Bible Commentaries
Romans 2

Introduction

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

1 They that sin, though they condemn it in others cannot excuse themselves,

6 and much less escape the judgment of God,

9 whether they be Jews or Gentiles.

14 The Gentiles cannot escape,

17 nor yet the Jews,

25 whom their circumcision shall not profit, if they keep not the law.

Verse 1

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, &c. — The majority of commentators, ancient and modern, consider these words addressed to the Jews, as distinguished from the Gentiles. Certainly the discourse in the subsequent verses is expressly addressed to them; and the transaction is best fixed here, although the Jews are not mentioned by name. That he now turns to his own countrymen, is also made clear, from his founding his address upon that severity of judgment against the Gentiles, in which we know that they indulged: Thou art inexcusable, O man, that judgest, pronouncest censure and condemnation upon the Gentiles. For not only was the phrase, “sinners of the Gentiles,” continually in the naughty lips of that self-righteous people, but they regarded all the Gentiles as liable to eternal punishment. The judging of which the apostle speaks does not agree so well to the Gentiles; for it implies much more than the reproofs of moralists, the lash of satirists, and the occasional restraints put upon many vices by magistrates. They judged in the sense of condemning, as the context will show; they loudly and openly, among themselves, spoke of them as obnoxious to the wrath of God, both in this and another life. In this view διο , wherefore, must be considered as merely marking, not a conclusion from what precedes, but a transition to another but yet cognate branch of the argument; for it was equally necessary, in laying down the claims of the Gospel to universal acceptance, that the sinfulness and danger of the Jews should also be established.

Thou condemnest thyself. — The apostle gives great spirit to the discourse by singling out an individual Jew, and addressing him personally, as the representative of the rest. In the very act of judging or condemning another, τον ετερον , the other, the Gentile, thou condemnest thyself, thou declarest thyself also liable to the future wrath of God, for thou doest the same things. — The immoralities of the Jews the apostle does not attempt to prove. This is important to mark, in order to ascertain the connection of what follows. He knew that they could not deny very gross corruption of manners, — not generally to the same extent as the Gentiles; but all the pagan immoralities were more or less known among them, and all the ordinary vices, mental and sensual, of unrenewed nature. He does not deny the existence of virtuous persons either among Jews or Gentiles; but he speaks of the mass as practically sinful, which was a matter of notoriety and in fact proves every thing; for it needs nothing more being granted than that the majority of men in all ages have been corrupt, to prove that this necessarily implies the fall of human nature itself, and the corruption, in the largest sense, of THE HUMAN HEART. What of real virtue there was among Jews or Gentiles is to be traced to another source, of which we shall just now speak.

Although, however, St. Paul charges the Jews with practical sinfulness as well as the Gentiles, and by not stopping to offer any proof indicates that they neither could nor were disposed to deny the charge, he effected little by establishing that fact to convince them of the necessity and value of the Gospel, considered as a divinely instituted means of salvation, so long as they believed that, notwithstanding their offences, they were on account of their privileges religiously safe. This indeed was the current and generally received doctrine; and it is the key to the meaning of the verses that follow. It was their fatal delusion, as it has been that of professed Christians in later times; and therefore the apostle assails it in the most solemn and powerful manner.

Verses 2-3

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

The judgment of God, &c. — The sentence of God in his law, whether the moral law as it existed from the beginning, or as preserved more exactly among the Jews, and which all acknowledge to connect punishment with sin, is, we know, we all agree, according to truth; that is, the threatenings of God are seriously uttered, as well as his promises; they are not words without meaning, but TRUE declarations of the purposes of the Lawgiver. Those who render “according to justice,” or “are without partiality,” miss the point. The Jews acknowledged the faithfulness and truth of God in his law; and having conceded that, the apostle avails himself of it to bring the convincing question which follows to bear upon their consciences. And thinkest thou this, O man, that condemnest another, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God, — this very judgment or sentence which thou acknowledgest, by contending for the Divine authority of the law to be according to truth; to be declared with perfect sincerity, as by “the God of truth?”

Verse 4

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Despisest thou the riches of his goodness? &c. — Here the apostle goes to the root of the error: the Jews drew this false hope of impunity, and complete exception from the threatenings of the law, from the goodness of God to them as a people. We see this delusion opened in the discourse of John the Baptist. He preached repentance for their sins, and enforced it by setting before them “the wrath to come;” and, knowing that they would steel their hearts against his exhortations, and hide their danger from themselves by referring to their peculiar national covenant, he cries out, “And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father,” &c. The doctrine which in that age they endeavoured corruptly to maintain and diffuse was, that no Israelite could be finally lost. Thus they encouraged themselves in sin and hardness of heart. This St. Paul calls despising the riches of his goodness. This is in his favourite but peculiar way of expressing himself. Of a similar use of the term riches, to mark exuberance and abundance in the strongest sense, his epistles afford many examples, and show the manner in which he was impressed with the benevolent character of God, and how well he comprehended the mighty import of its manifestation in his dispensations of grace, whether under the law or the Gospel. The riches of the goodness of God, as to the Jews, to which he refers, comprehends all those religious advantages, as well as other benefits, they had derived from their peculiar relation to him, by virtue of the covenant with Abraham; but with the apostle they were all connected with their true end, their salvation.

It was in this that the riches of the goodness of God consisted, that provision had been specially made among them for the obtaining of pardon, the sanctifying influences of grace, and a title to the heavenly inheritance; they had therefore express moral instruction, a system of authorized propitiations, a typical service and promises of a resurrection unto eternal life. To these eminent proofs of goodness, he adds forbearance, ανοχη , enduring much disobedience, rebellion, and perverseness, before he issues his threatening, and declares his determination to punish. — Long suffering differs from forbearance in this, that it seems to have respect to the delay of the threatened punishment, so as to show reluctance to execute it, and to give opportunities of repentance. Of this the Jewish history had many affecting examples: and while the apostle wrote, the nation was indeed under sentence, the sentence, passed by our Lord himself; yet had it been singularly delayed, and the space filled with calls to repentance and overtures of reconciliation. To make therefore this goodness of God, as expressing itself in the gift of superior religious advantages, and in long bearing with their offences, so as not to be hasty to deprive them of them, an argument for continuing to sin against God, under the pretence that his very kindness showed that he made them exceptions from his displeasure, was a manifest despising of the goodness of God, which is the import of the word καταφρονειν ; for as the whole proceeded from unworthy notions of God’s goodness, as though it could be a weak favouritism, and connive at sin in particular persons and nations, that glorious attribute was in THE EFFECT contemned and despised; it had an unworthy motive assigned to it, which heightened the offences themselves it was resorted to to excuse.

Not knowing that the goodness of God, &. — Not to know, is here, as in many places, not to consider, so as to attain and be suitably impressed with the truth, that the goodness of God leadeth, αγει , draws and allures, thee to repentance. Whatever displays of the benevolence of God take place as to sinners have a moral design, which is surely not to encourage them in their rebellion, but to lead them to repentance, by placing before them the gracious character of God, and affecting their hearts by it; for by this their sins are at once shown to be unnatural, and odiously ungrateful, and the hope of clemency is indicated, without which there can be no such repentance as springs from any nobler affection than fear. The judgments of God appeal to the fears; the goodness of God to gratitude, and hope, and self abhorrence; and is intended to soften the heart, and to produce contrition, real sorrow and shame for sin, and strong desires to be delivered from the degradation of its pollution, as well as the terror of its punishment. Such was the use which the Jews ought to have made of the goodness of God; but they abused it, to lull their consciences to sleep, as do Antinomians, under a notion of their being the peculiar favourites of God; and those who attach an unscriptural importance to the sacraments of the Christian Church, as though they placed them in some mystical covenant relation to God, scarcely by any means to be forfeited, although their lives should be spent in the practice of vice, and the habit of their affections be that of a worldly estrangement from God, do the same thing.

Verse 5

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, &c. — This is still in the way of solemn expostulation, under a deep sense of the fatal character of the delusion charged upon them. The state of the heart guilty of this error is described to be hard and impenitent. And it is impossible to conceive of a state of the feelings more obdurate and perverse than exists in those who take occasion habitually to sin from the very goodness of the Being sinned against. Hardness, which is not moved by so many and constant proofs of God’s hatred to sin, and his severity in punishing it, which everywhere surround them; and remained unaffected by that very kindness and condescension of God which they celebrate in their sacred songs, and of which they boast as so abundant toward themselves as a people. It awakened no generous sentiment, no gratitude, no soft remorse. From this obduracy impenitence followed; for, so long as their consciences were lulled to sleep by these delusions, they were incapable of repentance or godly sorrow for sin. Such persons are represented as treasuring up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath, laying up wrath as in a storehouse through a whole life of repeated offences, until the final day of account, which is called the day of wrath, as to them and to all sinful men, because of the full and unmitigated infliction of the punishment due to their offences, which shall then take place; and then, with respect to all, a day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, when there shall be an illustrious display of the perfect equity and justice of the decisions of the Judge of the whole earth, before angels and men. However severe, therefore, the future and endless punishment of the wicked may now appear to any, we are, on this awful subject, to recollect that we know the case very imperfectly, but that the last day shall be a day of revelation as well as judicial decision, and that the subject of this revelation will be the righteousness of this very judgment, to express which the apostle appears to have formed the expressive compound word δικαιοκρισια .

Verse 6

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Who will render to every man, &c. — This necessarily follows from the appointment of a day of general judgment, and from the righteous character of the Judge, both which the Jews admitted; but this admission, like the other above pressed upon them by the apostle, was fatal to their infatuated conclusion. They depended upon their own safety, as Israelites, although they acknowledged they were obnoxious as sinners; but, if God will render to every man according to his deeds; if, in other wards, a man’s works, not his national or Church privileges, are to be taken into account at that day, except as the latter may aggravate the guilt of the offences committed, then could the sinful Jew have no hope. The very principles of that better system of religion of which he boasted subverted his hopes of impunity. This exact process of strict reward he proceeds to describe in language of great force and. beauty.

Verse 7

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

To them who by patient continuance, &c. — Continuance in well doing, and especially patient continuance, as it supposes opposition difficulties, and sometimes persecution, manfully sustained and overcome, necessarily implies such a habit as arises from a renewed nature. Nor, indeed, are we to confine the well doing to such acts as are visible to men, but to God also, to secret good actions, to the efforts of the soul toward God, and the right government and exercise of the affections, as faith, hope, and love. Those who urge this in proof of justification by works usually take too narrow a view of the case. The doing is well doing, which must be in principle, as well as in overt act; and therefore must either be the result of an innocent, unfallen nature, which man has not; or a renewed nature, which proceeds only from the grace of God’s Holy Spirit. This, therefore, in Jew or Gentile, was necessary to well doing; for God cannot be supposed to reward the semblance of virtue. This renewed and holy habit, therefore, being the result of that gracious constitution under which all men are placed by the economy of redemption, and implying, as it necessarily must, the previous restoration of such persons to the Divine favour through the Mediator, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” this justification at the last day is placed on its true ground: it can but be declaratory of a previous state of acceptance and approval attained through the joint effect of a constitution of grace and mercy, and man’s availing himself of it, according to the degree of his knowledge of it. But, in fact, it will be seen that the apostle chiefly uses the term justification in the simple sense of the pardon of sin; and justification at the last day, in the sense of the forgiveness of sin, we are forbidden by the tenor of Scripture to admit. Sin must be forgiven here; and man must die in a state of reconciliation with God, or he dies without hope. “If ye die in your sins, where I am ye cannot come.”

Seek for glory, &c. — A grand and noble distinction is here put between the pious and others, in all ages. The former may have been comparatively few, and many instances have been contemned and persecuted among men; but what exaltation does real religion give to the human character! The earthly minded grovel amid the gross and fleeting pleasures and vain distinctions of a perishing life; but the pious seek glory, honour, and immortality, as they pass through the same scenes of life as others; their hearts are on higher objects; they hold communion with glorious hopes; and they seek these high realities of eternity through a course of holy obedience and preparation. Some think the three terms, glory, honour, and immortality, synonymous; but there is doubtless a distinction. The glory has respect to that now inaccessible light and splendour in which God dwells, and which constitutes the locality of the heavenly world; the honour, the favour of God, and the distinctions it may confer upon them; the immortality includes both the resurrection of the body with deathless qualities, and the unfading character of every enjoyment. The glory stands opposed to that distance from God’s presence in which they now are; the honour, to their lowly and often calumniated condition; and the immortality, to death, from which good men are not yet freed. Now, upon all those who seek these things in preference to earthly ones, and in the way of righteous obedience to the Divine will, eternal life, which includes them all, shall in that day be conferred. For it is to be observed that, in the New Testament, the term eternal life does never barely signify perpetuity of being, but of that felicitous existence which springs from admission into the presence of God, and from the fulfilment of all those promises relative to a future life which are made in the New Testament to the redeemed and saved.

Verse 8

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

But unto them that are contentious. — Contention, εριθεια , being here mentioned in conjunction with not obeying the truth, the sense is manifest. The contentious here are not those who strive with one another, but those who oppose, resist, and fight against the truth of God, as revealed in different dispensations to them. This is also a general description of sinful men. No man can continue in sin without resisting the open voice, or the secret impression of truth. And he that obeys not that, will obey unrighteousness.

Indignation and wrath. — Terrible words, when referred to God the Judge, and probably taken from Psalms 78:49, “He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation.” Θυμος and οργη are words nearly of the same import, though the latter is thought, by some writers, to express a more permanent emotion. Taken together the emphasis is heightened, and θυμος probably was intended to express the principle of Divine wrath, and οργη , its punitive manifestations. After indignation and wrath, it is necessary to understand shall be rendered, in order to complete the sense.

Verse 9

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Tribulation and anguish, &c. — In this and the following verse, the same doctrine as to the exact distribution of rewards and punishments is repeated, but so as to exclude all possibility of evading the meaning.

Tribulation and anguish, or distress, are words which seem to heighten the terribleness of the punishment: the expression, every soul of man, is not idiomatic, but is used emphatically to show that there are no exceptions from the rule, as the wicked Jews vainly hoped in their own case; which is still more explicitly laid down by adding of the Jew first, — so far from being exempt from punishment because he is a Jew, he shall be first condemned and most severely punished, as being first in the order of privilege. On the other hand, as to the pious Jews, who have improved their superior advantage, they shall be first in the rewards of another life. The same rule now holds good as to Christians and Gentiles; for we have taken the place of the Jewish Church.

Verse 11

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

For there is no respect of persons with God. — The προσωποληψια , respect of persons, refers to judicial proceedings: and to one being favoured in preference to another, not because of the merit of his cause, but through the weakness or corruptness of the judge, — his weakness in being subject to blinding prejudices and partial affections, or his corrupt regard to the power or favour of the great. The doctrine of the Jews, that, though wicked, they should be exempt from punishment in another life, merely because they were the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ascribed this, a weak prejudice and a blinding partial affection, to God, to the detriment of his righteous and equal character as “Judge of the whole earth.” The great principle of the JUDICIAL IMPARTIALITY of God the apostle here asserts, both as the conclusion of what he had already said, and as a principle which he proposed still farther to illustrate.

Verse 12

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

For as many as have sinned without law. — Sinning ανομως , without law being here opposed to sinning εν νομω , in or under the law: by law, must be understood revealed law, or the law as contained in the Jewish Scriptures. That the Gentiles were not without all knowledge of the law or will of God, he afterward shows; so that he could not here mean to say that they were absolutely without all law, but without that revealed law by which, he immediately adds, the Jews would be judged. Their perishing without law also confirms this. The great scriptural principle is, that “where there is no law there is no transgression:” and if no transgression, no punishment for transgression. But the Gentiles are said to SIN; therefore there existed among them a law; and a LAW made known, or knowable, or it could be no law to them; for a law not knowable is equivalent to a law not in existence; and they are said to PERISH in consequence of their sin, so that they were under a law having force and efficacy. It follows, therefore, that by the law in this verse, the apostle means the law as it was made known to the Jews.

It has been remarked that, if the sense in which St. Paul uses the term LAW, in this epistle, were always explicitly marked, it would conduce much to the better understanding of his meaning. This is doubtless just; but we appear to have no other means of determining that but attending carefully to the argument. It has been attempted to clear this matter by the help of the insertion or omission of the Greek article; and indeed this variation, which is sometimes seen in the same sentence, can scarcely have been without design; but no rule has hitherto been suggested which can be carried with satisfaction through all the passages which occur; and we are left to the conclusion that the use of the Greek article by the writers of the New Testament is still involved in great obscurity. The opinion that the word law, when used by St. Paul without the article, signifies the moral law, and when used with it includes the whole law, moral and ceremonial, will by no means abide the test of the different passages; and were we to allow that the apostle has any respect in his argument to the ceremonial law, the exceptions would break down the rule. But it appears in the sequel that it is the moral law only from which the apostle argues, that law by which, as he says, “is the knowledge of sin,” on the punishment or forgiveness of which he mainly discourses.

It is more plausible to refer law, without the article, to any kind of intimation of the Divine will, whether by tradition or otherwise; and with the article, to the Jewish law, in whole or part. But this rule cannot be carried strictly through, though it holds good in part; and all that appears clear is, that the apostle often, but not uniformly, uses the article emphatically, and thus makes a distinction which otherwise would employ several words, between moral law in general, and that revelation of it with which the Jews were favoured. To the import of the leading term LAW, as it occurs in this epistle, our attention will be again more fully required.

Verse 13

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

For not the hearers of the law, &c. — Our translators place this, as well as the two following verses, in a parenthesis; but this tends to obscure the meaning. For that this verse stands in immediate connection with the preceding, is evident from its containing the reason why those who have “sinned under the” Jewish “law,” shall be “judged” or condemned by it, in opposition to the delusive notion which he is controverting, that the mere possession of superior external privileges by any, lays a ground of exemption from punishment, although their offences may in strictness deserve it. Such persons he denominates hearers of the law, that is, hearers only; those who have enjoyed the express revelation of the moral law or will of God, and yet have not obeyed. And as those words are to be connected with the preceding verse, so the 16th verse follows them, leaving the 14th and 15th in a parenthesis. The whole passage will therefore read, For not the hearers of the law are just, are esteemed just persons, before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my Gospel. To be justified here signifies not to be forgiven, which is an act of grace done on earth, but stands in opposition to being condemned. Nor is it a declaration of innocence; for the whole evangelical system rests upon the actual guilt and danger of all who shall finally be saved, and the provision made for their pardon in the present life. — Our justification at the last day can, therefore, only be considered as declaratory of what from its nature was before a secret between the justified and their God, and a public acceptance of them and dealing with them as righteous.

Verses 14-15

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

For when the Gentiles, &c. — The true parenthesis includes only these verses; for that the connection breaks off from the preceding verse, is clear from this, that the Gentiles could in no sense be said to be hearers of the law, the persons of whom the apostle had just spoken. The important passage thus parenthetically introduced, appears to have been designed to answer a tacit objection of this kind: — It may be true that not the mere hearers but only the doers of the law will be accepted of God at last; but how then shall Gentiles be saved at the last day, since they are not even hearers of the law? This question the apostle answers: To do by nature φυσει , the things of the law, is to do what the revealed law prescribes, without the advantage of that express revelation of it which the Jews had: for amid all the various illustrations of the phrase, “by nature,” which critics have collected from classical and Hellenistic Greek writers, one has been generally overlooked, contained in this very epistle Romans 11:24, “For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree,” &c., where a cultivated and an uncultivated tree are made by the apostle the emblems of the pagan Gentiles and the Jews. That natural state of the Gentiles of which he speaks in the text stands equally opposed to the Church state of the Jews, as in the passage just cited, and signifies the condition of all those nations to whom God had not made express and successive revelations of his will, and taken as his people under the cultivation of an appointed ministry and regular ordinances.

The things contained in the law. — More simply the things of the law, the things enjoined by the law, the worship, fear, and love of God; justice, charity, truth, and mercy; if not with so clear a knowledge of their distinctions, or so perfectly, as good men under the law, yet substantially and with entire sincerity.

These not having a law, &c. — Not having a WRITTEN law, (for so the argument obliges us to understand the apostle,) are not indeed without law, but are a law to themselves; that is, the law as written on their hearts is their law; and as they bear it about with them, and possess no external visible record of it, like the Jews in their tables of stone and sacred books, they are said to be a law to themselves.

Which show the work of the law written on their hearts. — The work is not that which is written on the heart; for that is said to be showed; it is therefore a visible thing, and consists in acts of noticeable conformity to the same moral rules as the Jews directly received from God. But that which is written on their hearts is the law; of the fact of the existence of which so written, the work spoken of is one of the proofs. In this phrase, the law written on the heart, and the law written on tables of stone and in the Jewish Scriptures, are not indeed contrasted, but distinguished; for the law is the same law, though under different modes of manifestation. Of the existence of this law delineated upon the hearts of the Gentiles, two proofs are adduced:

1. The existence of conscience among them. This cannot be denied; the power of it is often adverted to by their writers, and expressed with great force; but conscience necessarily supposes both a knowledge of the fact to which it is to bear witness, and of the rule by which its moral quality is to be determined, and of the authority of that rule as Divine, or there could be no painful apprehension of punishment. The second proof is, that not only did conscience give its condemning or approving witness in the bosom of each individual, but that in their reasonings and disputes they either accused or excused, condemned or acquitted, each other with reference to different acts or courses of action. This also could not be denied; for moral approbation or moral censure was continually called forth in their intercourse with each other; and amid all the perversions of men’s minds on moral subjects, in the Gentile world, yet do we see certain crimes condemned there, as well as among the Jews; and certain virtues recognized and applauded. “The words μεταξυ αλληλων ,” says Bloomfield, “should not be rendered meanwhile,” &c., nor with Macknight, “between one another; but, with the Vulgate, inter se invicem.” But this is the same thing as the conscience bearing witness; the argument would indeed be the same, though somewhat less cogent; but it seems preferable to take μεταξυ αλληλων των λογισμων in the sense of their reasonings or debates with one another, either on the subject of good or evil, or as estimating each other’s character, or dealing out their censures or their praises. The whole proved that they had moral knowledge; consequently that they were morally responsible, and capable of rewards or punishments at the last day; which is what the apostle intended to show in illustration of the rectitude of the proceedings of the general judgment.

From this passage of St. Paul respecting the Gentiles, many erroneous conclusions have been drawn. Here it has been pretended we see the foundation of natural religion, and the sufficiency of unassisted reason to discover the existence of God, and to arrive at the knowledge of his will; “therefore there is a law of nature which is a true guide.” This and many other things of the same kind have been said, without adverting to the fact, that the moral law of God is older than its revelation to the Jews, and more extensive than the boundaries of one people; that Noah, THE PREACHER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and an INSPIRED man, was the teacher of this law to his sons; that it descended to all the families which sprung from him, that is, to all the families of the earth; that indirectly, though not directly, the revelations to the Jews glanced their beams upon all the surrounding nations, the greatest and most populous states of antiquity; and that consequently none of the people of whom St. Paul more particularly speaks had ever been left to their own reason to discover God, or the leading rules of moral law. He speaks not indeed of a law devised and invented by the hearts of the Gentiles; but a law, the same in substance as that revealed to the Jews, written upon their hearts, delineated and infixed there by some external impression.

Such was the TRADITION of their fathers; which though gradually perverted, was handed down, and made, in fact, such an appeal to the sense and perception of right, which every man has by his very mental constitution, as to become, and in many respects to remain, an AUTHORITATIVE rule of CONSCIENCE. For that the heathens connected it with a superior authority to that of man, is evident from Cicero, “By what law? By what right? By that which Jupiter himself has established, that every thing salutary to the public should have the character of lawful and just. For the law is nothing else but that right reason which we have derived from a Divine counsel and will, commanding things honest and praiseworthy, and prohibiting the contrary.” Still this law, in its best manifestations, was capable of being corrupted by the will, and was actually so. The unbiassed convictions of man must be in favour of what is right and fit, even as intellectual perceptions; and these are with difficulty fully subdued; but a corrupt will and affections more or less prevail in all sinning men, and the light within them becomes darkness. This awfully took place in the heathen world. Still God left not himself without witness.

Still it may be asked how this doctrine of the possible salvation of the Gentiles, in a course of “well doing,” comports with his main design to show that both Jews and Gentiles were under wrath, and needed that Gospel which he gloried to preach as the power of God unto salvation? Let it be remarked, in answer, that although he states the possibility, his general representation of the actual condition of the Gentiles shows that, in point of fact, he thought the number of pious Gentiles to be exceeding few. He admits, of course, that the Jew might be saved, but dwells upon the corrupt state of his own nation everywhere as a proof how much they needed the Gospel; both required the administration of the remedy in its most efficient form, in order to save those who would not be saved without it, although the possibility of salvation remained to both. — Besides, St. Paul did not attribute the salvation of a pious Gentile, any more than of a pious Jew, to a constitution of moral government at all different from that of the Gospel; so that it could be said, as some have dreamed, here is one man saved by the law of nature, another by the law of Moses, a third by the Gospel. When we speak now of sin and punishment, we refer to the moral law as contained in the Gospel; and so when we speak of good works and holiness, their root; for that moral law is the rule of both. But it does not follow from this that we separate that law from that gracious constitution of free and unmerited mercy in Christ under which we are all by the kindness of God our Saviour placed.

We may, indeed, make the separation of the preceptive part from the evangelical part, as did the Jews, as to their own law; but in the kind of moral government under which man has been placed, ever since he was placed in the hands of a Mediator, they have been united. — With the law of Moses there was, therefore, in all ages, an evangelical grace united; and so with the law written on the heart. It was taught and handed down by the patriarchs in connection with the doctrine of typical sacrifices, and the means of propitiation for sin, and obtaining the favour and help of God; while, independent of the degree of distinct knowledge which the Gentiles might have, they were the subjects of Christ’s redemption, and were never treated on the ground of rigid law. This doctrine of the participation of all men in the benefits of the obedience of Christ, as all had participated in the effects of the disobedience of Adam, he expressly dwells upon in chapter 5. By whatever means, therefore, any Gentiles had been rescued, from vice, and brought to do the things enjoined by the law, they all emanated from, and were rendered efficient by, that scheme of redemption which had been laid from the beginning as the basis of God’s moral government of a fallen world. Had Jews and Gentiles preserved even that clear knowledge of this which they all originally possessed, they would have been bound to receive the Gospel in its perfected form; for that had been, in type and promise, the only ground of their hope from the beginning, and now presented to them the great substance. How much more was it necessary to their salvation now that their original light, both as to law and grace, had become so deeply darkened; and a special interposition of revelation and supernatural influence upon the hearts, sunk into the very death of sin, was necessary to save the world.

Verses 17-20

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Behold, thou art called a Jew, &c. — In the following verses the apostle pursues the same argument, which is not merely to prove that the Jews were sinners as well as the Gentiles, but that they, as well as “the sinners of the Gentiles,” were liable to punishment, and that in a future life, contrary to their own received doctrine, “that every Israelite has a portion in the life to come.” Nay, still as his course of observation in the subsequent part of this chapter shows, their religious distinction as God’s peculiar people, so far from exempting them from punishment, only served to heighten their guilt, and aggravate their condemnation.

Restest in the law, &c. — Thou leanest upon and trustest in the law, that is, in the great privilege of having had express revelations of the will of God from himself. And makest thy boast of God, as thy God, the glorious object of thy worship, and as, in a special sense, “the Lord God of Israel.” And knowest his will, that having been explicitly stated by revelation on all moral duties, as well as matters of faith and worship; and approvest the things that are more excellent, triest the things that differ in their moral qualities, in order to the discovery and approval of what is excellent; being, instructed for this purpose out of the law, or by the law, as the great and infallible rule and standard; a high privilege which the wisest among the Gentiles had not, who leaned to their own wisdom. And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind. Here, and in what follows, the apostle has been supposed to glance at the titles assumed by the Jewish doctors. This title, guides of the blind, our Lord turns against them with great severity by calling them “blind guides.” A light of them which are in darkness: so they complimented each other, one as “the lamp of light,” another as “the holy lamp,” a third as “the lamp of Israel.” An instructer of the foolish, the very title, says Rosenmuller, which Maimonides gives to one of his treatises, מירה נבכים , a teacher of babes, another title for a public instructer. But though these were titles of their doctors, St. Paul is not speaking of them in particular, but of the Jews in general; and with reference to his ability to teach a Gentile, every Jew, though but in the ordinary degree instructed in the law, might be called, without exaggeration, a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness &c. — This office, too, some of them well fulfilled; for many Greeks in the cities where the Jews were settled had been brought to the knowledge of the true God, and are mentioned several times in the Acts of the Apostles as proselytes. Which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law; the delineation, μορφωσις , in the mind or judgment of what is contained in the law. This does not mean, as some have understood, a shadowy unsubstantial appearance of Divine truth; but a real and accurate scheme of it in the mind, which was no doubt true as to those moral subjects to which St. Paul principally refers. He grants indeed all this, in order to fix in their minds a deeper sense of the enormity of their offences.

Verse 21

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Teachest thou not thyself? — That is, practically, so as to render thy superior knowledge available to thy superior sanctity.

Dost thou steal? — Commit fraud in any way; and it is probable that the apostle principally refers to frauds practised in dealing, for which the Jews were then, and are still notorious. This character they obtained from their becoming a commercial people, and it was in this character chiefly that they were planted in the Greek cities after the Macedonian conquest. They were not worse in this respect than the Gentiles; but they ought to have been much better.

Verse 22

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Adultery. — This sin so prevailed among them that the application of the legal ordeal to the suspected woman had long been laid aside, and to what extent it prevailed among the scribes and Pharisees of Judea, may be gathered from the history of the woman taken in adultery John 8:9.

Sacrilege. — By withholding their offerings and dues, at least in part, through covetousness and irreligion, and thus robbing the temple. With this species of robbery the Jews were charged in the time of the Prophet Malachi, which he terms “robbing God.”

Verse 23

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Dishonourest thou God? — Among the Gentiles, who would naturally be led to consider the just praises which the Jews bestowed upon their law and religion as a vain boast, seeing they were not made better than others by it. Similar dishonours have often been done to our Divine religion and its Author among heathen nations, by the cruelty, injustice, rapacity, and immoralities of persons bearing the Christian name.

Verse 24

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Blasphemed. — Lightly and irreverently spoken of.

As it is written. — The apostle probably refers to Ezekiel 36:23: “And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them.”

Verse 25

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

If thou keep the law. — Not otherwise; which is said in opposition to the delusive opinion of the Jews, who regarded their circumcision as a pledge of salvation. Grotius, Schoettgen, Macknight, and others have shown how rooted was the conviction among the Jews that salvation was secured to them by their circumcision. Can we wonder at that, when thousands among ourselves have a similar opinion as to baptism? Under this word the apostle includes the covenant relation of which circumcision was a sign, with all its religious advantages, which, if improved so as to lead to holiness of heart and life, would indeed profit them by becoming a means of grace; but if not, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision, thou hast no better a hope of heaven than the wicked Gentile.

Verse 26

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Therefore if the uncircumcision, &c. — By the uncircumcision the apostle means the uncircumcised Gentiles. The righteousness, δικαιωματα , of the law is its precepts. The counting or reckoning of uncircumcision for circumcision is treating the pious Gentile, though less favoured as to religious privileges, as one of the peculiar and favoured people of God, and giving him the advantages of a covenant of grace not so formally and visibly made with him.

Verse 27

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Uncircumcision which is by nature. — Here the apostle first intimates what he afterward more expressly states, that there is a spiritual circumcision which those naturally uncircumcised may partake of, and which if not experienced by the Jew his corporal circumcision would avail him nothing. This naturally uncircumcised but spiritually circumcised Gentile, says the apostle, shall condemn thee, who by the letter and circumcision, that is, who, with (the advantages of) the letter of the law, and the covenant rite of circumcision, dost transgress the law. Δια has this sense, Romans 14:20. Macknight renders rather freely, “judge thee a transgressor of law, though a Jew by literal circumcision;” but close upon the sense.

Verse 28

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

Not a Jew, which is one outwardly. — He is not a true son of Abraham, a member of that spiritual Church of which the visible Church of the Jews was but the sensible form, who has nothing but natural birth and fleshly circumcision to plead. — The true circumcision is of the heart, the cutting off and putting away all its corrupt affections by the sanctification of grace; in the spirit, which does not mean the spirit or soul of man, which is expressed by the heart in the preceding clause, but in the spiritual sense of the law, and not in the letter, its literal sense merely. That circumcision had a spiritual intention in its very institution is evident from its being “a seal of the righteousness which is by faith:” it was a visible declaration of the doctrine of the justification of man by faith; and obedience to the rite was a profession of faith in the doctrine. That it implied a moral obligation, also, appears from Deuteronomy 10:16: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked;” and the highest promises of grace and personal salvation are expressed by reference to it: “And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” Like Christian baptism, it was “an outward sign of an inward and spiritual grace;” and he who did not allow the latter would in vain plead the former as the ground of his exemption from the curses of a violated law.

Thus the apostle establishes that great point so necessary to convince the Jews of the value and necessity of Christianity — that they were not only sinners like the Gentiles, but liable, like them, to the wrath of God, notwithstanding their religious distinctions and privileges. But as every thing depended upon convincing them of this, since, if the Jews were safe in consequence of being Abraham’s seed, Christianity could be of no importance to them, in the next chapter he answers an objection, and confirms the whole from their own Scriptures.