the imperial city of Rome that it is his business to call the world to obedience to the faith and to subjection to Christ.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
An apostolic salutation: 1. From whom does it come? 2. what is its import? 3. to whom is it addressed? (Rom_1:1-7).—The one gospel of God: 1. Promised by His prophets; 2. fulfilled by His Son (Rom_1:3-4).—The missionary preaching among the Gentiles was a preaching of obedience to the faith for the glorifying of the name of Jesus Christ (Rom_1:5).—Every office is a gift of grace. The servants of Christ must remember this: 1. For their humility; 2. for their elevation and encouragement (Rom_1:5).—How can preachers of the gospel guard against bitterness toward the members of their congregation? By considering that the congregation are: 1. Beloved by God; 2. called by Jesus Christ (Rom_1:7).—Grace and peace: on one side different in manifestation, but, on the other, one in origin.
Luther:—The Spirit of God was given after Christ’s ascension, since which time He sanctifies Christians and glorifies Christ in all the world as the Son of God in power, in word, miracle, and sign (Rom_1:4).
Starke:—The preachers of the gospel must preach both the law and the gospel in their respective order, and especially the gospel (Rom_1:1).—He who does not become a saint on earth, will not be numbered among the saints in heaven (Rom_1:7).
Quesnel:—Every thing that comes to light is not therefore new: the oldest errors are continual novelties, and the newest truths are ever old.
Osiandri Bibl.:—Christ, according to His human nature, is our brother. O great consolation! (Rom_1:3).
Cramer:—Worldly peace is a great treasure, but, after all, it is not sufficient for us. When Christ communicates His peace to us (Joh_14:27), it is grace in God; and then have we peace with God (Rom_1:7).
Bengel: The Gospel of God is also the Gospel of Christ (Rom_1:1).—Jesus Christ is the Son of God (Rom_1:3-4). This is the ground of all legitimate address of Christ to His Father and God, and of our legitimate address, through Him as our Lord, to His Father and our Father, His God and our God, who hath made us His own. He was Son of God before His humiliation; but His Sonship was veiled during His earthly life, and not fully unveiled till after His resurrection. On this rests His justification, 1Ti_3:16; 1Jn_2:1, and this is the ground of our justification, Rom_4:25.
Gerlach:—According to the flesh, the Son of God belonged to the Jews alone. But by the completion of His atonement, through the resurrection, He became the universal King of the human race, Lord of heaven and earth, according to the Spirit which dwelt in Him, and has perfectly pervaded His human nature (Rom_1:3-4).
Heubner:—Prophets and apostles had one calling, one work (Rom_1:2).—The apostolic benediction—of what fulness of spiritual gifts, of what a holy heart, does it give witness! It is grand to express such a wish for a church; it presupposes the personal possession and appreciation of these gifts, but also a serious zeal to apply them to the congregation (Rom_1:7).
Roos:—If the theme of Paul’s preaching had been only virtue, and a supreme Being whom we call God, he would have pleased the Greeks; and if he had preached on a Messiah yet to come, and on the works of the law, the Jews would have been contented with him. But he preached on the Son of God. That was the voice of his gospel (Rom_1:4).
Besser:—The Spirit of holiness is the very force by which Christ has taken away the power of death, and has destroyed mortality, through the triumph of His imperishable life (ver 4).
J. P. Lange:—How Christ exhibits His power as Lord by the Spirit of sanctification: 1. As the Risen One; 2. as the Son of God (Rom_1:1-4).—The same: Like man, like salutation.—The joy with which the Apostle announces the majesty of Christ in imperial Rome: 1. How foolish this joy appeared; 2. how gloriously it was justified; 3. how it must be fulfilled once more.—The internal connection between the power of the resurrection and the Spirit of holiness in Christ.
[Burkitt:—Paul declares: 1. The person from whom he received authority to be an apostle, namely, Christ; 2. how free and undeserved a favor it was; 3. the special duty and office of an apostle; 4. how he puts the Romans in mind of their condition by nature before the gospel was revealed to them and received by them; hence it is the duty of both ministers and people to be mindful of what was their condition by nature.—Why is the Holy Ghost excluded in the salutation of Rom_1:7? He is not excluded, though He be not named; but is necessarily implied in the forementioned gifts. Besides, in other salutations the Holy Ghost is expressly mentioned; 1 Cor. 13:13, 14.—Henry:—The Apostle describes: 1. The person who writes the Epistle; 2. the gospel itself; 3. the persons to whom it is written; and 4. pronounces the apostolic benediction.—Doddridge:—We are called to partake of the privileges of God’s people; we belong to the society of those who are eminently beloved of God, and who lie under great obligations, as they are called a holy nation, a peculiar people. May we not dishonor the sacred community to which we belong, and may we finally enjoy the important privileges of that state of everlasting glory in which the kingdom of the Son of God shall terminate!—Clarke:—The Apostle invokes upon the Romans all the blessings which can flow from God as the fountain of grace; producing in them all the happiness which a heart filled with the peace of God can possess; all of which are to be communicated to them through the Lord Jesus Christ.—Comprehensive Comm.:—The Christian profession is not a notional knowledge, or a naked assent, or useless disputings; but it is obedience to the faith. The act of faith is the obedience of the understanding to God revealing, and the product of that is the obedience of the will to God commanding.—Barnes:—From Paul’s connecting the Lord Jesus Christ with the Father, we see: 1. That the Apostle regarded Him as the source of grace and peace as really as he did the Father; 2. he introduced them in the same connection, and with reference, to the bestowal of the same blessings; 3. if the mention of the Father implies a prayer, the same is implied by the mention of Christ, and hence was an act of worship to the latter; 4. all this shows that Paul’s mind was familiarized to the idea that Christ was divine.—These seven verses are a striking instance of the manner of Paul. While the subject is simply a salutation to the Roman church, his mind seems to catch fire, and to burn and blaze with signal intensity. He leaves the immediate subject before him, and advances some vast thought that awes us, and fixes us in contemplation, and involves us in difficulty about his meaning, and then returns to his subject.—Hodge:—God is called our Father, not merely as the author of our existence and the source of every blessing, but especially as reconciled toward us through Jesus Christ.—If Jesus Christ is the great subject of the gospel, it is evident that we cannot have right views of the one without having correct opinions concerning the other.—J. F. H.]
[Schaff:—The epistolary addresses generally bear on the doctrine of the ministerial office and its relation to the congregation, and furnish suitable texts for ordination and installation sermons.
Rom_1:1. Paul, a model for a Christian minister: I. In his humility—a servant (bondsman) of Jesus Christ. II. In his dignity—a chosen apostle. His sense of dependence on Christ (servant) precedes and underlies his sense of authority over the congregation (apostle).—Only the true servant of Christ can be a true servant of the people.—Ministers derive their authority from Christ, not from the people, but for the people.—A servant of Christ. The service of Christ is perfect freedom, Joh_8:36. St. Augustine: “Deo servire vera libertas est.”—A chosen apostle. The apostle and the ordinary minister: I. The unity: (a.) Both are called by God; (b.) both are servants of Christ; (c.) both labor for the same end—the glory of God and the salvation of souls. II. The difference: (a.) An apostle is called directly by Christ; a minister, through the medium of church authority; (b.) an apostle is inspired and infallible; a minister is only enlightened, and liable to err; (c.) an apostle has the world for his field; a minister is confined to a particular charge.—Chosen, set apart. The necessity of a Divine call for the ministry: I. The inner call by the Holy Ghost. II. The outward call by the authority and ordination of the Church.—The regularly called minister contrasted with the self-constituted minister and fanatic.—Set apart unto the gospel. The preaching of the gospel: I. The chief duty of the minister, to which all others must be subordinated. II. The highest work, in which Christ Himself and all the apostles engaged. III. The inconsistency of connecting any secular calling with the holy ministry.
Rom_1:2. The close connection of the Old and New Testaments. Christianity a new, and yet an old religion.—The historical character of Christianity—in opposition to the Gnostic and fanatical theory of a magical, abrupt descent from the clouds.
Rom_1:3-4. Jesus Christ the great theme of the gospel. His double nature, the human, earthly, historical, and the divine, heavenly, eternal—both inseparably united in one person.—The importance of the resurrection as an argument for the Divinity of Christ.
Rom_1:5. Christ, the mediator of all grace.
Rom_1:7. The Christians are saints—i.e., separated from the world and consecrated to the service of God; holy in principle, and destined to become more and more holy and perfect in their whole life and conduct.—The redeeming grace of God in Christ—the fountain of peace with God and with ourselves.—First grace, then peace.—No grace without peace; no peace without grace.—The coördination of Christ with God the Father in the epistolary inscriptions—an indirect proof of the Deity of Christ.]
Footnotes:
[1][It was thought best to separate the three distinct sections embraced in Rom_1:1-17, viz.: I. The Address and Salutation, Rom_1:1-7. II. The Epistolary Introduction, Rom_1:8-15. III. The Theme of the Epistle, Rom_1:16-17. Dr. Lange presents them as one whole, which, with our numerous additions, would make it too long and inconvenient for reference.—P. S.]
[2][Πρὸς ̔Ρωμαίους. This is the oldest and simplest title of Codd. א. (Sin.) A. B. C., and has been adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, Lange, &c., in the place of the title of the textus receptus: Παύλου τοῦ ἀποστόλου ἡ πρὸς ̔Ρωμαίους ἐπιστολή. For other titles, see the apparatus criticus in Tischendorf.—P. S.]
[3]Rom_1:1.—The reading ̓Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ is confirmed by most authorities [Codd. א. A. E. G., and adopted by Lachmann, Alford], against the reading, Christ Jesus (Cod. B., Tischendorf).
[4]Rom_1:2.—[ἐν γραφαῖς ἁγίαις, literally in sacred writings (without the article), but better, with the E. V., in the Holy Scriptures. γραφαῖς was sufficiently defined by ἁγίαις to be understood by the readers as referring to the Old Testament. So is πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης, Rom_1:4, and πνεῦμα ἁγιον repeatedly without the article. Comp. Winer, Gr. of the N. T., § 19, 2 b. (p. 113, 6th ed., p. 119, 7th ed., by Lünemann). Meyer insists that the omission of the article (ταῖς) indicates that only those portions or passages of the Old Testament were meant here, which contain Messianic prophecies, and he refers in proof to γραφῶν προφητικῶν in Rom_16:26 (where, however, the prophetical portions of the Old Testament are meant). But Fritzsche, De Wette, Tholuck, Philippi, Alford, Lange (Exeg. Notes), and most commentators regard γραφαὶ ἅγιαι as a proper noun for the whole Old Testament. And, in fact, it is the whole Bible, as an organic unit, from Genesis to Malachi, which bears witness to Christ, comp. Joh_5:46.—P. S.]
[5]Rom_1:3.—[γενομένου can only be said of the human nature of Christ which began in time, while His divine nature is without beginning and without end. Mark the difference between ἐγένετο and ἦν in Joh_1:1; Joh_1:3; Joh_1:6. Comp. also Gal_4:4 : ἐξαπέστειλεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν υἱὸν αὑτοῦ, γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικὸς, γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον. Some Minuscule MSS. read γεννωμένου for γενομένου.—P. S.]
[6]Rom_1:4.—[ὁρισθέντος, decreed, constituted, ordained, inaugurated. Bengel: “ὁρισθέντος multo plus dicit quam ἀφωρισμένος, Rom_1:1 : nam ἀφρίζεται unus e pluribus, ὁρίζεται unicus quispiam, Act_10:42.” ὁρίζειν (from ὅρος, limit) means, 1. to limit, to set bounds; 2. to define (of ideas); 3. to fix, to appoint or constitute, especially with the double accusative (Act_10:42; Act_17:31). The last meaning alone can apply here. Dr. Lange translates festgesteilt, established. Some of the best commentators (Chrysostom, Luther, Fritzsche, Olshausen, Philippi, Robertson, Alford, Hodge, and even Meyer) understand it here of a mere declaration, or a subjective manifestation and recognition of Christ as the Son of God in the hearts of men. But there is confessedly no instance where ὁρίζειν means to declare, to manifest, to prove. And then the human recognition of the Messiahship of Christ was the result of an act of God. Paul speaks here not of the preëxistent, but of the incarnate Christ, of the God-Man. Under this view Christ was divinely decreed and objectively fixed, constituted, and inaugurated as the Son of God in power or majesty (ἐν δυνάμει is to be connected with υἱοῦ, not with the verb) at His resurrection, which implied the principle and germ of the resurrection of all believers, and by which the man Jesus was exalted and made partaker of the divine glory of the Logos in His preëxistent state. Comp, Php_2:9-11; Joh_17:5. In a similar sense ποιεῖν is used, Act_2:36 : “God hath made this Jesus whom ye have crucified, Lord and Christ.” Paul had probably in mind the divine decree (חֹק, Sept. πρόσταγμα), Psa_2:7 : “Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee,” which he expressly refers to the resurrection, Act_13:33; comp. Heb_1:5; Heb_5:5. This is, of course, not to be understood in the Socinian sense, which denies the eternal Sonship of Christ; on the contrary, the eternal Sonship (Rom_8:3; Gal_4:4; Col_1:15; Php_2:7) precedes and underlies the historical Sonship, just as the Divinity of Christ is necessarily implied in His incarnation; for He could never have become God-Man, if He had not been God before. The eternal, metaphysical Sonship of the Logos, which is coëqual with the Father, was indicated by Paul in Rom_1:3, τοῦ υὶοῦ αὑτοῦ, before speaking of the incarnation, and is, in its nature, incommunicable; but the historical Sonship of the God-Man, which dates indeed from the incarnation (Luk_1:35), but was not fully developed, publicly established, and made manifest till the resurrection, is communicated to believers; first germinally in regeneration, whereby they are made “sons of God,” Rom_8:14, and fully in their resurrection, Rom_8:23, when what is here sown in weakness will be raised in power (ἐν δυνάμει), 1Co_15:43. Hence the risen Saviour is called “the first-born among many brethren,” Rom_8:29; “the first-born from the dead” (πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν), Col_1:18; Rev_1:5. Comp. Dr. Lange, Exeg. Notes, p. 61. Forbes, Analyt. Com., p. 94, and Cremer, Bibl. theol. Wörterbuch, sub. ὁρίζω. The translation of the Vulgate: qui prædestinatus est Filius Dei, rests on a false reading or gloss: προ ορισθέντος.—P. S.]
[7]Rom_1:4.—[ἐν δυνάμει may be connected adverbially with ὁρισθέντος (=τοῦ ἐν δυν. ὁρ.), with power, powerfully, effectually, kräftiglich, gewaltig (Luther, Olshausen, De Wette, Meyer, Alford, Hodge), or better adjectively with the preceding noun υὶοῦ θεοῦ, in power (Melanchthon: “Declaratus est esse Filius Dei potens,” Philippi, Hofmann, Lange). In the former case, the words refer to the resurrection as an exhibition of the Divine power; in the latter, they contrast the majesty and power of the risen Son of God with the weakness of His human nature, the ἀσθένεια, implied in σάρξ.—P. S.]
[8]Rom_1:4.—[Dr. Lange translates ἐξ von-aus, from, out of, as indicating the origin, corresponding to ἐκ σπέρματος, Rom_1:3. Bengel: “ἐκ non modo tempus, sed nexum rerum denotat.” The preposition ἐκ marks in both cases, Rom_1:3-4, the source from or out of which the relation springs. The seed of David is the source of the human nature of Christ; the resurrection is the starting-point of His divine nature, not in its preëxistent state, of course, but in its objective historical manifestation and public recognition among men. Comp. Exeg. Notes.—P. S.]
[9]Rom_1:4.—[ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν, the resurrection of the dead, Todten-auferstehung, is not identical with ἀνάστασις ἐκ νεκρῶν, resurrection from the dead (E. V.), but is a stronger summary expression which comprehends the resurrection of Christ and the believers as one connected whole or single fact, inasmuch as the resurrection of Christ, who is “the Resurrection and the Life” itself, implies and guarantees the resurrection of all the members of His mystical body; comp. Joh_11:25; Act_4:2; Act_17:32; Act_23:6; Act_26:23; 1Co_15:12. Alford: “We must not render as E. V. ‘the resurrection from the dead,’ but the resurrection of the dead,’ regarded as accomplished in that of Christ.” Comp. also Philippi and Wordsworth.—P. S.]
[10]Rom_1:5.—[εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως (without the article) occurs once more, Rom_16:26, and may be translated as a compound noun: Glaubensgehorsam. The words express the design and object of Paul’s apostlesh p, viz., that through its instrumentality all the nations be brought to a saving faith in Christ. The different views on the meaning of πίστις, whether it be objective faith, fides quæ creditur, or subjective faith, fides qua creditur, do not affect the translation. See Exeg. Notes.—P. S.]
[11]Rom_1:6.—[The E. V. and Dr. Lange make a comma after ὑμεῖς, and regard κλητοὶ Ἰ. Χρ. as being in apposition to ὑμεῖς. So also the New Testament of the Am. Bible Union, which, however, omits the article before called, and renders: among whom are ye also, called of Jesus Christ. But Lachmann, Tischendorf, De Wette, Meyer, Alford, omit the comma and connect κλητοί as the predicate with ἐστέ: “Among whom ye also are called of Jesus Christ;” Meyer: “Unter welchen auch ihr Berufene Jesu Christi seid.” Alford thinks that the assertion among whom are ye, with a comma after ὑμεῖς, would be fiat and unmeaning. This, however, is not the case. See Exeg. Notes.—P. S.]
[12]Rom_1:7.—[ἐν ̔Ρώμη, Rom_1:7, and τοῖς ἐν Ρ̓ώμῃ, Rom_1:15, are omitted in Cod. G. Born. and Schol. Cod. 47, but this omission is too isolated to nave any critical weight. Comp. Meyer against Reiche’s inference.—P. S.]
[13]Rom_1:7.—[According to the usual construction still adhered to by Wordsworth, who makes a comma after ἁγίοις, the first seven verses form but one sentence, in which case we would have a double subject, viz., Παῦλος and Χάρις καὶ εἰρήνη instead of χάριν καὶ είρήνην (λέγει), and a repetition of the persons addressed, viz., τοῖς ἐν Ῥώμη and ὑμῖν. But it is impossible that such a gross grammatical irregularity should occur not only here, but in all the Pauline Epistles, as also in 1 and 2 Peter, Jude, and Rev_1:4. The nominative χάρις and εἰρήνη, as well as the ὑμῖν, clearly indicate that the second clause of Rom_1:7 (which should be divided into two verses) forms a complete sentence by itself and contains the salutation proper, while the preceding words form the inscription. Hence there should be a period before χάρις. So Knapp-Goeschen, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Theile-Stier, Alford, in their editions, as well as most of the modem commentators. Tholuck is wrong when he says that Fritzsche was the first to suggest this division. Beza already did it; “Novam hic periodum incipio, adscripto puncto post ἁγίοις.”—P. S.]
[14]Rom_1:7.—[Grace to you, without be, is in accordance with the Greek and the Vulg. (gratia vobis et pax) and preferable. The E. V. is inconsistent, sometimes inserting be and sometimes omitting it. The verbal form to be supplied after χἁρις in this case would not be the annunciative or mandatory ἕστω, be, but the optative εἴη, may be; for the χάρις ὑμῖν is not an elliptical doxology, nor an authoritative benediction, but a prayer or earnest wish; comp. 2Pe_1:2, χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη; Judges 2, ἔλεος … πληθυνθείη.—P. S.]
[15][Outside of the New Testament the salutatory χαίρειν is also found in several epistles of Ignatius, in the epistle of (pseudo-) Barnabas, and in other ancient Christian documents; comp. Eusebius, H. E. v. 4; iv. 26.—P. S.]
[16][In post-apostolic literature, Clement of Rome wishes the Corinthians χάρις καὶ εἰρήνη. Polycarp, ad Phil., instead of this, has ἔλεος καὶ ειρήνη (comp. Gal_6:16 : εἰρήνη ἐπ̓ αὐτοὺς καὶ ἔλεος). The Martyrium Polycarpi, in its inscription, prays for ἔλεος, εἰρήνη καὶ ἀγάπη, which corresponds with the formula in Judges 2. In the epistle of the congregations of Southern Gaul, A. D. 167 (Eusebius, H. E. v. 1–4). we have εἰρήνη καὶ χάρις καὶ δόξα.—P. S.]
[17][Besides the commentaries, comp. J. B. Bittinger: The Greetings of Paul, in the Am. Presb. and Theol. Review for Jan. and April, 1867; and especially J. C. Theo. Otto: Ueber den apostolischen Segensgruss χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη, und χάρις, ἔλεος, εἰρήνη, in the Jahrbücher für Deutsche Theologie, vol. vii. No. 4 (Gotha, 1867), pp. 678–697.—P. S.]
[18][Lucanus does not occur in the Greek Testament, but in several Latin MSS. the third Gospel is inscribed: Evangelium secundum Lucanum. The Greek Λουκᾶς is, no doubt, a contraction of the Latin Lucanus, as Σίλας is of Silvanus. Some commentators, however, identify the names Lucas and Lucius (Act_13:1; Rom_16:21.)—P. S.]
[19][I add, as a curiosity, a quotation from Dr. Wordsworth, who, in his Com. on Act_13:9, uncritically combines all the various interpretations of the name (except Dr. Lange’s, which was then not yet known to him), and assigns no less than eight reasons for the change of Saul into Paul: (1) Because Σαῦλος was a purely Jewish name. (2) Because among the Greeks it might expose him to contempt, as having the same sound as σαῦλος, wanton (see Homer, Hymn. Mercur., 28, and Ruhnken in loc.). (3) To indicate his change and call to a new life; from a Jew to a Christian; from a persecutor to a preacher of the gospel. (4) But in the change much of the original name was left and commemorated what he had been. The fire of zeal of Σαῦλος still glowed in the heart of Παῦλος, but its flame was purified by the Holy Ghost. (5) His new name denoted also his mission to the Gentiles, the Romans being familiar with the name Paulus. (6) It was a token of humility, Paulus-parvulus (1Co_15:9). (7) It commemorated the cognomen of Paul’s first (?) convert, Sergius-Paulus, and was a good augury of his future success in the Roman world. (8) It indicates Paul’s intended supremacy in the Roman or Western Church as distinct from the Aramaic name Cephas, and the Greek name Peter.—P. S.]
[20][Wordsworth, also, explains the word from Act_13:2, where the Holy Ghost says: ἈΦορίσατε (the word here used by Paul) δή μοι τὸν Βαρνάβαν καὶ Σαῦλον εὶς τὸ ἒργον ὁ προσκέκλημαι αὐτούς, so that he was both κλητός and ἀφωρισμένος. Paul was not only called by God, but was also visibly set apart for the apostolic office by an outward mission and ordination at His command. But Act_13:2 evidently refers to a special and joint mission of Barnabas and Saul.—P. S.]
[21][The Anglo-Saxon gospel, i.e., either good spell, or God’s spell, is the precise equivalent for the Greek εὐαγγέλιον, i.e., good news, glad tidings (of salvation). Geo. P. Marsh, in his Lectures on the English Language, New York, 1860, p. 30, has a note on the two derivations, either from the name of the divinity God, or from the adjective gód, good, and leans to the latter.—P. S.]
[22][Comp. Winer, N. T. Grammar, p. 118 f. ed. 7th, and Textual Note 3.—P. S.]
[23][Comp. Textual Note3.—P. S.]
[24][Grotius: “Hoc refertur ad illud quod præcessit εὐαγγέλιον; explicatur nempe, de quo agat ille sermo bona nuntians.” So also Calvin, Bengel, the E. V., and all who regard Rom_1:2 as a parenthesis. The sense in either case is the same. Christ is the great subject of the gospel.—P. S.]
[25][So Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, who, in their editions, omit the parenthesis, and Meyer in loc. Comp. Winer: Grammar N. T. p. 525, 7th ed.: Viele längere Einschaltungen sind nicht Parenthesen, sondern Digressionen, sofern sie nur den Gedankenfortschritt, nicht den Lauf der Construction aufhalten.”—P. S.]
[26][De præd, sanct. c.25. Augustine had but a superficial knowledge of Greek, and was here, as in Rom_5:12 and in other passages, misled by the translation of the Vulgate, which reads: prædestinatus (προ ορισθέντος).—P. S.]
[27][Comp. my textual note No.5. Chrysostom: Τί οὖν ἒστιν ὁρισθέντος; τοῦ δειχθέντος, ἀποφανθέντος, κριθέντος ὁμολογηθέντος παρὰ τῆς ἁπάντων γνώμης καὶ ψήφου. So Theophylact. Luther: erwiesen. Meyer agrees with this as to the sense, but insists that here as elsewhere ὸριζειν with the double accusative means to appoint, designate, institute some one for something (Act_10:42). Philippi (3d ed.): “Christus ist als Sohn Gottes dargethan, erwiesen, insofern er von den Menschen, oder in der Ueberzeugung der Menschen, durch die Auferstehung von den Todten dazu eingeselzteist. Gonz parallel ist der Gudanke, Act_13:33.” Alford: “The ὁρίζειν here spoken of is not the objective ‘fixing,’ ‘appointing’ of Christ to be the Son of God, but the subjective manifestation in men’s minds that He is so. Thus the objective words ποιεῖν (Act_2:36), γεννᾷν (Act_13:33), are used of the same proof or manifestation of Christ’s Sonship by His resurrection. So again ἐδικαιώθη, 1Ti_3:16.” But all this is contrary to the meaning of ὁρίζειν, which denotes the objective fixing and appointing. Wordsworth explains somewhat differently: “Who was defined (as distinguished from all others) by a divine decree, and proclaimed to be the Son of God.” He refers to Psa_2:7 as the best exposition of this text: “I will declare the decree (חֹק) whereby the Lord said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.” Bengel refers to the same passage and remarks that חֹק here means the same as ὀρισμός, and that the divine decree implies, that the Father has most determinately said, Thou art my Son. The ἀπόδειξις, the approving of the Son, follows in the train of this ὁρισμός.—P. S.]
[28][Bengel has a large note on πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης which is well worth reading in full. He regards ἁγιωσύνη, sanctimonia, as a kind of middle term between ἁγιότης, holiness, and ἁγιασμός, sanctification.—P. S.]
[29][Wordsworth and Forbes also wrongly identity the πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης with the πνεῦμα ἂγιον, the third person in the Holy Trinity, and thereby destroy the obvious contrast of κατὰ πν. ἁγιωσ. and κατὰ σάρκα.—P. S.]
[30][Epist. ad Cor. II. c.Romans 9 : Ὡς Χριστὸς ὁ κύριος, ὁ σώσας ὴμᾶς, ὢν μὲν τὸ πρῶτον πνεῦμα, ἐγένετο σάρξ, καὶ οὒτως ὴμᾶς ἐκάλεσεν. οὒτως καὶ ὴμεῖς ταύτη ἐν τῆ σαρκὶ ἀποληψόμεθα τὸν μισθόν. The Clementine origin of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians is very doubtful.—P. S.]
[31][Comp. the note of Meyer in loco against Reiche, and of Alford against Peile, who infers that the subject of ἐλάβομεν must be the same as the preceding ἠμῶν, overlooking the formulary character of the phrase ὸ κύριος ήμῶν.—P. S.]
[32][Alford: “Keep the χάριν καὶ ἀποστολήν separate, and strictly consecutive, avoiding all nonsensical figures of Hendiadys, Hypallage, and the like. It was the general bestowal of grace which conditioned and introduced the special bestowal (καὶ, as so often, coupling a specific portion to a whole) of apostleship; cf. 1Co_15:10.” Augustine: “Gratiam cum omnibus fidelibus, apostolatum autem non cum omnibus communem habet.”—P. S.]
[33][Or rather: the obedience which consists in faith, in the act of believing.—P. S.]
[34][Meyer, 4th ed. 1865, p. Rom 43: “πίστις für doctrinafidei zu nehmen (Beza, Tolet., Estius, Bengel, Heum., Cramer, Rosenm., Flatt, Fritzsche, Tholuck, u. M.), ist durchaus gigen den Sprachgebrauch des N. T., in welchem die πίστις stets der subjective Glaube ist, obwohl oft, wie hier, obectivirt, als Potenz gedacht. Vrgl. xvi. 26; Gal_1:23. Die πίστις ist, nach P., die Ueberzeugung und Zuversicht (assensus und fiducia) von Jesus Christus als dem einzigen und vollkommenen Vermittler der göttlichen Gnade und des ewigen Lebens, durch sein Versöhnungswerk.”—P. S.]
[35][So also Hodge: “The obedience of faith is that obedience which consists in faith, or of which faith is the controlling principle. Wordsworth: “That I might bring all nations to that faith which manifests itself in hearkening to the “Word, and in obedience to the Will, of God.”—P. S.]
[36][Not necessarily; comp. Act_9:16; Act_15:26; Act_21:13, where the same phrase, ύπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ κυρίον, Ἰησοῦ, occurs in the sense: for the glory of Christ. Meyer’s interpretation is also adopted by Alford and Hodge. The words aptly express the final end of Paul’s apostleship, which was, to promote the knowledge and glory of Christ. In the “name” of Christ is summed up all that He was, did, and suffered.—p. S.]
[37][Alford takes ̓Ιησοῦ χριστοῦ not as the genit. possessionis, but as equivalent to by Jesus Christ. But the call of believers is uniformly referred to the Father. Alford quotes Joh_5:25 and 1Ti_1:12; but these passages are not to the point.—P. S.]
[38][The salutation commences with χάρις, and should form a verse by itself. The first clause of Rom_1:7 connects with Rom_1:1 and indicates the readers. See Text. Note 12.—P. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–7 Which he had promised afore . . . in…
Which he had promised afore . . . in the holy scriptures--Though the Roman Church was Gentile by nation (see on Rom 1:13), yet as it consisted mostly of proselytes to the Jewish faith (see on Introduction to this Epistle), they are here reminded that in embracing Christ they had not cast off, but only the more profoundly yielded themselves to, Moses and the prophets (Act 13:32-33).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Exordium and Thesis, Rom_1:1-17.
Exordium and Thesis, Rom_1:1-17.
The Exordium consists of three parts: the superscription, (Rom_1:1-7,) the direct address, (Rom_1:8-17,) closing with the introduction of the thesis.
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1. Paul—The superscription (Rom_1:1-7) is one magnificently rounded sentence, worthy the chief apostle addressing the imperial city. This too consists of three parts: the personal style of the writer, (Rom_1:1,) the surpassing nature of his topic, (Rom_1:2-5,) and the direction of his letter to the Roman Christians, (Rom_1:7.)
Paul—Instead of signing the name at the end, as in modern times, the ancient mode was to place the name at the beginning of the letter. (For the name Paul see our note on Act_13:9.)
Servant—Δουλος, derived from δεω, to bind, so signifying a bondsman. (On the New Testament word for slave see note on Luk_7:2.) To be a doulos of a Divine Master is a high honour; but no Greek writer ever uses the phrase, andrapodon of God or Christ. Just so in English we may say servant of God, but never slave of God.
Called—Literally, a called apostle. A noble self-assertion against those who pronounced him an uncalled apostle, and so no apostle at all. (On the word called see note on Mat_22:14.) The distinction made in predestinarian theology between God’s common call and his “effectual call” upon sinners to repent, implies that God does not truly mean his common call to be effectual, and so imputes insincerity to God. The true distinction lies not in the intrinsic nature of God’s call itself, but in the different acceptance by man. There is truly a rejected calling and an obeyed calling, and those who obey God’s call become permanently the called. Paul was called, (see note Act_9:9,) and being not disobedient to the heavenly vision his was an obeyed calling, and so his “effectual” and permanent calling.
Separated—In this lofty self-assertion the apostle declares that he was not only called at mature age, but even set apart for his great calling, like Jeremiah, before his birth. “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” (Jer_1:5.) For, knowing of him, as God did of Abraham, (note Gen_18:19,) how he would faithfully discharge his office, God individualized him even before his birth as a great instrument, in his day, for the performance of a great mission. It was none the less in his power, like Solomon or like Judas, to apostatize and become a castaway: nay, it required the highest power of will on his own part to avoid such a result.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Ch. Rom_1:1-7. Greeting
Ch. Rom_1:1-7. Greeting
1. Paul] On the name, see Introduction, i. § 2.
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a servant] Strictly, a bondservant. So Php_1:1; Tit_1:1; Jas_1:1; 2Pe_1:1; Judges 1. For exposition of the word see Rom_6:18-19, with 1Co_6:19-20; Tit_2:14 (where “a peculiar people” means “a people of possession”). The Christian is his Lord’s bondsman (1) as purchased, (2) as self-surrendered. St Paul thus describes himself before the mention of his special, apostolic, branch of bondservice. This Epistle is the earliest in which St Paul uses the word in the exordium.
of Jesus Christ] Cp. Rom_14:18; 1Co_7:22; Eph_6:6, &c. To St Paul the Divine Son, as truly as the Father, is his absolute Master and Possessor.—The sacred Name and Title (Jesus, Christ,) occur together in the Gospels five times, in the Acts often, in the Epistles perpetually.—It is most important to remember that Christ is merely the Greek version of the Hebrew Messiah (Anointed). As used in Scripture, it thus constantly refers back to O. T. prophecy, and to the truth (uttered by Messiah Himself, Joh_4:22,) that “salvation is of the Jews.”
called] At his conversion. Cp. 1Co_1:1. For the terms of the call see Act_26:17-18. This call is distinct from the call to be a Christian, on which see Rom_1:6-7; Rom_8:28; 1Co_1:24.
an apostle] Lit. an envoy, missionary; in Gospels and Acts, always in the special sense of an immediate Delegate from the Saviour. In Rom_16:7, the sense is, perhaps, more extended[31]; so, too, Php_2:25 (where E. V. “messenger”). St Paul needed often to insist on the fact and rights of his apostleship. 1Co_9:1-2; 2Co_12:12; Gal_1:1.
[31] But see note there.
separated] For the special work of an Apostle. This was (1) in God’s sure purpose (Gal_1:15-16; cp. Jer_1:5); (2) at his conversion (Act_9:15); (3) at Antioch (Act_13:2; “separate me, &c.”).
the gospel of God] The Message of Good sent from God and revealing Him. So Rom_15:16; 2Co_11:7; 1Th_2:2, &c. In a special sense it is the Gospel of Christ, in whom alone is the true revelation of God (Mat_11:27; Joh_17:3).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–7 (1) Servant.—More strictly, here as elsewhere in the New…
(1) Servant.—More strictly, here as elsewhere in the New Testament, slave; and yet not wrongly translated “servant,” because the compulsory and degrading side of service is not put forward. The idea of “slavery” in the present day has altogether different associations.
Separated.—Compare especially Act_13:2 (“Separate me Barnabas and Saul”), where human instruments—the leaders of the Church at Antioch—are employed to carry out the divine will. The reference here is to the historical fact of the selection of St. Paul to be an Apostle; in Gal_1:15 (“it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb”), it is rather to the more distant act of divine predestination.
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Unto the gospel of God.—Singled out and set apart to convey the message of salvation from God to man. The ambiguous genitive, the gospel of God, seems to mean, “the gospel which proceeds from God,” “of which God is the author;” not “of which God is the object.”
(1-7) In writing to the Romans, a Church to which he was personally unknown, and which might be supposed, so far as it was Jewish, to be prejudiced against him, the Apostle delivers with somewhat more than usual solemnity his credentials and commission. A divinely appointed minister of a system of things predicted by the prophets, and culminating in the revelation, divinely ordained and attested, of Jesus Christ, he greets the Roman Christians, themselves also divinely called. Note the repetition of terms signifying “calling,” “selection,” “determination in the counsels and providence of God;” as if to say: “I and you alike are all members of one grand scheme, which is not of human invention, but determined and ordained of God—the divine clue, as it were, running through the history of the world.” A solemn note is thus struck at the very commencement, and in what might have been regarded as the more formal part of the Epistle, by which the readers are prepared for the weighty issues that are to be set before them.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Vers. 1-16. I. INTRODUCTORY.
Vers. 1-16. I. INTRODUCTORY.
Vers. 1-7. A. Salutation with long interposed parenthesis, suggested by "gospel of God." The parenthesis, expressing thoughts of which the writer"s mind is full, intimates the purport of the coming treatise. It also intimates his claim, afterwards more fully asserted, (Rom_15:15, seq.) to demand a hearing from the Roman Church. It is St. Paul"s way, when full of an idea, thus to interrupt his sentences at the suggestion of a word. Somewhat similar interpositions are found in the opening salutations of Galatians and Titus, especially in the latter; but this is peculiar for its length and fulness.
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Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle. In his salutations to the Philippians and to Titus also St. Paul calls himself doulov (i.e. "bondservant") of Jesus Christ; but usually only apostolov , or, as here, klhtostolov , which is rightly translated in the Authorized Version, "called to be an apostle," Divine vocation to the office being the prominent idea. St. Paul often elsewhere insists on the reality of his vocation from Christ himself to be an apostle to the Gentiles; and this with regard to disparagement of his claim to be a true apostle at all on the part of some. (cf. 1Co_9:1 2Co_11:5 2Co_12:12 Gal_1:1, 12 2:8) It does not follow from his thus asserting his claim here and afterwards in this Epistle that he was aware of any disparagement of it at that time among the Roman Christians; still less that he wrote his Epistle with a polemical purpose against the Judaizers, as some have supposed. Still, he may have suspected that some might possibly have been busy there, as they were in other places; and, however that might be, writing as he was to a Church not founded by, and as yet unvisited by, himself, he might think distinct assertions of his claim to be heard desirable. Separated (or, set apart) unto the gospel of God; i.e. to the preaching of the gospel, not the reception of it only, as is evident from the context. The word afwrismenov here, as well as the previous klhtov , is best taken, in pursuance of the line of thought, as referring to the Divine counsels, not to the agency of the Church. It is true that the word is elsewhere used with the latter reference, as in Act_13:2, Aforisate dh moi ton te Barnaban kai ton, Saulon eiv to ergon o pproskeklhmai autouv , where the ajforismospoken of was subsequent to the Divine klh siv, and effected by human laying on of hands. But we have also St. Paul"s own words, (Gal_1:15) O Yeorrisav me ek koiliav mhtrov mou kai kalisav dia thv caritov autou , where the aforismo is that of God"s eternal purpose, and previous to the klhsiv . (cf. Act_9:15 and Act_26:16, Act_26:17)
Apostolic credentials.
Greetings are often merely formal, or merely friendly. Not so this salutation, with which the apostle of the Gentiles opens his Epistle to the Christians of renowned, imperial Rome. It is sincere and hearty, and it is also dignified and authoritative. St. Paul writes as one who feels the responsibility of his position and vocation, as one who is justified in claiming from his readers respectful attention and submissive obedience. At the same time, the consciousness of his apostleship does not interfere with, but rather deepens, his prayerful and brotherly interest in the welfare of those who are the representatives of Christ in the world"s metropolis.
I THE APOSTLE"S NEW NAME IS IN ITSELF A CREDENTIAL. At the commencement of his apostolic career, Saul"s name was changed to Paul; and to all who thought upon the matter even for one moment, this fact must have been very significant. The old name had been left behind with the old nature. The Jewish persecutor had become the Christian preacher. Whether or not the apostle assumed the name of his convert, the Proconsul of Cyprus, in any case the new name was associated with the new calling, the new covenant, the new life, the new hope. The change reminds us of the promise of the victorious Redeemer to his faithful soldier, "I will write upon him my new Name.
II THE APOSTLE"S SPIRITUAL SERVICE IS A CLAIM UPON CHRISTIAN RESPECT AND CONFIDENCE. The open assertion by St. Paul, that he is "bond-servant of Jesus Christ," proves that a fresh idea has been introduced into the world. Here is a Jewish rabbi, a Roman citizen, glorying in his subjection, his serfdom; owning as his Master, not the emperor, but the Crucified! In inditing official letters, the great are wont to name their titles of honour. Observe, on the contrary, the lowliness of the apostle"s attitude, as evinced in the "style and title" he here assumes. To him it is an honour to be Christ"s slave, I am, and whom I serve." It is the glorification of spiritual humanity, when a noble nature like St. Paul"s boasts of vassalage to Jesus. Redeemed by Christ"s pity and sacrifice from the thraldom to sin, the first use which the emancipated bondman makes of new freedom is to bind himself to the service of his Liberator and Lord. Though the apostles put forward their special claim to be Christ"s bond-servants, this is a relation which every Christian claims to hold toward Christ, a designation which every Christian delights to appropriate.
III THE APOSTLE CLAIMS FOR HIS MINISTRY A DIVINE AUTHORITY. Whatever men thought then, and whatever they think now, about the validity of the apostles" claim, it is not to be denied that they advanced it, and it cannot reasonably be questioned that they were sincere in their professions when they asserted themselves to be commissioned by Divine authority and qualified by Divine inspiration for a special service on behalf of mankind. Paul declared himself to be a "called apostle," i.e. called by the Lord Jesus himself, none the less really than were those who were summoned and commissioned during the Lord"s ministry upon earth. As an apostle, Paul was "sent," i.e. selected, authorized, and made an ambassador, by the King himself. There is here a singular and instructive combination. Very lowly, very far from self-assertion, is Paul"s designation of himself as "servant of Christ;" at the same time, very bold, confident, and unhesitating is his demand (for such it is) to be received as the minister, the herald, the ambassador, of the Lord. Doubtless, by using such language at the outset of this treatise, Paul required his readers to bear in mind what manner of document they were about to peruse; the form of it, indeed, given by the intellect, the heart, of a man, yet the substance of it proceeding from the mind of God himself.
IV THE APOSTLE INCLUDES AMONG HIS CREDENTIALS THE GLORIOUS AND BENEVOLENT OCCUPATION OF HIS LIFE. "Separated," marked off from other men, and even from his former self, St. Paul is conscious that he is entrusted with a congenial work of evangelization. In a sense, he has been "separated" from his very birth; but this consecration, itself a Divine purpose, has been now actually effected. When Saul was arrested on his way to Damascus, he was not only enlightened from above, and so brought to see in the Jesus whom he had persecuted a Saviour and a Lord, but he was assured of his own selection by Christ as an ambassador to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. That was the first step; the second followed after an interval of years. When Saul and Barnabas, in connection with the Church at Antioch, were designated for an evangelistic mission, this was at the express instance of the Holy Spirit, who directed the prophets and teachers to separate these two for the work whereunto he had called them. By "separation unto the gospel of God" must be understood complete and lifelong devotion to the work of proclaiming the good news which was from God, and which regarded God. Now, this devotion to the publication of that gospel which in its doctrines and in its bearings upon practical and social life was the theme of this Epistle, was more than an introduction to the Roman Christians; it was a commendation to their confidence, and a demand upon their faith and obedience. Coming from such a man, so specially and supernaturally qualified, this Epistle claims the attention, not of the Romans only, but of the world.
HOMILIES BY T.F. LOCKYER Vers. 1, 5-7. Paul"s first contact with the metropolis of the world.
But its empire and splendour and wealth are forgotten in the absorbing interest of his mission. For he is the messenger of a Diviner empire, and his message is one which makes the splendour and wealth of the world seem worthless things. They may be few and poor, and he but a travelling tent-maker; but they are Christ"s people, and he is Christ"s servant; there will, therefore, be words spoken to which angels might hearken. But first he introduces himself, addresses them, and gives them his greeting. We have, therefore, in these opening words, the man, the Church, the message.
I THE MAN.
1. We have called him the man, for as such he steps frankly into the foreground: "Paul." The necessity for sympathetic helpfulness in the work of man"s salvation. Not a voice from afar, but a fellow-helper by our side. So the Captain of our salvation: "taken from among men." And so the true minister a man first, one of the sinful, struggling mass of men, and saved with the common salvation.
2. But this brings us naturally to the second characteristic: "A servant of Jesus Christ." The word is literally, "bond-servant. And though the expression is to be applied very cautiously, lest the harsher suggestions should mislead us, yet there are elements of meaning which are full of force. Absolute proprietorship on the one hand, and obligatoriness of service on the other; but the relationship transfused with blessedness, for the claims are claims of love, and the service is a service of love. All true Christians, like Paul, bear about with them the marks of the Lord Jesus, (Gal_6:17 2Co_4:10) and the brand-mark is this, "He died for me". (see 1Co_6:19, 20 7:22, 23)
3. Christ"s service is manifold, and to all departments the true introduction is by "call." What dignity this throws over the humblest work! For the meanest toil that is sanctified by Christian motives is a service of Christ, and to that service the toiler is "called" by Christ. The labourer in the field, and the hardworked wife in household cares, as well as the man of letters, the statesman, or the prince, is "called of God." But while such are called to a service which is the exemplification of Christian principle in the conduct of common life, others, nay, all, are called to service, more or less, which bears directly on the extension of the kingdom of God. And to some the call is an exclusive one; their life is to be spent in the fulfilment of this mission from heaven. Such a one was Paul. Called to Christian service, in common with all his brethren; called to exclusive service, in common with many of his brethren; called furthermore to apostolic service, in common with a few selected ones, who led the van of the new faith, and testified authoritatively of the crucified and risen Christ. "By call an apostle." The distinctive call was made in connection with one special crisis of his life the Damascus journey, and the voice from heaven. But was this, with its ratification of Act_13:2, the only "separation unto the gospel" of which Paul goes on to speak? Nay, we are rather led to think of the phrase in Gal_1:15, "separated... from my mother"s womb." For there is a certain Divine fatalism which is in perfect harmony with moral freedom; every one born into this world is predestined from the first for some special work for God. The work may be marred, or altogether left undone, by man"s perverseness; but the work is the Divine destiny of the man. And the after-life is an equipment for the fulfilling of this destiny. The circumstances of our lot, and the events that befall us; our joys and our sorrows; and all our natural and moral education, combine with our original constitution and temperament at once to indicate God"s purpose and to fit us for its fulfilment. And was not Paul "a chosen vessel"? marked out from the first for the conspicuous part which he afterwards played in the world"s history; "separated unto the gospel of God." Such was the man.
II THE CHURCH. And his apostleship was to "the nations;" the Gentile "world was his parish." Therefore the little Christian band at Rome though not gathered, directly at least, by his labours, might well receive his message. They formed a Gentile Church, and as such he writes to them. They are threefoldly designated.
1. Beloved of God." "God"s love is the source of all his benefits, and the sure ground of our hope. Our consciousness of his love is the basis of the Christian life. Of this love all men are objects, but only believers are conscious objects. To them it is real and living. It moulds their thoughts and life" (Beet, in loc. ). Yes; "we have known and believed the love that God hath to us": (1Jn_4:16) that is the inspiration of the new life.
2. Called to be Jesus Christ"s... called to be saints. Or, "Jesus Christ"s... saints, by call." For the summons had been responded to; the love of God in Christ had changed their hearts. And now they were his people, (see Tit_2:14) and for his Name"s sake they were living consecrated lives. For this is our only sainthood: "Whether we live," etc. (Rom_14:8)
3. And this by "obedience of faith. The spring of the new life, on the human side, even as God"s love is the spring of life on the Divine side. We yield to Christ"s claim, and live to God as saints, only in so far as we receive Christ into our hearts by faith, and believe the love God hath to us. And in all the manifold departments of the Christian life, we "live by faith." We receive, or more actively we grasp, the goodness of God and the life which is through Christ. And this "obedience of faith" is the end of all apostleship and ministry. (Joh_6:29 1Jn_3:23)
III THE MESSAGE.
1. "Grace. God"s favour, and all the saving help which he gives because he loves us. A continuous and increasing realization.
2. "Peace. The abiding calmness of a conscience which has yielded to be justified by faith, (Rom_5:1) accepting the grace of God"s favour, rejoicing in the light; calmness of heart also, in view even of fierce conflict and trial, by reason of the voice which says, "My grace is sufficient for thee." "Grace and peace." So the old Gentile and Jewish salutings were transfigured by the gospel of Christ.
In conclusion, the keynote is the "call." God calls you, calls you through Christ, calls you to be Christ"s, calls you in your own minor apostleship to be servants of Christ. And the true response to this call is by obedience of faith; for, from first to last of the Christian life, "by grace are ye saved, through faith". (Eph_2:8) Oh, be it ours to respond, "Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth"! T.F.L.
HOMILIES BY C.H. IRWIN. Vers. 1-7. Paul"s description of himself; or, the story of a noble life.
An autobiography, the story of our own life, is a dangerous thing for a man to write. We are partisan judges of our own character. We conceal our own faults and exaggerate our own virtues. An autobiography, too, is often very dull and very dry. But the autobiography of St. Paul is at once interesting and truthful. As Paley, in his "Horae Paulinae," has so clearly shown, Paul"s account of his own personal history, as given in his writings, is borne out in the fullest manner by the account given of him in the Acts of the Apostles, written by a different person and at a different time. The irresistible truthfulness of the story of Paul"s conversion and apostleship is so strong, that the study of it led the celebrated Lord Lyttleton, who had been for many years a sceptic, to embrace the religion of Jesus Christ and become one of its ablest advocates. In these opening verses of the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul gives us, in brief but weighty words, the story of his life.
I AN APOSTLE"S TITLE. "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ" (ver. 1). St. Paul"s titles are not numerous or high-sounding. He gloried in the title of "servant a servant of Jesus Christ. Consider what it meant for Paul that he became and lived a servant of Jesus Christ. It meant to him loss of worldly prospects. "For whom I have suffered the loss of all things." It meant to him bodily suffering. "I bear about with me in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." It meant to him a man of high mental endowments, a man of unblemished character a life spent largely in the prison-cell, with the chains hound upon his wrists. It meant to him and he knew it well a life ended on the scaffold, or, like his Master"s, on the cross. "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand." But he had counted the cost. Three things sustained him as he trod that lonely path of service and suffering. He looked back to the cross of Jesus. He had the love of Jesus and the spirit of Jesus in his heart. And he looked forward to the crown of glory that awaited him. Therefore he was able to say, "But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus." It means much the same to be a servant of Jesus Christ in our own day. You may not meet with bodily suffering as a consequence of your faithfulness to Jesus. But there arc other sufferings, perhaps just as bitter and as hard to bear, which must be endured by the faithful servant of Jesus Christ. Make up your mind to this that you are not the servant of the world, and then what the world may say of you will affect you very little. A servant of Jesus Christ. St. Paul was what he professed to be. The world has confirmed the description. Could the same be said of us? Could we look up to God, or look into the faces of our fellow-men, and say, "Yes, I am a servant of Jesus Christ"?
II AN APOSTLE"S WORK, AND HOW HE DID IT. "Called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God" (ver. 1). The word "apostle" means a messenger, or one who is sent. This was Paul"s work, to be an apostle or messenger of Jesus Christ. This was the form of service he rendered to his Master. His work, the great ambition of his life, was to win men to Christ. General Lew Wallace, in that beautiful story of his, "Ben Hur; a Tale of the Christ," speaks of Jesus Christ as "the one Man whom the world could not do without." That, too, was St. Paul"s firm conviction.
This was one of the things that carried him on in his work. He realized the power of the gospel. He felt that it was something more than human. Heart and conscience and intellect told him it was Divine. He, who was so well instructed in the Jewish Scriptures, knew that the prophets spoke of Christ. "Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy Scriptures" (ver. 2). He knew that Jesus had come. He knew that he had died upon the cross. Yes, and he knew that he had risen again. Look at the fourth verse: "Declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." Had he not seen him? Had he not heard his voice that voice that spoke to him on the way to Damascus, and changed for ever the whole current of his life? Yes; Paul knew whom he had believed. He had no doubt about it. He knew what Christ had done for him. And he knew what Christ could (to for the world. He knew how much the world needed Christ. And so he went forth on those great missionary journeys of his, burning with the one overwhelming, overmastering desire, to preach Christ crucified, and to persuade men in Christ"s stead to be reconciled to God. This is one of the great secrets of successful work for Christ still. We must have a personal knowledge of Jesus as our own Saviour. "An educated ministry is desirable," said the late Dr. Cooke, of Belfast, "but a converted ministry is indispensable." And we must then go forth in the conviction that men need Christ, and that he will save them if they come to him. "I love to tell the story, Because I know it"s true; It satisfies my longings As nothing else can do. I love to tell the story, It did so much for me; And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee.
Another great secret of Paul"s success was this. He realized a Divine plan and purpose in his life. He felt that he was "separated unto the gospel of God" (ver. 1). Unknown to himself, the Divine hand had been moulding his character, drawing out and developing his gifts, from his childhood up. How the various circumstances of his life fitted him for his great life-work! Born and brought up in Tarsus, he there became a Roman citizen, thus receiving civil rights and privileges which were of great service to him afterwards in his mission. There also he came in contact with Greek civilization and culture an acquaintance useful to him afterwards at Athens and at Corinth. Then, coming to Jerusalem, and brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, he there received a training and a position which were of immense advantage to him in dealing with the Jewish people, his kinsmen according to the flesh. All this process of training and development culminated when one day that Divine hand suddenly arrested his career on the way to Damascus. The light from heaven shone about him then, and shone into his heart. After those days of outward blindness, but inward questioning and growing spiritual vision, the scales fell from his eyes indeed. He saw it all then. Henceforth there was a new meaning and a new purpose in his life. He saw then that he was "called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God." He saw the unseen hand. He saw how it had led him. He saw that it was a hand of power how foolish to resist it! He saw that it was a hand of love, moulding him for high and holy and eternal purposes. From that moment Paul was Christ"s. Not as a slave, but as a devoted servant. Not in any sense as a mere machine, but Christ"s with all the persuasion and conviction of his mind, with all the love of his heart separated by his own voluntary act, as he had already been separated by God"s purpose, unto the gospel of God. In the seventh verse we see what the message was which Paul took with him wherever he carried the gospel. It is the message which the gospel brings still wherever it finds an entrance. "Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." Grace the favour or mercy of God. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich". (2Co_8:9) And where the gospel comes with its message of mercy and of love, the result is peace peace in the conscience, peace in the home, peace in the nation. Such was the character, such were the life and work of St. Paul. He was a servant of Jesus Christ. He went forth as a messenger for Christ, believing that he had been separated unto the gospel of God. And the message which he brought was the message of grace and peace. So may it be with every one of us, if we will only consecrate our lives to God. C.H.I.
HOMILIES BY S.F. ALDRIDGE Vers. 1-4. The gospel a fulfilled prophecy.
The apostle loved to dilate on the characteristics of the gospel, especially those which he "received by revelation," and his aspect of truth became so essentially a part of his being and preaching, that he speaks of it as "my" gospel. Sometimes he terms it the "gospel of Christ," whilst here the title is significantly the "gospel of God," since he is about to prove it a design purposed of God from the beginning of revelation.
I THE GOSPEL AS PROMISED.
1. He alleges as proof of the promise the Scripture prophecies. Note the phrase, "the holy writings," emphasizing the quantity and quality of the literature of the Old Testament.
2. Such a promise rebuts the charge of novelty. The Jews were conservative, and the only way to remove their prejudice against Christianity was by persuading them out of the Scriptures that it was no new- fangled doctrine which the apostles preached. The difficulty in controversies is to find a common court of appeal. The position of the Jews as custodians of the genuineness of the Old Testament has weight in argument today.
3. Shows the gospel to have been no after-thought in the mind of God. The Lamb was "slain from the foundation of the world." The plan of Providence is gradually unfolded as the centuries pass. Looking back, we can see how the beautiful petals of the mature flower were foretold by the markings of the bud.
4. The predictions which animated the breasts of men of old have their confirmatory value for modern faith. The patriarchs "died in faith." The prophets "searched diligently what time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify." And the fact that they were "heralds" proclaiming the advent of the King, prepares us to receive him with less fear of delusion. It is seemly that so grand a Monarch and kingdom should not be established without the pomp of previous notice. The battle of criticism rages most furiously at present around the Old Testament prefigurations of the new covenant, for men discern the impregnableness of Christianity unless the outworks of Jewish history and expectancy can first be stormed and demolished.
II THE PROMISE REDEEMED.
1. In the Man Christ Jesus. In answer to the inquiry of Herod, the scribes were able to give the place where the Messiah should be born, and the royal house of which he should be a direct descendant. The genealogies of Matthew and of Luke alike accredit the claims of Jesus to be of the stock of David. At the birth of Jesus was there great "joy that a man was born into the world." Incarnation is more than temporary residence amongst men; it is "taking part of the children"s flesh and blood." The Epistle to the Hebrews reasoned from the statement respecting the "seed of David" that the priesthood was intended to be transferred from the tribe of Levi to that of Judah, and therefore changed in character.
2. In the risen Son of God. Here is the true gospel, the Divine humanity of Christ, the conjunction of heaven and earth. Either apart would have no adaptation to our needs. the weakness in strength that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek In the Godhead! I seek and I find it.
Attention is directed to the Resurrection as a proof of the Deity of Christ. The word "dead" is in the plural, since Christ"s rising involves the rising of his people. He is the "Firstfruits" presaging the harvest; where the "Head" is, there must the members be. Two attributes in particular manifested in the Resurrection.
(1) Power; viz. the mighty operation of God, who outshines the glory of his first creation in the wonders of the new. See the enthusiasm and boldness of the disciples after they realized the meaning of that event, and the force and possibilities opened up before them by the triumphing over death, and the authority granted to their once-despised, now exalted Master. The bands of the grave were like "the green withes" of Samson when Christ awoke from his slumber. He "made a show of adverse principalities and powers," the eclipse of immortality by death but preluding a far more effulgent splendour.
(2) Holiness. The penalty of atonement was exhausted, or the Sin-bearer had never appeared again with lustre out of the wilderness of death. Christ tabernacled in "flesh," but his "spirit" was not fleshly. The Holy One could not see corruption, any more than gold perishes in the fire. The resurrection of Christ was a great object-lesson, teaching the immutableness of all who, like the "Ever-living One", (Rev_1:18) are consumed by the zeal of God"s house. Whatever in us is consecrated, God himself will preserve from the fatal touch of time. The future resurrection shall be the sealing testimony to the dignity of Christ. When his voice shall wake the dead, and the last enemy shall have been utterly abolished, then, in the fulfilment of his own declaration and the consequent array of trophies to his marvellous grace, shall he be universally adored as the "strong Son of God, immortal Love." May each rejoice in the consciousness of a personal relationship to this glorious gospel! S.R.A.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Ver. 1. The author.
Before appreciating any important work, we like to learn all we can of its author. Hence the study of the Acts of the Apostles is the best possible preparation for the study of this great Epistle to the Romans. The history given by Luke is like the portrait of the apostle prefixed to his Epistles; it is better indeed a thousand times than any picture producible by art. Let us, as a suggestive subject, begin with a sketch of the apostle"s career, fitted as it is to help us in subsequent homilies. And
I PAUL"S HISTORY BEFORE HIS CONVERSION. In these earlier days he did not go by the name of Paul, but by that of Saul. The change adopted betokens the cosmopolitan character which he contracted as apostle. It was the nearest Greek word to his original Hebrew name. While a fanatical Jew, he would have scorned any such accommodation to prevailing custom; but once he became "the apostle of the Gentiles," he was ready to sink the Jewish title and adopt what was nearest to it in the language which was more largely used. It was a beautiful concession to the spirit of the time. But now we must notice:
1. His birthplace. This was Tarsus, "no mean city," as he told the chief captain. (Act_21:39) It seems to have been a place of culture what we should now call a "university which could almost enter the lists with Athens or Alexandria. He enjoyed, too, Roman citizenship through some accident of his birth in this proconsular city. low his parents had secured the privilege we know not, but the son made ample use of it afterwards.
2. His pure Jewish descent. As he said to the Philippians, he was "a Hebrew of the Hebrews". (Php_3:5) Everything, therefore, which pure "breeding" implies would be his. The tribe of Benjamin had supplied the first king to Israel, and now it is supplying a more famous "king of men" in the person of this second Saul. His parents doubtless made him a "child of the Law" at the age of twelve, and later on provided for his education in the Jewish capital.
3. His training at the feet of Gamaliel. This meant the broadest culture of the capital, orthodoxy of the most prudential cast, as his master"s conduct in the Sanhedrin seems to show. (Act_5:38) That Paul was an apt scholar his own testimony proves, not to speak of the testimony of his great career; for he speaks of "profiting in the Jews" religion above many my equals in mine own nation". (Gal_1:14)
4. His enthusiasm as a man of action. It would appear that, setting aside the prudence of Gamaliel, he entered with all the ardour of youth into a crusade against the Christians. The Jewish authorities had perceived the vast capabilities of their instrument; and, from the subsidiary post of holding the clothes of those who stoned Stephen, he rose per saltum into the position of arch-persecutor, and the leader of the enterprise even unto strange cities. Not only was he, then, an orthodox, self-satisfied Pharisee, but also he became the chief man of action in connection with his party, the man of most abundant promise.
II PAUL"S CONVERSION. Damascus was the goal to which he and his accomplices hastened, when lo! he is confronted, not far from the city, with an overpowering light, and hears a voice demanding, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" On asking the name of this brilliant and overpowering Person, he learns that it is Jesus, the risen and glorified Head of the people Saul is persecuting, who has thus appeared to confound and to convert him. Now, regarding this conversion let us notice:
1. The Lord"s personal dealing with the sinner. The sinner feels himself in the hands of One whom he has wronged in his own Person and in the person of his people. Conviction of sin is just a sense of injury done to an innocent and loving Saviour. Paul imagined that Jesus had passed out of the category of living factors in this world, and now he is confronted by him with the charge of persecution.
2. Paul dies immediately out of all self-confidence. As Adolphe Monod has beautifully said, "Saul is converted from the day, from the hour, from the moment that, recognizing that he is in himself wicked, unworthy, lost, and for ever deprived of all righteousness before God, he substitutes the Name of Jesus Christ for his own in all his hopes of eternal life, and throws himself without reserve at the foot of the cross, as a poor sinner who has no other resource in the world but the blood of the Lamb of God." This is what we mean by his death out of self-confidence. He recognizes at once the hollowness of all his previous hopes, and puts Christ into the place once occupied by self.
3. Paul places himself under the command of Jesus. He cries out, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Henceforth he is Christ"s slave (doulov), owned and ordered according to Christ"s pleasure. This perfect surrender of self to the will of the Saviour is the practical outcome of conversion. It is a parallel to the surrender of Abraham, when he began to be a pilgrim with God. Paul has renounced the service of the chief priests and accepted service under the Nazarene they despised. And:
4. Paul receives from Jesus a new office. When he goes blind into Damascus and waits, he is at length told what he is to do. He is to be admitted by baptism into the Christian Church, and be filled with the Holy Ghost, and be apostle unto the Gentiles. (Act_9:15-18) His office is changed from that of Saul the persecutor to that of Paul the apostle. And what is it to be an apostle? It is to found the Church of God upon no other basis than that of the risen Jesus. It is to be a witness of Christ"s resurrection, and of all which this cardinal fact and doctrine is to men. A mighty office, surely! And notice how singular and distinct Paul stands. The Jews receive twelve apostles, but the Gentiles only one; yet Paul is worth all the others put together so far as the world"s conversion is concerned. Like David, he was worth ten thousand common soldiers.
III PAUL"S SUBSEQUENT CAREER. He began preaching Christ at once, just to try his hand; but it was not intended he should pass at once from the publicity of persecution to the publicity of the apostolic office. He passes into the quiet of Arabia, and is for about seven years in an unobtrusive sphere of probation. It is not meant that he spent seven years in silence; doubtless, wherever he was, he made his neighbours feel his presence and know his doctrine. But he was preparing, by earnest meditation and communion with his Master, for his tremendous mission. To all in haste to enter the ministerial office, Paul"s patient preparation is surely a significant lesson! But next we find him spending fourteen years m missionary labours. Into the details of his journeys we cannot here enter; but they were wise seizing of great centres, that from these the light of the gospel might go abroad. And lastly, Paul spent from five to seven years we cannot be quite certain in captivity at Cesarea and Rome, enjoying, perhaps, a short respite between the two Roman captivities, but ending his career by martyrdom. It is believed he was born about the year 7 of our era; was converted when thirty years of age; and died when about sixty. Now, it was as "apostle of the Gentiles" that he wrote this Epistle to the Romans. He wrote it, as is apparent from its contents, before he had visited the Church. He wrote it from Corinth, to lay before the Church occupying the metropolis of the world "the gospel of God." He was not ashamed of that gospel, notwithstanding the philosophy and culture of Greece or Rome. He knew the world"s philosophy, and he felt that he had found in the gospel something finer far. But we must not anticipate. Meanwhile let Paul"s conversion and apostleship speak to us of personal dealing with the Lord Jesus, and of personal labour for him. It has been said that the apostolic race is like a lost species. Yet have we not had, even in our own time, men of zeal who might even be named along with the apostles? David Livingstone, William Chalmers Burns, George Augustus Selwyn, John Patteson, and many others have exhibited the long-lost apostolic spirit. We want it to come again; and why should it not, in ourselves? Not that we would counsel one another to ambition, but, as Monod so well puts it, to fidelity. Let us humble ourselves, as Paul did on the way to Damascus, through a sense of sin and shortcoming; let us accept of pardon through the Lamb"s precious blood; and let our cry be, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and the Saviour will give each of us a mission, as he gave Paul, and own us as true servants in the accomplishment of his gracious designs. R.M.E.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.
Rom_1:1-7
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.
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Authentication and salutation
I. The apostle.
1. Paul was not the name by which he was always known, but was assumed shortly after the commencement of his mission to the Gentiles. The practice of assuming a Gentile, in addition to the original Hebrew name, was then common, and indicated a loosening of the bonds of religious exclusiveness.
2. Servant of Jesus Christ. Not a hired servant (μίσθιος ἢ μισθωρὸς), nor a voluntary attendant (ὑπηρέτης), nor a subordinate officer (ὑπηρέτης), nor a ministering disciple (διάκονος); but a slave (δοῦλος). Yet the title is very far from denoting anything humiliating. That, indeed, it must do if the master were only human. Even though the slave should be promoted as minister of state, the stigma of servitude was not removed; for the despot might, at any moment, degrade or destroy him. We may therefore rest assured that to no mere man, however exalted, would St. Paul have willingly subscribed himself a slave. But to be the bondmen of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose property he was both by right of creation and redemption; all of whose requirements were known to be in absolute accordance with truth and righteousness, and to all of which his own renewed heart responded with most lively sympathy, was the truest liberty and the highest dignity.
3. This dignity St. Paul participated in common with every other disciple; but, unlike many others, he had been called to the office of an apostle. Those thus called were constituted ambassadors for Christ, being chosen, qualified, and deputed by Him to transact business with their fellow men in respect to His kingdom. The twelve had been chosen by the Master during the days of His flesh, and had companied with Him during His earthly ministry (Act_1:21). St. Paul had not enjoyed this advantage. Nevertheless, he, too, was an apostle by Divine call (Gal_1:1). True, he was confessedly, because of the lateness of his call, as one born out of due time (1Co_15:8); but his call was not the less real or effectual. And in all that was requisite, he was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles (2Co_6:5; 2Co_12:12).
4. He had not only been called, but specially separated unto the gospel of God. Like Jeremiah (Jer_1:5), so, too, St. Paul was separated from his mothers womb (Gal_1:15). His parentage, birth, endowments, education, etc., had been so arranged by God as to constitute him a choice vessel for this very work (Act_26:16-19; Act_13:1-3).
II. The gospel to publish which he had been separated.
1. It had been promised afore by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures; so designated because they were written for holy purposes, by holy men, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and developed holy fruits.
2. This gospel was concerning His Son [Divine dignity] Jesus Christ [the personal name and official designation] our Lord (absolute right of property and dominion).
(1) He was, as to His human descent, of the seed of David (Rom_8:3; Gal_4:4-5; Heb_2:14). His flesh is His complete human nature, in respect of which it is said that He increased in wisdom, etc. (Luk_2:52).
(2) He had also a higher nature, here distinguished as the Spirit of holiness, in respect to which He was not made, not born, but instated with power in His proper glory as the Son of God, by His resurrection from the dead. In order to estimate the full force of the apostles statement, it ought to he remembered that men--the Jewish rulers--had denounced Him as a blasphemer (Joh_19:7; Joh_5:18; Joh_10:33). They could not endure that He, being manifestly a man, should make Himself God, But the resurrection was Gods answer to their derision. That act proclaimed, in reply to all that man had done, This is My beloved Son, hear Him.
III. The object, extent, and result of His commission. He had received grace and apostleship.
1. To promote obedience to the faith: i.e., first of all, men must be taught the faith--i.e., the things to be believed (Mat_28:19). It is a mistake to suppose that Christian men are called upon to believe they know not what, nor why (2Th_2:13; Joh_8:32). Now these things, proposed to faith not only bring to us the tidings of peace and of new life in Christ, but they propose to us a course of life to be pursued. They require belief, in order to obedience; and make it plain that a faith which does not result in obedience is a dead thing (Mat_28:20; Rom_16:26).
2. The apostle had received authority to promote this obedience of faith amongst all nations. The Gentiles had never grasped the truth of the universal brotherhood of man; while the Hebrews, though very strictly separated from all others, not only possessed the thought, but were preparing the way for a reign of grace in which all the nations should be blessed. That was the purport of the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and confirmed to David and his son. Therefore the prophets sang triumphantly of one whom the Gentiles should seek (Isa_11:10). The nation did not indeed admit Gentiles on equal terms. They required that these should assume the yoke of the Mosaic law. But now the obedient to the faith from amongst all nations were to constitute the true Israel of God.
3. The whole result was to be for the glory of His name, by whom our redemption has been accomplished. It was not for the glory of Israel, nor of the apostles, nor of any number of men (1Co_1:27-29; 2Co_4:6-7).
IV. The formal address and salutation. The things to be noted are--
1. That the blessing sought for the saints was the grace of God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, so manifested as to insure peace.
2. The specially Christian conception of God as our Father.
3. The significant association of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ as the common object of prayer and the common source of grace and peace. (W. Tyson.)
The opening address
I. The author.
1. Paul, once called Saul, of Tarsus, a citizen of no mean city, a Benjamite, of pure Hebrew extraction, well trained in a knowledge of the Scriptures, a free citizen of the Roman empire, acquainted with the literature of Greece, by nature endowed with great force of intellect, passion, and resoluteness, of bold and ambitious spirit, a Pharisee of the austerest type, zealous for the law, and hating its enemies, real or supposed.
2. Yet a servant of Jesus Christ, by a free, rational subjection. He stood before his Lord, like the angels which stand before the throne of God, or like nobles in the court of a mighty prince. How was this?
3. He received grace for his own salvations sake; and apostleship to bring about the salvation of others.
4. He was an apostle to the Gentiles: while Peter and the other eleven were apostles to the Jews.
II. The persons addressed. The letter was written in 58. Think what Rome was at that period--much like London at the close of the last century, only without its Christianity. Its population exceeded two millions, half of whom were slaves. Many families were amazingly rich and luxurious: but far more, among the freemen, were as lazy as they were proud, and as poor as they were lazy. The population was low sunk in misery and sensual degradation. In religion, the vulgar were besotted polytheists and the philosophers avowed atheists. The Jews occupied a quarter apart from the rest of the city. It is not known by whom that Church was founded, but probably by some of the strangers from Rome who were in Jerusalem at Pentecost, and was composed principally of Gentile converts. To these would be added such Jewish converts as had effectually separated themselves from the synagogue. The Church seems to have been one of singular purity, spirituality, and strength. Its disciples were beloved of God; His chosen saints. And the Church needs to be built up in its holy faith. It is not enough to hear of Christ and believe in Him; to be converted and witness a good confession; but to be fully instructed in the apostles doctrine, and to continue in it, that we may grow up to the full stature of a perfect man in Christ.
III. The subject matter of the Epistle.
1. It is an exposition of what is contained in the prophets. Here is no new thing, but the historic verification and doctrinal development of what the prophets declared.
2. It concerns the glad tidings of God, which relate all to the salvation wrought out for men by Jesus Christ, who--
(1) Was a true man, and a lineal descendant of David, the ancient king of Israel.
(2) Had also a Divine nature, called here the Spirit of holiness, because it made Him absolutely immaculate; and because by it He dwells in the hearts of His people to make them holy. By this nature He was Gods coeternal Son. Such had He announced Himself when living, and His claim was demonstrated, by irresistible evidence, by His resurrection from the dead.
(3) Wills His gospel to be proclaimed among all nations.
IV. The spirit of the whole. This comes out in the benediction and salutation of verse 7.
1. Grace is Divine favour. Its fruit and effect is peace, which comprehends all gospel blessedness.
2. Grace and peace come from God the Father, and God the Son. (T. G. Horton.)
The true preacher and his great theme
I. The true preacher.
1. His spirit: a willing bondsman--not by force or legal orders, but by inward necessity. Woe is me if I preach not the gospel. Bound by obligations that are as tender as silken cords, but firm as adamant; too weak to fetter, but too strong to break.
2. His preparation: called separated the Godward side of the call to the ministry, and the ground of ministerial authority.
3. His aim--
(1) From God--how high; to announce glad tidings from God.
(2) For all men--how wide.
II. His great theme. The gospel is great because of--
1. Its Author, God: not about Him merely, but from Him. The gospel has its source in God as the river in the fountain, the beam in the sun. It is--
(1) The plan of the Creator for renewing His spiritual creation.
(2) The proclamation of the Sovereign for producing loyalty and peace.
(3) The pardon of the Great Father offered to His prodigal sons. Herein is love.
2. The method of its fore announcement (verse 2). A gospel which had been foretold by such men as Moses, David, Isaiah, Daniel, and in such a way, is indeed a great gospel. And just as by the dawn God promises day, by spring, summer, so by old prophecy He promised the gospel.
3. Its subject. His Son Jesus Christ. Christ is great because of--
(1) His position in regard to us. Our Lord, signifying His dignity, claims and crown rights over us.
(2) His exalted human mastery (verse 3).
(3) His relationship to God, as proved by His resurrection (verse 4). (U. R. Thomas.)
Christianity as an objective system
I. Its nature--a gospel (verse 1).
II. Its antiquity. It was promised before in the Holy Scriptures by the prophets (verse 2).
III. Its central idea. The Lord Jesus Christ (verse 3).
IV. Its instrumentality. Men, apostles, with the truth, not priests with things to do, but men with a truth to teach (verse 5).
V. The immediate and alternate aims. The obedience of faith in the reception of the truth, a holy sainthood to the man who receives it (verses 5-7).
VI. Its supernatural and spiritual elements. Grace and peace, etc. (verse 7). VII. Its sphere. It is to go abroad into the whole World, and be exhibited there (verse 8). (T. Binney.)
A servant of Jesus Christ
I. The highest title known in earth or heaven is a servant of God.
1. At the commencement of their Epistles, Paul, James, Peter, and Jude, use, indiscriminately, the expressions--servant of God, and servant of Christ, as if they were synonymous. It is one of the undesigned, and therefore strongest arguments for the Deity of Christ. James combines the two. And in every case each apostle places it first as his highest title--above his apostleship.
2. And were you to ask the man on earth nearest heaven, What are you? or the saints in Paradise, or the angels--in all their order and degrees--the response would be, I am a servant of Jesus Christ.
3. And no marvel! The Lord Jesus Himself gloried in the name. It designated Him in prophecy. It was His own delineation of His work--a Servant.
II. How do we enter the service?
1. It begins with a vocation from God. It is not such as anyone may say that he has it. It is a distinct call. Everyone here might be inclined to say, I am a servant of Christ--of course I am. When did you go to that service? There cannot be service without an act of engagement. The outward vocation--the pledge on either side--was at baptism. But it was not there that it became real. It is real when you begin to close, with certain inward impulses, which have been at work in your heart by the Holy Ghost; and to love God. This love is the child of liberty, and the service is the child of love.
2. Now you are prepared for service. And you go, and in some way or other--it may be at confirmation, or holy communion--you go and consecrate yourself to His work. Lord, here I am. I am Thine. Accept me, fit me, teach me, use me, as Thou wilt.
III. The privilege of the service.
1. You are placed in close communication with your Master, He tells you His secrets. The slave knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father, I have made known unto you.
2. You serve the King of kings and Lord of lords; but you serve One who was once a servant. Many an earthly servant may sometimes have wished, O that my master or mistress knew what service is! That is what you have. He understands it all, and has the heart to feel, and the power to help.
3. And to that same Master His servants bring all their work; and as they lay it at His feet, He makes it clean, and perfumes it with the odour of His own perfect service. What has been wrong in it, He cancels: what is good, He accepts, when He has made it--by what He adds to it--acceptable to Himself.
4. And all along the sweet feeling of the servant is, My Master is pleased with me and my poor service. And all I am doing, it is practice for a far higher and better service.
IV. The character of the service. It does not much matter what Christs servants do. They are His servants everywhere. It is the motive which makes the service, not the action. If a person desires to carry on his business upon Christian principles--and directly or indirectly to honour Christ in the world--that man is a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. If anyone does an act of kindness to another--if he give to the poor, or minister to the afflicted, and if he see Christ in them--then he does it to Christ, and he is His servant. If a man humble himself for Christs sake, then that man is Christ-like in His service, and he is a servant indeed. Or, no less, if a man suffer patiently, for Jesus sake, he is a servant of Jesus. Perhaps that is the highest service which combines the right fulfilment, for Christs sake, of the greatest number of the duties of life. The daughter whom every day her father, mother, brothers, sisters, and servants, rise up to bless, and who, as she has opportunity, goes out to the poor, and the sick, and the schools about her, she is a truer servant of Christ than the daughter who shuts herself up into the one narrower sphere of her own selection. Practically, what you have to do, is to accept whatever work the providence of God may give you. And if you want to know what it is, in the providence of God, that you should do, consult, after special prayer about it, your minister, your Christian friends, your own judgment. A field of service will be sure to open to you, in due time, if you look for it. There go in, nothing doubting, and put all the Christ you can into it. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The servant of Jesus Christ a willing servant
The following story well illustrates the force of δοῦλος, as applied to the believer. A slave, on hearing that an Englishman had purchased him, gnashed his teeth, knit his brows, and declared, with true pathos and heartfelt indignation, that he would never obey so unworthy a representative of the land of boasted freedom. On learning afterwards, however, that his new master had bid for and bought him in order to bestow upon him his freedom, the poor negro was so overcome with joy and gratitude, that he fell down at the feet of the man he had just vowed never to serve, and exclaimed, I am your slave forever (Psa_116:16). (C. Neil, M. A.)
Paul, the slave of Jesus Christ
I. No one had a more vivid sense of liberty and the right of private judgment than this disciple of Gamaliel. He had all the zeal of a Republican for the worth of manhood. He was a free-born Roman citizen, and he never forgot it. He could make a stand for his civil rights like a Hampden or a William Tell. He allowed no privileged authority to rob him of his franchise. He was the champion of personal liberty before the weak-minded Felix, or the straightforward Festus, or the frivolous Agrippa. And that famous declaration: I appeal unto Caesar!--it rings down eighteen centuries like the sound of a war trumpet. Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ. Yes, a slave--in body, mind, and spirit; boasting of his slavery in the face of the world.
II. The authority of this Divine slave is proportionate to the extent of his slavery. The more slave he is of the Supreme Mind of humanity, the more right and power has he to be the founder of Christian theology. For what does this splendid slavery mean? It is a soul finding a personality higher and better than its own, and yielding allegiance to it. Slavery? It is liberty. It is moving within God. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (H. Elvet Lewis.)
The mystery of loyalty--the master and the slave
1. Christianity has revolutionised the world, above all by teaching the value and dignity of man as man. There is one instance which exhibits this in the highest degree--Paul, the slave of Jesus;
2. It is thus that he begins the most elaborate of his letters. Now such a beginning is noteworthy for two reasons, because--
(1) It is deliberately chosen, for only one other of his Epistles opens in precisely the same way.
(2) In both cases the apostle is addressing those who, fully in Rome, and in some measure in Philippi, understood the proud position of Roman citizenship.
3. The gospel, however, had spread through every rank of society; and so in these two cities there would be those who understood the term of master, as well as those who, to their sorrow, could not fail to realise the position of a slave.
4. Dwell for a moment on the title. This man gives of himself an almost contemptuous description to the proudest people in the world. And then think of the man who thus voluntarily places himself in the ranks of the conquered. Brought up a Pharisee, by his very training inclined to be proud, uncompromising; to this must be added the possession of learning, and a consequent sense of superiority, was ever man less likely to submit willingly to the place of a slave? Note--
I. The meaning of the apostle.
1. Complete submission of will to the commands of Christ. What those commands are, or mean, may be a matter, in part at least, of question; but the point of importance is that once discovered, they are to be unhesitatingly and entirely obeyed. It has been said that a Colt craves for a king. It is true of all mankind, and a true King for us there is. One who understands man, whose sway is imperial, but whose laws meet the deepest yearnings of the soul, and whose result is blessing. To disobey such is to make life a scene of slaughter; and obey Him and the wilderness and the solitary place blossom as the rose.
2. Entire submission of judgment to the revelation of Christ. To accept Christ at all is to accept Him as the absolute truth. Hard sayings, mysterious doctrines, came from His lips. To accept these in so far as they accord with our preconceived notions, or suit our tastes and wishes, is scarcely to accept them at all. To hold ourselves in submission to His revelation is the attitude of mind suited to His followers: to that tone of thought more light is given, and spiritual things are spiritually discerned.
3. An entire and earnest effort to imitate the life of Christ. St. Paul felt this robe a necessity, because that life was itself a revelation. St. Paul, like others, might have set about to seek self in a manner not altogether ignoble, but in the prudent indulgence of legitimate ambition, and, indeed, he did so till Christ crossed his path. He had taken one view of life, and it was the wrong one. Here, in spite of all the worlds assertion to the contrary, was the best, the noblest, the happiest life. What is your line in life? A servant you are to whom you obey; and your obedience will be regulated by that object of imitation and attainment to which your desire is turned. Is it pleasure? To seek it is, proverbially, to scare it from your path; and if found in any degree, how soon it palls upon the satiated soul! Is it reputation? Ah, me! it is a mere bubble shining for a moment in a gleam of sunlight, then bursting and gone. Is it riches? Our graveyards remind us that we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. Nay, more. What is dearer, what more beautiful than family life? If ever the weary worker may find an end and an object in his work, it is to create around him those objects of love which elevate and soothe. And yet they die.
4. That one attitude towards the Redeemer that is suitable in a soul which has sinned. When we are fully alive to sin, how little do the arguments with which before we cozened ourselves when sinning then avail! We want--and we feel that we want--a Redeemer. It is then that Jesus Christ is precious. To waken to that great truth to which Paul wakened--loved me, gave Himself for me--is to become the willing, loving slave of the Redeemer.
II. The consequences of this Christian view of submission to Christ.
1. It points to a large and loving recognition of all who name the Holy Name. Our common Christianity is a dangerous phrase, when it is meant to hint or encourage a doctrine of indifferentism. But it is true and consoling when it expresses that amongst all who are baptized unto Jesus Christ there is a share in one main ground of common faith and hope, which may unite them more at last than their differences can divide.
2. It affects in a very serious sense the attitude of the individual life.
(1) There is one striking difference between the Roman servitude from which the apostle took his image, and that condition to which it pointed. To be a slave of Jesus Christ we must deliberately choose our Master.
(2) if we choose Christ, there follows necessarily a wholly new view of our relation to mankind. There is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in you all.
(3) To have constantly before the mind an unblemished ideal, and that with the knowledge that all life, happiness, and power are proportioned to our approach to that ideal; and, further, to have learned that abundant help is offered to essay the task, this must indeed have a powerful effect on character.
III. The secret spring of such an attitude of mind. In the mind of Paul there was no sort of question as to who Christ was. He had had amplest opportunity of examining His claims, but no amount of study, observation or evidence was enough. Divine faith ruled his life. He recognised Christ as the Eternal God, who was also the Representative Man, and recognising this, by the grace given him, he acted on the recognition.
1. To do this was to live by faith. Henceforth he directed his course by the visual efficacy of a fresher and fuller spiritual sense directed upon the reality of the unseen world. That reality was Christs, To submit to the absolute supremacy of the same Master involves in each soul the supremacy of the same principle, to walk by faith. Now the antagonist of such a principle is to walk by sight. The man who lives by the principle of sight may be respectable; but one thing he is not doing, viz., seeking to guide his course and govern his actions by habitual reference to an unseen, a loving Friend; he has in no way staked his all upon the promise, and committed his destiny to the keeping of the Son of God.
2. But as faith was allowed to exercise its sovereign sway, there grew and deepened in the mind of the apostle an intense personal love and loyalty towards Christ. This lay at the root of his patient study of the mind of his Master, and his unwearying effort to do His work. Henceforth life was changed. Not only was he now baptized into Jesus Christ, but he rose to the fulness of his regenerate life. One, the Highest, had thought of him, even him. Could he ever forget it? The life that I now live in the flesh, so he writes, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me. Jesus the Conqueror! Paul the slave! A great love had overmastered Paul, and a faithful response was given.
(1) Loyal affectionateness is always beautiful. To see the grey-haired man, melting into tenderness at the dear memory of one, once loved, now gone--having once seen, what heart can resist it? To see the little child, sweet, gentle, retiring--flash into sudden enthusiasm, or grow into sudden gravity of reproof in behalf of an absent parent or friend--the heart is touched.
(2) Ah, me! the world grows cold and critical: young hearts lose their freshness because they lose their faithfulness; miss their nobility when hero worship is dead. God save you from the cynical spirit. It is the generous spirit that is the brave spirit; because where it is there is loyalty. To what? Well, to anything or anyone who is in any measure really deserving; to your Church, Queen, country, to a great tradition, to a hallowed memory--loyalty to these leads to the higher.
(3) Think what it is for us Christians to have the vision of the highest truth before us, and to fail in loyalty! What follows? Success, money, greed satisfied, and the dark heart, the narrow brain. Think also, to see the highest truth and to be loyal! Certainly it means some pain, some shame. Conclusion: What Paul did that we Christians must do. The child Blandina smiled as she went to her agony; the aged Polycarp wept in an ecstasy of tenderness when he thought of the love of his Master, and the horror of denying One who so long had loved him. The Greek girl--in a beautiful romance--lay in the depth of the African dungeon; she had longed for the azure skies of Attica, she had pined for the free breezes of the fresh AEgean, but they found her radiant with joy in her darkness and solitude, and the only account she gave of that strange completeness of revolutionised nature was this, My Love was crucified.
1. The comfort. Life is full of failure, of sorrow, of sin. Listen. He changes not, He loved you, and gave Himself for you. Well, then, if listening--
2. The result.
(1) Surely penitence--deepening penitence. And more. You will grow, advance, increase in grace as your surrender becomes more complete.
(2) Devotion. Not perhaps the burning enthusiasm of His first followers, or the blind, vigorous courage of the martyrs. But life will be truer, nobler, better, if we keep Him before us; the business mart may restrain his speculations when they pass the line of honesty, may spend his money for God; the young city clerk may subdue his passions, and teach in the Sunday school; the fashionable lady may bend the proud rules of social convention With a sweet dexterity, and do self-denying acts in real Christian love; the labouring man may work; the bedridden may endure; each with one thing in common some surrender; that is, some deepening love of heart, and stronger energy of will for love of Him who gave Himself for them, may learn in their several measures to be slaves of Christ. (Canon Knox-Little.)
The sublimest servitude
Men are made to serve. In true service alone they realise the harmonious development of their powers, and the realisation of their aspirations. Note here--
I. The highest masterhood.
1. His mission--Jesus, i.e., Saviour; Christ, i.e., anointed. Christ is God in His redemptive capacity. There is no salvation where there is not a deliverance from sin, from its possession, dominion, consequences.
2. His divinity--the Son of God. The universe teems with sons of God; but the Infinite has no son like Christ, Hence He is called His only begotten Son.
3. His human history.
(1) By birth He sprang from the seed of David (Joh_7:42). He was born of humanity.
(2) He was raised from the dead. His birth proved Him a man, His resurrection a God according to a spirit essentially, eternally holy. Such is the Highest Master. His authority is indisputable, His love amazing, His character holy, His experience wonderful.
II. The highest employment. Paul was an apostle of this Master. There are many branches of employment in the service of Christ; but there is nothing higher than that of apostleship (1Co_12:28). It is an office of the highest trust, it is to represent his Master. Of the most salutary and ennobling influence, it is to redeem the world. Paul was called to this high office, on the way to Damascus, and from his mothers womb (Gal_1:15).
2. He was an apostle of the highest message. The gospel of God. God is the Author, the Substance, and the End of this good news to men. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Pauls servitude and apostleship
I. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.
1. On his first appearance in history who would ever have thought of finding his name associated with such a designation? The Jewish priests and rulers, the sworn enemies of Christ, were then his masters; and Satan was theirs. But the slave of the devil became the servant of Christ. And he transferred from the one service to the other all his native ardour, and all his indefatigable activity. That service was more than destitute of dignity in the eyes of both Jews and Gentiles. But now to be a servant of Jesus Christ was esteemed by Paul his most distinguished honour, and was enjoyed by him as the chief zest and happiness of his life.
2. Let the disciples of Christ remember that they are all His servants; and what department soever of that service they are called to fill, whether public or private, let them cherish the same spirit with Paul. The more highly we think of the Master the more honourable will we deem His service; and the deeper our sense of obligation, the more ardent will be our delight in the doing of His will, and in the advancement of His glory.
II. But Paul served Christ in a special capacity.
1. The office of an apostle was the highest among the offices of the Christian Church. In every enumeration of them this stands first (Eph_4:8-11; 1Co_12:28). In the apostles we find all gifts combined. They were, in the very highest sense, ambassadors for Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Their testimony was the standard of truth; and their authority, as the plenipotentiaries of their exalted Lord, was without appeal (Joh_17:18).
2. And that authority continues still. The writings of the apostles have all the authority of the apostles themselves. What a powerful inducement to their careful study, and how solemn the admonition, that if we wrest them, it must be to our own destruction! This is coin that bears the image and superscription of the King of Heaven; to destroy, to debase, or to lighten it is an act of treason.
III. This official honour required a commission from the lord Himself. Such commission Saul of Tarsus received when the Lord appeared to him on his way to Damascus (Act_26:15-18). There was he called to be an apostle. The word called has by different commentators been explained as of the same meaning with chosen. It may be questioned, however, whether the calling is not, more properly, the result, or practical following out, of the choice. A called apostle means one who had not assumed the office of his own will, but in virtue of an express call, at once authoritative and effectual, from the Lord; for while the call included the sanction of authority, it included also that Divine operation upon the mind by which he was at once inclined and fitted for the office.
IV. The object to which he had been previously set apart, and was subsequently called, was the gospel of God. The gospel of God, is a message from Him to His sinful and guilty creatures; and its very name implies that it is a message of good. As such, it recommends itself to all to whom it comes by the appeal which it makes to their desire of happiness, and as the gospel of God it comes with all the united recommendations of authority, kindness, and truth. Thus it should be contemplated with solemnity and awe on the one hand, and welcomed with delight on the other.
V. The subject of that gospel is--
1. Jesus, Jehovah that saveth--i.e., a Divine Saviour. He was to save His people from their sins.
2. Christ--i.e., anointed--the Hebrew Messiah (Isa_61:1-2). Jesus was thus anointed when, after His baptism, the heavens were opened, and the Spirit of God descended like a dove, and lighted upon Him, being given to Him without measure, and consecrating Him to His official work.
3. Our Lord (Mat_28:18; Rom_16:9; Php_2:9-11). (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
A servant of Christ
When the saintly George Herbert took possession of the humble parsonage to which strangers for his sake made pilgrimage, he is said by his biographer to have entered a resolution from that day forward always to speak of Jesus Christ with the added words my Master; and the appropriation seemed, it is added, to perfume his very life. He then may be said to have consecrated Christ as Lord in his heart. (Dean Vaughan.)
The happiness of service
Many years ago, happening to be in South Wales, I made the acquaintance of a Welsh gentleman. He was then a landed proprietor, living in his own mansion, and in very comfortable circumstances. He had been before carrying on an extensive business in a large town. By the death of a relative he had unexpectedly come into possession of this property. After considering whether he should retire from business, he made up his mind that he should still continue to carry it on, though no longer for himself, but for Christ. I could not help being struck with the gleesomeness of a holy mind which lighted up his countenance when he said, I never knew before what real happiness was. Formerly I wrought as a master to earn a livelihood for myself; but now I am carrying on the same work as diligently as if for myself, and even more so, but it is now for Christ, and every halfpenny of profit is handed over to the treasury of the Lord, and I feel that the smile of my Saviour rests upon me. I think that is an example worthy of being imitated. (Dr. Duff.)
The Christians personal service
Every Christian hath his talent given him, his service enjoined him. The gospel is a depositum, a public treasure, committed to the keeping of every Christian; each man having, as it were, a several key of the Church, a several trust for the honour of this kingdom delivered unto him. As in the solemn coronation of the prince every peer of the realm hath his station about the throne, and with the touch of his hand upon the royal crown, declareth the personal duty of that honour which he is called unto, namely, to hold on the crown on the head of his sovereign; to make it the main end of his greatness, to study, and by all means endeavour the establishment of his princes throne; so every Christian, as soon as he hath the honour to be called unto the kingdom and presence of Christ hath immediately no meaner a depositum committed to his care, than the very throne and crown of his Saviour than the public honour, peace, victory and stability of his Masters kingdom. (Bp. Reynolds.)
Christs servant Christs representative
A man who knocks at our door, and calls himself a servant of some great one, implies that he has come on his masters business; and claims an attention to be measured by the importance, not of himself, but of his master. (Prof. J. A. Beet.)
Called to be an apostle.
A call to the ministry--includes
I. Divine approval. A servant, accepted, devoted, faithful.
II. A Divine commissions. Inward conviction, holy impulse.
III. Divine designation. By suitable qualifications, providential arrangements, to a special work. (J. Lyth.)
Qualifications for the apostleship
He had seen the Lord after His resurrection (1Co_9:1). He had received his commission directly from Jesus Christ and God the Father (Gal_1:1). He possessed the signs of an apostle (2Co_12:12). He had received the knowledge of the gospel, not through any man, or by any external means, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal_1:11-12), and although he was as one born out of due time, yet, by the grace vouchsafed to him, he laboured more abundantly than all the rest. (R. Haldane.)
Separated unto the gospel of God.--
Separated unto the gospel
Christ separated him from the service of sin; from Jewish tradition, superstition, and empty ceremony; from working out a righteousness of his own; from all merely temporal aims and purposes; from cares and anxieties of provisions for the flesh; from the more worldly affairs of the Church, the serving of tables; to be a living depositary of gospel doctrine, a gracious example of the gospels power, and an efficient organ for the gospels utterance. Like a vessel separated from the foul clay of the mine, the worthless dross of the metal, the graceless and useless forms of the shapeless mass, the common uses of the world, and even the ordinary uses of the house of Christ, a chosen vessel, to be filled full to overflowing with the water of life, and borne about everywhere among thirsty men. No man can serve two masters. Be ye separate. It a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, etc. (W. Griffiths.)
Pauls separation
I. What. Set apart to a special purpose, sanctified (Jer_1:5).
II. How.
1. In Gods purpose from the womb (Gal_1:15).
2. Actually and generally at his conversion (Act_9:15).
3. Specially as apostle of the Gentiles at Antioch (Act_13:2). The first separation preceded the call; the others followed it. Before his conversion Paul separated himself and became a Pharisee; after it he was separated by God and became a Christian and an apostle. The first separation by human pride; the second by Divine grace.
III. What to.
1. The gospel.
(1) Good news (Luk_2:10) concerning Christ and His salvation.
(2) Foretold by Isaiah under this term (Isa_52:7; Rom_10:15).
(3) Called gospel--
(a) Of the kingdom (Mat_4:2).
(b) Of the grace of God (Act_20:24).
(c) Of salvation (Eph_1:13).
(d) Of peace (Eph_6:15).
(e) Glorious of the blessed God (1Ti_1:11).
(f) Everlasting (Rev_14:6).
(4) It is good news in respect to past, present, and future.
2. Of God. God is its Author and subject matter (Joh_3:16). It is the product of His wisdom and love (Eph_3:10; Tit_3:4). Hence--
(1) Its excellence, preciousness, and authority; for the gospel of God must be--
(a) True;
(b) Important;
(c) Full of authority.
(2) The guilt and danger of neglecting it (Heb_12:25; 1Th_4:8; Luk_10:16).
(3) God speaks in the gospel, therefore it must be heard with--
(a) Earnestness;
(b) Reverence;
(c) Thankfulness.
(d) Obedience. (T. Robinson, D. D.)
The gospel of God
God is--
I. Its Author, as He has purposed it in His eternal decrees.
II. Its Interpreter, as He Himself hath declared it to men.
III. Its Subject, because in the gospel His sovereign perfections and purposes towards men are manifested. (R. Haldane.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Chapter 2
Chapter 2
THE WRITER AND HIS READERS
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Rom_1:1-7
PAUL, a bondservant of Jesus Christ. So the man opens his Lords message with his own name. We may, if we please, leave it and pass on, for to the letter writer of that day it was as much a matter of course to prefix the personal name to the letter as it is to us to append it. But then, as now, the name was not a mere word of routine; certainly not in the communications of a religious leader. It avowed responsibility; it put in evidence a person. In a letter of public destination it set the man in the light and glare of publicity, as truly as when he spoke in the Christian assembly, or on the Areopagus, or from the steps of the castle at Jerusalem. It tells us here, on the threshold, that the messages we are about to read are given to us as "truth through personality"; they come through the mental and spiritual being of this wonderful and most real man. If we read his character aright in his letters, we see in him a fineness and dignity of thought which would not make the publication of himself a light and easy thing. But his sensibilities, with all else he has, have been given to Christ (who never either slights or spoils such gifts, while He accepts them); and if it will the better win attention to the Lord that the servant should stand out conspicuously, to point to Him, it shall be done.
For he is indeed "Jesus Christs bondservant"; not His ally merely, or His subject, or His friend. Recently, writing to the Galatian converts, he has been vindicating the glorious liberty of the Christian, set free at once from "the curse of the law" and from the mastery of self. But there too, at the Gal_6:17, he has dwelt on his own sacred bondage; "the brand of his Master, Jesus." The liberty of the Gospel is the silver side of the same shield whose side of gold is an unconditional vassalage to the liberating Lord. Our freedom is "in the Lord" alone; and to be "in the Lord," is to belong to Him as wholly as a healthy hand belongs, in its freedom, to the physical centre of life and will. To be a bondservant is terrible in the abstract. To be "Jesus Christs bondservant" is Paradise, in the concrete. Self-surrender, taken alone, is a plunge into a cold void. When it is surrender to "the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me," {Gal_2:20} it is the bright homecoming of the soul to the seat and sphere of life and power.
This bondservant of His now before us, dictating, is called to be an Apostle. Such is his particular department of servitude in the "great house." It is a rare commission-to be a chosen witness of the Resurrection, a divinely authorised "bearer" of the holy Name, a first founder and guide of the universal Church, a legatus a latere of the Lord Himself. Yet the apostleship, to St. Paul, is but a species of the one genus, bondservice. "To every man is his work," given by the one sovereign will. In a Roman household one slave would water the garden, another keep accounts, another in the library would do skilled literary work; yet all equally would be "not their own, but bought with a price." So in the Gospel, then, and now. All functions of Christians are alike expressions of the one will of Him who has purchased, and who "calls."
Meanwhile, this bondservant-apostle, because "under authority," carries authority. His Master has spoken to him, that he may speak. He writes to the Romans as man, as friend, but also as the "vessel of choice," to bear the Act_9:15 of Jesus Christ.
Such is the sole essential work and purpose of his life. He is separated to the Gospel of God; isolated from all other ruling aims to this. In some respects he is the least isolated of men; he is in contact all round with human life. Yet he is "separated." In Christ, and for Christ, he lives apart from even the worthiest personal ambitions. Richer than ever, since he "was in Christ," {Rom_16:7} in all that makes mans nature wealthy, in power to know, to will, to love, he uses all his riches always for "this one thing," to make men understand "the Gospel of God." Such isolation, behind a thousand contacts, is the Lords call for His true followers still.
"The Gospel": word almost too familiar now, till the thing is too little understood. What is it? In its native meaning, its eternally proper meaning, it is the divine "Good Tidings." It is the announcement of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour of men, in whom God and man meet with joy. That announcement stands in living relation to a bright chain of precepts, and also to the sacred darkness of convictions and warnings; we shall see this amply illustrated in this Epistle. But neither precepts nor threatenings are properly the Gospel. The Gospel saves from sin, and enables for holy conduct. But in itself it is the pure, mere message of redeeming Love.
It is "the Gospel of God"; that is, as the neighbouring sentences show it, the gospel of the blessed Father. Its origin is in the Fathers love, the eternal hill whence runs the eternal stream of the work of the Son and the power of the Spirit. "God loved the world"; "The Father sent the Son."
The stream leads us up to the mount. "Hereby perceive we the love of God." In the Gospel, and in it alone, we have that certainty, "God is Love."
Now he dilates a little, in passing, on this dear theme, the Gospel of God. He whom it reveals as eternal Love was true to Himself in the preparation as in the event; He promised His Gospel beforehand through His prophets in (the) holy Scriptures. The sunrise of Christ was no abrupt, insulated phenomenon, unintelligible because out of relation. "Since the world began," {Luk_1:70} from the dawn of human history, predictive word and manifold preparing work had gone before. To think now only of the prediction, more or less articulate, and not of the preparation through general divine dealings with man-such had the prophecy been that, as the pagan histories tell us, "the whole East" heaved with expectations of a Judaean world rule about the time when, as a fact, Jesus came. He came, alike to disappoint every merely popular hope and to satisfy at once the concrete details and the spiritual significance of the long forecast. And He sent His messengers out to the world carrying as their text and their voucher that old and multi-fold literature which is yet one Book; those "holy writings" (our own Old Testament, from end to end,) which were to them nothing less than the voice of the Holy Spirit. They always put the Lord, in their preaching, in contact with that prediction.
In this, as in other things, His glorious Figure is unique. There is no other personage in human history, himself a moral miracle, heralded by a verifiable foreshadowing in a complex literature of previous centuries.
"The hope of Israel" was, and is, a thing sui generis. Other preparations for the Coming were, as it were, sidelong and altogether by means of nature. In the Holy Scriptures the supernatural led directly and in its own way to the supreme supernatural Event; the Sacred Way to the Sanctuary.
What was the burthen of the vast prophecy, with its converging elements? It was concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Whatever the prophets themselves knew, or did not know, of the inmost import of their records and utterances, the import was this. The Lord and the Apostles do not commit us to believe that the old seers ever had a full conscious foresight, or even that in all they "wrote of Him" they knew that it was of Him they wrote: though they had insights above nature, and knew it, as when David "in the Spirit called Him Lord," and Abraham "saw His day." But they do amply commit us to believe, if we are indeed their disciples, that the whole revelation through Israel did, in a way quite of its own kind, "concern the Son of God." See this in such leading places as Luk_24:25-27, Joh_5:39; Joh_5:46, Act_3:21-25; Act_10:43; Act_28:23.
A Mahometan in Southern India, not long ago, was first drawn to faith in Jesus Christ by reading the genealogy with which St. Matthew begins his narrative. Such a procession, he thought, must lead up a mighty name; and he approached with reverence the story of the Nativity. That genealogy is, in a certain sense, the prophecies in compendium. Its avenue is the miniature of theirs. Let us sometimes go back, as it were, and approach the Lord again through the ranks of His holy foretellers, to get a new impression, of His majesty.
"Concerning His Son." Around that radiant word, full of light and heat, the cold mists of many speculations have rolled themselves, as man has tried to analyse a divine and boundless fact. For St. Paul, and for us, the fact is everything, for peace and life. This Jesus Christ is true Man; that is certain. He is also, if we trust His life and word, true Son of God. He is on the one hand personally distinct from Him whom He calls Father, and whom He loves, and who loves Him with infinite love. On the other hand He is so related to Him that He fully possesses His Nature, while He has that Nature wholly from Him. This is the teaching of Gospels and Epistles; this is the Catholic Faith. Jesus Christ is God, is Divine, truly and fully. He is implicitly called by the incommunicable Name. {compare Joh_12:41, Isa_6:7} He is openly called God in His own presence on earth. {Joh_20:28} But what is, if possible, even more significant, because deeper below the surface-He is regarded as the eternally satisfying Object of mans trust and love. {e.g., Php_3:21, Eph_3:19} Yet Jesus Christ is always preached as related Son-wise to Another, so truly that the mutual love of the Two is freely adduced as type and motive for our love.
We can hardly make too much, in thought and. teaching, of this Divine Sonship, this filial Godhead. It is the very "Secret of God," {Col_2:2} both as a light to guide our reason to the foot of the Throne, and as a power upon the heart. "He that hath the Son hath the Father"; "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father"; "He hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His Love."
Who was born of the seed of David, according to the flesh. So the New Testament begins; {Mat_1:1} so it almost closes. {Rev_22:6} St. Paul, in later years, recalls the Lords human pedigree again: {2Ti_2:8} "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, is risen from the dead." The old Apostle in that last passage, has entered the shadow of death; he feels with one hand for the rock of history, with the other for the pulse of eternal love. Here was the rock; the Lord of life was the Child of history, Son and Heir of a historical king, and then, as such, the Child of prophecy too. And this, against all surface appearances beforehand. The Davidic "ground" {Isa_53:2} had seemed to be dry as dust for generations, when the Root of endless life sprang up in it.
"He was born" of Davids seed. Literally, the Greek may be rendered, "He became, He came to be." Under either rendering we have the wonderful fact that He who in His higher eternity is, above time and including it, did in His other Nature, by the door of becoming, enter time, and thus indeed "fill all things." This He did, and thus He is, "according to the flesh." "Flesh" is, indeed, but a part of Manhood. But a part can represent the whole; and "flesh" is the part most antithetical to the Divine Nature, with which here Manhood is collocated and in a sense contrasted. So it is again Rom_9:5.
And now, of this blessed Son of David, we hear further:-who was designated to be Son of God; literally, "defined as Son of God," betokened to be such by "infallible proof." Never for an hour had he ceased to be, in fact, Son of God. To the man healed of birth-blindness He had said, {Joh_9:35} "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" But there was an hour when He became openly and so to speak officially what He always is naturally; somewhat as a born king is "made" king by coronation. Historical act then affirmed independent fact, and as it were gathered it into a point for use. This affirmation took place in power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, as a result of resurrection from the dead. "Sown in weakness," Jesus was indeed "raised in" majestic, tranquil "power." Without an effort He stepped from out of the depth of death, from under the load of sin. It was no flickering life, crucified but not quite killed, creeping back in a convalescence mis-called resurrection; it was the rising of the sun. That it was indeed daylight, and not day dream, was shown not only in His mastery of matter, but in the transfiguration of His followers. No moral change was ever at once more complete and more perfectly healthful than what His return wrought in that large and various group, when they learnt to Say, "We have seen the Lord." The man who wrote this Epistle had "seen Him last of all". {1Co_15:8} That was indeed a sight "in power," and working a transfiguration.
So was the Son of the Father affirmed to be what He is; so was He "made" to be, for us His Church, "the Son," in whom we are sons. And all this was, "according to the Spirit of holiness"; answerably to the foreshadowing and foretelling of that Holy Spirit who, in the prophets, "testified of the sufferings destined for the Christ, and of the glories that should follow." {1Pe_1:11}
Now lastly, in the Greek of the sentence, as if pausing for a solemn entrance, comes in the whole blessed Name; even Jesus Christ our Lord. Word by word the Apostle dictates, and the scribe obeys. Jesus, the human Name; Christ, the mystic Title; our Lord, the term of royalty and loyalty which binds us to Him, and Him to us. Let those four words be ours forever. If everything else falls in ruins from the memory, let this remain, "the strength of our heart, and our portion forever."
Through whom, the Apostles voice goes on, we received grace and apostleship. The Son was the Channel "through" which the Fathers choice and call took effect. He "grasped" Paul, {Php_3:12} and joined him to Himself, and in Himself to the Father; and now through that Union the motions of the Eternal will move Paul. They move him, to give him "grace and apostleship"; that is, in effect, grace for apostleship, and apostleship as grace; the boon of the Lords presence in him for the work, and the Lords work as a spiritual boon. He often thus links the word "grace" with his great mission; for example, in Gal_2:9, Eph_3:2; Eph_3:8, and perhaps Php_1:7. Alike the enabling peace and power for service, and then the service itself, are to the Christian a free, loving, beautifying gift.
Unto obedience of faith among all the Nations. This "obedience of faith" is in fact faith in its aspect as submission. What is faith? It is personal trust, personal self-entrustment to a person. It "gives up the case" to the Lord, as the one only possible Giver of pardon and of purity. It is "submission to the righteousness of God". {Rom_10:3} Blessed the man who so obeys, stretching out arms empty and submissive to receive, in the void between them, Jesus Christ.
"Among all the Nations," "all the Gentiles." The words read easily to us, and pass perhaps half unnoticed, as a phrase of routine. Not so to the ex-Pharisee who dictated them here. A few years before he would have held it highly "unlawful to keep company with, or come unto, one of another nation". {Act_10:2; Act_10:8} Now, in Christ, it is as if he had almost forgotten that it had been so. His whole heart, in Christ, is blent in personal love with hearts belonging to many nations; in spiritual affection he is ready for contact with all hearts. And now he, of all the Apostles, is the teacher who by life and word is to bring this glorious catholicity home forever to all believing souls, our own included. It is St. Paul preeminently who has taught man, as man, in Christ, to love man; who has made Hebrew, European, Hindoo, Chinese, Caffre, Esquimaux, actually one in the conscious brotherhood of eternal life.
For His Names sake; for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ revealed. The Name is the self-unfolded Person, known and understood. Paul had indeed come to know that Name, and to pass it on was now his very life. He existed only to win for it more insight, more adoration, more love. "The Name" deserved that great souls entire devotion. Does it not deserve our equally entire devotion now? Our lives shall who belong to Him, His personal property, their motto also, "For His Names sake."
Now he speaks direct of his Roman friends. Among whom, among these multifarious "Nations," you too are Jesus Christs called ones, men who belong to Him, because "called" by Him. And what is "called?" Compare the places where the word is used-or where its kindred words are used-in the Epistles, and you will find a certain holy specialty of meaning. "Invited" is no adequate paraphrase. The "called" man is the man who has been invited and has come; who has obeyed the eternal welcome; to whom the voice of the Lord has been effectual. See the word in the opening paragraphs of 1 Corinthians. There the Gospel is heard, externally by a host of indifferent or hostile hearts, who think it "folly," or "a stumbling block." But among them are those who hear, and understand, and believe indeed. To them "Christ is Gods power, and Gods wisdom." And they are "the called."
In the Gospels, the words "chosen" and "called" are in antithesis; the called are many, the chosen few; the external hearers are many, the hearers inwardly are few. In the Epistles a developed use shows the change indicated here, and it is consistently maintained.
To all who in Rome are Gods beloved ones. Wonderful collocation, wonderful possibility! "Beloved ones of God," as close to the eternal heart as it is possible to be, because "in the Beloved"; that is one side. "In Rome," in the capital of universal paganism, material power, iron empire, immeasurable worldliness, flagrant and indescrible sin; that is the other side. "I know where thou dwellest," said the glorified Saviour to much tried disciples at a later day; "even where Satan has his throne." {Rev_2:13} That throne was conspicuously present in the Rome of Nero. Yet faith, hope, and love could breathe there, when the Lord "called." They could much more than breathe. This whole Epistle shows that a deep and developed faith, a glorious hope, and the mighty love of a holy life were matters of fact in men and women who every day of the year saw the world as it went by in forum and basilica, in Suburra and Velabrum, in slave chambers and in the halls of pleasure where they had to serve or to meet company. The atmosphere of heaven was carried down into that dark pool by the believing souls who were bidden to live there. They lived the heavenly life in Rome; as the creature of the air in our stagnant waters weaves and fills its silver diving bell, and works and thrives in peace far down.
Read some vivid picture of Roman life, and think of this. See it as it is shown by Tacitus, Suetonius, Juvenal, Martial; or as modern hands, Beckers or Farrars, have restored it from their materials. What a deadly air for the regenerate soul-deadly not only in its vice, but in its magnificence, and in its thought! But nothing is deadly to the Lord Jesus Christ. The souls regeneration means not only new ideas and likings, but an eternal Presence, the indwelling of the Life itself. That Life could live at Rome; and therefore "Gods beloved ones in Rome" could live there also, while it was His will they should be there. The argument comes a fortiori to ourselves.
(His) called holy ones; they were "called," in the sense we have seen, and now, by that effectual Voice, drawing them into Christ, they were constituted "holy ones," "saints." What does that word mean? Whatever its etymology may be, its usage gives us the thought of dedication to God, connection with Him, separation to His service, His will. The saints are those who belong to Him, His personal property, for His ends. Thus it is used habitually in the Scriptures for all Christians, supposed to be true to their name. Not an inner circle, but all, bear the title. It is not only a glorified aristocracy, but the believing commonalty; not the stars of the eternal sky, but the flowers sown by the Lord in the common field; even in such a tract of that field as "Caesars household" was. {Php_4:22}
Habitually therefore the Apostle gives the term "saints" to whole communities; as if baptism always gave, or sealed, saintship. In a sense it did, and does. But then, this was, and is, on the assumption of the concurrence of possession with title. The title left the individual still bound to "examine himself, whether he was in the faith". {2Co_13:5}
These happy residents at Rome are now greeted and blessed in their Fathers and Saviours Name; Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. "Grace"; what is it? Two ideas lie there together; favour and gratuity. The grace of God is His favouring will and work for us, and in us; gratuitous, utterly and to the end unearned. Put otherwise (and with the remembrance that: His great gifts are but modes of Himself, are in fact Himself in will and action), grace is God for us, grace is God in us, sovereign, willing, kind. "Peace"; what is it? The holy repose within, and so around, which comes of the mans acceptance with God and abode in God; an "all is well" in the heart, and in the believers contact with circumstances, as he rests in his Father and his Redeemer. "Peace, perfect peace"; under the sense of demerit, and amidst the crush of duties, and on the crossing currents of human joy and sorrow, and in the mystery of death; because of the God of Peace, who has made peace for us through the Cross of His Son, and is peace in us, "by the Spirit which He hath given us."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1–7 1–7. Paul. Instead of subscribing a name at the…
1–7. Paul. Instead of subscribing a name at the end of a letter, the custom was to introduce it at the beginning. See other Epistles of Paul; also Acts 23:26. For a sketch of Paul, see Introduction; also see notes in Vol. I. on Acts 13:9. Called to be an apostle. “To be” is not in the original. Paul simply states that he is “a called apostle,” not one appointed by men, but called by Jesus Christ. He was called when he “saw the Lord,” an essential to apostleship. See notes 1 Cor. 9:1; also Acts 26:16. His setting apart at Antioch (Acts 13:2) was not this call, but it came direct from Jesus Christ. As some Judaizing teachers tried to destroy his apostolic authority, he found it necessary on several occasions to show that his commission was directly from the Lord. Separated. Set apart to the work of the gospel. Christ set him apart, and his whole life was consecrated to his divine glory.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 7 Rom_1:1. Paul.—In Latin Paulus, and equals little. Chosen, perhaps,…
CRITICAL NOTES
Rom_1:1. Paul.—In Latin Paulus, and equals little. Chosen, perhaps, for humility. Name of illustrious Roman family. Saul among Jews. Afterwards Paul. Very common for Jews to accept a second name of Greek origin bearing resemblance in sound. So Σαῦλος, Παῦλος Servant.—Common word of slaves. Bondmen, in contrast to freemen. Paul claims to be heard as δοῦλος, bondman of Jesus Christ.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_1:1
A glorious inscription.—It is not perhaps too much to say that the most glorious time of the Church’s history was the first three hundred years of its existence. Much of the romance and chivalry of Christianity disappeared when the fires of persecution were extinguished, when the stake and the faggot were displaced by the sceptre of authority, when riches instead of poverty became the reward of the Christian profession and it became the pathway to positions of worldly influence. Stirring times were those, and in them appeared the mightiest of the race. A bright galaxy of great men—great in intellect as well as in spiritual power—flourished in the first days of the Christian era. Those were the days of Peter, John, Paul, Barnabas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenæus, and many others of whom the world was not worthy,—men who were driven from earth and found a home in heaven; who were dishonoured in their own time and glorified in after time; whose writings, sayings, histories, and characters have been both the study and the admiration of the men of profoundest intellect and widest erudition who have followed. Rising high above all these great men, as King Saul, physically, above his fellows, as the mountain peak above adjacent high-lying lands, is the great apostle of the Gentiles. Paul was not great physically; but he was better, being great both intellectually and spiritually. The greatest merely human hero of Christianity, the noblest man of all time, was “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.” Let us consider the inscription and the description which he gives of his own claim to speak with authority.
I. The human name is changeable, while the spiritual relationship is abiding.—Many guesses are given as to the reason why the name was changed in this instance. Dr. Wordsworth assigns no less than eight reasons for the change of “Saul” into “Paul.” We need not here give them; and some are rather fanciful. We cannot presume to decide where learned men differ. Surely it is a matter of small importance. Authentic history simply records the change of the name. In our days we have had names changed. Some have cast off their surnames and have taken fresh ones in order to increase their worldly goods, or to heighten their worldly position. What will become of earthly names in the spirit world? Are our names left behind on the tombstone where they are inscribed? Is it possible to have distinguishing names amongst the multitude which no man can number? Surely the individuality of the redeemed is not dependent upon the denoting power of a name. The names of Abraham and of Lazarus are mentioned in the parable of the rich man. But this is necessary to the carrying out of the parabolic picture. There must be in heaven many Abrahams, and many Pauls, and many Peters, by this time. Perhaps the human names will pass away like other things of earth. Names change as time advances. Names die because the things or persons denoted have passed into oblivion; but the spiritual relationship is abiding. Greater and more permanent than the name “Paul” is the title “servant of Jesus Christ.” A servant,—yea, a slave of Jesus Christ. The bondman of Him who came to give the highest freedom. A bondman whose price was not silver or gold, but the precious blood of Christ. A bondman who wears the easy yoke of love and carries the light burden of devoted service. The slave of Jesus Christ is free and restful as the child in a mother’s arms. This slave will not take any discharge. He serves on earth, and he serves as a king and a priest in heaven. It is a spiritual relationship, firm and lasting as the throne of God.
II. The human name separates, while the spiritual title unites.—Human names separate. They are given for this very purpose. The human name Paul not only denotes a certain physical form, a small stature, sparkling eyes, and aquiline nose, with Jewish and Grecian type of features; but to us it also connotes certain mental and moral features. It makes us think of a different man from St. Peter or St. John. The name Paul so sets off and separates the apostle of the Gentiles that if any other Paul is mentioned there must be appended some other name. Our earth names are separating attributes, while the title “a servant of Jesus Christ” is a uniting term. “A servant of Jesus Christ”—and thus a brother to all the Lord’s followers. We may not be great either socially or intellectually, but we march in the same noble company with St. Paul and the other great ones of time, for we are all servants of Jesus Christ. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. There is a sweet touch of spiritual nature which makes the whole family of Christ one. How beautifully and yet how incidentally St. Paul refers to the uniting force! He seems to say, I speak not merely as Paul, but as your brother, your fellow-servant to Jesus Christ.
III. The human name is an outward mark, while the divine call sets an inward seal.—The name brings before us the mental and moral characteristics of the man simply by reason of the working of the law of association. The name does not make the manhood. It is the manhood which makes the name. In itself the name Milton is a mere outward sign and mark. It has no creative force, and does not work inwardly. It is by what it suggests that we think of Milton the blind poet, and are led to wonder at the sublimity of his imagination. The name is an outward mark, while the divine call sets an inward seal. This call is:
1. Discriminating. God had need of Paul, of his learning and his wisdom, and He called him into His service.
2. Changing. Saul and Paul are the same, and yet so changed by the divine call as to be different. Saul the persecutor had the same intellect as Paul the writer of this epistle, and yet so changed that Paul rises above Saul by infinite degrees. God’s spiritual changes amount to new creations.
3. Elevating. It was an upward movement when Saul was called to be an apostle. Elevation of the moral nature is the enlargement and improvement of the mental nature. We are told that the great artist must be pure in nature and in aim. Only the good man can be the truly successful orator. Saul would have taken a good place amongst his fellows, but he would never have risen to the heights of Paul. We cannot be apostles, but by God’s help we can be good, and thus in our measure great.
IV. A noble life-purpose alone immortalises a human name.—The men of one idea are the rulers of the race. Paul was a man of one idea. It was—For the gospel of God. He believed it with all his heart as the good news from heaven. He was separated to it as good news for his own soul—good news for a fallen race. In these days some speak of the gospel as an old-fashioned word, but such words are the most influential. The old gospel is ever new. Paul would have gloried in the gospel had he lived to the end of time, and would have laboured more abundantly than all for its spread. His noble purpose, resolutely followed, has written his name in undying characters on the annals of time. Being the lover of Christ and His gospel, he became the true lover of his fellows,—Paul the greatest philanthropist of all men. Our names may die, but our noble purposes, resolutely achieved, cannot die. The record is in heaven. We shall be known by our purposes and by our efforts to give them fulfilment. Let us seek the immortality of goodness. Let us pray for God’s grace to separate us to His gospel.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom_1:1
The meaning of “apostle.”—The name “apostle,” which properly means a person sent, is sometimes applied in Scripture generally to any of those messengers who were sent by the Almighty to declare His will. Hence our blessed Saviour is called the “Apostle and High Priest of our profession.” But in its most common use in the New Testament it is limited to the twelve who were chosen by our Lord to be the witnesses of His life, and, after His ascension into heaven, to publish His religion to the world. St. Paul was not indeed of this number, but he was invested with the full authority belonging to the apostolical office, being called by the special nomination of Christ to be an apostle. This remark he introduces to show how completely he was distinguished from the Judaising teachers who were not called to the office which they had undertaken, but assumed it of themselves, and without any authority. He was also separated unto the gospel of God, chosen from among the rest of mankind, and devoted to the service of the gospel, that he might spread the knowledge of it in the world.—D. Ritchie, D.D.
Called to be an apostle.—Let the disciples of Christ remember that they are all His servants; and, what department soever of that service they are called to fill, whether more public or more private, let them cherish the same spirit with Paul, counting it their honour, and feeling it their pleasure, to serve such a Master. The more highly we think of the Master whom we serve (and in the present instance the more highly the more justly, the glorious reality ever remaining far above all our loftiest conceptions of it), the more honourable shall we deem His service; and the deeper our sense of obligation for His kindness and grace, the more ardent will be our delight in the doing of His will, and the more active and unremitting our zeal in the advancement of His glory. But Paul served Christ in a special capacity. He subjoins to his general designation his more appropriate one: “called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.” The office of an apostle was the highest among the offices of the Christian Church. In every enumeration of them this stands first: “When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers” (Eph_4:8; Eph_4:11). And His thus “giving” them implies His bestowing upon them whatever qualifications were necessary for the due discharge of their respective functions. This the connection intimates. “Unto every one of us,” the apostle had just said, “is given grace, according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” He, by the endowments, ordinary and extraordinary, of the Holy Spirit, fitted each class of these spiritual functionaries for the execution of their respective trusts. In a larger enumeration, given elsewhere, apostles still hold the first place: “God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues” (1Co_12:28).—Wardlaw.
Paul.—A little man, it should seem by his name, such as was James the Less: but as the Church of Philadelphia, though she had but a little strength, yet had a great door set open; and as Bethlehem was the least, and yet not the least, among the princes of Judah; so was this apostle the last (and perhaps the least in stature), as one born out of due time. But God (who loves to be maximus in minimus) had designed him to great services, and gifted him accordingly, so that he was no whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles; and for painstaking he laboured more abundantly than they all. Hence Chrysostom calleth him insatiabilem Dei cultorem, an insatiable servant of Christ. And himself seems as insatiable an encomiast of this apostle (the apostle he commonly nameth him “by an excellency”), for he hath written eight homilies in his commendation. And if any think he hath said too much, it is because either they have not read him or cannot judge of his worth. Qui tricubitalis cœlos transcendit (as the same Father saith): little though he were, yet he got above the heavens.
“A servant of Jesus Christ.”—This is a higher title than monarch of the world, as Numa, second king of Rome, could say. Constantinus, Valentinus, and Theodosius, three emperors, called themselves Vasallos Christi, the vassals of Christ, as Socrates reporteth.—Trapp.
Change of names.—It was common among the Jews and other Oriental nations to change the names of individuals on the occurrence of any remarkable event in their lives, as in the case of Abraham and Jacob. This was especially the case when the individual was advanced to some new office or dignity. Hence a new name is sometimes equivalent to a new dignity. As Paul seems to have received this name shortly after he entered on his duties as an apostle, it is often supposed, and not improbably, that it was on account of this call that his name was changed. Thus, Simon, when chosen to be an apostle, was called Cephas or Peter. Since, however, it was very common for those Jews who associated much with foreigners to have two names, one Jewish and the other Greek or Roman (sometimes entirely distinct, as Hillel and Pollio; sometimes nearly related, as Silas and Silvanus), it is perhaps more probable that the apostle was called Saul among the Jews and Paul among the heathen. As he was the apostle of the Gentiles, and all his epistles, except that to the Hebrews, were addressed to Churches founded among the heathen, it is not wonderful that he constantly called himself Paul instead of Saul.—Hodge.
Slave.—The original word, δοῦλος, properly signifies a slave. Here it is a name of honour. For, in the East, the chief ministers of kings were called δοῦλοι, slaves. In this sense Moses is called δούλου Θεοῦ, the slave or servant of God. This honourable name, therefore, denotes the high authority which Paul possessed in the kingdom of Christ as one of His chief ministers.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 1. “Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ.” Oiketees means…
1. “Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ.” Oiketees means “a hired servant”; doulos, the word here occurring, means “slave,” the signification at once beautiful and profound; a striking allusion to Old Testament slavery, which went out at the Jubilee. However, the law provided for the indefinite detention of such as were not willing to leave their masters, specifying in that case that the proprietor should nail his ear to the door-post, thus signifying that he should never go out of his house, but abide his slave forever. This is a beautiful symbolism. All sinners are Satan’s slaves. All truly sanctified people are God’s slaves. Meanwhile the unsanctified Christians rank as hired servants in the kingdom of God, serving for hire; e. g., preaching for a salary, et cetera. The sanctified gospel blows the Jubilee trumpet this day in all the world. Responsive to the trumpet call to sanctification, many reject and go back to the carnal freedom of Satan’s kingdom, serving God no longer. Praise the Lord, while they go back by thousands, rejecting holiness and forfeiting justification, yet they do not all go back. The elect few still, as in olden time, say: “Master, I will not leave thee.” “Then come up to the door-post and let me nail your ear, so that you shall abide in my house forever;” i. e., let me nail old Adam to the cross, and crucify him, thus sanctifying you wholly, so that you shall never go out of my house. How unutterably blessed to be the “Lord’s love slave.”
“Perfect submission, all is at rest, I in my Savior am happy and blest Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness and lost in His love”
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“An elect apostle, having been separated unto the gospel of God.” “Called” in the E. V. is the word for “elect.” We are nominated in regeneration, elected in sanctification, and crowned in glorification. Paul was utterly separated from the world for this work, as God’s elect people are this day.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. The fact that a man like Paul, brought…
Rom 1:1
I. The fact that a man like Paul, brought up as he was with such a brain and such a heart, turned the wrong way at first, should be capable of burning with such enthusiasm for a man of whose history he knew very little that was real or true until he saw Him in heavenly glory, that after that he should live to be the rejoicing slave of Jesus Christ,—is it a wonder that such a fact should weigh with me ten times more than the denial of the highest intellect of this world who gives me, by the very terms that he uses, the conviction that he knows nothing about what I believe? He talks as if he did, but he knows nothing about it. St. Paul knew the Lord Christ; and therefore, heart and soul, mind, body, and brain, he belonged to Jesus Christ, even as His born slave.
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II. Let us try to understand what is meant by a slavery which is a liberty. There is no liberty but in doing right. There is no freedom but in living out of the deeps of our nature—not out of the surface. We are the born slaves of Christ. But then, He is liberty Himself, and all His desire is that we should be such noble, true, right creatures that we never can possibly do or think a thing that shall bind even a thread round our spirits and make us feel as if we were tied anywhere. He wants us to be free—not as the winds, not to be free as the man who owns no law, but to be free by being law, by being right, by being truth. St. Paul spent his whole life, all his thoughts, all his energies, simply to obey his Lord and Master, and so he was the one free man—not the only free man: there were some more amongst the apostles; and by his preaching here and there, there started up free men, or, at least, men who were beginning to grow free by beginning to be the slaves of Christ.
G. Macdonald, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 108.
References: Rom 1:1.—G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 254; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 75; H. E. Lewis, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxi., p. 220. Rom 1:1-4.—A. M. Fairbairn, The City of God, p. 215. Rom 1:1-7.—Ibid., pp. 41-9; Expositor, 1st series, vol. ix., p. 105; vol. xi., pp. 309, 458; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. vi., p. 108; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 6th series, p. 37; W. B. Pope, Sermons, p. 175; W. J. Knox-Little, The Mystery of the Passion, p. 123. Rom 1:2.—Fletcher, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 1. Rom 1:2-5.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 253. Rom 1:3, Rom 1:4.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. x., p. 149.
Rom 1:7
I. There is a saintship which lies in the eternal appointment of God, which is the root and beginning of all. There is a saintship in the having been deliberately and designedly set apart by others as a holy vessel, which is independent of your own will. There is a saintship in your own voluntary surrender of yourself at different times to God, which is the responsible saintship. There is a saintship in the secret leadings and mouldings and teachings of the Holy Spirit, which is real and actual saintship. There is a saintship which lies in a holy, self-denying life, the copy of Jesus, which is apparent and active saintship. And there is a saintship in perfection being still beyond you, not reached nor yet conceived—that satisfying likeness in which one day you shall awake, capable of God’s presence, your whole body, soul, and spirit concentrated to one object, in one harmonious serving, and that is the saintship of hope, the design of your redemption, the end of your creation.
II. There are many to whom it is a very small attraction to be what is commonly meant by a "religious person,"—a name which often conveys, if not narrowness and severity, yet certainly something very moderate and almost quite negative. Do not be a "religious person"; be a saint, be an eminent servant of God; determine that you will be a great Christian. The higher the mark, the easier it is to some minds to reach it; and the reason why some simply do nothing is because they have not yet conceived great things. Do not be content with commonplaces; do not be like Christians about you. Throw your ambition into a channel worthy of the capabilities of which you are conscious. Leave beaten tracks and conventional standards, and the trite, ordinary ways of so-called Christians: be a saint.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, vol. xx., p. 17.
References: Rom 1:7.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., p. 210; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 187. Rom 1:8-15.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 91. Rom 1:11, Rom 1:12.—J. S. Pearsall, Christian World Pulpit, vol. v., p. 184; vol. vi., p. 198.
Rom 1:14
I. The principle underlying these words is that personal possession of any peculiar privilege is of the nature of a trust, and involves the obligation that the privilege shall be used by the individual, not for his own pleasure or profit merely, but for the welfare of those who are not similarly blessed. What I have that another has not is to be used by me, not for my own aggrandisement, but for the good of that other as well as for my own. The greatness of exceptional endowment, of whatever sort it may be, carries with it an obligation to similar greatness of service. The highest of all, by virtue of his very elevation, is to be the servant of all. The power of the strong is—shall I say?—divinely mortgaged in the interests of the weak; the sufferer whom I have the means of relieving has a God-given claim upon me for that relief; and the ignorant, whom I am able to instruct, is by God entitled to that instruction at my hands. He who has is in debt to him who has not. This is clearly the true interpretation of such a parable as that of the good Samaritan, and indeed it is the true and proper outcome of the gospel itself.
II. And this principle, thus introduced by the gospel, furnishes that which is needed to meet the perils of our modern civilisation. The tendency of the times is to increase the separation between different classes in the community. The gospel, far from blotting out all distinctions in society, as the Communist would do, makes the very privileges which mark the distinction between a higher class and a lower the basis of obligation, so that the one is the debtor of the other, and the obligation increases with the increase of the privilege. In this regard it is a solemn thing to be the possessor of a special blessing; for, while it is a boon, it always brings a responsibility, and makes its receiver a debtor to others who are less fortunate than himself. That is the Christian principle; and when men generally accept and act upon it the millennium shall have begun.
W. M. Taylor, Contrary Winds, p. 186.
This text raises a question on each of three points, which in mercantile phraseology would be designated the Business, the Debt, and the Composition.
I. The business: the nature, sphere, and extent of the trade in which Paul’s talents were laid out and his capital invested. Paul was a diligent and energetic man. Had he been a merchant, the keenest art in all the exchange could not have overreached him. He embarked all in one business, and then pushed it to the uttermost. He did not neglect the necessary and lawful affairs of this life, but his treasure was in heaven and his heart followed it.
II. The debt: how, with whom, and to what extent he had become involved. He was diligent in his business, and yet was not able to pay his way. Paul owed all that he possessed and himself besides to Christ His Redeemer. But he could not directly pay any part of his debt: a man’s goodness cannot reach to God. The Lord to whom he owes all has transferred his claim to the poor, and Paul is bound to honour it. Paul cannot reach the treasury of heaven to pay his instalments there; Paul’s great Creditor, therefore, makes the debt payable on earth; offices are open everywhere to receive it. Wherever there is a creature of the same flesh and blood with ourselves in want, spiritual or temporal, or both combined, there a legal claim is presented to the disciples of Christ; and if they repudiate, they dishonour their Lord.
III. The composition: in what manner and to what extent the insolvent proposed to pay. Let it be carefully observed here at the outset that the most devoted life of a saved man is not offered as an adequate return to the Saviour. As well might he purchase his pardon at first from the Judge as repay the Redeemer for it afterwards. He pays, not in the spirit of bondage, but in the spirit of grateful love; not that he looks to a time when the debt will be paid off, but that he delights in the act of paying it. Having announced his principle, the Apostle plunged at once into its practical details—Rom 1:15, "So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also."
W. Arnot, Roots and Fruits, p. 370.
The Adaptation of the Gospel to Civilised and Uncivilised Races..
Grant that the Christian revelation is true, and you cannot well oppose its diffusion; acknowledge that there is one God, and that He is revealed to mankind in Jesus Christ, and you cannot allege that it is unnecessary or unwise to make Him known throughout the world. And it will be found that this gospel can take hold of men of all grades of civilisation, from the very lowest to the very highest, because it meets the moral nature and wants of all men, speaks to the conscience and tells how men are lost and how they may be saved.
I. On that conviction acted that illustrious missionary who, though born a Hebrew of the Hebrews and educated in all the pride and prejudice of a Pharisee, once he had perceived the knowledge of Christ and caught the spirit of His world-endearing love, threw himself with an ardour at once generous and sagacious into the ministry of reconciliation, and made his appeal without respect of persons or races, to the Jew and the Greek, to the barbarian, to the Scythian, to the bond and to the free. Is not this for our admonition today? Ought not the Church of God to turn the same countenance of goodwill upon all nations and on all classes in a nation without respect to persons?
II. Perhaps the Church at home has become a little sickly through over-much self-consciousness, and is like one who grows weak and somewhat peevish by living, so to speak, too much indoors. Let the Church, as represented by her vigorous sons and loving daughters, go forth into the open air on the great areas of the world, and a new glow of health will come upon her cheek and a new pulse of strength into all her veins, and she will have a sweeter temper and a clearer voice and a firmer grasp than ever. In the wisdom of God the thoughts and ways of men are slowly but surely being shaped to glorious ends. Presentiment of better things on earth sweeps in with every force that stirs our souls. At such times surely the Church of God should arise and put on strength!
D. Fraser, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 305.
References: Rom 1:14.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. vii., p. 280; W. P. Lockhart, Ibid., vol. xxx., p. 214; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. x., p. 11; R. W. Church, Human Life, p. 193; C. S. Robinson, Sermons on Neglected Texts, p. 80. Rom 1:14, Rom 1:15.—C. Symes, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 363; J. Culross, Ibid., vol. xxix., p. 289. Rom 1:14-16.—Ibid., p. 395; J. Edmunds, Sermons in a Village Church, p. 247; H. W. Beecher, Forty-eight Sermons, vol. i., p. 181. Rom 1:15.—J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 217. Rom 1:15, Rom 1:16.—J. W. Burn, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 195; H. P. Hughes, Ibid., vol. xxxii., p. 273.
Rom 1:16
I. St. Paul rests the glory and the power of the gospel on its influence on every one who believeth: that is, on its persuasion of and acceptance by the heart and mind of each individual man. You see what great results such an admission brings in its train. At once the individual responsibility of man assumes a sacred and inviolable character. If it be so, all attempts to coerce and subjugate men’s consciences in the matter of religious belief are not only as we know futile and vain, but are sins against that liberty of reception of His gospel which God has made our common inheritance. The acceptance of the gospel, and of all that belongs to the gospel, must be free and unforced, the resignation of the heart, with its desires and affections, to God.
II. Let us remember that not St. Paul only, nor every Christian minister only, but every Christian man and woman among us, is set for the declaration and promulgation of the gospel. Some are called upon to preach its truths; all to proclaim their power by the example of a holy life. The gospel of Christ is still the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. This is the reason why we are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: not ashamed, though the track of the Church has been marked out not with peace but with the sword; not ashamed, though two-thirds of this fair world still lie in outer darkness; because we find that in the midst of all this the gospel has not lost one atom of its life-giving power, that wherever a soul lays hold on the Redeemer by faith, whether in the corrupt Church of Rome, or in the Reformed Church of England, or in any of the endless varieties of religious opinion and communion, or apart from all visible companies of Christians, there enters a new life unto God, a change into the Lord’s image, a glorious progress in holiness here, tending to perfection hereafter.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. ii., p. 176.
Note:—
I. Some grounds for sympathising with the Apostle’s statement. (1) We are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, because it vindicates the abandonment of our crucified Lord by God. The death of Jesus is seen to be at once a sublime satisfaction and an illustrious vindication of the justice of God. (2) We are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, because it reveals the love of God. (3) We are not ashamed of the doctrines of the gospel, for they vindicate the justice and they glorify the love of God. We are not ashamed of them, because they bear the stamp and have the ring of heavenly wisdom.
II. Experience has vindicated the Apostle’s reason. "It is the power of God unto salvation." The testimony of individuals in this matter is endorsed and sustained by the general testimony of history.
W. J. Woods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 211.
Rom 1:16
I. In Paul’s day the world was grown very weary of words which had in them no power at all, or, if power, at least not power to save. Weary of words which promised life, but had no power to give it; brain-spun speculations about God and man which made nothing clear, which had no influence whatever over the bad passions of the individual, which brought no hope to the poor or the slave; in these Greek theories there was no gospel of power unto salvation. Weary too of words which had behind them the terrific and sometimes brutal strength of Roman legions, but used it not to elevate subject races, but only to bind the yoke firmer on the degenerate peoples.
II. In the midst of all this St. Paul carried what he knew to be a Divine message of help—God’s own miraculous word, charged with a loftier wisdom than that of Greece, backed by a mightier authority than that of Rome, and instinct with spiritual life and everlasting salvation for men of every land. It was the revelation of God’s righteousness in His Son, and of God’s life by His Spirit.
III. The power which resides in a word, or which operates through a word, requires one, and no more than one, condition for its operation—it must be believed. Faith is no exceptional demand on the gospel’s part. It is the condition of all power which comes by word, whether it be a word that teaches or a word that commands. Salvation must come by faith, because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. It is therefore to him only who believes its message, but to every one who does believe it, that the gospel proves to be God’s power unto salvation. Faith on the part of the hearer is that which must liberate the Divine might, which resides in the word ready to operate. Before you call the gospel weak, ask how you have received it. The faith which has to be exercised about any word varies with the nature of the word. This word from God is spiritual, and it asks not an intellectual but a spiritual faith, a moral submission, a religious surrender of the whole being to the influence of the truth told and the authority of the Person speaking. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation—only you must do it the justice to believe it.
J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 1.
The Power of God in the Gospel.
I. The first element of the power of the gospel which we meet with in the most complete treatise which inspired men have delivered to us on the subject is the gospel doctrine of sin. The sense of sin is among the most real and deep of human experiences. Men were groaning in spirit over the question, when the gospel offered its solution and cast a flood of light upon the nature and the genesis of sin. The Bible declares what man’s heart has ever felt to be a truth, that sin is the independent self-originated act of the free will of the creature in opposition to the known mind and will of God. It declares also what man feels in his heart to be true, and has struggled in vain to realise, that sin does not fully belong to man, though it is in him and is his own work. Through the gospel sin was felt and known in its dread reality as it had never been known before; but men learned, too, that it was as essentially weaker than righteousness, as flesh is weaker than spirit, as Satan is weaker than Christ. They learnt that it might be conquered, that it ought to be conquered, and they believed that it would be conquered.
II. The second element of the power of the gospel lies in the atonement offered for the sins of the world, which it proclaims. Man seeks to know God as He is; and man only rests and hopes when he sees that not a promise only, but the nature, the name of God is on his side. The name of God was manifest in Christ and wrought redemption. All the attributes of the Divine character are here seen in their essence—the radiant colours blended in one white beam of love. And this is the glory of the gospel, this is the power of that salvation which is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
III. The third element of the power of the gospel is the doctrine of the incarnation. The world whose air the incarnate God had breathed, whose paths He had trodden, whose load He had borne, whose form He had put on and carried up with Him visibly to celestial zones, could not be a dying world, could not be a devil’s world; it must live to be a Divine world and a kingdom of heaven.
IV. The gospel was a power unto salvation, because it opened heaven to man’s spirit, and brought down the power of the world to come to govern his will and purify his heart.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Divine Life in Man, p. 92.
References: Rom 1:16.—Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 86; Homilist, new series, vol. i., p. 529; Church of England Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 61; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 159; T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 54; H. P. Liddon, Church of England Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 297; S. W. Winter, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 200; T. Gasquoine, Ibid., vol. iv., p. 364; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. viii., p. 267; W. Woods, Ibid., vol. i., p. 211; R. W. Dale, Ibid., vol. xxix., p. 305; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 96; H. P. Liddon, University Sermons, 2nd series, p. 242; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 272; Bishop Simpson, Sermons, p. 97; Saturday Evening, pp. 22-43.
Rom 1:16-17
Consider:—
I. The condition to which man has reduced himself by transgression, which makes "the power of God unto salvation" the pressing and constant need of his soul. Power is of God, because power is life, and life is of God. If power be gone, God only can renew it. Man is manifestly godlike in the serene composure of his being; he knows the struggles to live up to it, yet falls back into the gloom of the nether abyss. It is a sight of unspeakable piteousness. It would be an agony to angels, it would be an agony to Christ if His mighty arm were not nigh with salvation.
II. What evidence upon this point the pagan systems supply. I believe that, regarded in their very highest aspect—that is, in the light of their aspirings and strivings—they are solemn witnesses to this want of spiritual power, by their very efforts to supply it, and to generate that force which can come forth from God alone. It is very easy to use the word idol as a word of scorn; but it is not so easy to define clearly what it means, and to explain the place which it occupies in history. The world’s idolatries are the nurses of the most grinding tyranny and the most disgusting sensuality. This is their universal character; to this they inevitably incline. But if any man supposes that idolatries were invented for the express purpose of promoting sensuality and tyranny, by giving them a heavenly sanction, he places himself at a point of view from which it is simply impossible that he can understand humanity and the gospel. The Gentile idolatries were the power of man, striving at first in the true direction, though in sinful, guilty ignorance of the true God, who is "not far from any one of us," but mastered to the end, like all that is born of the will of the flesh, by corrupting elements, and made thereby ministers of widespread desolations and death. The pagan was suffered to feel after God, because God was preparing to reveal Himself. The world was suffered to grope in its darkness, for already the gates of the East were opening, and the flush of the rising daystar began to glow over the world.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Divine Life in Man, p. 70.
The Essential Nature of Salvation.
I. There is no safety but in soundness, and wherever there is soundness there must be ultimate safety. These two principles are comprehended in the original sense of the words, both in Greek and Latin, which are rendered by the one word salvation. But I believe that in the view of sound philosophy, as well as in etymology, the meaning of health-wholeness is the fundamental one, and that we shall get into much mischief, in spiritual things at any rate, if we look at the matter in any other way. He who would save man must heal him: in other words, he must re-quicken that vital power which man lost at the Fall, the re-quickening of which will be regeneration and salvation.
II. Salvation is a deliverance—an escape from death and hell. Salvation is the possession of a complete and imperishable bliss. But there is that in it which underlies both these conditions, and through which alone they can be completely realised; and that is the gradual unfolding of the Divine life in the soul—the recovery by the soul of that vital force which in its rudiment man lost in Eden, and which in its maturity man regains in Christ. "The just shall live by faith." That is the basis on which the doctrinal structure rests. Life was lost in the Fall. Life is recovered in Christ; to live in Christ is to be saved. To know Him, to be capable of knowing His mind, and sympathising with His heart, and delighting in His work throughout eternity, is to be blessed in all the boundless blessedness of heaven. But everything depends on our regarding faith, not as a dead condition which any other term might as well supply, but as a vital act; just as vital a relation to the spiritual being as the appropriation and assimilation of the bread which perishes is to the life of the body in this present world. We live by the bread which perishes, as to the body; we live by Christ, the bread of life, as to the spirit. The sense of the body is the organ by which the outward bread is appropriated for its sustenance; faith is the corresponding organ by which, in the inner man, Christ is received with the nourishment of the soul.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Divine Life in Man, p. 122.
References: Rom 1:16, Rom 1:17.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 161; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 364.
Rom 1:17 (R.V.)
I. The most characteristic and weighty expression in this verse is of course God’s righteousness, the revelation of which makes the gospel to be a saving power. The Pauline use of the word righteousness is this: righteousness is the condition of any man’s being justified, vindicated in law or acquitted of blame by his righteous Judge. And the characteristic of the gospel— its joy and glory—lies here, that it has revealed how that condition of our justification has been reached. By its disclosure of that for the trustful acceptance of mankind, it becomes a message with power unto salvation.
II. We are now in a position to see in what sense this righteousness revealed in the gospel is God’s. It is God’s in its inception; for He it was who in the beginning, when we were yet sinners, sent forth His Son. It is God’s in its achievement; for He it was—the Son of the Father—who, in the fulness of time, made many righteous by His own obedience. It is God’s in its revelation; for He it was—the Holy Spirit—who comforts us by His teaching, who first through the apostles of our Lord discovered it to all nations for the obedience of faith.
III. God’s righteousness of, or out of, faith. The relation of God’s righteousness is thus expressed by its very name, on both sides—toward God and toward man. As respects God, it is His, in a sense, opposed to its being mine; His as its Author, Originator, meritorious Achiever, and proper Proprietor. The simple personal possessive marks His relation to it; it is God’s. But as respects my relation to it—it comes to me, stands me in stead, is reckoned to me for my acquittal "by faith," in consequence of my believing and trusting in Him. Just because this righteousness is another’s, it can only be made available for me by my relying upon that other and accepting it as a gratuitous present from His kindness. Because it is God’s, it comes to me out of faith; and it is out of faith, that it may be by grace.
J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 13.
References: Rom 1:17.—G. Ireland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 222; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 567; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 83. Rom 1:18.—Homilist, vol. vi., p. 157; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 381; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 561. Rom 1:18-21.—Bennett, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 325.
Rom 1:18-32
The Natural History of Paganism.
I. St. Paul’s first proposition is, that from the first the heathen knew enough of God from His works to render them without excuse for not worshipping Him.
II. Secondly, the Apostle declares that the heathen have culpably repressed and hindered from its just influence the truth which they did know respecting God. He traces polytheistic and idolatrous worship to its root. (1) Its first origin he finds in a refusal to walk honestly by such light as nature afforded. For this primary step in the very old and very fatal path of religious declension men could excuse themselves under no plea of ignorance. (2) The next step followed surely. That truth about God’s real nature and properties, which men would not strive fairly to express in their worship, became obscured. Vanity and errors entered into human reasonings on religion. "Men became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened." (3) The third step downward was practical folly in religion. Nature worship involved symbol worship. Symbol worship rapidly degenerated into sheer idol worship.
III. It is in this deplorable and criminal perversion of the truth, this religious apostasy, that Paul finds a key to the personal and social vices of heathendom. When the human heart shut out the self-manifestation of the true God, refused to know Him, and worshipped base creatures in His room, it cut itself off by its own act from the source of moral light and moral strength. A bad and false religion must breed a bad and false character. It ought never to be forgotten that heathenism is not simply a misfortune in the world for which the bulk of men are to be pitied but not blamed. It is a crime—a huge, next to world-wide, age-long crime, with its roots in a deep hatred of God, and bearing a prolific crop of utterly inexcusable and hideous vices. To prove this is the end for which the passage is introduced by St. Paul.
J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 25.
References: Rom 1:19.—Church of England Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 303; G. Dawson, Sermons on Disputed Points, p. 49; F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 289. Rom 1:20.—G. Salmon, Non-Miraculous Christianity, pp. 74, 94; R. S. Candlish, The Fatherhood of God, p. 1. Rom 1:20, Rom 1:21.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1763. Rom 1:21.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 20; H. W. Beecher, Catholic Sermons, vol. ii., p. 97. Rom 1:21-25.—Ibid., vol. i., p. 297.
Rom 1:25
Nature Worship.
Consider whether our religion or our irreligion is so free from the idolatrous element as we generally suppose, and if not what are the appearances which bear the most resemblance to the false religion of the ancient world.
I. Though the impious among ourselves no longer pray to stocks and stones, or beasts and birds, or moon and stars, there is still a strong taint of idolatry perceptible in our religion, science, literature, business—nay, our very language. Yes, I say our language. Can it be reverence, religious awe, that prompts the suppression of what would seem the most indispensable of all words—the incommunicable name of God? This explanation is precluded by the levity with which men often make that venerable name the theme of ribald jests and the burden of blasphemous imprecation. No, the name seems to be shunned because it means too much, suggests too much, concedes too much.
II. Not only is the grand and simple name of God exchanged for a descriptive title, such as Supreme Being, or an abstract term, the Deity, but still more readily and frequently is God supplanted by a goddess, and her name is Nature. This form of idolatry has all the aid that Art can render to Nature. The idolater of Nature cannot but be an idolater of Art, and here the coincidence with heathenism is not one of principle only, but of outward form. The high art of the ancients was a part of their religion. It was not an idle tickling of the sense or fancy. In the perfection of their imitation and the beauty of their original creations they did honour to the god of their idolatry, not indirectly, as the author of their skill, but most directly, as its only object. As long as man retains the sensibilities which God has given him and yet remains unwilling to retain God in his thoughts, the voice of Nature will be louder than the voice of God. If God is not in the fire or the wind or the earthquake, these will nevertheless sweep the multitude before them, and the still small voice of revelation will be heard only by a chosen few. When certain causes now at work have had their full effect, the worshipper of God will again be like Elijah on Mount Carmel, while the vast mixed multitude are worshippers of Nature.
J. A. Alexander, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, p. 61.
References: Rom 1:26-29.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 34. Rom 1:28.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. ix., p. 346. Rom 1:32.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. ix., p. 213. 1—Ibid., vol. iii., p. 1. Rom 2:1.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 491. Rom 2:2-4.—Ibid., vol. iii., p. 67.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Subdivision 1. (Rom 1:1-17.)
Subdivision 1. (Rom 1:1-17.)
This the power of God to salvation in a gospel all of Him.
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At the outset therefore the apostle sets forth this as the very power for salvation: a gospel which is entirely of God, as it is Christ who is the substance of it. Only one Man is competent to be our Saviour, who in His own Person has united God and man. We, to whom it is the gospel, have but to hear, to bow to God’s wondrous grace, and be made glad; for the gospel is "glad tidings."
1. To this gospel Paul had been set apart, an apostle of it by the call of Him to whom he thankfully owns himself a bondman. For the grace that had set him free had made him His for ever. The peculiarity of his call we have seen elsewhere; he does not now speak of it, nor of where he had seen His glory of whom he speaks. He carries us back, rather, to His revelation of Himself on earth; for his purpose is to show how in His own Person He to whom the ages had been looking forward had bridged over the distance which the fall had brought in between God and man. Not that this alone could have removed the distance for man. It made God’s purpose apparent to do so, and showed the strength of the hands to which this purpose was entrusted.
The promise had been in the mercy of God given from the beginning. The broken echoes of it are heard far and wide among the traditions of the nations: broken indeed, for man cannot be trusted to keep what is of most vital importance to him without corruption. Thus the prophets -themselves as the special men of God in their days the witness of general departure -had preserved it in scriptures which bore in their character as "holy" scriptures the evidence of their origin from the Holy One; and the "prophets" vindicate their title by the fact that they "speak forth" what is a message from God.
How great the mercy of a written Word, and how plainly has this been always in the mind of the All-wise for men! None the less surely that, to keep it for them, God had to separate to Himself a people from the idolatrous mass, and make them the depositaries of it. There it was as the voice of divine Wisdom in the highways of the nations, available for those who sought at least, little as men might seek or care.
Now the One so heralded had come, of the seed of David according to the flesh, -His line marked out more precisely as the years went on, the stream of prophecy becoming wider and fuller as the years lengthened, and deferred hope might make the heart grow sick. Of royal seed, Himself a King, -such a "Ruler over men" as David’s own last words foretold; yet that was His lesser and lower glory: that was "according to the flesh," and the word is used which intimates all the weakness of humanity in its lowest part; not that which declared man’s place in creation as the offspring of God, but which linked him with all the life of which he was the head. And this, just as such, has for us how much blessing: it is the end of the Bethel ladder let down to earth; and bringing with it blessing and lifting up for the whole system with which man is connected! With flesh comes what love covets and could not find in any sphere above it: by that will which He came to do, "we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ." (Heb 10:10.)
But He is also Son of God in a way that Adam unfallen could not have claimed to be. Amid all the lowliness of a real humanity such as flesh would argue, He is marked out as Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection of the dead. "A Spirit of holiness" (there is no article to "Spirit") is taken by many as the Lord’s divine nature, which, they urge, is the proper antithesis here: "according to the flesh," "according to the spirit;" but there is no similar language used elsewhere in Scripture for the divine nature of our Lord, and the passages appealed to (2Co 3:17; 1Ti 3:16; Heb 9:14; 1Pe 3:18) do not apply. If exact definition were intended, "a spirit of holiness" would not even really distinguish a nature truly divine, which the title "Son of God," in contrast with "come of David according to the flesh," sufficiently indicates. Paul from the beginning of his ministry, and in distinction from the first apostolic preaching given us in the Acts, "preached Jesus in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God" (Act 9:20).
Here we shall find what the apostle refers to, if we remember how at Jordan after His baptism, the Spirit came upon our Lord as the Father’s voice proclaimed Him His beloved Son, to anoint Him for the work to which His baptism in the river of death has pledged Him. The Baptist saw it, as he tells us, and bore twofold testimony that He was both the Lamb of sacrifice and the Son of God (Joh 1:29-34). From this His ministry among men publicly begins, with works of power which show Him master of death itself; into which He went but to dispel it. Thus He raises the dead: Lazarus comes forth at His call, in attestation that He is the Son of the Father, whom the Father always hears (Joh 11:4; Joh 11:41-43). And this power to raise the dead, exercised in this way, is power over the sin which has brought in death, and which by and by His own resurrection fully manifests. He has taken our sins upon Him, and rises free from all the burdens He has assumed; the glory in His Face that which is now gospel for us all, and which characterizes in a special way Paul’s gospel.
This then is He of whom the gospel speaks; a message which for its importance must have messengers devoted to it to make it known in all the world, and press it upon the attention of the most unwilling. Under the law there had been nothing of this kind outside of Israel; inside only exceptional prophetic voices, the call of solitary watchers in the night, for long silent, till renewed by the voice crying in the wilderness. But now it is a message of the morning passing on from lip to lip, where one who wakens, wakens up his fellow to repeat it. To start such music Paul "received grace and apostleship for obedience of faith among all the nations for His Name’s sake;" -obedience not legal, but springing out of faith: for faith is the great worker, and if it have not works, is dead, not living faith. This faith the grace of the gospel awakens in the soul which God opens to it; he who had received grace in its most perfect expression was the suited apostle of it, and that in its widest range of blessed ministry. All nations were now to be the recipients of God’s salvation; among whom already were these at Rome -saints by the call of grace. Everywhere we see in the very forefront of the epistle -in this opening salutation, the stamp of divine sovereignty, which is nothing else than divine love that will not be restrained by all the obduracy of man’s heart. This call is the voice of the Creator: "I call unto them, they stand up together" (Isa 48:13); but now bringing forth a new creation, which with gladness proportioned to the pains He has taken to produce it, He claims and declares His own. Those called are therefore saints by calling -a people sanctified to Himself. This is the fundamental meaning of "saint," which therefore all His people are, set apart to Himself. This the blood of Christ has made us as redeemed to Him; this the work of the Spirit makes effective holiness. Let us notice the "beloved of God," which precedes and accounts for this: God has set His heart upon us; therefore He will have us for Himself. To these at Rome therefore the apostle sends his salutation of grace and peace: -not a mere wish, nor even a prayer, but a comforting assurance of blessing from God revealed as Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ upon the Father’s throne.
2. He hastens to let them know, writing to them of the gospel as he is, that he means no possible discredit of their faith. On the contrary, he thanks God through Jesus Christ, who had drawn them to Himself, that their faith was being everywhere spoken about. Such a report, contrary to the custom, perhaps, with most of us, seems always to have engaged the apostle’s prayers in an especial manner for those of whom he heard it. Accordingly, as one serving God in his spirit in the gospel of His Son, he was continually making mention of these Roman disciples when he was in prayer, not merely that they might be blessed, but as himself desiring to come to them. Indeed it was the longing of his heart to see them, that he might impart to them some spiritual gift, for their establishment. He speaks in the consciousness of that with which God had endowed him, and as realizing that the sincerest faith was never beyond the need of help. And indeed he rejoiced in and would be comforted by their faith as they by his.
Besides, there was a special link between all. Gentiles and himself as the apostle of the Gentiles. He would not neglect any part of the field which, as that, was committed to his care; and had purposed often to come to them that he might have fruit among them as well as elsewhere. We see that the assembly at Rome was essentially a Gentile assembly, and thus was reckoned to belong to his sphere of labor. Rome herself, long after this, and to the present time, claims the apostle of the circumcision as its own, making nothing of Paul’s assertion here. It is characteristic of those who "say they are Jews, and are not" (Rev 2:9), and natural for those who after the Jewish manner cling to succession from apostles, which Paul’s call and mission so decisively broke through. Had it been Peter who had written to the Romans, how this would have been urged! The incontrovertible fact that Peter left the Gentile field to Paul (Gal 2:9) goes for nothing with them.
As for Paul, it is as a responsibility that he recognizes the place in which he has been put, an obligation to all classes to declare to them the gospel. Before God there were in fact but two classes, the believer and the unbeliever. The Jew had the offer first, but if salvation be by faith in it, the believing Gentile was on as sure ground, and in blessing as full as ever the Jew could be.
But he comes here to what is now the great theme before him. He was not ashamed of the gospel: he had no reason to be of that which was the power of God to salvation for men. (What a contrast of the "power" for which the very name of Rome stood, and with which as mistress of the world it was identified!) Faith, which the grace of God invited on the part of all, was the common principle of blessing for all. But what made the gospel to be so divine a power? The revelation of the righteousness of God in it. He does not say, the love or the mercy of God, but His righteousness: because, as we have seen, without permission of righteousness love and mercy cannot act; every act of God must be justified by all His attributes. No sinner was ever afraid of the love of God, or of His mercy; His righteousness is another thing. Consequently it is just the righteousness of God which, if it can be revealed in gospel -in good news to sinners -then we have what indeed has power to save.
But what then is this good news? a gospel of works? there can be none; and that for a very simple reason. "All have sinned;" and "if we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." But, if then, we could henceforth yield Him unsinning obedience, that is due to Him already, and cannot atone for the sins of the past. Yet who could promise this even for the future? who would dare? Men would compromise with doing their best; but here again they do not mean just what they say. Who ever did his best? Who would dare to meet God on this ground that he had done his very best, even for a week? It would be folly indeed to think of doing so. But shall we offer Him less than this? How much less, then? That would necessarily mean the trusting to mercy without knowing how far mercy could be shown; and in no sense would righteousness be revealed in it at all.
Man cannot furnish, then, for God what would be righteousness before Him; good news there cannot be for man upon that principle; good news there cannot be, founded upon man’s doing. God has another, and a very different one; the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel, not the righteousness of man in anywise, save the Second Man; and the gospel being all about Christ, we need not doubt, even if we knew no more, that it is consistent with righteousness. What is left for man to do is to justify God in all this by bowing to receive His grace as grace. Faith is thus the principle upon which His grace can be shown, or (what is the same thing) His righteousness be revealed in good news to sinners. "By faith, to faith," is here the manner of the revelation. The good news is all about Christ, as the apostle has declared; faith is that in which the soul turns away from self to Christ, and the revelation being made to faith, the believer has full title to that which is revealed. Here the Old Testament adds its confirmation also to the New: if according to the law, "the man that doeth (the commandments) shall live in them," the prophet announces the contrary principle as in fact the way of blessing, "The just shall live by faith." (Heb 4:1-16.) Thus there is nowhere any real contradiction in God’s ways with men, any more than between the plowing and the sowing. The plow of law had to do its very different work before the sowing of the gospel seed could be. That the plowing should give way to the sowing does not make light of the plowman’s work. If the seed be once sown, the work of the plow will be merely devastation.
Subdivision 2. (Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:1-29; Rom 3:1-20.)
Creation and Law witnessing against Gentile and Jew.
We have now reached the body of the epistle, which proceeds in orderly progress to the full exposition of what has just been announced. If the righteousness of God is what the gospel reveals, and this on the principle of faith, then it has first to be shown, in the fullest and most careful way, that on man’s part nothing else could at all avail for him. God had been working this out in the long ages preceding Christianity; and His slow, patient manner of work shows the importance of the question, as it shows also how obstinately man cleaves to some righteousness of his own, and how hard it is to bring him to repentance. Nay, the greatest pretension to righteousness that could be made was there where God had labored most. The Pharisee has become for us the very symbol of it. Everything that God had done for Israel, from the taking up of Abraham himself, in whom God’s principle of faith was fully announced, when as yet there was no law to burden it with conditions, the Pharisee turned to his own account as based upon human merit; while the law, interpreted as applying merely to external conduct, could be made to serve an opposite purpose from that for which it was given. But in the law itself was the remedy for all this, as the apostle shows.
His argument covers the whole ground, bringing Gentile and Jew, with revelation and without, alike as hopeless, save in God’s mere grace. His judgment, while taking account of all differences, will yet leave all without excuse; the Jew, most favored, guiltiest of all, and with an accuser just in that in which he most confidently trusts.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv4, 7
Romans
THE WITNESS OF THE RESURRECTION
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Rom 1:4.
It is a great mistake to treat Paul’s writings, and especially this Epistle, as mere theology. They are the transcript of his life’s experience. As has been well said, the gospel of Paul is an interpretation of the significance of the life and work of Jesus based upon the revelation to him of Jesus as the risen Christ. He believed that he had seen Jesus on the road to Damascus, and it was that appearance which revolutionised his life, turned him from a persecutor into a disciple, and united him with the Apostles as ordained to be a witness with them of the Resurrection. To them all the Resurrection of Jesus was first of all a historical fact appreciated chiefly in its bearing on Him. By degrees they discerned that so transcendent a fact bore in itself a revelation of what would become the experience of all His followers beyond the grave, and a symbol of the present life possible for them. All three of these aspects are plainly declared in Paul’s writings. In our text it is chiefly the first which is made prominent. All that distinguishes Christianity; and makes it worth believing, or mighty, is inseparably connected with the Resurrection.
I. The Resurrection of Christ declares His Sonship.
Resurrection and Ascension are inseparably connected. Jesus does not rise to share again in the ills and weariness of humanity. Risen, ‘He dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him.’ ‘He died unto sin once’; and His risen humanity had nothing in it on which physical death could lay hold. That He should from some secluded dimple on Olivet ascend before the gazing disciples until the bright cloud, which was the symbol of the Divine Presence, received Him out of their sight, was but the end of the process which began unseen in morning twilight. He laid aside the garments of the grave and passed out of the sepulchre which was made sure by the great stone rolled against its mouth. The grand avowal of faith in His Resurrection loses meaning, unless it is completed as Paul completed his ‘yea rather that was raised from the dead,’ with the triumphant ‘who is at the right hand of God.’ Both are supernatural, and the Virgin Birth corresponds at the beginning to the supernatural Resurrection and Ascension at the close. Both such an entrance into the world and such a departure from it, proclaim at once His true humanity, and that ‘this is the Son of God.’
Still further, the Resurrection is God’s solemn ‘Amen’ to the tremendous claims which Christ had made. The fact of His Resurrection, indeed, would not declare His divinity; but the Resurrection of One who had spoken such words does. If the Cross and a nameless grave had been the end, what a reductio ad absurdum that would have been to the claims of Jesus to have ever been with the Father and to be doing always the things that pleased Him. The Resurrection is God’s last and loudest proclamation, ‘This is My beloved Son: hear ye Him.’ The Psalmist of old had learned to trust that his sonship and consecration to the Father made it impossible that that Father should leave his soul in Sheol, or suffer one who was knit to Him by such sacred bonds to see corruption; and the unique Sonship and perfect self-consecration of Jesus went down into the grave in the assured confidence, as He Himself declared, that the third day He would rise again. The old alternative seems to retain all its sharp points: Either Christ rose again from the dead, or His claims are a series of blasphemous arrogances and His character irremediably stained.
But we may also remember that Scripture not only represents Christ’s Resurrection as a divine act but also as the act of Christ’s own power. In His earthly life He asserted that His relation both to physical death and to resurrection was an entirely unique one. ‘I have power,’ said He, ‘to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again’; and yet, even in this tremendous instance of self-assertion, He remains the obedient Son, for He goes on to say, ‘This commandment have I received of My Father.’ If these claims are just, then it is vain to stumble at the miracles which Jesus did in His earthly life. If He could strip it off and resume it, then obviously it was not a life like other men’s. The whole phenomenon is supernatural, and we shall not be in the true position to understand and appreciate it and Him until, like the doubting Thomas, we fall at the feet of the risen Son, and breathe out loyalty and worship in that rapturous exclamation, ‘My Lord and my God.’
II. The Resurrection interprets Christ’s Death.
There is no more striking contrast than that between the absolute non-receptivity of the disciples in regard to all Christ’s plain teachings about His death and their clear perception after Pentecost of the mighty power that lay in it. The very fact that they continued disciples at all, and that there continued to be such a community as the Church, demands their belief in the Resurrection as the only cause which can account for it. If He did not rise from the dead, and if His followers did not know that He did so by the plainest teachings of common-sense, they ought to have scattered, and borne in isolated hearts the bitter memories of disappointed hopes; for if He lay in a nameless grave, and they were not sure that He was risen from the dead, His death would have been a conclusive showing up of the falsity of His claims. In it there would have been no atoning power, no triumph over sin. If the death of Christ were not followed by His Resurrection and Ascension, the whole fabric of Christianity falls to pieces. As the Apostle puts it in his great chapter on resurrection, ‘Ye are yet in your sins.’ The forgiveness which the Gospel holds forth to men does not depend on the mercy of God or on the mere penitence of man, but upon the offering of the one sacrifice for sins in His death, which is justified by His Resurrection as being accepted by God. If we cannot triumphantly proclaim ‘Christ is risen indeed,’ we have nothing worth preaching.
We are told now that the ethics of Christianity are its vital centre, which will stand out more plainly when purified from these mystical doctrines of a Death as the sin-offering for the world, and a Resurrection as the great token that that offering avails. Paul did not think so. To him the morality of the Gospel was all deduced from the life of Christ the Son of God as our Example, and from His death for us which touches men’s hearts and makes obedience to Him our joyful answer to what He has done for us. Christianity is a new thing in the world, not as moral teaching, but as moral power to obey that teaching, and that depends on the Cross interpreted by the Resurrection. If we have only a dead Christ, we have not a living Christianity.
III. Resurrection points onwards to Christ’s coming again.
Paul at Athens declared in the hearing of supercilious Greek philosophers, that the Jesus, whom he proclaimed to them, was ‘the Man whom God had ordained to judge the world in righteousness,’ and that ‘He had given assurance thereof unto all men, in that He raised Him from the dead.’ The Resurrection was the beginning of the process which, from the human point of view, culminated in the Ascension. Beyond the Ascension stretches the supernatural life of the glorified Son of God. Olivet cannot be the end, and the words of the two men in white apparel who stood amongst the little group of the upward gazing friends, remain as the hope of the Church: ‘This same Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.’ That great assurance implies a visible corporeal return locally defined, and having for its purpose to complete the work which Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, each advanced a stage. The Resurrection is the corner-stone of the whole Christian faith. It seals the truths that Jesus is the Son of God with power, that He died for us, that He has ascended on high to prepare a place for us, that He will come again and take us to Himself. If we, by faith in Him, take for ours the women’s greeting on that Easter morning, ‘The Lord hath risen indeed,’ He will come to us with His own greeting, ‘Peace be unto you.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Power of the Gospel and the need of…
The Power of the Gospel and the need of the World. The Guilt of the Heathen
In his salutation the apostle emphasises his commission, and the greatness of the Person whose servant he is and who is the centre of his message (Rom_1:1-7). After expressing his desire to visit the Romans (Rom_1:8-15), he states the subject of his Epistle, viz. acceptance with God through faith in Jesus Christ (Rom_1:16-17), and proceeds to develop it by showing that none have been able to merit acceptance with God. He begins by proving this of the Gentiles (Rom_1:18-32).
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1-7. The Salutation.
Paraphrase. '(1) I, Paul, who write am a bondservant of Christ, set apart by God as an apostle to proclaim that message of good news (2) which was promised by His prophets. (3) The subject of the message is His Son, of David's lineage by human descent, (4) but, as regards His spiritual being, shown to be Son of God by the divine power exercised in His Resurrection. (5) Since, through Christ, I was brought into God's favour, and commissioned to be apostle to the Gentiles, (6) and that you at Rome, whom Christ has chosen, are Gentiles; (7) therefore I write to you, praying that God may grant you His blessings.'
1. Servant] A title used in the OT. of those devoted to a special work for God: cp. Jos_24:29; Psalms 36 (title) Jer_7:25; Dan_9:11; Zec_3:8. St. Paul claims a similar place in the New Covenant. Servant of Jesus Christ] cp. OT. expression 'servant of God'; one of many undesigned testimonies to the Apostle's belief in the divinity of Christ: cp. Rom_9:5; Rom_10:12.
Called] i.e. chosen by Christ. He emphasises this, because a party of Judaising Christians, who opposed the doctrine of salvation by faith, and held that circumcision was of perpetual obligation, denied his apostleship: cp. 1Co_9:1; Gal_1:1 : see Intro. Gal. Apostle] see on Rom_16:7. Separated] cp. Act_13:2; Gal_1:15
3. David] Thus fulfilling prophecies, as Isa_11:1, and the expectation of the Jews (cp. Mar_12:35; Joh_7:42) that the Messiah would be descended from David: cp. Mat_1:1-17; Luk_3:23-32.
4. Declared] cp. Act_13:33. Son of God] For St. Paul's teaching on the person of Christ cp. Act_8:3, Act_8:32; Act_9:5; 2Co_4:4; 2Co_8:9; Php_2:6; Col_1:15.; Col_2:9.
With power] i.e. by a display of divine power. The Resurrection was a miracle: cp. 2Co_13:4; Eph_1:19. According to] i.e. as regards. Spirit of holiness] Not the Holy Spirit, but Christ's human spirit 'in which the Divinity or Divine Personality resided' (Sanday and Headlam). By the resurrection] As His words and works marked Him out as more than mere man (cp. Mat_16:16), so did the Resurrection. Notice the confidence and the emphasis with which the apostles proclaimed the Resurrection of Christ as being a certain fact, and as proving the truth of the gospel: see on Eph_4:25; Act_1:22; Act_22:4.; Act_17:18, Act_17:31, etc.
5. Grace] In Acts and Epistles this word usually means the unmerited favour of God, shown (1) in forgiveness and salvation, cp. Rom_3:24; Eph_1:7 as opposed to debt, cp. Rom_4:4, to works, cp. Rom_11:6; Eph_2:8., and to law, cp. Gal_2:21; (2) in the call of the Gentiles, cp. Eph_3:2.; (3) in special gifts of calling to and fitness for Christian work, cp. Rom_12:6; Rom_15:15; 1Co_3:10; Gal_2:9; Eph_4:7. Here 'grace' means the Christian standing generally, to which is added in Paul's case the distinctive gift of apostleship. For obedience to the faith] RV 'unto obedience of faith,' i.e. to win that obedience which is connected with faith: cp. Rom_16:26. Nations] RV 'the nations,' i.e. Gentiles: cp. Rom_1:13, Gal_1:16; Gal_2:7. Name] RV 'name's sake,' i.e. the Apostle works for the sake of Christ, and to promote His glory. The name of God is what God has revealed about Himself: cp. Exo_34:5.; Mat_28:19.
7. Called to be saints] lit. 'summoned saints.' 'Saint' means 'consecrated to God': cp. Exo_22:31. In this sense all Christians are saints: cp. 1Pe_2:9.
8-15. The Apostle greatly desires to visit Rome.
Paraphrase. '(8) I thank God that your faith is so well known. (9) I constantly pray about you, (10) asking that God may permit me soon to visit you. (11) For I long to impart to you some spiritual benefit, (12) in fact that we may be mutually helped by each other's faith. (13) I have often planned a visit, although I have been prevented, for (14) all Gentiles, of whatever race, lie within the sphere of my duty. (15) Therefore, so far as the decision rests with me, I am eager to preach the gospel to you.'
9. Serve] The Gk. word is used of the worship of God by people or priest. St. Paul's work of preaching the gospel was a priestly service, in which he offered the Gentiles as a sacrifice to God: cp. Rom_15:16. With] RV 'in.'
10. Have a prosperous journey] RV 'be prospered.' He knew his journey to Jerusalem would be dangerous, cp. Rom_15:30, but did not foresee that he would visit Rome as a prisoner: cp. Act_27:24;
11. Spiritual gift] The term is sometimes used of the special endowments which accompanied the reception of the Holy Spirit: cp. 1 Corinthians 12-14. The meaning here is that St. Paul hopes the Romans may increase in faith and love through his teaching and influence. Established] i.e. strengthened in faith and other virtues.
12. The Apostle will not assume superiority.
13. Let] RV 'hindered,' i.e. by more pressing calls: cp. Rom_15:22.
14. Greeks] The Roman Christians were Greek-speaking for 250 years. To the Greek and Roman, all the rest of the world was barbarian.
15. In me] Emphasis on 'me'; God might will otherwise. St. Paul was going to Jerusalem, and felt that his life would be in danger: cp. Rom_15:25.; Act_20:22.
16, 17. The main subject of the Epistle—Righteousness by Faith.
Paraphrase. '(16) I am not ashamed to preach the message of Christ even in great Rome, for it is the divine power whereby God brings salvation to all who have faith in Christ. (17) For in it is revealed that God accepts men as righteous solely on the condition of faith, as is shown in the OT.'
16. Ashamed] cp. 1Co_1:23. Salvation] i.e. deliverance from dangers or enemies. So it signified the deliverance which the Messiah would bring: cp. Luk_1:69-71. Here it is such as belongs to a spiritual kingdom; and is from 'sin,' cp. Mat_1:21; Luk_1:77 from 'wrath,' cp. Rom_5:9 from 'the grave,' cp. Rom_13:11 and to 'eternal life,'cp. Joh_3:15. As regards conversion and baptism, Christians 'were' or 'are saved,' cp. Rom_8:24; (RV), Eph_2:5, Eph_2:8; 2Ti_1:9 as recipients of God's favour and blessing, Christians are 'being saved,' cp. Act_2:47 (RV), 1Co_1:18; (RV); as regards future glory, Christians 'will be saved,' cp. Rom_13:11; Mat_10:22. Believeth] i.e. who devotes and entrusts himself to Christ as his Lord and Saviour. The Jew first] to whom the Messiah was promised and from whom He came. Greek] i.e. any one not a Jew = Gentile.
17. The righteousness of God] RV 'a righteousness of God.' A state of righteousness, or acceptance with God, to which man could not attain by his own efforts, but which God bestows upon him of His free grace.
From faith to faith] RV 'by faith unto faith,' i.e. given, on condition of faith, to those who have faith: cp. Rom_3:22. Just] RV 'righteous.' The quotation is from Hab_2:4, which referred to preservation from the calamities of the Chaldean invasion. The principle is that it is faith which gains God's approval.
18-32. The Apostle has briefly stated God's offer of righteousness in the Christian message. He now proceeds to show that all men have failed to attain acceptance with God by other means. First he speaks of the Gentiles. They lie under God's wrath on account of their unrighteousness (Rom_1:18). They might have had a knowledge of God (Rom_1:19-20), but have turned away to idolatry (Rom_1:21-23), and are sunk, in consequence, in moral corruption (Rom_1:24-32).
Paraphrase. '(18) The need of such a method of salvation is evident when we consider how mankind has always suppressed the truth within and lived in wickedness. For them wrath, not righteousness, is revealed. (19) For instance, God has made Himself known to the Gentiles; (20) for His power and divinity are so clearly impressed upon the visible creation that they cannot plead ignorance. (21) They had a revelation of God, but instead of worshipping Him aright they became so involved in useless speculations about His nature, that they lost the sense of truth and right. (22) Their conceit led to such idolatrous folly (23), that they regarded an image of man or beast as a fitting representation of the majesty of God. (24-27) Therefore God gave them over to the degradation which was the result of their apostasy. (28-31) Their rejection of the true idea of God was followed, as a penal consequence, by depravity and every kind of sin. (32) So great is their wickedness, that although they know the guilt of such sins, they not only commit them, but approve of them in others.'
18. Wrath] i.e. the steadfast indignation of God against sin. God 'would not love good, unless He hated evil, the two being inseparable '(Trench). Revealed] by the state to which sin had brought the Gentile world, and by God's revelation of a coming day of wrath: cp. Rom_2:5. Hold] RV 'hold down,' i.e. suppress.
19. Known.. in them] i.e. nature teaches a knowledge of God, and man has the faculty of receiving the teaching.
20. From] RV 'since.' By] RV 'through.' Godhead] RV 'divinity.'
21. Vain] i.e. foolish, empty. Imaginations] RV 'reasonings,' i.e. about God.
23. Changed] i.e. exchanged. Glory] i.e. the manifested power and goodness of God.
Into] RV 'for.' Man] as in Greece and Rome, where even immorality was ascribed to the gods. Birds, etc.] as in Egypt.
24. Gave them up] Those who forsake God, forsake Him who restrains evil and inspires good. Further, one sin leads to another, by natural consequence which is God's law: cp. Psa_81:12; Act_7:42. So the idolatry of success, money, pleasure, and luxury, often leads to gambling, dishonesty, and vice.
25. Who] RV 'for that they.' Changed] RV 'exchanged.' Truth of God] i.e. the true idea of God. Into a lie] RV 'for a lie,' i.e. for an idol, a false conception of God. More] RV 'rather.'
26. Affections] RV 'passions.'
28. Convenient] RV 'fitting.'
29. Debate] RV 'strife.' Whisperers] i.e. secret slanderers.
30. Despiteful] RV 'insolent.' Proud] RV 'haughty.'
32. Knowing] i.e. by conscience. Judgment] RV 'ordinance.' Have pleasure in] RV 'consent with.' A sign of 'complete victory over conscience, and complete callousness to the moral ruin of others' (Moule).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be…
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God ,
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv3, 5 See note on the Davidic descent of Christ, (See…
seed
See note on the Davidic descent of Christ, (See Scofield "Luk 3:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Analysis and Annotations
Analysis and Annotations
I. DOCTRINAL. THE SALVATION OF GOD. Chapter 1-8.
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CHAPTER 1
1. The Apostle and the Gospel of God. (Rom 1:1-6.)
2. The Greeting. (Rom 1:7.)
3. The Apostle’s Prayer and Desire. (Rom 1:8-15.)
4. The Great Theme Introduced. (Rom 1:16-17.)
Rom 1:1-6
The introduction to the Epistle is unsurpassed by any other Epistle. Every word should be carefully studied. The writer introduces himself first of all as a servant (literally: slave) of Jesus Christ and called an apostle. Notice that in Rom 1:1-7 two little words are found three times in italics, the words “to be.” They are supplied by the translators and should be omitted. Paul was not called to be an Apostle, but he was called an Apostle. The Lord Jesus Christ was not declared to be Son of God, but He was declared Son of God; believers are not called to be Saints, but they are called Saints. Paul loved to call himself bondman of Jesus Christ. He knew the Lord had redeemed him and now he was no longer his own, but belonged to Him who had purchased him and made him one with Himself. His highest ambition was to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. His Apostleship he puts in the second place. The highest and best is to be in reality a willing, devoted servant of the Lord. How did he become an Apostle? “Not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:1). The exalted Christ in glory had called him and sent him forth. And next we find in the opening verse the specific work unto which the Lord had separated him--”separated unto the Gospel of God.” The Gospel was his great commission and therefore is the great theme of his Epistle. The Holy Spirit who guided his mind, as well as his pen, now unfolds this Gospel. The highest and the best, after all, in God’s whole revelation is the Gospel. And the Gospel is not confined in the Pauline Epistles to Romans. We read Colossians and find there still the Gospel. The highest revelation which ever flowed through this chosen vessel is contained in the Epistle to the Ephesians; it is still the Gospel. Oh! the blessed Gospel! it can never be exhausted; it will be the object of eternal praise. In His presence, conformed into His image we shall know its heights and its depths.
Notice after Paul mentioned the Gospel of God there follows a parenthetical statement about that Gospel. Rom 1:5 is the continuation of what he saith about his Apostleship. The word Gospel means “good news.” It is the good news of God, for it has its source in Himself and in His eternal counsel. The Gospel is also called the Gospel of Christ, because it centers in Him, and is proclaimed through His finished work on the cross. This Gospel was promised by God’s Prophets in the Old Testament Scriptures. In many ways, in types, in the sacrifices, in direct predictions this Gospel has been announced and Jewish believers looked forward to its accomplishment. Throughout the Old Testament from Gen 3:1-24 to the Prophet Malachi the promises and predictions of the Gospel are found. The Old Testament is the foundation of the Gospel. The rejection of the Old Testament as the inspired Word of God is therefore a very serious matter. And the Gospel of God we learn next is a person. It is “concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” Jesus is the name of the Son of God in humiliation, living on the earth; Christ is His official name in resurrection and He is the Lord of all. The Lord Jesus Christ is the proper way to address Him. “Made of the seed of David according to the flesh.” This brings before us His incarnation “made of a woman, made under law” (Gal 4:4). He came of the seed of Abraham and from the house of David, according to divine promise. He was both David’s Son and David’s Lord, the Root and Offspring of David. To Him belongs a throne for He is the King of the Jews. But “He came to His own and His own received Him not.” He came to go to the Cross and finish the mighty work there which enables God to be just and a Justifier, as we shall find later. He will receive the throne when He comes again in great power and glory. And He is declared (marked out) the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. He lived in Perfect holiness on earth and the Spirit of holiness was upon Him. He raised the dead and thereby demonstrated that He is the Son of God. But it is equally true that His own resurrection must be included in this statement, for His resurrection is the effectual justification of Himself as the Son of God. Trace in these opening verses all the great facts of Christ--Son of God--Son of Man--Incarnation--His Death--His Resurrection--His Lordship.
Rom 1:7
Precious is the word of greeting to all the believers, not only in Rome, but everywhere. “Beloved of God called Saints.” Such are all who have accepted Christ as their Saviour. They are justified, sanctified, and accepted in the Beloved. Blessed truth! in Christ, one with Him, we are the objects of the Love of God. The Love wherewith God loves His Son is the Love with which He loves all who belong to Christ (Joh 17:23). And then we are Saints, not called to be, or to become Saints, by a separated life; but we are constituted Saints in Christ, sanctified, that is separated unto Himself. God loves us and in Christ has set us apart to Himself. Nothing that we do could ever make us the Beloved of God. No effort of ours to live consistently, apart from evil, could make us Saints of God. God has done it for us in Christ. And because we are Saints we can live saintly lives. The greeting is from the Father and the lord Jesus Christ. The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is not mentioned, for He is in and with the Saints of God, both individually and also collectively forming the body, the church.
Rom 1:8-15
In addressing them the Apostle has no rebuke, no evil to correct, no exhortation. Instead he thanked God that their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world. They let their light shine brightly in the darkness of paganism. And His heart was filled with love for them. He thanked God for them, He prayed for His blessing upon them and that “by the will of God” he might be enabled to be with them. He longed to see them for mutual blessing. Here we have an illustration of Christian fellowship. Oftentimes he had purposed to come unto them, but was hindered. “The thwarted desires of Paul gave occasion to the Spirit of God to indite and publish, by his hand, this invaluable Epistle; to present to the Church a gift, not of present and passing effect, but which should build up and feed, and instruct, the Saints to the end of the time of the church’s patience in the wilderness of this world.” He felt, what every sinner, saved by Grace should feel, that he was a debtor to all. The possession of the Gospel makes us debtors to all. He had constantly discharged his debt by preaching the Gospel to the Jews and Gentiles and now he is eager “to preach the Gospel to you that are in Rome also.” And can there be anything more blessed for the Saints than the Gospel? To be reminded of it and to be led deeper into the story of God’s love and redemption is one of the great needs of God’s people. Only as we do this can we be maintained in the reality and freshness of the Gospel. Therefore Paul longed to visit Rome to preach the Gospel to “the Beloved of God called Saints.”
Rom 1:16-17
These two verses are the key verses of the Epistle. The great words of the doctrinal part of the Epistle are found here. Righteousness and Faith are these words; Paul declared that he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. It cannot mean, what it is often said to mean, that Paul was not ashamed to confess Christ. It means that he had the utmost confidence in the Gospel of Christ; he knew it would not make him ashamed; he was not ashamed of it because of its intrinsic character. The world sneered at the Gospel he preached “for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness” (1Co 1:18). He knew that in the Gospel was embodied the highest wisdom, that God Himself was its author, that it came from God and leads to God; he knew that through the Gospel the Greek, the Jew, the Barbarian could be saved out of the horrible pit and the miry clay and become a child of God and an heir of God. He was not ashamed of it for “the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation.” What weighty words these are! The power of God is needed to save man. And that power God has, to save the vilest sinner through the Gospel of Christ. God is omnipotent, but in one thing God is powerless, He cannot save sinners apart from the Gospel of Christ, for the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. The spurious Gospel of today, which denies the Cross of Christ and the blood, which substitutes character, good works or something else for faith in the Work of Christ as sin-bearer, has no power to save. God cannot save in any other way than the way made known in the Gospel of Christ, who died for our sins. And what is salvation? It includes the whole of Christ’s redemption work. It includes Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification. Saved from the guilt of sins; saved from the power of sin; saved from the presence of sin. Salvation from wrath and eternal damnation; salvation from the power of darkness and sin’s awful dominion; salvation unto eternal glory. The word includes all the sinner needs. The cross of Christ has supplied every need. If man had to do something with it and could help along in his salvation, it would be an imperfect and insecure salvation. But God being the author, it is His salvation and thus (Act 28:28) it is a perfect salvation, a salvation which is both deliverance and safety forever. (Php 2:12 “Work out your own salvation” is often quoted as meaning that we must work to be saved and to stay saved. It means that we are to work out with results the salvation which is ours by faith in Jesus Christ.) And this salvation is to any one that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Faith is the means of obtaining this salvation. Of this we shall hear more in the third and fourth chapters. Furthermore, in the Gospel “the righteousness of God” is revealed. This great word will receive our closest attention in the annotations of the third chapter. Here we briefly state that the Gospel of Christ makes known that the very righteousness of God, which condemns a sinner, is now on the side of the believing sinner. it is revealed from faith to faith, which means that it is not on the principle of works, but on the principle of faith.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Salutation of the Letter.
Salutation of the Letter.
v. 1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God,
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v. 2. (which He had promised afore by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures,)
v. 3. concerning His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
v. 4. and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead;
v. 5. by whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for His name;
v. 6. among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ:
v. 7. to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Instead of using the usual, conventional form of brief address in this letter, Paul extends the customary salutation in a truly Christian and apostolic manner, in order to include in his opening greeting the wish for the highest spiritual well-being of the brethren in Rome. A servant Paul calls himself. The word, if used alone, denotes the Christian, so far as he, in the discharge of his special Christian calling, surrenders himself completely to God’s will, and excludes his own preference. But Paul modifies the word by calling himself a "servant of Jesus Christ," not a bondman or slave, as the literal meaning of the word in classical language would have it, since this term contains something of reproach, but a man who is under an obligation to Christ which he can never fully and adequately discharge. He had given, entrusted himself, his person, his life, his powers, to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; he was wholly devoted to Him in the spirit of sacrificial obedience, to the constant, complete, and energetic performance of the divine will. Whereas, however, he had this relation toward Christ in common with every true believer, there was one distinction which he enjoyed, very unusual and singular. He was called as an apostle by a special vocation from God, by an immediate call, Act 9:1 ff. ; Gal 1:12. The special prerogative of the apostolate was his: he had seen the risen Lord, 1Co 15:8, he had received direct communications from Him, 1Co 11:23; 1Co 15:3. As an apostle, Paul was separated, set apart from other men, given a special office, appointed unto the Gospel of God, for its special ministry. It is the Gospel of God, the glad tidings of which He is the Author, which His grace made possible. The message which Paul brought, by word of mouth and by letter, was not an indefinite philosophy, but the Word of God, as it is intended for the salvation of men.
This Gospel of God, these glorious, happy tidings, is not a new doctrine, but one which had promised before through His prophets in the holy writings, or Scriptures, the ancient truth, proclaimed by the most credible witnesses, codified in guaranteed writings. Paul’s words here are a testimony to the inspiration of the Scriptures as they were then known to the Jews. It was God that made the proclamation in olden times; they were His prophets that preached and wrote, not what suited their fancy but what His Holy Spirit told them to put down for future generations; and therefore the writings that have come down through the ages are holy, as a product of the holy God and His Holy Spirit. The fact that the doctrine of Paul coincided fully with the testimony of the prophets is comforting also to us as an assurance that the Gospel, as preached in our midst, is the eternal truth.
The origin of the Gospel is divine; its agreement with the testimony of the prophets cannot be questioned; its content is Jesus. It treats of His, God’s, Son, God Himself, in the Gospel, testifies of His Son. The Son of God, whose eternity and divinity is emphasized by the name, Psa 2:7, was born of the seed of David according to the flesh. The only-begotten Son of the Father, Joh 1:14; Col 1:15, assumed human nature as a descendant of David, His mother Mary being of the house and lineage of David. Of the seed of David He was born, according to the flesh, Luk 3:23 ff. ; His was a true human nature, flesh and blood like that of all men, all human beings. He was made in the likeness of men, Php 2:7, though not after the usual conception and birth; He was made like unto us, His brethren, in every respect, subject to the same weaknesses and ills which flesh is heir to, but without sin, Heb 2:17.
This same Jesus, however, that is a true human being is at the same time declared, ordained, appointed, constituted, the Son of God in power, the almighty Son of God. He was always the Son of God, but in the state of His humiliation He had hidden His divine majesty under the form of a servant. But now He was manifested, established, as the Son of God with the full possession of the divine glory and majesty. The Son of David, the weak and despised Jesus of Nazareth, according to His human nature, exercises unlimited authority, absolute sovereignty. And all this was brought about according to the spirit of holiness, according to His higher, heavenly, divine nature, 2Co 3:17. This unique nature is called a spirit of holiness, because it belongs to the superhuman, supermundane world, because it is found only in Him that is above all, at the right hand of God in the heavenly places, Eph 1:20-23 "The whole Gospel of Paul is comprehended in this historical Jesus, who has appeared in the flesh, but who, on the ground of the spirit of holiness, which constitutes His essence, has been exalted as Christ and Lord. " It is the eternal Godhead that now, since He has been exalted to the right hand of God, appears in Christ and determines His entire manner of being. His divine nature has permeated, charged, His human essence with its glory and power. And all this is true in consequence of, by, the resurrection of the dead. By His death, Christ laid aside all human weakness forever. Then He arose from the dead. It was a true resurrection or returning to life; He entered into a new life and being; He assumed the unlimited exercise of the divine attributes which had been transmitted to His human nature. For that reason also, in and with the resurrection of Christ, the resurrection of the believers unto eternal life is guaranteed, 1Co 15:12 ff. All these wonderful things are stated of Jesus Christ, the God-man, anointed by God to be the Savior of the world, and therefore our Lord, the Master and King of all believers. All the works of His office He performed, and still performs, in order that we may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.
This same Lord Jesus Christ who has been revealed in such a wonderful way is also the One through whom Paul received grace and apostolate. By the activity of the exalted Christ, Paul was converted, He was made partaker of the grace of God in the Redeemer, of full and complete forgiveness of sins. And then, as a special distinction, he received from Jesus, the Lord of the Church, the office of apostle, Gal 1:1. He belonged to the special class of teachers whom the Lord gave to the Church in the early days for the establishment of His kingdom in the hearts of men. It was the purpose and object of his labors in his office to establish the obedience of faith among all nations, in the midst of all Gentile peoples. The purpose of Paul’s preaching was to work faith, to create in the hearts of men obedience to the norm and rule of the Gospel; for Christian faith is essentially such willing obedience, Rom 10:16; 1Pe 2:8; 1Pe 4:17. The preaching of the Gospel, which was the essential work of the apostolate among the Gentiles, has in itself the power to work assent and faith. And therefore the faith of the Christians, by which they accept Jesus as their Savior, serves for the glorification of the name of Jesus, that Christ’s name may be above every name. In the Gospel Jesus is preached, in it He is revealed to men, and their acceptance of His salvation redounds to His glory.
Having thus explained the content and glory of the Gospel and of his office in the proclaiming of the wonderful message, Paul turns directly to the members of the congregation at Rome, telling them that they, the great majority of them, belonged by birth to the Gentile peoples, but were nevertheless the called of Jesus Christ. The call of Jesus Christ through the Gospel has been effective in their case; by virtue of His call they belong to Him as His own, they have been regenerated or converted, they have become subjects of Christ. But not only to these Christians from the Gentiles, to all, rather, that are beloved by God in the city of Rome, belong to God as His beloved children, to all that are called saints, that have become saints by the call of God, that have been separated from the world and been consecrated to God, Paul addresses himself. They were not called by God because they were holy, but their holiness is the result of His call, issued to them out of His great love, an expression of His sincere love for them. Note that Paul addresses all the members of the congregation at Rome with these honoring titles. To him they all are beloved of God and called saints, just as we today consider all the members of a true Christian congregation as dear children of God, even though hypocrites may be found in their midst.
Instead of the short formula which custom demanded in formal letters, Paul’s love causes him to expand the word into a greeting showing the full measure of his regard. He wishes them all grace, the full mercy of God, the free forgiveness of their sins, the basis and source of every good gift that comes down from above. He-wishes them peace, as the happy result of the possession of grace and mercy. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. His redemption has removed the cause of strife, the Father is reconciled to us. This happy state of the assurance of God’s grace, of the certainty of His reconciled heart, should continue and their faith in these gifts of God be strengthened. God the Father should grant these blessings, but they should, at the same time, proceed also from Christ Himself, in whom we have the right to call God our Father and expect the fullness of spiritual blessings at His hands. God the Father and Jesus Christ are thus in the same measure and with equal force the Source of our salvation. Such comfort there is in faith in Jesus the Savior.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7 Your language may have a particular way of introducing…
Paul
Your language may have a particular way of introducing the author of a letter. You may also need to tell in this same verse who the people are to whom Paul wrote the letter (Romans 1:7). AT: "I, Paul, wrote this letter" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
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called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God
You can translate this in an active form. AT: "God called me to be an apostle and chose me to tell people about the gospel" (See: Active or Passive)
called
This means that God has appointed or chosen people to be his children, to be his servants and proclaimers of his message of salvation through Jesus.
which he promised beforehand by his prophets in the holy scriptures
God promised his people that he would set up his kingdom. He told the prophets to write these promises in the Scriptures.
concerning his Son
This refers to "the gospel of God," the good news that God promised to send his Son into the world.
Son
This is an important title for Jesus, the Son of God. (See: Translating Son and Father)
who was a descendant of David according to the flesh
Here the word "flesh" refers to the physical body. AT: "who is a descendant of David according to the physical nature" or "who was born into the family of David" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
Paul
servant
Jesus
call
apostle
set apart
good news
God
promise
prophet
holy
word of God
Son of God
descend
David
flesh
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 7 1:1-17 These verses contain the normal features of New…
1:1-17 These verses contain the normal features of New Testament letter introductions: an identification of the writer (1:1-6) and readers (1:7), a thanksgiving (1:8-15), and the theme of the letter (1:16-17).
1:1 slave of Christ Jesus: The word slave is used of important Old Testament leaders of God’s people, such as Moses (2 Kgs 18:12), Joshua (Josh 24:29), Elijah (2 Kgs 10:10), and David (2 Sam 7:8). The title underscores Paul’s complete subservience to Christ as Lord. • sent out (literally set apart): Paul may be alluding to being set apart by God for his mission before he was born, as the prophet Jeremiah was (Jer 1:5). He may also be referring to God’s call at the time of his Damascus Road conversion (Acts 9:15-16; cp. Acts 13:2), to preach the Good News to Jews and especially to Gentiles. • The Good News, or “gospel,” is a recurrent topic in the opening of the letter (Rom 1:1, 9, 15, 16). Paul takes the word from the Old Testament, where the Hebrew equivalent refers to the victory that God wins for his people (Isa 40:9; 41:27; 60:6; 61:1; Nah 1:15; see Joel 2:32).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.