ROMANS - INTRODUCTION.
THE Epistle to the Romans was written by the Apostle Paul
from Corinth, the capital of Achaia, after his second journey to that
celebrated city for the purpose of collecting the pecuniary aid destined for
the church at Jerusalem. This appears from the fifteenth chapter, where he says
that he was going to Jerusalem to minister to the saints. For, he
adds, it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain
contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. The Epistle
appears to have been carried to Rome by Phebe, a deaconess of the church at
Cenchrea, which was the port of Corinth ; and we learn from the nineteenth and
twentieth chapters of the Acts, and from different parts of the two Epistles to
the Corinthians, that, after having remained about three years at Ephesus, Paul
purposed to pass through Macedonia and Achaia, to receive the contributions of
the Corinthians, and afterwards proceed to Jerusalem.
As to the period when
this Epistle was written, it is certain that it was at a time previous to
Pauls arrival at Rome. On this account, he begins by declaring to the
disciples there that he had a great desire to see them, and to preach to them
the Gospel; that he had often purposed this, but had hitherto always been
prevented. This statement he repeats in the fifteenth chapter. It appears to be
earlier in date than the Epistles to the Ephesians and Philippians, and those
to the Hebrews and Philemon, and the Second to Timothy; for all of these were
written during the Apostles first or second imprisonment at Rome, but
later than the two Epistles to the Corinthians.
It is generally supposed
that it was written in the year 57 of the Christian. era, about twenty-four
years after the resurrectiod of our Lord. Notwithstanding that this Epistle was
written after sothe of the rest, it has been placed first in order among them
on account of its excellence, and the abundance and sublimity of its contents.
It contains, indeed, an abridgment of all that is taught in the Christian
religion. It treats of the revelation of God in the works of nature, and in the
heart of man, and exhibits the necessity and the strictness of the last
judgment. It teaches the doctrine of the fall, and corruption of the whole
human race, of which it discovers the source and its greatness. It points out
the true and right use of the law, and why God gave it to the Israelites; and
also shows the variety of the temporal advantages over other men which that law
conferred on them, and which they so criminally abused. It treats of the
mission of our Lord Jesus Christ, of justification, of sanctification, of free
will and of grace, of salvation and of condemnation, of election and of
reprobation, of the perseverance and assurance of the salvation of believers in
the midst of their severest temptations, of the necessity of afflictions, and
of the admirable consolations which God gives His people under them,- of the
calling of the Gentiles, of the rejection of the Jews, and of their final
restoration to the communion of God. Paul afterwards lays down the principal
rules of Christian morality, containing all that we owe to God, to ourselves,
to our neighbours, and to our brethren in Christ, and declares the manner in
which we should act in our particular employments; uniformly accompanying his
precepts with just and reasonable motives to enforce their practice.
The
form, too, of this Epistle is not less admirable than its matter. Its reasoning
is powerful and conclusive; the style condensed, lively, and energetic; the
arrangement orderly and clear, strikingly exhibiting the leading doctrines as
the main branches from which depend all the graces and virtues of the Christian
life. The whole is pervaded by a strain of the most exalted piety, true
holiness, ardent zeal, and fervent charity.
This Epistle, like the greater
part of those written by Paul, is divided into two general parts,- the first of
which contains the doctrine, and extends to the beginning of the twelfth
chapter; and the second, which relates to practice, goes on to the conclusion.
The first is to instruct the spirit, and the other to direct the heart; the one
teaches what we are to believe, the other what we are to practise.
In the
first part he discusses chiefly the two great questions which at the beginning
of the Gospel were agitated between the Jews and the Christians, namely, that
of justification before God, and that of the calling of the Gentiles. For as,
on the one hand, the Gospel held forth a method of justification very different
from that of the law, the Jews could not relish a doctrine which appeared to
them novel, and was contrary to their prejudices; and as, on the other hand,
they found themselves in possession of the covenant of God, to the exclusion of
other nations, they could not endure that the Apostles should call the Gentiles
to the knowledge of the true God, and to the hope of His salvation, nor that it
should be supposed that the Jews had lost their exclusive pre-eminence over the
nations.
The principal object, then, of the Apostle was to combat these two
prejudices. He directs his attention to the former in the first nine chapters,
and treats of the other in the tenth and eleventh. As to what regards the
second portion of the Epistle, Paul first enjoins general precepts for the
conduct of believers, afterwards in regard to civil life, and finally with
regard to church communion.
In the first five chapters, the great doctrine
of justification by faith, of which they exclusively treat, is more fully
discussed than in any other part of Scripture. The design of the Apostle is to
establish two things: the one is, that there being only two ways of
justification before God, namely, that of works, which the law proposes, and
that of grace by Jesus Christ, which the Gospel reveals,- the first is entirely
shut against men, and, in order to their being saved, there remains only the
last. The other thing that he designs to establish is, that justification by
grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, respects indifferently all men, both Jews
and Gentiles, and that it abolishes the distinction which the law had made
between them.
To arrive at this, he first proves that the Gentiles, as well
as the Jews, are subject to the judgment of God; but that, being all sinners
and guilty, neither the one nor the other can escape condemnation by their
works. He humbles them both. He sets before the Gentiles the blind ignorance
and unrighteousness both of themselves and of their philosophers, of whom they
boasted; and he teaches humility to the Jews, by showing that they were
chargeable with similar vices. He undermines in both the pride of self-merit,
and teaches all to build their hopes on Jesus Christ alone; proving that their
salvation can neither emanate from their philosophy nor from their law, but
from the grace of Christ Jesus. In the first chapter, the Apostle commences by
directing our attention to the person of the Son of God in His incarnation in
time, and His Divine nature from eternity, as the great subject of that Gospel
which he was commissioned to proclaim.
After a most striking introduction,
every way calculated to arrest the attention and conciliate the affection of
those whom he addressed, he briefly announces the grand truth, which he intends
afterwards to establish, that the Gospel is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth, because in it is revealed
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF God. Unless such a righteousness had been
provided, all men must have suffered the punishment due to sin, seeing God hath
denounced His high displeasure against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness.
These are the great truths which the Apostle
immediately proceeds to unfold. And as they stand connected with every part of
that salvation which God has prepared, he is led to exhibit a most animating
and consolatory view of the whole plan of mercy, which proclaims glory to
God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men. The first
point which the Apostle establishes, is the ruined condition of men, who, being
entirely divested of righteousness, are by nature all under sin. The charge of
ungodliness, and of consequent unrighteousness, he
proves first against the Gentiles. They had departed from the worship of God,
although in the works of the visible creation they had sufficient notification
of His power and Godhead. In their conduct they had violated the law written in
their hearts, and had sinned in opposition to what they knew to he right, and
to the testimony of their conscience in its favour.
All of them, therefore,
lay under the sentence of condemnation, which will be pronounced upon the
workers of iniquity in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.
In
the second chapter, a similar charge of transgression and guilt is established
against the Jews, notwithstanding the superior advantage! of a written
revelation with which they had been favoured. Having proved in the first two
chapters, by an appeal to undeniable facts, that the Gentiles and the Jews were
both guilty before God, in the third chapter, after obviating some objections
regarding the Jews, Paul takes both Jews and Gentiles together, and exhibits a
fearful picture, drawn from the testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures, of
the universal guilt and depravity of all mankind, showing that there is
none righteous, no, not one, and that all are depraved, wicked, and
alienated from God. He thus establishes it as an undeniable truth, that every
man in his natural state lies under the just condemnation of God, as a rebel
against Him, in all the three ways in which He had been pleased to reveal
Himself, whether by the works of creation, the work of the law written on the
heart, or by the revelation of grace.
From these premises he then draws the
obvious and inevitable conclusion, that by obedience to law no man living shall
be justified; that so far from justifying, the law proves every one to be
guilty and under condemnation. The way is thus prepared for the grand display
of the grace and mercy of God announced in the Gospel, by which men are saved
consistently with the honour of the law. What the law could not do, not from
any deficiency in itself, but owing to the depravity of man, God has fully
accomplished. Man has no righteousness of his own which he can plead, but God
has provided a righteousness for him. This righteousness, infinitely superior
to that which he originally possessed, is provided solely by grace, and
received solely by faith. It is placed to the account of the believer for his
justification, without the smallest respect either to his previous or
subsequent obedience.
Yet so far from being contrary to the justice of God,
this method of justification, freely by His grace, strikingly
illustrates His justice, and vindicates all His dealings to men. So far from
making the law void, it establishes it in all its honour and authorityr This
way of salvation equally applies to all, both Jews and Gentiles - men of every
nation and every character; there is no difference, for all,
without exception, are sinners.
The Apostle, in the fourth chapter, dwells
on the faith through which the righteousness of God is received, and, in
obviating certain objections, further confirms and illustrates his doctrine, by
showing that Abraham himself, the progenitor of the Jews, was justified not by
works but by faith, and that in this way he was the father of all believers,
the pattern and the type of the justification of both Jews and Gentiles.
And in order to complete the view of the great subject of his discussion,
Paul considers, in the fifth chapter, two principal effects of justification by
Jesus Christ, namely, peace with God and assurance of salvation,
notwithstanding the troubles and afflictions to which believers are exposed.
And because Jesus Christ is the Author of this Divine reconciliation, he
compares Him with Adam, who was the source of condemnation, concluding with a
striking account of the entrance of sin and of righteousness, both of which he
had been exhibiting.
He next shows the reason why, between Adam and Jesus
Christ, God caused the law of Moses to intervene, by means of which the extent
of the evil of sin, and the efficiency of the remedy brought in by
righteousness, were both fully exhibited, to the glory of the grace of God.
These five chapters disclose a consistent scheme in the Divine conduct, and
exhibit a plan of reconciling sinners to God, that never could have been
discovered by the human understanding. It is the perfection of wisdom, yet in
all its features it is opposed to the wisdom of this world. As the doctrine of
the justification of sinners by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ,
without regard to their works, which manifests, in all their extent, the guilt,
the depravity, and the helplessness of man, in order to magnify grace in his
pardon, might be charged with leading to licentiousness, Paul does not fail to
state this objection, and solidly to refute it.
This he does in the sixth
and seventh chapters, in which he proves that, so far from setting aside the
necessity of obedience to God, the doctrine of justification stands
indissolubly connected with the very foundation of holiness and obedience. This
foundation is union with the Redeemer, through that faith by which the believer
is justified. On the contrary, the law operates, by its restraints, to
stimulate and call into action the corruptions of the human heart, while at the
same time it condemns all who are under its dominion. But, through their union
with Christ, believers are delivered from the law; and, being under grace,
which produces love, they are enabled to bring forth fruit acceptable to God.
The law, however, is in itself holy, and just, and good. As such, it is
employed by the Spirit of God to convince His people of sin, to teach them the
value of the remedy provided in the Gospel, and to lead them to cleave unto the
Lord, from a sense of the remaining corruption of their hearts. This
corruption, as the Apostle shows, by a striking description of his own
experience, will continue to exert its power in believers so long as they are
in the body.
As a general conclusion from all that had gone before, the
believers entire freedom from condemnation through union with his
glorious Head, and his consequent sanctification, are both asserted in the
eighth chapter, neither of which effects could have been accomplished by the
law. The opposite results of death to the carnal mind, which actuated man in
his natural state, and of life to the spiritual mind, which he receives in his
renovation, are clearly pointed out; and as the love of God had been shown in
the fifth chapter to be so peculiarly transcendent, from the consideration that
Christ died for men, not as friends and worthy objects, but as without
strength, ungodly, sinners, enemies,
so here the natural state of those on whom such unspeakable blessings are
bestowed is described as enmity against God.
The effects of the
inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in those who are regenerated are next
disclosed, together with the glorious privileges which it secures. Amidst
present sufferings, the highest consolations are presented to the children of
God, while their original source and final issue are pointed out. The
contemplation of such ineffable blessings as he had just been describing,
reminds the Apostle of the mournful state of the generality of his countrymen,
who, though distinguished in the highest degree by their external privileges,
still, as he himself had once done, rejected the Messiah. And as the doctrine
he had been inculcating seemed to set aside the promises which God had made to
the Jewish people, and to take from them the Divine covenant under which they
had been placed, Paul states that objection, and obviates it, in the ninth
chapter,- showing that, on the one hand, the promises of spiritual blessings
regarded only behevers, who are the real Israelites, the true seed of Abraham;
and, on the other, that faith itself being an effect of grace, God bestows it
according to His sovereign will, so that the difference between believers and
unbelievers is a consequence of His free election, of which the sole cause is
His good pleasure, which He exercises both in regard to the Jews and the
Gentiles.
Nothing, then, had frustrated the purpose of God; and His word
had taken effect so far as He had appointed. The doctrine of Gods
sovereignty is here fully discussed; and that very objection which is daily
made, why doth He yet find fault, is stated, and for ever put down.
Instead of national election, the great subject in this chapter is national
rejection, and the personal election of a small remnant, without which the
whole nation of Israel would have been destroyed; so devoid of reason is the
objection usually made to the doctrine of election, that it is a cruel
doctrine.
In the end of the ninth chapter, the Apostle is led to the
consideration of the fatal error of the great body of the Jews, who sought
justification by works and not by faith. Mistaking the intent and the end of
their law, they stumbled at this doctrine, which is the common stumbling-stone
to unregenerate men.
In the tenth chapter, Paul resumes the same subject,
and by new proofs, drawn from the Old Testament, shows that the righteousness
of God, which the Jews, going about to establish their own righteousness for
their justification, rejected, is received solely by faith in Jesus Christ, and
that the Gospel regards the Gentiles as well as the Jews; and if rejected by
the Jews, it is not surprising, since this had been predicted by the prophets.
The Jews thus excluded themselves from salvation, not discerning the true
character of the Messiah of Israel as the end of the law, and the Author of
righteousness, to every believer. And yet, when they reflected on the
declaration of Moses, that to obtain life by the law, the perfect obedience
which it demands must in every case be yielded, they might have been convinced
that on this ground they could not be justified; on the contrary, by the law
they were universally condemned.
The Apostle also exhibits the freeness of
salvation through the Redeemer, and the certainty that all who accept it shall
be saved. And since faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, the
necessity of preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles is inferred and asserted. The
result corresponded with the prediction. The righteousness which is by faith
was received by the Gentiles, although they had not been inquiring for it;
while the Jews, who followed after the law of righteousness, had not attained
to righteousness. The mercies of God, as illustrated by the revelation of the
righteousness which is received by faith, was the grand subject which had
occupied Paul in the preceding part of this Epistle. He had announced at the
beginning that he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; because it is
the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth - to the Jew first,
and also to the Greek.
This great truth he had undertaken to
demonstrate, and he had done so with all the authority and force of
inspiration, by exhibiting, on the one hand, the state and character of man;
and, on the other, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of
God. In the prosecution of this subject, the Apostle had shown that the wrath
of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men; and, by
arguments the most irresistible, and evidence that could not be gainsaid, he
had brought in both Jews and Gentiles as guilty and condemned sinners, justly
obnoxious to the vengeance of Heaven. Had the Almighty been pleased to abandon
the apostate race of Adam, as He did the angels, to perish in their sins, none
could have impeached His justice, or arraigned the rigour of the Divine
procedure.
But in the unsearchable riches of the mercies of God, He was
pleased to bring near a righteousness, by which His violated law should be
magnified, and a multitude whom no man can number rescued from destruction.
This righteousness is revealed in the Gospel, - a righteousness worthy of the
source from which it flows, - a righteousness which shall for ever abase the
pride of the creature, and bring glory to God in the highest. The mercies of
God are thus dispensed in such a way as to cut off all ground for boasting on
the part of those who are justified. They are, on the contrary, calculated to
exalt the Divine sovereignty, and to humble those in the dust who are saved
before Him who worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will,
and, without giving any account of His matters, either justifies or condemns
the guilty according to His supreme pleasure.
In the eleventh chapter, the
Apostle finishes his argument, and in a manner concludes his subject. He here
resumes the doctrine of the personal election of a remnant of Israel, of which
he had spoken in the ninth chapter, and affirms, in the most express terms,
that it is wholly of grace, which consequently excludes as its cause every idea
of work, or of merit, on the part of man. He shows that the unbelief of the
Jews has not been universal, God having still reserved some of them by His
gratuitous election, while as a nation He has allowed them to fall; and that
this fall has been appointed, in the wise providence of God, to open the way
for the calling of the Gentiles.
But in order that the Gentiles may not
triumph over that outcast nation, Paul predicts that God will one day raise it
up again, and recall the whole of it to communion with Himself. He vindicates
Gods dealings both towards Jews and Gentiles, showing that, since all
were guilty and justly condemned, God was acting on a plan by which, both in
the choice and partial rejection, as well as in the final restoration of the
Jews, the Divine glory would be manifested, while in the result, the sovereign
mercies of Jehovah would shine forth conspicuous in all His dealings toward the
children of men. A most consolatory view is accordingly given of the present
tendency and final issue of the dispensations of God, in bringing in the
fulness of the Gentiles, and in the general salvation of Israel. And thus,
also, by the annunciation of the reception which the Gospel should meet with
from the Jews, first in rejecting it for a long period, and afterwards in
embracing it, the doctrine of the sovereignty of Him who hath mercy on whom He
will have mercy, and hardeneth whom He will, is further displayed and
established.
Lost in admiration of the majesty of God, as discovered in the
Gospel, the Apostle prostrates himself before his Maker, while, in language of
adoring wonder, he summons all whom he addresses to unite in ascribing glory to
Him who is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the Almighty.
From this point, Paul turns to survey the practical results which naturally
flow from the doctrine he had been illustrating. He was addressing those who
were at Rome, beloved of God, called saints; and by the remembrance
of those mercies of which, whether Jews or Gentiles, they were the monuments,
he beseeches them to present their bodies a living sacrifice to God, whose
glory is the first and the last end of creation. In thus demanding the entire
surrender or sacrifice of their bodies, he enforces the duty by designating it
their reasonable service. Nothing can be more agreeable to the dictates of
right reason, than to spend and be spent in the service of that God, whose
glory is transcendent, whose power is infinite, whose justice is inviolable,
and whose tender mercies are over all His works.
On this firm foundation
the Apostle establishes the various duties to which men are called, as
associated with each other in society, whether in the ordinary relations of
life, or as subjects of civil government, or as members of the Church of
Christ. The morality here inculcated is the purest and most exalted. It
presents nothing of that incongruous medley which is discernible in the schemes
of philosophy. It exhibits no traces of confusion or disorder. It places
everything on its right basis, and in its proper place. It equally enjoins our
duty towards God and our duty towards man; and in this it differs from all
human systems, which uniformly exclude the former, or keep it in the
background. It shows how doctrine and practice are inseparably connected - how
the one is the motive, the source, or the principle - how the other is the
effect; and how both are so united, that such as is the first, so will be the
last. According to our views of the character of God, so will be our conduct.
The corruption of morals, which degraded and destroyed the heathen world, was
the natural result of what infidels have designated their elegant
mythology. The abominable character of the heathen gods and goddesses
were at once the transcript and the provocatives of the abominations of their
worshippers.
But wherever the true God has been known, wherever the
character of Jehovah has been proclaimed, there a new standard of morals has
been erected; and even those by whom His salvation is rejected are induced to
counterfeit the virtues to which they do not attain. True Christianity and
sound morals are indissolubly linked together; and just in proportion as men
are estranged from the knowledge and service of God, so shall we find their
actions stained with the corruptions of sin. Where in all the boasted moral
systems of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca, or the rest
of the Greek and Roman philosophers, shall be found anything comparable to the
purity and beauty of the virtues enjoined by Paul in the closing chapters of
this Epistle? Even modern writers on Ethics, when departing from the only pure
standard of virtue, discover the grossest ignorance and inconsistency. But
Paul, writing without any of the aids of human wisdom, draws his precepts from
the fountain of heavenly truth, and inculcates on the disciples of Jesus a code
of duties, which, if habitually practised by mankind, would change the world
from what it is - a scene of strife, jealousy, and division - and make it what
it was before the entrance of sin, a paradise fit for the Lord to visit, and
for man to dwell in.
Home | Links | Hall | Writings | Biography