Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Romans 1:4

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Romans 1:4. And declared to be the Son of God — Acts 13:33, where this subject is considered at large. The word ορισθεντος, which we render declared, comes from οριζω, to bound, define, determine, or limit, and hence our word horizon, the line that determines the farthest visible part of the earth, in reference to the heavens. In this place the word signifies such a manifest and complete exhibition of the subject as to render it indubitable. The resurrection of Christ from the dead was such a manifest proof of our Lord's innocence, the truth of his doctrine, and the fulfilment of all that the prophets had spoken, as to leave no doubt on any considerate and candid mind.

With power — ενδυναμει, With a miraculous display of Divine energy; for, how could his body be raised again, but by the miraculous energy of God? Some apply the word here to the proof of Christ's sonship; as if it were said that he was most manifestly declared to be the Son of God, with such powerful evidence and argument as to render the truth irresistible.

According to the spirit of holiness — There are many differences of sentiment relative to the meaning of this phrase in this place; some supposing that the spirit of holiness implies the Divine nature of Jesus Christ; others, his immaculate sanctity, c. To me it seems that the apostle simply means that the person called Jesus, lately crucified at Jerusalem, and in whose name salvation was preached to the world, was the Son of God, the very Messiah promised before in the holy Scriptures and that he was this Messiah was amply demonstrated.

1st, By his resurrection from the dead, the irrefragable proof of his purity, innocence, and the Divine approbation; for, had he been a malefactor, as the Jews pretended, the miraculous power of God would not have been exerted in raising his body from the dead.

2d, He vas proved to be the Son of God, the promised Messiah, by the Holy Spirit, (called here the spirit of holiness,) which he sent down upon his apostles, and not on them only, but on all that believed on his name; by whose influence multitudes were convinced of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and multitudes sanctified unto God; and it was by the peculiar unction of this spirit of holiness, that the apostles gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, Acts 4:33.

Thus, then, Christ was proved to be the true Messiah, the son of David according to the flesh, having the sole right to the throne of Israel; and God recognized this character, and this right, by his resurrection from the dead, and sending forth the various gifts and graces of the Spirit of holiness in his name.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

1:1-17 PAUL INTRODUCES HIMSELF

AND HIS SUBJECT

In keeping with the practice of the time, Paul introduces himself at the beginning of his letter. He is a servant and apostle of God, called to preach the gospel. This gospel, or good news, was promised in the Old Testament writings and became a reality through Jesus Christ. As to his humanity, Jesus was a descendant of David, but as to his deity, he is the Son of God, a fact shown clearly and powerfully by his resurrection (1:1-4). This Jesus is the one who gave to Paul the task of taking the gospel to people of all nations, which is one reason why he now writes to the people in Rome (5-7).
Churches everywhere know about the faith of the Roman Christians (8). Not only does Paul pray for them but he wants to visit them, so that both he and they might be strengthened as they profit from each other’s spiritual gifts (9-12). Until now he has not been able to visit them, even though he has often wanted to. His duty is to preach the gospel to people of all nations and cultures, and that makes him all the more eager to visit Rome (13-15).
Paul then gives a summary of the subject that he will expound in the following chapters. He wants his readers to have the same confidence in the gospel as he has, for the gospel is humankind’s only hope. People, because of their sin, are weak and unable to save themselves, but God in his power can save them from sin and accept them as righteous in his sight. Through the gospel God can put people right with himself and still be righteous in doing so. But though this salvation is available to all, it is effective only in the lives of those who believe. Only by faith, and never by works, can sinners receive the status of righteousness that God in his grace gives (16-17).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

Who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead; even Jesus Christ our Lord.

This verse is the antithesis of the preceding verse, that dealing with the human nature of Christ, and this with his heavenly nature.

Declared to be the Son of God with power … The key words in this passage are "with power." It is not affirmed that Christ was declared the Son of God, merely, but that he was declared so with power. As Greathouse expressed it:

Paul does not say that Jesus was appointed Son of God but that he was appointed Son of God with power. Nygren brings all these ideas into focus: "To be sure, from the beginning, he was the Son of God, but in weakness and lowliness. The divine glory which formerly was hidden was manifest after the resurrection. From that hour, he is the Son of God in a new sense: he is the Son of God in power." William M. Greathouse, Commentary on Romans (Kansas City, Missouri: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1968), p. 31.

According to the spirit of holiness … By capitalizing "Spirit of holiness," the RSV identifies the Spirit mentioned here as the Holy Spirit; and, although Paul nowhere else uses this designation of the Holy Spirit, there seems to be no good reason for denying that he did so here. Certainly, it was by the power of the Holy Spirit that the gospel was proclaimed, including the good news of the resurrection, which is an essential part of it.

By the resurrection from the dead … should be translated "by the resurrection of the dead," the change to "from" having been made by the translators for the purpose of giving a more accurate presentation of what they considered to be the meaning, most of them thinking that the resurrection of Christ was referred to; but the alternative translation in the English Revised Version (1885) margin is undoubtedly correct. This difficult passage was translated "after the resurrection from the dead" by Luther, Erasmus, and others. Charles Hodge, op. cit., p. 20. Barrett translates it "after his resurrection from the dead." C. K. Barrett, op. cit., p. 20. Greathouse, however, protested such translations, writing:

Literally the phrase means "resurrection of those who are dead." Paul says actually that Christ was designated the Son of God with power "by a resurrection of dead ones." Nygren understands Paul to mean: "Through Christ the resurrection age has burst upon us." Wm. M. Greathouse, op. cit., p. 31.

Whosoever believes that Christ is the Son of God has passed from death unto life (John 5:24), and thus the expression "resurrection of the dead" is the reference to the power of the gospel to awaken into new life them that were formerly dead in trespasses and sins. Thin does not exclude the resurrection of Christ, but goes beyond it to make the world-shaking power of the gospel to be included also as part of the declarative power demonstrating and advertising Christ as Son of God with power.

Any further pursuit of the meaning of this difficult phrase would only multiply supporting reasons for various positions of scholars; and we shall, accordingly, construe the place as ambiguous, perhaps designed that way by the Holy Spirit, and content ourselves with a few certainties: (1) Christ was Son of God long before his resurrection, and was so confessed by the apostles. (2) Any declaration of Christ, and appointment of him to be the Son of God with power, by means of any such thing as the resurrection, would of necessity apply to some more powerful phase of his Sonship, rather than marking the absolute initiation of it. (3) The resurrection here mentioned, whatever was intended, is indeed one of the centers of the Christian faith. The resurrection of Christ, particularly, is the cornerstone and foundation of the Christian religion. It is the resurrection of Christ that gives credibility to the Gospels, explains the virgin birth, thrills the heart with the conviction that Jesus Christ is indeed God come in the flesh; and, without the hope of the resurrection, Paul himself declared that, "We are of all men most pitiable" (1 Corinthians 15:19). With the sure and certain hope of the resurrection, as set forth in the New Testament, the Christian is endowed with sufficient strength to meet all of life's challenges. It is surely true, as Paul said in another place, that "Christ brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Timothy 1:10).

Even Jesus Christ our Lord … There can be no doubt that Paul accepted Christ as far more than a mere human being. This salutation, had there been nothing else, would make that certain. Paul presents himself as the bondslave of Jesus Christ in the very first line of the epistle, and it is impossible to think of Paul's subjection to any person of mere mortal dignity. Here, Jesus Christ is adored as Lord.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

And declared - In the margin, “determined.” Τοῦ ὁρισθέντος Tou horisthentos. The ancient Syriac has, “And he was known to be the Son of God by might and by the Holy Spirit, who rose from the house of the dead.” The Latin Vulgate, “Who was “predestinated” the Son of God,” etc. The Arabic, “The Son of God destined by power special to the Holy Spirit,” etc. The word translated “declared to be” means properly “to bound, to fix limits to,” as to a field, to determine its proper limits or boundaries, to “define,” etc. Acts 17:26, “and hath determined the bounds of their habitation.” Hence, it means to determine, constitute; ordain, decree; i, e. to fix or designate the proper boundaries of a truth, or a doctrine; to distinguish its lines and marks from error; or to show, or declare a thing to be so by any action. Luke 22:22, “the Son of man goeth as it was determined, as it was fixed; purposed, defined, in the purpose of God, and declared in the prophets. Acts 2:23, “him being delivered by the determinate counsel, the definite. constituted will, or design, of God. Acts 11:29; Hebrews 4:7, “he limiteth a certain day,” fixes it, defines it. In this sense it is clearly used in this place. The act of raising him from the dead designated him, or constituted him the Son of God. It was such an act as in the circumstances of the case showed that he was the Son of God in regard to a nature which was not “according to the flesh.” The ordinary resurrection of a man, like that of Lazarus, would not show that he was the Son of God; but in the circumstances of Jesus Christ it did; for he had claimed to be so; he had taught it; and God now attested the truth of his teaching by raising him from the dead.

The Son of God - The word “son” is used in a great variety of senses, denoting literally a son, then a descendant, posterity near or remote, a disciple or ward, an adopted son, or one that imitates or resembles another; see the note at Matthew 1:1. The expression “sons of God,” or “son of God,” is used in an almost equal latitude of signification. It is:

(1) Applied to Adam, as being immediately created by God without an earthly father; Luke 3:38.

(2) It is applied to saints or Christians, as being adopted into his family, and sustaining to him the relation of children; John 1:12-13; 1 John 3:1-2, etc. This name is given to them because they resemble him in their moral character; Matthew 5:45.

(3) It is given to strong men as resembling God in strength; Genesis 6:2, “The sons of God saw the daughters of men,” etc. Here these men of violence and strength are called sons of God, just as the high hills are called hills of God, the lofty trees of Lebanon are called cedars of God, etc.

(4) Kings are sometimes called his sons, as resembling him in dominion and power, Psalms 82:6.

(5) The name is given to angels because they resemble God; because he is their Creator and Father, etc., Job 1:6; Job 2:1; Daniel 3:25.

But the name the “Son of God” is in the New Testament given by way of eminence to the Lord Jesus Christ. This was the common and favorite name by which the apostles designated him. The expression “Son of God” is applied to him no less than 27 times in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, and 15 times in the Epistles and the Revelation The expression my Son, and his Son, thy Son, etc. is applied to him in his special relation to God, times almost without number. The other most common appellation which is given to him is “Son of man.” By this name he commonly designated himself. There can be no doubt that that was assumed to denote that he was a man, that he sustained a special relation to man, and that he chose to speak of himself as a man. The first, the most obvious, impression on the use of the name “Son of man” is that he was truly a man, and was used doubtless to guard against the impression that one who manifested so many other qualities, and did so many things like a celestial being, was not truly human being.

The phrase “Son of God” stands in contrast with the title “Son of man,” and as the natural and obvious import of that is that he was a man, so the natural and obvious import of the title “Son of God” is that he was divine; or that he sustained relations to God designated by the name Son of God, corresponding to the relations which he sustained to man designated by the name Son of Man. The natural idea of the phrase, “Son of God,” therefore is, that he sustained a relation to God in his nature which implied more than was human or angelic; which implied equality with God. Accordingly, this idea was naturally suggested to the Jews by his calling God his Father; John 5:18, “But said also that God was his Father, “making himself equal with God.” This idea Jesus immediately proceeded to confirm; see the note at John 5:19-30. The same idea is also suggested in John 10:29-31, John 10:33, John 10:36, “Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest: “because I said I am the Son of God?” There is in these places the fullest proof that the title suggested naturally the idea of equality with God; or the idea of his sustaining a relation to God corresponding to the relation of equality to man suggested by the title Son of man.

This view is still further sustained in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Romans 1:1-2, “God hath spoken unto us by His Son.” He is the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, Romans 1:3. He is higher than the angels, and they are required to worship him, Romans 1:4-6. He is called “God,” and his throne is forever and ever, Romans 1:8. He is “the Creator of the heavens and the earth,” and is immutably the same, Romans 1:10-12. Thus, the rank or title of the “Son of God” suggests the ideas and attributes of the Divinity. This idea is sustained throughout the New Testament. See John 14:9, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;” Romans 1:23, “That all men shall honor the Son even as they honor the Father;” Colossians 1:19, “It hath pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;” Colossians 2:9, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily:” Philippians 2:2-11; Revelation 5:13-14; Revelation 2:23. It is not affirmed that this title was given to the second person of the Trinity before he became incarnate; or to suggest the idea of any derivation or extraction before he was made flesh. There is no instance in which the appellation is not conferred to express his relation after he assumed human flesh. Of any derivation from God, or emanation from him in eternity, the Scriptures are silent. The title is conferred on him, it is supposed, with reference to his condition in this world, as the Messiah. And it is conferred, it is believed, for the following reasons, or to denote the following things, namely.

(1) To designate his unique relation to God, as equal with him, John 1:14, John 1:18; Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22; Luk 3:22; 2 Peter 1:17, or as sustaining a most intimate and close connection with him, such as neither man nor angels could do, an acquaintance with his nature Matthew 11:27, plans, and counsels, such as no being but one who was equal with God could possess. In this sense, I regard it as conferred on him in the passage under consideration.

(2) It designates him as the anointed king, or the Messiah. In this sense it accords with the use of the word in Psalms 82:6. See Matthew 16:16, “Thou art “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 26:63, “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether “thou be the Christ, the Son of God.” Mark 14:61; Luke 22:70; John 1:34; Acts 9:20, “he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.”

(3) It was conferred on him to denote his miraculous conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Luke 1:35, “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, therefore διό dio also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the “Son of God.”

(It is readily admitted, that on the subject of the “eternal Sonship” very much has been said of an unintelligible kind. Terms applicable only to the relation as it exists among people have been freely applied to this mystery. But whatever may be thought of such language as “the eternal generation,” “the eternal procession,” and “the subordination” of the Son; the doctrine itself, which this mode of speaking was invented to illustrate, and has perhaps served to obscure, is in no way affected. The question is not, Have the friends of the doctrine at all times employed judicious illustration? but, What is the “Scripture evidence” on the point? If the eternal Sonship is to be discarded on such grounds, we fear the doctrine of the Trinity must share a similar fate. Yet, those who maintain the divinity of Christ, and notwithstanding deny the eternal Sonship, seem generally to found their objections on these incomprehensible illustrations, and from thence leap to the conclusion that the doctrine itself is false.

That the title Son of God, when applied to Jesus, denotes a natural and not merely an official Sonship, a real and not a figurative relation; in other words, that it takes origin from the divine nature, is the view which the Catholic Church has all along maintained on this subject: no explanation which falls short of divinity will exhaust the meaning of the title. Christ is indeed called the Son of God on account of his miraculous conception; “That holy thing,” said the angel to the Virgin, “which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of the Highest.” But the creation of Adam, by the immediate power of God, without father or mother, would constitute him the Son of God, in a sense equally or even more exalted than that in which the title is applied to Jesus, if the miraculous conception were allowed to exhaust its meaning. Nor will an appeal to the resurrection of Christ serve the purpose of those who deny the divine origin of the title, since that is assigned as the evidence only, and not the ground of it.

The Redeemer was not constituted, but declared or evidenced to be, “the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.” In the search for a solution short of divine Sonship, recourse is next had to the office of Christ as Mediator. Yet though the appellation in question be frequently given in connection with the official character of Jesus, a careful examination of some of these passages will lead to the conclusion, that “though the Son of God hold the office, yet the office does not furnish the reason or ground of the title.” The name is given to distinguish Jesus from all others who have held office, and “in such a way as to convince us that the office is rendered “honorable” by the exalted personage discharging its duties, and not that the person merits the designation in virtue of the office.” “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman,” etc. “God so loved the world that he gave his “only begotten Son,” etc. Now the glory of the mission in the first of these passages, and the greatness of the gift in the second, is founded on the original dignity of the person sent and given. But if the person derive his title from the office only, there would seem to be comparatively little grandeur in the mission, and small favor in the gift. The passages quoted would more readily prove that God had bestowed favor on Jesus, by giving him an office from which he derived so much “personal dignity!”

The following are some of the passages in which the appellation “Son of God” is found connected with the office of Christ. “These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, (an official term signifying “anointed Saviour”), the Son of God;” “He answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ (the official designation) is the Son of God;” “Whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” Now it is reasonable to suppose, that these declarations and confessions concerning the person of Christ, contain not only an acknowledgment of his official character, but also of his personal dignity. “Thou art Jesus the Christ,” is the acknowledgment of his office, and “thou art the Son of God,” is an acknowledgment of his natural dignity. The confession of the Ethiopian eunuch, and of Peter, would be incomplete on any other supposition. It should be borne in mind also, that the question of Christ to Peter was not, What office do ye suppose I hold? but, “Whom say ye that I am?” See Haldane on Romans 1:4.

If, then, the miraculous conception, the resurrection, and the office of Christ, do not all of them together exhaust the meaning of the appellation, we must seek for its origin higher still - we must ascend to the divine nature. We may indeed take one step more upward before we reach the divine nature, and suppose, with Professor Stuart and others, that the name denotes “the complex person of the Saviour,” as God and man, or in one word, “Mediator.” Comment on Heb. Exe. 2. But this is just the old resolution of it into official character, and is therefore liable to all the objections stated above. For while it is admitted by those who hold this view, that Christ is divine, it is distinctly implied, that the title Son of God would not have been his but for his office.

In the end therefore we must resolve the name into the divine nature. That it implies equality with God is clearly proved in this commentary. So the Jews understood it, and the Saviour tacitly admitted that their construction was right. And as there is no equality with God without divinity, the title clearly points to such a distinction in the Godhead as is implied in the relative terms, Father and Son. Indeed it is not easy to understand how the doctrine of the Trinity can be maintained apart from that of the eternal Sonship. If there be in the Godhead a distinction of persons, does not that distinction belong to the nature of the Godhead, independent of any official relations. Or will it be maintained, that the distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, arises entirely from the scheme of redemption, and did not exist from eternity? We may find fault with Dr Owen, and others, who speak of a “hypostatical subordination of persons in the Godhead.” Prof. Stuart, Com. Heb. Exe. 1. Yet, the distinction itself, through we cannot explain it, “must” be allowed to exist.

The remaining evidence of the eternal Sonship may be thus stated.

1. Christ is called God’s “own Son,” his “beloved,” and “well beloved,” and “only begotten Son.’ So strong and special adjuncts seem intended to prevent any such idea as that of figurative Sonship. If these do not express the natural relationship, it is beyond the power of language to do it. Moreover, correct criticism binds us to adopt the natural and ordinary signification of words, unless in such cases as plainly refuse it,

2. In a passage already quoted, God is said “to have sent forth His Son to redeem us,” etc. And there are many passages to the same effect, in which is revealed, not only the pre-existence of Christ, but the capacity in which he originally moved, and the rank which he held in heaven. “God sent forth his Son,” implies that he held that title prior to his mission. This at least is the most obvious sense of the passage, and the sense which an ordinary reader would doubtless affix to it. The following objection, however, has been supposed fatal to this argument: “The name Son of God is indeed used, when speaking of him previous to his having assumed human nature, but so are the names of Jesus and the Christ, which yet we know properly to belong to him, only as united to humanity.” It is readily allowed that the simple fact of the name being given prior to the incarnation proves nothing of itself. But the case is altered when this fact is viewed in connection with the difficulty or impossibility of resolving the Sonship into an official relation. No such difficulty exists in regard to the terms “Jesus” and “Christ,” for they are plainly official names, signifying “anointed Saviour.”

3.Romans 1:3-4. If in this passage we understand the apostle to declare, that Christ was of the seed of David, according to his human nature, the rule of antithesis demands, that we understand him next to assert what he was according to his divine nature, namely, the Son of God.

The views given in this Note are those adopted by the most eminent orthodox divines. The language of the Westminster divines is well known; “The only Redeemer of the covenant of grace is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God, of one substance etc.” “Larger Catechism.” Mr. Scott “is decidedly of opinion, that Christ is called the only Son of God in respect of his divine nature.” Commentary, Hebrews 1:3-4.” The late Principal Hill, in his Theological System, having exposed what he deemed erroneous views on this subject, adds, “there is a more ancient and a more exalted title to this name (Son of God), which is inseparable from the nature” of Christ. “3rd edition, vol. i., page 363.)”

With power - ἐν δυνάμει en dunamei. By some this expression has been supposed to mean in power or authority, after his resurrection from the dead. It is said, that he was before a man of sorrows; now he was clothed with power and authority. But I have seen no instance in which the expression in power denotes office, or authority. It denotes physical energy and might, and this was bestowed on Jesus before his resurrection as well as after; Acts 10:38, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, and with power; Romans 15:19; 1 Corinthians 15:43. With such power Jesus will come to judgment: Matthew 24:30. If there is any passage in which the word “power” means authority, office, etc., it is Matthew 28:18, “All power in heaven and earth is given unto me.” But this is not a power which was given unto him after his resurrection, or which he did not possess before. The same authority to commission his disciples he had exercised before this on the same ground, Matthew 10:7-8. I am inclined to believe, therefore, that the expression means “powerfully, efficiently;” he was with great power, or conclusiveness, shown to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. Thus, the phrase “in power” is used to qualify a verb in Colossians 1:29, “Which worketh in me mightily,” “Greek,” in power, that is, operating in me effectually, or powerfully. The ancient versions seem to have understood it in the same way. “Syriac,” “He was known to be the Son of God by power, and by the Holy Spirit.” “AEthiopic,” “Whom he declared to be the Son of God by his own power, and by his Holy Spirit,” etc. “Arabic,” “Designated the Son of God by power appropriate to the Holy Spirit.”

According to the spirit of holiness - κατά πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης kata pneuma hagiōsunēs. This expression has been variously understood. We may arrive at its meaning by the following considerations.

(1) It is not the third person in the Trinity that is referred to here. The designation of that person is always in a different form. It is “the Holy Spirit,” the Holy Ghost, πνεῦμα ἅγιον pneuma hagion, or τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον to pneuma to hagion; never “the spirit of holiness.”

(2) It stands in contrast with the flesh; Romans 1:3, “According to the flesh, the seed of David: according to the spirit of holiness, the Son of God.” As the former refers doubtless to his human nature, so this must refer to the nature designated by the title Son of God, that is, to his superior or divine nature.

(3) The expression is altogether unique to the Lord Jesus Christ. No where in the Scriptures, or in any other writings, is there an affirmation like this. What would be meant by it if affirmed of a mere man?

(4) It cannot mean that the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, showed that Jesus was the Son of God by raising him from the dead because that act is no where attributed to him. It is uniformly ascribed either to God, as God Acts 2:24, Acts 2:32; Acts 3:15, Acts 3:26; Acts 4:10; Acts 5:30; Acts 10:40; Acts 13:30, Acts 13:33-34; Acts 17:31; Romans 10:9; Ephesians 1:20, or to the Father Romans 6:4, or to Jesus himself John 10:18. In no instance is this act ascribed to the Holy Spirit.

(5) It indicates a state far more elevate than any human dignity, or honor In regard to his earthly descent, he was of a royal race; in regard to the Spirit of holiness, much more than that, he was the Son of God.

(6) The word “Spirit” is used often to designate God, the holy God, as distinguished from all the material forms of idol worship, John 4:24.

(7) The word “Spirit” is applied to the Messiah, in his more elevated or divine nature. 1 Corinthians 15:45, “the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:17, “now the Lord (Jesus) is that Spirit.” Hebrews 9:14, Christ is said to have offered himself through the eternal Spirit. 1 Peter 3:18, he is said to have been “put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” 1 Timothy 3:16, he is said to have been “justified in the Spirit.” In most of these passages there is the same contrast noticed between his flesh, his human nature, and his other state, which occurs in Romans 1:3-4. In all these instances, the design is, doubtless, to speak of him as a man, and as something more than a man: he was one thing as a man; he was another thing in his other nature. In the one, he was of David; was put to death, etc. In the other, he was of God, he was manifested to be such, he was restored to the elevation which he had sustained before his incarnation and death, John 17:1-5; Philippians 2:2-11. The expression, “according to the Spirit of holiness,” does not indeed of itself imply divinity. It denotes that holy and more exalted nature which he possessed as distinguished from the human. What that is, is to be learned from other declarations. “This expression implies simply that it was such as to make proper the appellation, the Son of God.” Other places, as we have seen, show that that designation naturally implied divinity. And that this was the true idea couched under the expression, according to the Spirit of holiness, appears from those numerous texts of scripture which explicitly assert his divinity; see John 1:1, etc., and the note on that place.

By the resurrection from the dead - This has been also variously understood. Some have maintained that the word “by,” ἐξ ex, denotes after. He was declared to be the Son of God in power after he rose from the dead; that is, he was solemnly invested with the dignity that became the Son of God after he had been so long in a state of voluntary humiliation. But to this view there are some insuperable objections.

(1) It is not the natural and usual meaning of the word “by.”

(2) It is not the object of the apostle to state the time when the thing was done, or the order, but evidently to declare the fact, and the evidence of the fact. If such had been his design, he would have said that previous to his death he was shown to be of the seed of David, but afterward that he was invested with power.

(3) Though it must be admitted that the preposition “by, ἐξ ex,” sometimes means after (Matthew 19:20; Luke 8:27; xxiii. 8, etc.), yet its proper and usual meaning is to denote the efficient cause, or the agent, or origin of a thing, Matthew 1:3, Matthew 1:18; Matthew 21:25; John 3:5; Romans 5:16; Romans 11:36, “OF him are all things.” 1 Corinthians 8:6, “one God, the Father, of whom are all things,” etc. In this sense, I suppose it is used here; and that the apostle means to affirm that he was clearly or decisively shown to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.

But here will it be asked, how did his resurrection show this? Was not Lazarus raised from the dead? And did not many saints rise also after Jesus? And were not the dead raised by the apostles; by Elijah, by the bones of Elisha, and by Christ himself? And did their being raised prove that they were the sons of God? I answer that the mere fact of the resurrection of the body proves nothing in itself about the character and rank of the being that is raised. But in the circumstances in which Jesus was placed it might show it conclusively. When Lazarus was raised, it was not in attestation of anything which he had taught or done. It was a mere display of the power and benevolence of Christ. But in regard to the resurrection of Jesus, let the following circumstances be taken into the account.

(1) He came as the Messiah.

(2) He uniformly taught that he was the Son of God.

(3) He maintained that God was his Father in such a sense as to imply equality with him, John 5:17-30; John 10:36.

(4) He claimed authority to abolish the laws of the Jews, to change their customs, and to be himself absolved from the observance of those laws, even as his Father was, John 5:1-17; Mark 2:28.

(5) When God raised him up therefore, it was not an ordinary event. It was “a public attestation, in the face of the universe, of the truth of his claims to be the Son of God.” God would not sanction the doings and doctrines of an impostor. And when, therefore he raised up Jesus, he, by this act, showed the truth of his claims, that he was the Son of God.

Further, in the view of the apostles, the resurrection was intimately connected with the ascension and exaltation of Jesus. The one made the other certain. And it is not improbable that when they spoke of his resurrection, they meant to include, not merely that single act, but the entire series of doings of which that was the first, and which was the pledge of the elevation and majesty of the Son of God. Hence, when they had proved his resurrection, they assumed that all the others would follow. That involved and supposed all. And the series, of which that was the first, proved that he was the Son of God; see Acts 17:31, “He will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance to all people, “in that he hath raised him from the dead.” The one involves the other; see Acts 1:6. Thus, Peter Acts 2:22-32 having proved that Jesus was raised up, adds, Acts 2:33, “therefore, being by the right hand exalted, he hath shed forth this,” etc.; and Acts 2:36, “therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

This verse is a remarkable instance of the “apostle” Paul’s manner of writing. Having mentioned a subject, his mind seems to catch fire; he presents it in new forms, and amplifies it, until he seems to forget for a time the subject on which he was writing. It is from this cause that his writings abound so with parentheses, and that there is so much difficulty in following and understanding him.

Living By Faith: Commentary on Romans & 1st Corinthians

1:3-4: concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 4 who was declared (to be) the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead; (even) Jesus Christ our Lord,

The gospel predicted by the prophets and the Old Testament writings centered on “His Son.” In other words, the gospel (the good news) is about Christ. This is what we find in places like Acts 8:30-36. The Old Testament was used to teach people about Jesus. “There is no such thing as a ‘social gospel,’ or a ‘moral gospel.’ The founder and finisher of the gospel is Christ” (Willmington, p. 222).

The Old Testament promised that Jesus would be from David’s seed. The very first verse of the New Testament was written to prove Jesus came from David’s family. Matthew’s gospel begins with a lengthy genealogy, and this record shows the Lord was a descendent of David.

In Romans 1:3 Paul said Jesus had a dual nature. He was both man and God. The humanity of Christ is seen in the reference to David’s “seed.” This statement affirms Jesus was a man. Since Jesus was also David’s Lord, He was also divine (God). The Lord’s divinity and humanity were combined together in one body. Ralph Earle (p. 131) said, “Ask a conservative, ‘Was Jesus human or divine?’ and he will answer emphatically, ‘Divine!’ Ask a liberal the same question and he may reply, ‘Human.’ Both are right and both are wrong. For the correct answer is ‘Both.’”

While no person doubts Christ’s humanity, there are those who doubt His divinity (He was and is God). Paul said the resurrection is proof of the Lord’s deity. Jesus was “declared” (horizo) to be the Son of God. This means Jesus “has been declared to be the powerful son of God” (Gingrich and Danker, p. 581). Thayer (p. 453) says this shows Jesus was “openly appointed” by the “crowning event.” These definitions are consistent with what Paul wrote-by the resurrection from the dead. The Lord’s return from the dead was designed to prove He has the nature of God (compare John 1:1). The “Spirit of Holiness” (i.e. the Holy Spirit) promised Jesus would be resurrected from the dead. This happened. Basically Paul said the gospel is from God, about God, and leads men to God. This gospel was promised a long, long time ago.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

4.Declared ⁽¹⁹⁾ the Son of God, etc.: or, if you prefer, determined (definitus); as though he had said, that the power, by which he was raised from the dead, was something like a decree by which he was proclaimed the Son of God, according to what is said in Psalms 2:7, “I have this day begotten thee:” for this begetting refers to what was made known. Though some indeed find here three separate evidences of the divinity of Christ — “power,” understanding thereby miracles — then the testimony of the Spirit — and, lastly, the resurrection from the dead — I yet prefer to connect them together, and to reduce these three things to one, in this manner — that Christ was declared the Son of God by openly exercising a real celestial power, that is, the power of the Spirit, when he rose from the dead; but that this power is comprehended, when a conviction of it is imprinted on our hearts by the same Spirit. The language of the Apostle well agrees with this view; for he says that he was declared by power, because power, peculiar to God, shone forth in him, and uncontestably proved him to be God; and this was indeed made evident by his resurrection. Paul says the same thing in another place; having stated, that by death the weakness of the flesh appeared, he at the same time extols the power of the Spirit in his resurrection; (2 Corinthians 13:4) This glory, however, is not made known to us, until the same Spirit imprints a conviction of it on our hearts. And that Paul includes, together with the wonderful energy of the Spirit, which Christ manifested by rising from the dead, the testimony which all the faithful feel in their hearts, is even evident from this — that he expressly calls it the Spirit of Holiness; as though he had said, that the Spirit, as far as it sanctifies, confirms and ratifies that evidence of its power which it once exhibited. For the Scripture is wont often to ascribe such titles to the Spirit, as tend to illustrate our present subject. Thus He is called by our Lord the Spirit of Truth, on account of the effect which he mentions; (John 14:17)

Besides, a divine power is said to have shone forth in the resurrection of Christ for this reason — because he rose by his own power, as he had often testified:

“Destroy this temple, and in three days
I will raise it up again,” (John 2:19;)

“No man taketh it from me,” etc.; (John 10:18)

For he gained victory over death, (to which he yielded with regard to the weakness of the flesh,) not by aid sought from another, but by the celestial operation of his own Spirit.

(19) “Declaratus,” ὁρισθέντος. Some of the ancients, such as [Origen ], [Chrysostom ], [Cyril ], and others, have given to this verb the meaning of is “proved— δειχθέντος; ” demonstrated — ἀποφανθέντος; ” “exhibited —ἀποδειχθώντος; ”etc. But it is said that the word has not this meaning in the New Testament, and that it means, limited, determined, decreed, constituted. Besides here, it is found only in Luke 22:22; Acts 2:23; Acts 10:42; Acts 11:29; Acts 17:26; Hebrews 4:7. The word, determined, or constituted, if adopted here, would amount to the same thing, that is, that Christ was visibly determined or constituted the Son of God through the resurrection, or by that event. It was that which fixed, settled, determined, and manifestly exhibited him as the Son of God, clothed and adorned with his own power. Professor [Stuart ] has conjured a number of difficulties in connection with this verse, for which there seems to be no solid reason. The phrase, the Son of God, is so well known from the usage of Scripture, that there is no difficulty connected with it: the full phrase is the only-begotten Son. To say that Christ’s resurrection was no evidence of his divine nature, as Lazarus and others had been raised from the dead, appears indeed very strange. Did Lazarus rise through his own power? Did Lazarus rise again for our justification? Was his resurrection an attestation of any thing he had previously declared? The Revelation A. [Barnes ] very justly says, that the circumstances connected with Christ were those which rendered his resurrection a proof of his divinity.

Professor [Hodge ] gives what he conceives to be the import of the two verses in these words, “Jesus Christ was, as to his human nature, the Son of David; but he was clearly demonstrated to be, as to his divine nature, the Son of God, by the resurrection from the dead.” This view is taken by many, such as [Pareus ], [Beza ], [Turrettin ], etc. But the words, “according to the Spirit of Holiness” — κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης, are taken differently by others, as meaning the Holy Spirit. As the phrase is nowhere else found, it may be taken in either sense. That the divine nature of Christ is called Spirit, is evident. See 1 Corinthians 15:45; 2 Corinthians 3:17; Hebrews 9:14, 1 Peter 3:18 [Doddridge ], [Scott ], and [Chalmers ], consider The Holy Spirit to be intended. The last gives this paraphrase: — “Declared, or determinately marked out to be the Son of God and with power. The thing was demonstrated by an evidence, the exhibition of which required a putting forth of power, which Paul in another place represents as a very great and strenuous exertion, ‘According to the working of his mighty power when he raised him from the dead.’ — The Spirit of Holiness, or the Holy Spirit. It was through the operation of the Holy Spirit that the divine nature was infused into the human at the birth of Jesus Christ; and the very same agent, it is remarkable, was employed in the work of the resurrection. ‘Put to death in the flesh,’ says Peter, and ‘quickened by the Spirit.’ We have only to do with the facts of the case. He was demonstrated to be the Son of God by the power of the Holy Spirit having been put forth in raising him from the dead.” As to the genitive case after “resurrection,” see a similar instance in Acts 17:32

The idea deduced by [Calvin ], that he is called here “the Spirit of Holiness,” on account of the holiness he works in us, seems not well-founded, though advanced by [Theodoret ] and [Augustine ]. — Ed.

Smith's Bible Commentary

This time let us turn in our Bibles to Romans, chapter 1. Paul opens his epistle to the Romans declaring:

Paul, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God ( Romans 1:1 ).

Twenty-five years before Paul wrote this epistle to the Romans he was on the road to Damascus to imprison the Christians there. When suddenly about noon there came a light brighter than the mid-day sun and there the Lord said, "Saul, Saul why persecute thou me?" And he answered and said, "Who art thou Lord, that I might serve thee?" Now twenty-five years later Paul writes, "Paul, a servant or a bond slave, of Jesus Christ."

Writing to the Philippian church concerning that same conversion experience he said, "Those things which were gain to me I counted loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ for whom I suffered the loss of all things and do count them but refuse that I may know Him" ( 1 Corinthians 3:7-8 ). What I am seeking to point out is that the commitment that Paul had made twenty-five years earlier was still being honored.

There are a lot of people who talk about past experiences, but the past experiences have not been translated into the present relationship, and thus, past experiences become null and void unless they are translated into present relationships. Those things which were gain to me I counted loss, twenty-five years ago. "Yea doubtless I do count them," you see, it is still going on. So past experience is only valid as it is translated into my present walk and relationship. Twenty-five years ago, "Who art thou, Lord, that I may serve thee?" Now twenty-five years later, "Paul a servant of Jesus Christ."

We just finished the book of Acts, and to help place the book of Romans, the writing of the book of Romans, into the study that we just had in Acts, if you will remember when Paul was in Ephesus and Demetrius the silversmith created a big ruckus and they brought all the people of the city into the arena and they were chanting, "Great is Diana the Ephesus," and so forth. How that at that point Paul said, "Well, I am going to go to Macedonia and to Corinth and I am going to go to Jerusalem and I must also see Rome." There Paul expressed his desire as he left Ephesus going over to Macedonia and then to Corinth, ultimately going on to Rome, "I must also see Rome." When he got to Corinth, before going back to Jerusalem, it was from Corinth that Paul wrote this letter to the church in Rome. That will help you place it historically in the book of Acts. He wrote the letter to the church in Rome from Corinth. As he got ready to leave Corinth to go back to Jerusalem, he found out that there was an assassination, a plot against him. They were going to throw him overboard, and so instead of taking the ship from Corinth, he went back north to Macedonia, crossed over to Troas, and then made his way around the coast catching ships back to Jerusalem. He gave up his hopes of being there for Passover and intended to be there for the Feast of Pentecost. In Jerusalem he was arrested, taken to Caesarea, held in prison for two years. He appealed unto Caesar and now, of course, in the book of Acts he was finally going to Rome. This was written some two years, a little more than two years before Paul was able to go to Rome, and he is going to express his desire to come to Rome and the purpose for which he desired to go there.

"Paul, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle." The Bible tells us that we should make our calling and election sure. Paul said, "I was called to be an apostle." It is wrong for us to classify callings of God as important or highest calling or greatest calling or whatever. I don't know what God has called you to be. But it is important that you realize that you can't be any more than what God has called you to be. And we oftentimes get into trouble trying to do more than God has called us to do. Paul was called to be an apostle, then that is great, Paul should be an apostle. If he said, "Paul, called to be a tentmaker," then he should be a tentmaker. "Paul, called to be a camel driver," then he should be a camel driver.

Whatever God has called you to be that is the highest calling for your life, because you can't be more than what God has called you to be, and God only holds you responsible to be what He has called you to be. We oftentimes are guilty of taking on duties that God hasn't laid on us. Taking upon ourselves the responsibility because we have a great desire to serve God in some greater capacity, and thus, I launch into areas where God has not called me and that can be disastrous. I would give you a personal testimony, but we don't have time. I have tried to be on occasions but God didn't call me to be. I always ended disastrously. Sometimes our ambitions and our desires are beyond the Lord's callings.

"Paul, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God," which, of course, the book of Romans is dedicated to that subject.

(Which he had promised before by his prophets in the holy Scriptures,) ( Romans 1:2 )

This glorious gospel of the Messiah and that salvation through the Messiah is something that God prophesied through the prophets. Concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. David came to Nathan the prophet and said, "I want to build a house for the Lord. I live in this beautiful palace and God still lives in that tent. They are still worshipping God in the tabernacle and it isn't right that I should live in this glorious palace while God lives in a tent. I want to build a house for the Lord, the most glorious building in the world." Nathan the prophet said, "Oh, that is great, David, do all that is in your heart."

That night the Lord came to Nathan the prophet and spoke to him and said, "Nathan, you spoke out of turn, you spoke too quickly. You are going to have to go back to David and you are going to have to tell him that he is not going to be able to build a house for me; his hands are too bloody. He is a man of war; I can't have him building a house for me. But you tell David that I will build him a house, and there shall not cease from his seed one to sit upon the throne." David saw Nathan the next day and Nathan said, "David, I have got some bad news and good news." The bad news first. "God spoke to me last night and said you can't build a house for Him, your hands are too bloody. You are a man of war, but your son will be able to rise up and build a house. But the good news David, God is going to build you a house, and from your seed there will never cease to be a king sitting upon the throne of Israel." From which David immediately understood that the Messiah was to come from David's seed.

This was just overwhelming to David. He went in before the Lord, and said, "Oh, Lord, You took me from the sheep coat, from following after the sheep. Lord, I was nothing. I was just a shepherd, and yet, You took me and You made me the King over your people. You have blessed me so much and know You speak of the years to come, oh God, what can I say?" David was brought to a place of silence before God, so overwhelmed by the grace of God. Have you ever been brought to that place? So overwhelmed by the goodness of God that there is nothing you can say. Sam Mulolo said, "When prayer reaches its ultimate, words are impossible." That communion with God when you really realize what God has promised to do for us, it is so overwhelming there are times when I just, what can you say? Too much God. Too much.

According to the promise then, he is come as the seed of David, there shall come out of Jesse a righteous branch. It is interesting that in the gospels when they record the genealogies of Jesus, that though the genealogy of Matthew and Luke are different, both of them go back to David. But from David they take different branches, in Matthew's genealogy when you get to David and David begot Solomon of Bathsheba who was the wife of Uriah, it brings you the genealogy from Solomon on down to Joseph who was supposed by the people to be the father of Jesus. Now in the genealogy coming from Solomon you come to this fellow Jeconiah. The Lord placed a curse upon Jeconiah from the last verse of the twenty-second chapter of Jeremiah, where Jeremiah said, "Hear O earth, hear O earth the word of the Lord, there shall not be a seed of Jeconiah to sit upon the throne of David forever." If Jesus were the son of Joseph He could not sit on the throne.

Luke gives us a another genealogy, the genealogy of Mary, of Joseph who was the son-in-law of Eli. So it is Mary's genealogy in Luke and he traces a different line back to David. He comes back to Nathan the son of David. So that Jesus through Mary, a descendant of David, and thus, a claimant to the throne of David, but not through Jeconiah. If so, He could not be a claimant to the throne, because of the curse of God that there should not be any of Jeconiah's seed sitting upon the throne of Israel. The two genealogies show that it was through David.

Paul declares,

Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead ( Romans 1:3-4 ):

That resurrection of Christ, the proof of the declaration.

By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for the obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: among whom are you also the called of Jesus Christ: to all be in [Orange County], the beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you ( Romans 1:5-7 ),

And I like to personalize the scriptures. I like to believe that they were writing to me, because the only thing that doesn't really apply to me there is Rome, but I am beloved of God, and God has called me to be a saint. Really, Paul's epistle is to the saints of God. Church.

Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ ( Romans 1:7 ).

Grace and peace, the Siamese twins of the New Testament. They are always coupled together, and always in that order. I don't recall of any place in the New Testament where it says, "Peace and grace." But it is always, "Grace and peace." Why? Because you cannot really know the peace of God until you have experienced the grace of God.

Now, there was years in my Christian experience that I really didn't have the peace of God. I had peace with God that was established through the death of Jesus Christ, but I didn't have the peace of God, because I was going about my own works to establish a righteous standing before God. As long as I was seeking by my effort to be righteous before God, I never found peace. There was always a struggle in my Christian experience. I was always trying to be a little better and always promising that I would do better. I was restless; I never had peace until I had experienced the grace of God, and then I understood what it is all about--grace and peace. Grace is always first, and if you haven't yet experienced the grace of God, then you really don't know the peace of God in your life yet.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world ( Romans 1:8 ).

There was a body of believers there in Rome and their faith in Christ was known everywhere.

For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers ( Romans 1:9 );

It is interesting to me that Paul has to call God as a witness to his prayer life. I think that is proper. Jesus said, "When you pray, go in the closet and shut the door, pray to your Father who sees in secret, and your Father who sees in secret shall reward you openly" ( Matthew 6:6 ). Don't make a public show of your prayers. Don't write newsletters all over the United States telling people that you are going to go into your closet of prayer, kneel on your special rug and hold them up in prayer. And then offer to sell them a square of that rug for a five-dollar donation.

"I am going to Jerusalem and I am taking my prayer rug and I am going to place this down on the Mount of Olives, about the spot where Jesus is going to set His foot when He returns. I am going to pray for you on the Mount of Olives. Now, please send me your request, those things you want me to pray for you when I am there. Please enclose a gift." Then your next letter, "You can buy a little square of that prayer cloth, or that rug for a donation." God help us. Paul has to call God as his witness to his prayer life. "God is my witness, I don't cease praying for you night and day."

Making mention of you always in my prayers,

Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you ( Romans 1:10 ).

Now Paul is at Corinth, he is going to head for Jerusalem. He doesn't know what awaits him in Jerusalem, except that everywhere he goes the Spirit is telling him that bonds and imprisonment await him there. And yet, as he writes to those in Rome, he is saying, "I am hoping to come to you. I am praying that if by any means I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God." Paul had said, "I must also see Rome." Later, when he was in prison in Jerusalem discouraged and defeated, the Lord said, "Even as you have testified of Me here in Jerusalem, Paul, be of good cheer, because you must also testify of Me in Rome." He didn't come to Rome by the will of God, I don't know that you . . . well, it was a prosperous journey. Though he was shipwrecked and the whole thing, yet by being shipwrecked on the Island of Malta, he was able to lead Publius to the Lord and many of the Maltese people accepted Jesus while Paul was there. So it was spiritually very prosperous though you might challenge that from a purely physical standpoint with all of the hardship that he went through. Fourteen days at sea in that storm when everyone was so sick they couldn't eat. Yet, Paul expresses his desire to God to go to Rome.

For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end that you may be established ( Romans 1:11 );

Paul's desire not to be just a tourist to see the Colosseum and to see the forum and all of the marvelous buildings in Rome, but the desire is to come to minister to the church that he might impart to them a spiritual gift by which they might be established.

That is, that I maybe comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me ( Romans 1:12 ).

That we might really minister to each other. And it is true, you cannot minister to others without being ministered to yourself. You cannot give without receiving. There is always that mutual benefit of the ministry.

Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that many times I purposed to come to you, (but up until now I have been hindered,) that I might also have some fruit among you, even as among other Gentiles ( Romans 1:13 ).

I desire to bear fruit in Rome as I have in other places.

For I am a debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, That the just shall live by faith ( Romans 1:14-17 ).

So Paul's declaration: I am ready to come to Rome, I want to bear fruit in Rome, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. Jew first also the Greek.

For in this the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith ( Romans 1:17 ).

In the gospel of Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God is revealed because even God could not forgive our sins unrighteously. There had to be a righteous basis for the forgiveness of our sins. For a judge to just totally dismiss charges against a guilty man is not righteous. God cannot just righteously say, "You are forgiven." There has to be a righteous basis, for God is righteous. There has to be a righteous basis for the forgiveness of your sins. That righteous basis is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. For God had sentenced the one who sins to death. The only righteous thing is to put to death the sinner, because that is the sentence that has been meted out against sinful man. God established a righteous basis for forgiveness by Jesus Christ becoming a substitute, taking your sin upon Himself and dying in your place. The righteous for the unrighteous. Thus, providing God the righteous basis for the forgiveness, you are forgiven because Jesus Christ died for you. He took your place. The debt that you deserved, He took your place and died for you, and thus, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."

For the wrath of God ( Romans 1:18 )

Now the righteousness of God, and immediately we contrast that with the wrath of God:

is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness ( Romans 1:18 );

Here we find the righteousness of God revealed, now the wrath of God revealed. God's wrath revealed against, number one, the ungodliness; and secondly, the unrighteousness. What is the difference between ungodliness and unrighteousness? You remember when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he had the two tables of stone with the Ten Commandments. On the first table of stone, the first four commandments dealt with man's relationship with God. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Thou shalt not make any graven images or likeness of gods. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Now, to violate one of these first four commands constituted a wrong relationship with God, which is ungodliness. The second table of stone dealt with man's relationship with fellow man. To violate one of the laws on the second table of stone is not living the right kind of life that you should be living with your neighbor, and thus, it constitutes unrighteousness, a wrong relationship with my neighbor, unrighteousness. The wrath of God is to be revealed against the ungodliness and the unrighteousness of men who hold the truth of God, but they hold it in unrighteousness.

Having and knowing is not enough. James said, "Be ye doers of the Word, not hearers only, deceiving yourselves" ( James 1:22 ). A lot of people today are deceiving themselves, because they have heard the Word, they know the Word, they know what God commands, they hold the truth of God, but unfortunately they hold it in unrighteousness.

Because that which may be known of God is manifested in them; for God hath shown it unto them ( Romans 1:19 ).

There is within my own conscience of what is right and wrong. Universally there is within the consciousness of man that which I know to be right, that which I know to be wrong. It is manifest within me. God has just sort of inscribed it into my heart and mind and my conscience, and I know what is right, I know what is wrong. That which may be known of God is manifest in them. God has shown it unto them.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen ( Romans 1:20 ),

Or, "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen," that is, the invisible God is revealed through His creation. The heavens declare the glory of God, the earth shows His handiwork day unto day they utter their speech, night unto night their voice goes forth. There is not a speech or language where their voice is not heard. God speaks to man in the universal language of nature. So that by nature I am aware that God does exist. A fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." The invisible things of Him are revealed in nature because that when they knew God they were without excuse, because God is revealed

by the things that he has made, even his eternal power and [deity or] Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God ( Romans 1:20-21 ),

Now, how can I do that in my own life? I fail to glorify God as God whenever I argue with Him. Because my arguing with God is in essence saying, "I know better what is good for me than You." I am really sort of exalting myself as God. I am not glorifying God as God when I make demands upon Him. When I insist through prayer that God does things this certain way. That is not glorifying God as God, and there is just an awful lot of this being propounded today by some of these present-day evangelists. Much of their teaching is really ungodly, because it elevates man to the position of being an authority and God becomes the servant. So it is no longer, "Chuck, a servant of Jesus Christ," but it is, "Chuck, the Lord of Jesus Christ," in a sense, because He is supposed to follow my every whim and wish and fulfill my every desire.

I was reading in a book the other day by a well-known minister of a very large church that he was desiring a bicycle and praying for a bicycle. And after praying several months for this bicycle and not receiving it, he became angry with God. He said, "How can I teach people to pray and to believe and trust You in prayer when here I have been praying all of this time for a bicycle and You have never given me the bicycle?" He said God said to him, "Well, you have never told me what kind you wanted. There are all kinds of bicycles, ten speeds, cruisers." In my book that is not glorifying God as God. What kind of a God am I serving who doesn't know what kind of a bicycle is best for me? Waiting to get the model number from me before He responds, waiting to get my choice of colors. No, I reject that concept of God. He is not a genie waiting to fulfill my slightest wish or whim. When I seek to treat God as a genie, that is not glorifying God as God. Peter tells us that if any of us suffer according to the will of God, we shall just commit the keeping of our soul unto Him as a faithful creator. I find that commitment, total commitment, is the greatest place of rest and peace I know. Because I don't have in my mind things that God must do for me. But I have a commitment of myself to God, so that whatever He does I accept, and I can rest.

Now we have made our offer for the property in Newport Beach, and I don't know if this point if we are going to get it or not. I am not really praying that we will get it. I am not really praying that we don't get it. I am just praying, "Lord, Your will be done. If You want us to have it, fine, Lord. If You don't want us to have it, fine, Lord." But you see, if I was in a big "have to," "We have got to have this property," and you get into that thing, "God, You have got to give this to us," then I am sitting in the driver seat and I am ordering God what to do. I am then putting myself in the position of God, making Him subservient to me. That is not glorifying God as God. It is a trap that people fall into quite easily. Total commitment to whatever God wants. Such a beautiful way to live, because you learn that to accept whatever comes along. You are never disturbed, because you are always expecting to be disturbed. The man who is always disturbed is the man who never expects to be disturbed; he doesn't really plan disturbances into his life. Thus, he is very disturbed whenever disturbance comes. But the man who is never disturbed is the one who is always expecting disturbances. So when a disturbance comes it doesn't disturb him, because he is expecting it.

Now I have got a working relationship with God. I reaffirm it every morning: "God, You can disturb me today for anything You want. If my plans don't coincide with Yours then, Lord, disrupt my plans. Disturb me, put me on Your path. Because I want Your will to be done in my life today." Thus, if suddenly something comes up and I am not able to make that planned trip or whatever, God has something else in mind. The committing of the keeping of my soul unto Him as a faithful Creator. Glorifying God as God.

But, when they knew God, they would not glorify Him as God.

neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools ( Romans 1:21-22 ),

What Paul is telling them is that God has revealed Himself through nature; man can know God through nature. Nature is a revelation of God. It is speaking to man of the existence of God. It is declaring the glory of God, His power, His wonders. But if a man doesn't want to hold the truth of God, he doesn't want to glorify God as God, he wants to elevate himself to the God level. "I am God for I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. I am God. I am a self-governed man." Then as he looks at nature, he looks at nature from a presuppositional position that God does not exist. He then attempts to explain the phenomena of nature apart from God by natural phenomena. By natural happenings or circumstances. One of their favorite phrases is the fortuitous occurrences of accidental circumstances. That can explain about anything, all of these random chance factors just don't happen. There were all of these fortuitous occurrences of these accidental circumstances that finally that you are the end product of accident. Billions of them, through billions of years, here you suddenly are as the result of this spontaneous generation.

There was an interesting symposium back in Europe in 1975, Carl Sagin wrote a book summarizing the convention. It was the leading scientists of the world who were gathered together for a symposium to determine whether or not extraterrestrial beings were trying to make contact with the planet Earth. So the book published, "The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Extraterrestrial Communication" edited by Carl Sagin, was a report of this symposium and its gathering of the world-renowned scientists to offer their various papers on the subject of extraterrestrial beings seeking to communicate to those on the planet Earth. I was very fascinated with one of the very first papers presented to this symposium by a group of scientists who felt that it would be important in determining whether or not there were beings out there trying to communicate with us here on the earth to determine what are the chance factors that life forms that exist on some other planet within the universe. Taking into consideration all of the multiplied obstacles really of life existing, they began to feed into the computer the factors necessary for the development of the first cell, all of the variables to create the first cells. The computer working out these various factors came out with the answer that there was only one chance in ten to the twenty-seventh power of the first cell ever being created. Now supposing the earth is six billion years old, that is about only about ten to the seventeenth power seconds.

So if you had these factors, say a billion of them each second going on for six billion years, you would only be developing your first cell. But then you have to develop two cells at the same place. The first paper concluded that there were no extraterrestrial beings trying to communicate with the planet earth because it is impossible that there could be any life forms anywhere else in the universe because of the complexities of the development of the cell. Like it's impossible any place in the universe. So no sense to have the symposium of whether or not there are extraterrestrial beings trying to communicate with us because it is impossible that they could exist. The chance factors are just . . . rule it out. I thought that there was a very interesting paper. I enjoyed reading it, but I wondered why didn't they carry that one step further and realize that it is impossible, if it is impossible that life forms could exist anywhere in the universe apart from here, how in the world do they think they exist here? If it is impossible that life forms could form on a planet in another galaxy, then it should also be impossible for life forms to appear here, which indeed it is impossible by accident. We were created. But man who comes to nature with a presuppositional base that God does not exist tries to explain the phenomena of life apart from God and you get into all kinds of foolish speculations.

Have you ever wondered how it is that you were able to walk? Well, once upon a time millions of years ago, back when the earth was covered with primordial ooze, and this cell had developed to the place of a worm-like creature, as it made its way out with the ooze and out of the waters, and onto the land, those fish-like creatures coming onto land, flipping itself around on this foreign environment, scratched itself on the coral reef, or upon the rock. And that scratch developed into a wart like a peonage, which continued to develop and grow until it became a leg with feet and five toes. After billions of years when the second leg also developed you were able to walk instead of hop. That is one of the explanations that has been offered for the development of the legs. I sort of agree with Paul, they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. And professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

You see, to rule God out is the stance of the fool, for the fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." And to try to understand the universe apart from God is impossible without getting into all kinds of fanciful, unbelievable preposterous speculations which is nothing more than sheer foolishness but is being passed off as scientific poppycock.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

Because they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man ( Romans 1:23 ),

They made God like man. They thought of God in terms of man. Sought to bring God down to man's level. The glory of an incorruptible God now made to look like man by the little idol or images that they have carved or drawn.

like birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things ( Romans 1:23 ).

As you look at the objects of worship of the ancient men, ancient people, you see these grotesque looking creatures that were representation of the deities of the various people, and you realize what Paul is talking about, man seeking to corrupt God.

Now because of this,

God also gave them up to uncleanness [or filthiness] through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: for they changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever ( Romans 1:24-25 ).

So God gave them up to these filthy lusts in their own hearts. I can remember that when I was a boy in junior high school, the fellows would smuggle around these sunshine and health magazines. That was about as pornographic as you could get. Magazines that dealt with nudism in the U. S. These were the things the guys would snicker over and it was just, you had to have your connections to even get a copy of them. I think in my lifetime how far we have sunk. Because you can go into practically any grocery store, any drug store, and you can pick up these magazines today with all kinds of implicit pictures that are designed to arouse and stimulate the flesh. We realize that we are seeing the consequences of God giving men up to uncleanness through their lusts. The moral downward spiral that we are observing in our society is concurrent with the teaching of evolution, the denial of the existence of God. Trying to understand our universe apart from God. And the result of man wanting to rule God out of his mind and out of the thinking processes is that God gives man over to a mind in which he can go ahead and sink into the filthiness of his own heart.

Beginning to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, for they exchanged the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. You see, by the evolutionary theory the creature becomes God, it is the almighty cell and its tremendous propensities to make these phenomenal changes to develop all of the forms of life that we can see. The marvelous adaptabilities in nature. It becomes God. They worship and serve the creature more than the Creator.

They look at nature irrationally, deifying nature rather than worshiping the God who created nature. Whenever you stop at nature and you worship nature, you're stopping one step short. That is irrational to look at nature and say, "That is God." It is looking at nature and saying, "That is the creation of God," and letting nature speak to you of God, that is the rational way to observe nature. So man became irrational in his observation of nature and he worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever.

For this cause God gave them up to unnatural affections: for even their women did exchange the natural use for that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men doing that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was necessary. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are [unspeakable,] not convenient, [not proper] ( Romans 1:26-28 );

Man's degradation, the downward spiral, can we observe it? You bet we can in the day in which we live. We see these very things of which Paul warned and spoke as man has sought to eliminate God from his mind, from his life, from our schools, the awareness the consciousness of God. We see the inevitable consequences in a society that is going deeper into the cesspool of immorality. We see the downward trend. Being filled with all unrighteousness, now they held the truth of God in unrighteousness, but now they don't even hold the truth of God anymore, God gave them over to reprobate minds and thus,

They are filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, spiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affections, implacable, unmerciful ( Romans 1:29-31 ):

Sounds like the morning newspaper. We are surrounded. We see the inevitable consequences of man trying to rule God out of his life. We see it in our society in which we live, these very things, prevalent in our society.

Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them ( Romans 1:32 ).

Now you watch soap operas? Do you enjoying watching soap operas? Do you enjoy watching Dallas? Do you enjoy watching a murder mystery? Do you enjoy watching movies that have these X-rated features to them? If you enjoy watching these things, then are you not taking pleasure in those who do them? You see, you may go off very self righteously and say, "I never commit fornication. I have never murdered anybody, or I have never done this or that or the other." But Paul says, "Not only do they do them, but they take pleasure in those that do them." That is a person actually enjoys reading about it. Or a person enjoys watching it portrayed. Things that I wouldn't think about doing myself, but there is some kind of an excitement watching someone else do it. That is taking pleasure in those that do. Be careful, God help us. We are being bombarded on every side by Satan's wiles, seeking to snare us, draw us in. Because it is fascinating, it is interesting, "Oh, it is just life and I am just interested in life." Rationalize how you please. Be careful if you take pleasure in people who do these things, watching them do these things.

"

Contending for the Faith

And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:

And declared to be the Son of God with power: By using the qualifying statement in verse 3, "according to the flesh," Paul indicates that God’s Son, who is the principal subject of the gospel to which Paul has been separated, is not defined completely by His human nature. There is more to be said of Him. As to His spiritual nature, He was declared to be the Son of God with power. Declared is o(risqe/nto$, which means "to characterize with precision or to set forth distinctively" (AGLP 297). Having established His human nature as a descendant of David, Paul now reveals the spiritual nature of God’s Son. According to Jesus’ spiritual nature, He was marked out to be, not David’s son, but the Son of God.

The proof that Jesus Christ is the Son of God was His resurrection from the dead. This was the crowning miracle that established beyond question His divine Sonship. It is worthy of note that Paul does not say that Jesus became God’s Son at His resurrection from the dead. Rather he states that His resurrection miraculously validated His divine Sonship. In contrast to His being God’s Son by His apparent weakness and poverty during His earthy sojourn, He was appointed God’s Son by the miraculous power of His resurrection from the dead.

according to the spirit of holiness: There is needless controversy over this phrase. The Holy Spirit as a member of the Godhead is not under consideration here at all. The contrast is between "according to the flesh" of verse 3 and "according to the spirit of holiness" in verse 4. The alternate rendering of this phrase, which is footnoted in the New International Version, is accurate: "and who as to His spirit of holiness." In verse 3, Jesus is the son of David according to His humanity. In verse 4, He is the Son of God according to His own holy spirit. By comparison, consider Hebrews 9:14 where the reference is to Christ’s own personal "eternal spirit" and not to the Holy Spirit. Numerous renowned scholars like J.W. McGarvey, James Macknight, Henry Alford, A.T. Robertson, Beet, and others support this view.

by the resurrection from the dead: The resurrection of Jesus does not mark the beginning of His divine Sonship. He did not become God’s Son on account of or by virtue of His resurrection. Rather the resurrection marked Him out distinctively as God’s Son. It was the proof of His divinity.

Thus, the gospel Paul preaches has Jesus Christ, the son of David and the Son of God, as its center. He is the One whom Paul designates as "our Lord." The entirety of the gospel to which Paul has been separated is encompassed by two great facts:

1.    Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah from the line of David.

2.    God has demonstrated that He is the Son of God in power by His resurrection from the dead and has given Him a name that is above every name—the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

A. Salutation 1:1-7

The salutation, which is the longest salutation in Paul’s epistles, identifies the writer (Romans 1:1), introduces the subject of the letter (Romans 1:2-5), and greets the original readers (Romans 1:6-7). This first sentence (Romans 1:1-7) implicitly sets forth the most fundamental facts of Christianity. In particular, it shows that the main facts of the gospel fulfill Old Testament predictions.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

I. INTRODUCTION 1:1-17

This great epistle begins with a broad perspective. It looks at the promise of a Savior in the Old Testament, reviews Paul’s ministry to date, and surveys the religious history of the Gentile world.

"The main body of Romans is a treatise on Paul’s gospel, bracketed by an epistolary opening (Romans 1:1-17) and conclusion (Romans 15:14 to Romans 16:27). These opening and concluding statements have many similarities, not the least of which is the emphasis on the gospel. (Eight of the 11 occurrences in Romans of euangelion ["gospel"] and euangelizomia ["to evangelize"] are in these passages.) Paul’s special relationship to this gospel, a relationship that encompasses the Roman Christians, both opens and closes the strictly ’epistolary’ introductory material in the section (Romans 1:1-5; Romans 1:13-15)." [Note: Ibid., p. 39. See The Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament, p. 439, for a chart comparing Paul’s introductions to his epistles.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. The subject of the epistle 1:2-5

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Paul identified the gospel’s theme to exalt it further. The gospel centers on God’s Son, Jesus Christ, who was both human and divine. The phrases "according to the flesh" (Romans 1:3) and "according to the Spirit" (Romans 1:4) probably do not contrast the natures of Christ but His relationships. [Note: James M. Stifler, The Epistle to the Romans, pp. 24-25; Bruce, p. 69.] He belonged to two realms. As to his human earthly connection, His origin was the highest. He was not just an Israelite (Romans 9:5) but a son of David (Matthew 1:1; Luke 1:32; Acts 13:22-23; 2 Timothy 2:8), which was a messianic qualification (Isaiah 11:1).

Concerning the realm above He was higher than the angels (Hebrews 1:4), the very Son of God (Romans 1:4). The word "power" probably modifies the Son rather than the declaration. Paul probably meant that God declared Jesus to be His powerful Son rather than that God powerfully declared that Jesus was His Son. The point of this passage is the greatness of Jesus, not the wonder of the resurrection.

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse." [Note: C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 41.]

Jesus was always the Son of God, but the Father declared Him to be the Son by resurrecting Him. Jesus did not change in essence-He always was the Son-but in status and function. God appointed the Son to a new and more powerful position in relation to the world at the Resurrection (cf. Matthew 28:18). He is now not only the Messiah but the Lord of all. [Note: See S. Lewis Johnson Jr., "The Jesus That Paul Preached," Bibliotheca Sacra 128:510 (April-June 1971):120-34.]

To what does "the Spirit of holiness" (Romans 1:4) refer? It may be another way of referring to the Holy Spirit. [Note: C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, p. 19; F. Godet, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, p. 80; Bruce, p. 69; John A. Witmer, "Romans," in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament, p. 440.] Nevertheless in view of the parallel expression "according to the flesh" (Romans 1:3) and the fact that Paul could have said "Holy Spirit" if that is what he meant, probably Paul was referring to the holy nature of Jesus. Jesus’ nature was so holy that death could not hold Him. [Note: Everett F. Harrison, "Romans," in Romans-Galatians, vol. 10 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, p. 15; Sanday and Headlam, p. 9; Stifler, p. 25; A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 4:324.]

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 1

A CALL, A GOSPEL AND A TASK ( Romans 1:1-7 )

1:1-7 This is a letter from Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart to serve the good news of God. This good news God promised long ago, through his prophets, in the sacred writings. It is good news about his Son, who in his manhood was born of David's lineage, who, as a result of his Resurrection from the dead, has been proved by the Holy Spirit to be the mighty Son of God. It is of Jesus Christ, our Lord, of whom I am speaking, through whom we have received grace, and an apostleship to awaken a faithful obedience for his sake amongst all the Gentiles. You are included amongst these Gentiles, you who have been called to belong to Jesus Christ. This is a letter to all the beloved in Rome who belong to God, those who have been called to be dedicated to him. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

When Paul wrote his letter to the Romans he was writing to a church which he did not know personally and in which he had never been. He was writing to a church which was situated in the greatest city in the greatest empire in the world. Because of that he chose his words and thoughts with the greatest care.

He begins by giving his own credentials.

(i) He calls himself the slave (doulos, G1401) of Jesus Christ. In this word slave there are two backgrounds of thought.

(a) Paul's favourite title for Jesus is Lord (kurios, G2962) . In Greek the word kurios ( G2962) describes someone who has undisputed possession of a person or a thing. It means master or owner in the most absolute sense. The opposite of Lord (kurios, G2962) is slave (doulos, G1401) . Paul thought of himself as the slave of Jesus Christ, his Master and his Lord. Jesus had loved him and given himself for him, and therefore Paul was sure that he no longer belonged to himself, but entirely to Jesus. On the one side slave describes the utter obligation of love.

(b) But slave (doulos, G1401) has another side to it. In the Old Testament it is the regular word to describe the great men of God. Moses was the doulos ( G1401) of the Lord ( Joshua 1:2). Joshua was the doulos ( G1401) of God ( Joshua 24:29). The proudest title of the prophets, the title which distinguished them from other men, was that they were the slaves of God ( Amos 3:7; Jeremiah 7:25). When Paul calls himself the slave of Jesus Christ he is setting himself in the succession of the prophets. Their greatness and their glory lay in the fact that they were slaves of God, and so did his.

So then, the slave of Jesus Christ describes at one and the same time the obligation of a great love and the honour of a great office.

(ii) Paul describes himself as called to be an apostle. In the Old Testament the great men were men who heard and answered the call of God. Abraham heard the call of God ( Genesis 12:1-3). Moses answered God's call ( Exodus 3:10). Jeremiah and Isaiah were prophets because, almost against their will, they were compelled to listen to and to answer the call of God ( Jeremiah 1:4-5; Isaiah 6:8-9). Paul never thought of himself as a man who had aspired to an honour; he thought of himself as a man who had been given a task. Jesus said to his men, "You did not choose me, but I chose you" ( John 15:16). Paul did not think of life in terms of what he wanted to do, but in terms of what God meant him to do.

(iii) Paul describes himself as set apart to serve the good news of God. He was conscious of a double setting apart in his life. Twice in his life this very same word (aphorizein, G873) is used of him.

(a) He was set apart by God. He thought of God as separating him for the task he was to do even before he was born ( Galatians 1:15). For every man God has a plan; no man's life is purposeless. God sent him into the world to do some definite thing.

(b) He was set apart by men, when the Holy Spirit told the leaders of the Church at Antioch to separate him and Barnabas for the special mission to the Gentiles ( Acts 13:2). Paul was conscious of having a task to do for God and for the Church of God.

(iv) In this setting apart Paul was aware of having received two things. In Romans 1:5 he tells us what these two things were.

(a) He had received grace. Grace always describes some gift which is absolutely free and absolutely unearned. In his pre-Christian days Paul had sought to earn glory in the eyes of men and merit in the sight of God by meticulous observance of the works of the law, and he had found no peace that way. Now he knew that what mattered was not what he could do, but what God had done. It has been put this way, "The law lays down what a man must do; the gospel lays down what God has done." Paul now saw that salvation depended not on what man's effort could do, but on what God's love had done. All was of grace, free and undeserved.

(b) He had received a task. He was set apart to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Paul knew himself to be chosen not for special honour, but for special responsibility. He knew that God had set him apart, not for glory, but for toil. It may well be that there is a play on words here. Once Paul had been a Pharisee ( Php_3:5 ). Pharisee may very well mean The Separated One. It may be that the Pharisees were so called because they had deliberately separated themselves from all ordinary people and would not even let the skirt of their robe brush against an ordinary man. They would have shuddered at the very thought of the offer of God being made to the Gentiles, who to them were "fuel for the fires of hell." Once Paul had been like that. He had felt himself separated in such a way as to have nothing but contempt for all ordinary men. Now he knew himself to be separated in such a way that he must spend all his life to bring the news of God's love to every man of every race. Christianity always separates us, but it separates us not for privilege and self-glory and pride, but for service and humility and love for all men.

Besides giving his own credentials Paul, in this passage, sets out in its most essential outline the gospel which he preached. It was a gospel which centred in Jesus Christ ( Romans 1:3-4). In particular it was a gospel of two things.

(a) It was a gospel of the Incarnation. He told of a Jesus who was really and truly a man. One of the great early thinkers of the Church summed it up when he said of Jesus, "He became what we are, to make us what he is." Paul preached of someone who was not a legendary figure in an imaginary story, not a demigod, half god and half man. He preached of one who was really and truly one with the men he came to save.

(b) It was a gospel of the Resurrection. If Jesus had lived a lovely life and died an heroic death, and if that had been the end of him, he might have been numbered with the great and the heroic, but he would simply have been one among many. His uniqueness is guaranteed forever by the fact of the Resurrection. The others are dead and gone, and have left a memory. Jesus lives on and gives us a presence, still mighty with power.

THE COURTESY OF GREATNESS ( Romans 1:8-15 )

1:8-15 To begin with, I thank my God for you all through Jesus Christ. I thank him that the story of your faith is told throughout the whole world. God, whom I serve in my spirit in the work of spreading the good news of his Son, is my witness that I continually talk to him about you. In my prayers I am always asking that somehow, soon, at last, I may by God's will succeed in finding a way to come to you. For I yearn to see you, that I may give you a share of some gift which the Spirit gives, so that you may be firmly founded in the faith--what I mean is, that you and I may find encouragement together, I through your faith and you through mine. I want you to know, brothers, that I have often planned to come to you--and up until now I have been prevented from doing so--that I might have some fruit among you too, as I have amongst the rest of the Gentiles. I am under a duty to Greeks and to barbarians, to wise and to foolish. So, then, it is my eager wish to preach the good news to you too in Rome.

After almost nineteen hundred years the warm affection of this passage still breathes through it, and we can feel Paul's great heart throbbing with love for the Church which he had never seen. Paul's problem in writing this letter was that he had never been in Rome and had had no share in founding the Roman Church. He had to make them feel that he was not a trespasser on their preserves, interfering where he had no right to intervene. Before he could do anything else, he had to get alongside them so that the barriers of strangeness and suspicion might be broken down.

(i) Paul, in wisdom and love combined, began with a compliment. He told them that he thanked God for that Christian faith of theirs which all the world knew. There are some people whose tongues are tuned to praise, and others whose tongues are tuned to criticize. There are some people whose eyes are focused to find faults, and others whose eyes are focused to discover virtues. It was said of Thomas Hardy that, if he went into a country field, he would always see, not the wild flowers, but the dung-heap in the corner. But the fact remains that we will always get far more out of people by praising them than by criticizing them. The men who get the best out of others are the men who insist on seeing them at their best.

There never was, and never has been, anything quite so beautiful as the civilization of the Greeks at its highest and its best, and T. R. Glover once said that it was founded on "a blind faith in the average man." One of the great figures of the 1914-18 war was Donald Hankey, who wrote The Student in Arms. He saw men at their best and at their worst. He once wrote home, "If I survive this war I want to write a book called 'The Living Goodness,' analysing all the goodness and nobility inherent in plain people, and trying to show how it ought to find fulfilment and expression in the Church." He also wrote a great essay entitled The Beloved Captain. He describes how the beloved captain picked out the awkward ones and taught them himself. "He looked at them and they looked at him, and the men pulled themselves together and determined to do their best."

No one can ever even begin to save men unless he first believes in them. A man is a hell-deserving sinner, but he has also a sleeping hero in his soul, and often a word of praise will awaken that sleeping heroism when criticism and condemnation will only produce resentment and despair. Aidan was the apostle to the Saxons. Away back in A.D. 630 the Saxon king had sent to Iona a request that a missionary should be sent to his kingdom to preach the gospel. The missionary came back talking of the "stubborn and barbarous disposition of the English." "The English have no manners," he said, "they behave like savages." He reported that the task was hopeless, and then Aidan spoke. "I think, brother," he said, "that you may have been too severe for such ignorant hearers, and that you should have led them on gently, giving them first the milk of religion before the meat." So Aidan was sent to Northumbria, and his gentleness won for Christ that very people whom the critical severity of his brother monk had repelled.

(ii) Although Paul did not know the people at Rome personally he nevertheless constantly prayed to God for them. It is ever a Christian privilege and duty to bear our loved ones and all our fellow-Christians to the throne of grace. In one of his sermons on the Lord's Prayer, Gregory of Nyssa has a lyrical passage on prayer:

"The effect of prayer is union with God, and, if someone is

with God, he is separated from the enemy. Through prayer we

guard our chastity, control our temper and rid ourselves of

vanity. It makes us forget injuries, overcomes envy, defeats

injustice and makes amends for sin. Through prayer we obtain

physical well-being, a happy home, and a strong, well-ordered

society. Prayer is the seal of virginity and a pledge of

faithfulness in marriage. It shields the wayfarer, protects the

sleeper, and gives courage to those who keep vigil. It will

refresh you when you are weary and comfort you when you are

sorrowful. Prayer is the delight of the joyful as well as the

solace of the afflicted. Prayer is intimacy with God and

contemplation of the invisible. Prayer is the enjoyment of

things present and the substance of the things to come."

Even if we are separated from people, and even if there is no other gift which we can give to them, we can surround them with the strength and the defence of our prayers.

(iii) Paul, in his humility, was always ready to receive as well as to give. He began by saying that he wished to come to Rome that he might impart to the Roman Church some gift which would confirm them in the faith. And then he changed it. He wished to come to Rome that he and the Roman Church might comfort and strengthen each other, and that each might find precious things in the faith of the other. There are two kinds of teachers. There are those whose attitude is that they are standing above their scholars and telling them what they should and must accept. And there are those who, in effect, say, "Come now, let's learn about this together." Paul was the greatest thinker the Early Church ever produced, and yet, when he thought of the people to whom he longed to preach, he thought of himself not only as giving to them but also as receiving from them. It takes humility to teach as it takes humility to learn.

(iv) Romans 8:14 has in Greek a double meaning that is almost untranslatable. The Revised Standard Version has it, "I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians." Paul was thinking of two things when he wrote that. He was under obligation because of all the kindness that he had received, and he was under obligation to preach to them. This highly compressed sentence means, "Because of all that I have received from them and because of all it is my duty to give to them, I am under an obligation to all sorts of men."

It may seem strange that Paul speaks of Greeks when he is writing to Romans. At this time the word Greek had lost its racial sense altogether. It did not mean a native of the country of Greece. The conquests of Alexander the Great had taken the Greek language and Greek thought all over the world. And a Greek was no longer only one who was a Greek by race and birth; he was one who knew the culture and the mind of Greece. A barbarian is literally a man who says bar-bar, that is to say a man who speaks an ugly and an unharmonious tongue in contrast with the man who speaks the beautiful, flexible language of Greek. To be a Greek was to be a man of a certain mind and spirit and culture. One of the Greeks said of his own people, "The barbarians may stumble on the truth, but it takes a Greek to understand."

What Paul meant was that his message, his friendship, his obligation was to wise and simple, cultured and uncultured, lettered and unlettered. He had a message for the world, and it was his ambition some day to deliver that message in Rome too.

GOOD NEWS OF WHICH TO BE PROUD ( Romans 1:16-17 )

1:16-17 I am proud of the good news, for it is the power of God which produces salvation for every one who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek. The way to a right relationship with God is revealed in it when man's faith responds to God's fidelity, just as it stands written, "It is the man who is in a right relationship with God as a result of his faith who will live."

When we come to these two verses, the preliminaries are over and the trumpet call of Paul's gospel sounds out. Many of the great piano concertos begin with a crashing chord and then state the theme which they are going to develop. The reason is that they were often first performed at private gatherings in great houses. When the pianist first seated himself at the piano, there was still a buzz of conversation. He played the crashing chord to attract the attention of the company, and then, when attention was obtained, the theme was stated. Up to these two verses, Paul has been making contact with the people to whom he was writing; he has been attracting their attention. Now the introduction is over, and the theme is stated.

There are only two verses here, but they contain so much of the quintessence of Paul's gospel that we must spend some considerable time on them.

Paul began by saying that he was proud of the gospel which it was his privilege to preach. It is amazing to think of the background of that statement. Paul had been imprisoned in Philippi, chased out of Thessalonica, smuggled out of Beroea, laughed at in Athens and in Corinth his message was foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling-block to the Jews. Out of that background he declared that he was proud of the gospel. There was something in the gospel which made Paul triumphantly victorious over all that men could do to him.

In this passage we meet three great Pauline watchwords, the three foundation pillars of his thought and belief.

(i) There is the conception of salvation (soteria, G4991) . At this time in history salvation was the one thing for which men were searching. There had been a time when Greek philosophy was speculative. Four and five hundred years before this men had spent their time discussing the problem--what is the one basic element of which the world is composed? Philosophy had been speculative philosophy and it had been natural philosophy. But, bit by bit, as the centuries passed, life fell in. The old landmarks were destroyed. Tyrants and conquerors and perils surrounded men; degeneracy and weakness haunted them; and philosophy changed its emphasis. It became, not speculative, but practical. It ceased to be natural philosophy, and became moral philosophy. Its one aim was to build "a ring-wall of defence against the advancing chaos of the world."

Epictetus called his lecture room the hospital for the sick soul. "Epicurus called his teaching the medicine of salvation." Seneca, who was contemporary with Paul, said that all men were looking, ad salutem, towards salvation. What we needed, he said, was "a hand let down to lift us up." Men, he said, were overwhelmingly conscious of "their weakness and their inefficiency in necessary things." He himself, he said, was homo non tolerabilis, a man not to be tolerated. Men loved their vices, he said with a sort of despair, and hated them at the same time. In that desperate world, Epictetus said, men were seeking a peace "not of Caesar's proclamation, but of God's."

There can seldom have been a time in history when men were more universally seeking for salvation. It was precisely that salvation, that power, that escape, that Christianity came to offer men.

Let us see just what this Christian soteria ( G4991) , this Christian salvation was.

(a) It was salvation from physical illness. ( Matthew 9:21; Luke 8:36.) It was not a completely other--worldly thing. It aimed at rescuing a man in body and in soul.

(b) It was salvation from danger. ( Matthew 8:25; Matthew 14:30.) It was not that it gave a man a life free from perils and dangers, but it gave him a security of soul no matter what was happening. As Rupert Brooke wrote in the days of the First World War in his poem Safety:

"Safe shall be my going,

Secretly armed against all death's endeavour;

Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall;

And if these poor limbs die, safest of all."

And as Browning had it in Paracelsus:

"If I stoop,

Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,

It is but for a time; I press God's lamp

Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late,

Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day."

The Christian salvation makes a man safe in a way that is independent of any outward circumstance.

(c) It was salvation from life's infection. It is from a crooked and perverse generation that a man is saved ( Acts 2:40). The man who has this Christian salvation has a kind of divine antiseptic which keeps him from infection by the evil of the world.

(d) It was salvation from lostness ( Matthew 18:11; Luke 19:10). It was to seek and to save the lost that Jesus came. The unsaved man is the man who is on the wrong road, a road that leads to death. The saved man is the man who has been put on the right way.

(e) It was salvation from sin ( Matthew 1:21). Men are like slaves in bondage to a master from whom they cannot escape. The Christian salvation liberates them from the tyranny of sin.

(f) It was salvation from the wrath of God ( Romans 5:9). We shall have occasion in the next passage to discuss the meaning of this phrase. It is sufficient to note at the moment that there is in this world an inexorable moral law and in the Christian faith an inevitable element of judgment. Without the salvation which Jesus Christ brings a man could only stand condemned.

(g) It was a salvation which is eschatological. That is to say it is a salvation which find its full meaning and blessedness in the final triumph of Jesus Christ ( Romans 13:11; 1 Corinthians 5:5; 2 Timothy 4:18; 1 Peter 1:5).

The Christian faith came to a desperate world offering a salvation which would keep a man safe in time and in eternity.

(ii) There is the conception of faith. In the thought of Paul this is a rich word.

(a) At its simplest it means loyalty. When Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, he wished to know about their faith. That is, he wished to know how their loyalty was standing the test. In 2 Thessalonians 1:4 faith and steadfastness are combined. Faith is the enduring fidelity which marks the real soldier of Jesus Christ.

(b) Faith means belief. It means the conviction that something is true. In 1 Corinthians 15:17 Paul tells the Corinthians that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then their faith is vain, all that they have believed is wrecked. Faith is the assent that the Christian message is true.

(c) Faith sometimes means the Christian Religion (The Faith). In 2 Corinthians 13:5 Paul tells his opponents to examine themselves to see if they are holding to their faith, that is, to see if they are still within the Christian Religion.

(d) Faith is sometimes practically equivalent to indestructible hope. "We walk," writes Paul, "by faith and not by sight" ( 2 Corinthians 5:7).

(e) But, in its most characteristic Pauline use, faith means total acceptance and absolute trust. It means "betting your life that there is a God." It means being utterly sure that what Jesus said is true, and staking all time and eternity on that assurance. "I believe in God," said Stevenson, "and if I woke up in hell I would still believe in him."

Faith begins with receptivity. It begins when a man is at least willing to listen to the message of the truth. It goes on to mental assent. A man first hears and then agrees that this is true. But mental assent need not issue in action. Many a man knows very well that something is true, but does not change his actions to meet that knowledge. The final stage is when this mental assent becomes total surrender. In full-fledged faith, a man hears the Christian message, agrees that it is true, and then casts himself upon it in a life of total yieldedness.

(iii) There is the conception of justification. Now there are no more difficult words to understand than justification, justify, justice and just, in all the New Testament. We shall have much occasion in this letter to meet them. At this point we can only lay down the broad lines on which all Paul's thought proceeds.

The Greek verb that Paul uses for "to justify" is dikaioun ( G1344) , of which the first person singular of the present indicative--I justify--is dikaioo ( G1344) . We must be quite clear that the word justify, used in this sense, has a different meaning from its ordinary English meaning. If we justify ourselves, we produce reasons to prove that we were right; if someone justifies us, he produces reasons to prove that we acted in the right way. But all verbs in Greek which end in "oo" do not mean to prove or to make a person or thing to be something; they always mean to treat, or account or reckon a person as something. If God justifies a sinner, it does not mean that he finds reasons to prove that he was right--far from it. It does not even mean, at this point, that he makes the sinner a good man. It means that God treats the sinner as if he had not been a sinner at all. Instead of treating him as a criminal to be obliterated, God treats him as a child to be loved. That is what justification means. It means that God reckons us not as his enemies but as his friends, not as bad men deserve, but as good men deserve, not as law-breakers to be punished, but as men and women to be loved. That is the very essence of the gospel.

That means that to be justified is to enter into a new relationship with God, a relationship of love and confidence and friendship, instead of one of distance and enmity and fear. We no longer go to a God radiating just but terrible punishment. We go to a God radiating forgiving and redeeming love. Justification (dikaiosune, G1343) is the right relationship between God and man. The man who is just (dikaios, G1342) is the man who is in this right relationship, and--here is the supreme point--he is in it not because of anything that he has done, but because of what God has done. He is in this right relationship not because he has meticulously performed the works of the law, but because in utter faith he has cast himself on the amazing mercy and love of God.

In the King James Version we have the famous and highly compressed phrase, The just shall live by faith. Now we can see that in Paul's mind this phrase meant--It is the man who is in a right relationship with God, not because of the works of his hands, but because of his utter faith in what the love of God has done, who really knows what life is like in time and in eternity. And to Paul the whole work of Jesus was that he had enabled men to enter into this new and precious relationship with God. Fear was gone and love had come. The God whom men had thought an enemy had become a friend.

THE WRATH OF GOD ( Romans 1:18-23 )

1:18-23 For the wrath of God is being revealed from Heaven, directed against all impiousness and wickedness of men, who, in their wickedness, wilfully suppress the truth that is struggling in their hearts, for, that which can be known about God is clear within them, for God has made it clear to them, because, from the creation of the world, it has always been possible to understand the invisible things by the created things--I mean his invisible power and divinity--and things have been so ordered in order to leave them without defence, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify God and they did not give him thanks, but they have involved themselves in futile speculations and their senseless mind was darkened. They alleged themselves to be wise, but they have become fools, and they have exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the image of the likeness of mortal man, and of winged creatures, and of four-footed animals, and of creeping reptiles.

In the previous passage Paul was thinking about the relationship with God into which a man can enter through the faith which is utter yieldedness and trust. In contrast with that he sets the wrath of God which a man must incur, if he is deliberately blind to God and worships his own thoughts and idols instead of him.

This is difficult and must give us seriously to think, for here we meet the conception of the wrath of God, an alarming and a terrifying phrase. What is its meaning? What was in Paul's mind when he used it?

In the early parts of the Old Testament the wrath of God is specially connected with the idea of the covenant people. The people of Israel were in a special relationship with God. He had chosen them and offered them this special relationship, which would obtain so long as they kept his law ( Exodus 24:3-8). That meant two things.

(a) It meant that within the nation any breach of the law provoked the wrath of God for it broke the relationship. Numbers 16:1-50 tells of the rebelliousness of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and at the end of it Moses bade Aaron make special atonement for the sin of the people "for wrath has gone forth from the Lord" ( Numbers 16:46). When the Israelites were led away into Baal worship, "The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel" ( Numbers 25:3).

(b) Further, because Israel stood in a unique relationship to God, any other nation which treated her with cruelty and injustice incurred the wrath of God. The Babylonians had ill-treated Israel, and because of the wrath of the Lord she shall not be inhabited ( Jeremiah 50:13).

In the prophets, the idea of the wrath of God occurs, but the emphasis has changed. Jewish religious thought from the prophets onwards was dominated by the idea of the two ages. There was this age which was altogether bad, and there was the golden age which was altogether good, the present age and the age to come. These two ages were separated by the Day of the Lord. That was to be a day of terrible retribution and judgment, when the world would be shattered, the sinner destroyed and the universe remade before God's Kingdom came. It was then that the wrath of the Lord would go into terrible action. "Behold the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation" ( Isaiah 13:9). "Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts" ( Isaiah 9:19). Ezekiel 7:19 speaks of "the day of the wrath of the Lord." God will pour out upon the nations "his indignation and all the heat of his anger" ( Zephaniah 3:8).

But the prophets did not regard the wrath of God as being postponed until that terrible day of judgment. They saw it continuously in action. When Israel strayed away from God, when she was rebellious and unfaithful, then the wrath of God operated against her and involved her in ruin, disaster, captivity and defeat.

To the prophets the wrath of God was continually operating, and would reach its peak of terror and destruction on the coming Day of the Lord.

A modern scholar has put it this way. Because he is God, because he is characteristically holy, God cannot tolerate sin, and the wrath of God is his "annihilating reaction" against sin.

That is hard for us to grasp and to accept. It is in fact the kind of religion that we associate with the Old Testament rather than with the New. Even Luther found it hard. He spoke of God's love as Gods own work, and he spoke of his wrath as Gods strange work. It is for the Christian mind a baffling thing.

Let us try to see how Paul understood this conception. Dr C. H. Dodd writes very wisely and profoundly on this matter. Paul speaks frequently of this idea of wrath. But the strange thing is that although he speaks of the wrath of God, he never speaks of God being angry. He speaks of God's love, and he speaks of God loving. He speaks of God's grace, and of God graciously giving. He speaks of God's fidelity, and of God being faithful to his people. But, very strangely, although he speaks of the wrath of God, he never speaks about God being angry. So then there is some difference in the connection with God of love and wrath.

Further, Paul speaks of the wrath of God only three times. He does so here, and in Ephesians 5:6 and Colossians 3:6 where, in both passages, he speaks of the wrath of God coming upon the children of disobedience. But quite frequently Paul speaks about the wrath, without saying it is the wrath of God, as if it ought to be spelled with capital letters--The Wrath--and was a kind of impersonal force at work in the world. In Romans 3:5 the literal translation is, "God who brings on men The Wrath." In Romans 5:9 he speaks about being saved from the wrath. In Romans 12:19 he advises men not to take vengeance but to leave evil-doers to the wrath. In Romans 13:5 he speaks about the wrath as being a powerful motive to keep men obedient. In Romans 4:15 he says that the law produces wrath. And in 1 Thessalonians 1:10 he says that Jesus delivered us from The Wrath to come. Now there is something very strange here. Paul speaks about the wrath, and yet from that very wrath Jesus saves men.

Let us go back to the prophets. Very often their message amounted to this, "If you are not obedient to God, the wrath of God will involve you in ruin and disaster." Ezekiel put this in another vivid way--"The soul that sins shall die" ( Ezekiel 18:4). If we were to put this into modern language we would say, "There is a moral order in this world, and the man who transgresses it soon or late is bound to suffer." That is exactly what J. A. Froude the great historian said: "One lesson, and one lesson only, history may be said to repeat with distinctness, that the world is built somehow on moral foundations, that, in the long run, it is well with the good, and, in the long run, it will be ill with the wicked."

The whole message of the Hebrew prophets was that there is a moral order in this world. The conclusion is clear--that moral order is the wrath of God at work. God made this world in such a way that we break his laws at our peril. Now if we were left solely at the mercy of that inexorable moral order, there could be nothing for us but death and destruction. The world is made in such a way that the soul that sins must die--if the moral order is to act alone. But into this dilemma of man there comes the love of God, and that love of God, by an act of unbelievable free grace, lifts man out of the consequences of sin and saves him from the wrath he should have incurred.

Paul goes on to insist that men cannot plead ignorance of God. They could have seen what he is like from his world. It is always possible to tell something of a man from his handiwork; and it is possible to tell something about God from the world he made. The Old Testament writers knew that. Job 38:1-41; Job 39:1-30; Job 40:1-24; Job 41:1-34, is based on that very idea. Paul knew it. It is from the world that he starts when he is speaking to the pagans at Lystra ( Acts 14:17). Tertullian, the great early Christian Father, has much about this conviction that God can be seen in his world. "It was not the pen of Moses that initiated the knowledge of the Creator. The vast majority of mankind, though they had never heard the name of Moses--to say nothing of his book--know the God of Moses none the less." "Nature," he said, "is the teacher; the soul is the pupil." "One flower of the hedgerow by itself, I think--I do not say a flower of the meadows; one shell of any sea you like--I do not say a pearl from the Red Sea; one feather of a moor fowl--to say nothing of a peacock--will they speak to you of a mean Creator?" "If I offer you a rose, you will not scorn its Creator."

In the world we can see God. It is Paul's argument--and it is completely valid--that if we look at the world we see that suffering follows sin. Break the laws of agriculture--your harvest fails. Break the laws of architecture--your building collapses. Break the laws of health--your body suffers. Paul was saying "Look at the world! See how it is constructed! From a world like that you know what God is like." The sinner is left without excuse.

Paul goes on another step. What did the sinner do? Instead of looking out to God, he looked into himself. He involved himself in vain speculations and thought he was wise, while all the time he was a fool. Why? He was a fool because he made his ideas, his opinions, his speculations the standard and the law of life, instead of the will of God. The sinner's folly consisted in making "man the master of things." He found his standards in his own opinions and not in the laws of God. He lived in a self-centred instead of a God-centred universe. Instead of walking looking out to God he walked looking into himself, and, like any man who does not look where he is going, he fell.

The result of this was idolatry. The glory of God was exchanged for images of human and animal forms. The root sin of idolatry is that it is selfish. A man makes an idol. He brings it offerings and addresses prayers to it. Why? So that his own schemes and dreams may be furthered. His worship is for his own sake and not for God's.

In this passage we are face to face with the fact that the essence of sin is to put self in the place of God.

MEN WITH WHOM GOD CAN DO NOTHING ( Romans 1:24-25 )

1:24-25 So then God abandoned them to uncleanness in their hearts' passionate desires for pleasure, desires which made them dishonour their bodies among themselves, for they are men who have exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, and who worship and serve the creation more than they do the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

The word translated desires (epithumia, G1939) is the key to this passage. Aristotle defined epithumia ( G1939) as a reaching out after pleasure. The Stoics defined it as a reaching after pleasure which defies all reason. Clement of Alexandria called it an unreasonable reaching for that which will gratify itself. Epithumia ( G1939) is the passionate desire for forbidden pleasure. It is the desire which makes men do nameless and shameless things. It is the way of life of a man who has become so completely immersed in the world that he has ceased to be aware of God at all.

It is a terrible thing to talk of God abandoning anyone. And yet there are two reasons for that.

(i) God gave man free-will, and he respects that free-will. In the last analysis not even he can interfere with it. In Ephesians 4:19 Paul speaks of men who have abandoned themselves to lasciviousness; they have surrendered their whole will to it. Hosea ( Hosea 4:17) has the terrible sentence: "Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone." Before man there stands an open choice; and it has to be so. Without choice there can be no goodness and without choice there can be no love. A coerced goodness is not real goodness; and a coerced love is not love at all. If men deliberately choose to turn their backs on God after he has sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world, not even he can do anything about it.

When Paul speaks of God abandoning men to uncleanness, the word abandon has no angry irritation in it. Indeed, its main note is not even condemnation and judgment, but wistful, sorrowful regret, as of a lover who has done all that he can and can do no more. It describes exactly the feeling of the father when he saw his son turn his back on his home and go out to the far country.

(ii) And yet in this word abandon there is more than that--there is judgment. It is one of the grim facts of life that the more a man sins the easier it is to sin. He may begin with a kind of shuddering awareness of what he is doing, and end by sinning without a second thought. It is not that God is punishing him; he is bringing punishment upon himself and steadily making himself the slave of sin. The Jews knew this, and they had certain great sayings upon this idea. "Every fulfilment of duty is rewarded by another; and every transgression is punished by another." "Whosoever strives to keep himself pure receives the power to do so; and whosoever is impure, to him is the door of vice thrown open." "He who erects a fence around himself is fenced, and he who gives himself over is given over."

The most terrible thing about sin is just this power to beget sin. It is the awful responsibility of free-will that it can be used in such a way that in the end it is obliterated and a man becomes the slave of sin, self-abandoned to the wrong way. And sin is always a lie, because the sinner thinks that it will make him happy, whereas in the end it ruins life, both for himself and for others, in this world and in the world to come.

AN AGE OF SHAME ( Romans 1:26-27 )

1:26-27 Because of this God abandoned them to dishonourable passions, for their women exchanged the natural relationship, for the relationship which is against nature; and so did the men, for they gave up the natural relationship with women, and were inflamed with their desire for each other, and men were guilty of shameful conduct with men. So within themselves they received their due and necessary rewards for their error.

Romans 1:26-32 might seem the work of some almost hysterical moralist who was exaggerating the contemporary situation and painting it in colours of rhetorical hyperbole. It describes a situation of degeneracy of morals almost without parallel in human history. But Paul said nothing that the Greek and Roman writers of the age did not themselves say.

(i) It was an age when things seemed, as it were, out of control. Virgil wrote: "Right and wrong are confounded; so many wars the world over, so many forms of wrong; no worthy honour is left to the plough; the husbandmen are marched away and the fields grow dirty; the hook has its curve straightened into the sword-blade. In the East, Euphrates is stirring up the war, in the West, Germany; nay, close-neighbouring cities break their mutual league and draw the sword, and the war god's unnatural fury rages over the whole world; even as when in the circus the chariots burst from their floodgates, they dash into the course, and, pulling desperately at the reins, the driver lets the horses drive him, and the car is deaf to the curb."

It was a world where violence had run amok. When Tacitus came to write the history of this period, he wrote: "I am entering upon the history of a period, rich in disasters, gloomy with wars, rent with seditions, savage in its very hours of peace.

All was one delirium of hate and terror; slaves were bribed to betray their masters, freedmen their patrons. He who had no foe was destroyed by his friend." Suetonius, writing of the reign of Tiberius, said: "No day passed but someone was executed." It was an age of sheer, utter terror. "Rome," said Livy, the historian, "could neither bear its ills nor the remedies that might have cured them." Propertius, the poet, wrote: "I see Rome, proud Rome, perishing, the victim of her own prosperity." It was an age of moral suicide. Juvenal, the satirist, wrote: "The earth no longer brings forth any but bad men and cowards. Hence God, whoever he is, looks down, laughs at them and hates them."

To the thinking man it was an age when things seemed out of control, and when, in the background, a man could hear the mocking laughter of the gods. As Seneca said, it was an age "stricken with the agitation of a soul no longer master of itself."

(ii) It was an age of unparalleled luxury. In the public baths of Rome the hot and cold water ran from silver taps. Caligula had even sprinkled the floor of the circus arena with gold dust instead of sawdust. Juvenal said bitterly: "A luxury more ruthless than war broods over Rome. No guilt or deed of lust is wanting since Roman poverty disappeared." "Money, the nurse of debauchery and enervating riches sapped the sinews of the age with foul luxury." Seneca spoke of "money, the ruin of the true honour of things," and said, "we ask not what a thing truly is but what it costs." It was an age so weary of ordinary things that it was avid for new sensations. Lucretius speaks of "that bitterness which flows from the very fountain of pleasure." Crime became the only antidote to boredom, until, as Tacitus said, "the greater the infamy, the wilder the delight."

(iii) It was an age of unparalleled immorality. There had not been one single case of divorce in the first 520 years of the history of the Roman republic. The first Roman recorded as having divorced his wife was Spurius Carvilius Ruga in 234 B.C. But now, as Seneca said, "women were married to be divorced and divorced to be married." Roman high-born matrons dated the years by the names of their husbands, and not by the names of the consuls. Juvenal could not believe that it was possible to have the rare good fortune to find a matron with unsullied chastity. Clement of Alexandria speaks of the typical Roman society lady as "girt like Venus with a golden girdle of vice." Juvenal writes: "Is one husband enough for lberina? Sooner will you prevail upon her to be content with one eye." He cites the case of a woman who had eight husbands in five years. He cites the incredible case of Agrippina, the empress herself, the wife of Claudius, who at night used to leave the royal palace and go down to serve in a brothel for the sake of sheer lust. "They show a dauntless spirit in those things they basely dare." There is nothing that Paul said about the heathen world that the heathen moralists had not themselves already said. And vice did not stop with the crude and natural vices. Society from top to bottom was riddled with unnatural vice. Fourteen out of the first fifteen Roman Emperors were homosexuals.

So far from exaggerating the picture Paul drew it with restraint--and it was there that he was eager to preach the gospel, and it was there that he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. The world needed the power that would work salvation, and Paul knew that nowhere else than in Christ did that power exist.

THE LIFE WHICH HAS LEFT GOD OUT OF THE RECKONING ( Romans 1:28-32 )

1:28-32 Just as they have given themselves over to a kind of knowledge that rejects the idea of God, so God has given them over to the kind of mind that all reject. The result is that they do things which it is not fitting for any man to do. They are replete with all evil, villainy, the lust to get, viciousness. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, the spirit which puts the worst construction on everything. They are whisperers, slanderers, haters of God. They are insolent men, arrogant, braggarts, inventors of evil things, disobedient to their parents, senseless breakers of agreements, without natural affections, pitless. They are the kind of men who are well aware that those who do such things deserve death, and yet they not only do them themselves, but also heartily approve of those who do them.

There is hardly any passage which so clearly shows what happens to a man when he leaves God out of the reckoning. It is not so much that God sends a judgment on a man, as that a man brings a judgment on himself when he gives no place to God in his scheme of things. When a man banishes God from his life he becomes a certain kind of man, and in this passage is one of the most terrible descriptions in literature of the kind of man he becomes. Let us took at the catalogue of dreadful things which enter into the godless life.

Such men do things which are not fitting for any man to do. The Stoics had a phrase. They talked of ta ( G3588) kathekonta ( G2520) , by which they meant the things it befits a man to do. Certain things are essentially and inherently part of manhood, and certain things are not. As Shakespeare has it in Macbeth:

"I dare do all that may become a man;

Who dares do more is none."

The man who banishes God not only loses godliness; he loses manhood too.

Then comes the long list of terrible things. Let us take them one by one.

Evil (adikia, G93) . Adikia is the precise opposite of diaiosune ( G1343) , which means justice; and the Greeks defined justice as giving to God and to men their due. The evil man is the man who robs both man and God of their rights. He has so erected an altar to himself in the centre of things that he worships himself to the exclusion of God and man.

Villainy (poneria, G4189) . In Greek this word means more than badness. There is a kind of badness which, in the main, hurts only the person concerned. It is not essentially an outgoing badness. When it hurts others, as all badness must, the hurt is not deliberate. It may be thoughtlessly cruel, but it is not callously cruel. But the Greeks defined poneria ( G4189) as the desire of doing harm. It is the active, deliberate will to corrupt and to inflict injury. When the Greeks described a woman as poneria ( G4189) they meant that she deliberately seduced the innocent from their innocence. In Greek one of the commonest titles of Satan is ho poneros ( G4190) , the evil one, the one who deliberately attacks and aims to destroy the goodness of men. Poneros ( G4190) describes the man who is not only bad but wants to make everyone as bad as himself. Poneria ( G4189) is destructive badness.

The lust to get (pleonexia, G4124) . The Greek word is built up of two words which mean to have more. The Greeks themselves defined pleonexia ( G4124) as the accursed love of having. It is an aggressive vice. It has been described as the spirit which will pursue its own interests with complete disregard for the rights of others, and even for the considerations of common humanity. Its keynote is rapacity. Theodoret, the Christian writer, describes it as the spirit that aims at more, the spirit which grasps at things which it has no right to take. It may operate in every sphere of life. If it operates in the material sphere, it means grasping at money and goods, regardless of honour and honesty. If it operates in the ethical sphere, it means the ambition which tramples on others to gain something which is not properly meant for it. If it operates in the moral sphere, it means the unbridled lust which takes its pleasure where it has no right to take. Pleonexia ( G4124) is the desire which knows no law.

Viciousness (kakia, G2549) . Kakia is the most general Greek word for badness. It describes the case of a man who is destitute of every quality which would make him good. For instance, a kakos ( G2556) krites ( G2923) is a judge destitute of the legal knowledge and the moral sense and uprightness of character which are necessary to make a good judge. It is described by Theodoret as "the turn of the soul to the worse." The word he uses for turn is "rope" which means the turn of the balance. A man who is kakos ( G2556) is a man the swing of whose life is towards the worse. Kakia ( G2549) has been described as the essential viciousness which includes all vice and as the forerunner of all other sins. It is the degeneracy out of which all sins grow and in which all sins flourish.

Envy (phthonos, G5355) . There is a good and a bad envy. There is the envy which reveals to a man his own weakness and inadequacy, and which makes him eager to copy some great example. And there is the envy which is essentially a grudging thing. It looks at a fine person, and is not so much moved to aspire to that fineness, as to resent it. It is the most warped and twisted of human emotions.

Murder (phonos, G5408) . It has always to be remembered that Jesus immeasurably widened the scope of this word. He insisted that not only the deed of violence but the spirit of anger and hatred must be eliminated. He insisted that it is not enough only to keep from angry and savage action. It is enough only when even the desire and the anger are banished from the heart. We may never have struck a man in our lives, but who can say he never wanted to strike anyone? As Aquinas said long ago, "Man regardeth the deed, but God seeth the intention."

Strife (eris, G2054) . Its meaning is the contention which is born of envy, ambition, the desire for prestige, and place and prominence. It comes from the heart in which there is jealousy. If a man is cleansed of jealousy, he has gone far to being cleansed of all that arouses contention and strife. It is a God-given gift to be able to take as much pleasure in the successes of others as in one's own.

Deceit (dolos, G1388) . We best get the meaning of this from the corresponding verb (doloun, G1389) . Doloun has two characteristic usages. It is used of debasing precious metals and of adulterating wines. Dolos ( G1388) is deceit; it describes the quality of the man who has a tortuous and a twisted mind, who cannot act in a straightforward way, who stoops to devious and underhand methods to get his own way, who never does anything except with some kind of ulterior motive. It describes the crafty cunning of the plotting intriguer who is found in every community and every society.

The spirit which puts the worst construction on everything (kakoetheia, G2550) . Kakoetheia ( G2500) means literally evil-naturedness. At its widest it means malignity. Aristotle defined it in a narrower sense which it has always retained. He said it was "the spirit which always supposes the worst about other people." Pliny called it "malignity of interpretation." Jeremy Taylor said that it is "a baseness of nature by which we take things by the wrong handle, and expound things always in the worst sense." It may well be that this is the commonest of all sins. If there are two possible constructions to be put upon the action of any man, human nature will choose the worse. It is terrifying to think how many reputations have been murdered in gossip over the teacups, with people maliciously putting a wrong interpretation upon a completely innocent action. When we are tempted so to do, we ought to remember that God hears and remembers every word we speak.

Whisperers and slanderers (Psithuristes, G5588 and katalalos, G2637) . These two words describe people with slanderous tongues; but there is a difference between them. Katalalos ( G2637) , slanderer, describes the man who trumpets his slanders abroad; he quite openly makes his accusations and tells his tales--Psithuristes ( G5588) describes the man who whispers his malicious stories in the listener's ear, who takes a man apart into a corner and whispers a character-destroying story. Both are bad, but the whisperer is the worse. A man can at least defend himself against an open slander, but he is helpless against the secret whisperer who delights in destroying reputations.

Haters of God (theostugeis, G2319) . This describes the man who hates God because he knows that he is defying him. God is the barrier between him and his pleasures; he is the chain which keeps him from doing exactly as he likes. He would gladly eliminate God if he could, for to him a godless world would be one where he would have, not liberty, but licence.

Insolent men (hubristes, G5197) . Hubris ( G5196) was to the Greek the vice which supremely courted destruction at the hand of the gods. It has two main lines of thought in it. (i) It describes the spirit of the man who is so proud that he defies God. It is the insolent pride that goes before a fall. It is the forgetting that man is a creature. It is the spirit of the man who is so confident in his wealth, his power and his strength that he thinks that he can live life alone. (ii) It describes the man who is wantonly and sadistically cruel and insulting. Aristotle describes it as the spirit which harms and grieves someone else, not for the sake of revenge and not for any advantage that may be gained from it, but simply for the sheer pleasure of hurting. There are people who get pleasure from seeing someone wince at a cruel saying. There are people who take a devilish delight in inflicting mental and physical pain on others. That is hubris ( G5196) ; it is the sadism which finds delight in hurting others simply for the sake of hurting them.

Arrogant men (huperephanos, G5244) . This is the word which is three times used in scripture when it is said that God resists the proud. ( James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5; Proverbs 3:34.) Theophylact called it "the summit of all sins." Theophrastus was a Greek writer who wrote a series of famous character sketches, and he defined huperephania ( G5244) as "a certain contempt for everyone except oneself." He picks out the things in everyday life which are signs of this arrogance. The arrogant man, when he is asked to accept some office, refuses on the ground that he has not time to spare from his own business; he never looks at people on the street unless it pleases him to do so; he invites a man to a meal and then does not appear himself, but sends his servant to attend to his guest. His whole life is surrounded with an atmosphere of contempt and he delights to make others feet small.

Braggarts (alazon, G213) . Alazon is a word with an interesting history. It literally means one who wanders about. It then became the stock word for wandering quacks who boast of cures that they have worked, and for cheapjacks who boast that their wares have an excellence which they are far from possessing. The Greeks defined alazoneia ( G212) as the spirit which pretends to have what it has not. Xenophon said that the name belongs to those who pretend to be richer and braver than they are, and who promise to do what they are really unable to do in order to make some profit or gain. Again Theophrastus has a character study of such a man--the pretentious man, the snob. He is the kind of man who boasts of trade deals which exist only in his imagination, of connections with influential people which do not exist at all, of gifts to charities and public services which he never gave or rendered. He says about the house he lives in that it is really too small for him, and that he must buy a bigger one. The braggart is out to impress others--and the world is still full of his like.

Inventors of evil (epheuretes ( G2182) kakon, G2556) . The phrase describes the man who, so to speak, is not content with the usual, ordinary ways of sinning, but who seeks out new and recondite vices because he has grown blasι and seeks a new thrill in some new sin.

Disobedient to their parents (goneusin ( G1118) apeitheis, G545) . Both Jews and Romans set obedience to parents very high in the scale of virtues. It was one of the Ten Commandments that parents should be honoured. In the early days of the Roman Republic, the patria potestas, the father's power, was so absolute that he had the power of life and death over his family. The reason for including this sin here is that, once the bonds of the family are loosened, wholesale degeneracy must necessarily follow.

Senseless (asunetos, G801) . This word describes the man who is a fool, who cannot learn the lesson of experience, who will not use the mind and brain that God has given to him.

Breakers of agreements (asunthetos, G802) . This word would come with particular force to a Roman audience. In the great days of Rome, Roman honesty was a wonderful thing. A man's word was as good as his bond. That was in fact one of the great differences between the Roman and the Greek. The Greek was a born pilferer. The Greeks used to say that if a governor or official was entrusted with one talent--240 British pounds--even if there were ten clerks and accountants to check up on him, he was certain to succeed in embezzling some of it; while the Roman, whether as a magistrate in office or a general on a campaign, could deal with thousands of talents on his bare word alone, and never a penny went astray. By using this word, Paul was recalling the Romans not only to the Christian ethic, but to their own standards of honour in their greatest days.

Without natural affections (astorgos, G794) . Storge (compare G794) was the special Greek word for family love. It was quite true that this was an age in which family love was dying. Never was the life of the child so precarious as at this time. Children were considered a misfortune. When a child was born, it was taken and laid at the father's feet. If the father lifted it up that meant that he acknowledged it. If he turned away and left it, the child was literally thrown out. There was never a night when there were not thirty or forty abandoned children left in the Roman forum. Even Seneca, great soul as he was, could write: "We kill a mad dog; we slaughter a fierce ox; we plunge the knife into sickly cattle lest they taint the herd; children who are born weakly and deformed we drown." The natural bonds of human affection had been destroyed.

Pitiless (aneleemon, G415) . There never was a time when human life was so cheap. A slave could be killed or tortured by his master, for he was only a thing and the law gave his master unlimited power over him. In a wealthy household a slave was bringing in a tray of crystal glasses. He stumbled and a glass fell and broke. There and then his master had him flung into the fish pond in the middle of the courtyard where the savage lampreys devoured his living flesh. It was an age pitiless in its very pleasures, for it was the great age of the gladiatorial games where people found their delight in seeing men kill each other. It was an age when the quality of mercy was gone.

Paul says one last thing about these people who have banished God from life. It usually happens that, even if a man is a sinner, he knows it, and, even if he allows something in himself, he knows that it is to be condemned in others. But in those days men had reached such a level that they sinned themselves and encouraged others to do so. George Bernard Shaw once said, "No nation has ever survived the loss of its gods." Here Paul has given us a terrible picture of what happens when men deliberately banish God from the reckoning, and, in due time, Rome perished. Disaster and degeneracy went hand in hand.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Romans 1:4

declared -- This is the only time Paul uses the Greek term horizō, meaning “to determine” or “to appoint.” In Acts, it is used to show that God appointed Christ as the judge of the world (Acts 10:42; Acts 17:31).

The Gr. word, from which the English word “horizon” comes, means “to distinguish.” Just as the horizon serves as a clear demarcation line, dividing earth and sky, the resurrection of Jesus Christ clearly divides Him from the rest of humanity, providing irrefutable evidence that He is the Son of God (see note on 10:9). - MSB

Son of God -- . This title, used nearly 30 times in the gospels, identifies Jesus Christ as the same in essence as God. See notes on John 1:34, John 1:49; John 10:36; John 11:27; John 19:7. (cf. Hebrews 1:5; 2 Samuel 7:14). - MSB

Son of God with power -- Power attended and characterized Jesus Christ.

according -- A way of saying according to inspired prophecy.

spirit of holiness -- 1) Translations capitalizing the "Spirit" take it to be the Holy Spirit. 2) Others consider that it is speaking of Jesus’ own spirit which He kept in holiness.

Spirit of holiness” is an expression that means “Holy Spirit.” - EBCNT

...the rare word ἁγιωσύνη (found only three times in the New Testament) - Lenski

by the resurrection from the dead -- His victory over death was the supreme demonstration and most conclusive evidence that He is God the Son (see note on 10:9; cf. Acts 13:29-33; 1 Corinthians 15:14-17).

Jesus -- The Aramaic name Jesus is the same as the Hebrew name Joshua. It was a compound of two Hebrew words “YHWH” and “salvation.” It can mean “YHWH saves,” “YHWH delivers” or “YHWH is salvation.” The thrust of the meaning can be seen in Matt. 1:21, 25.

Christ -- This was the Greek translation of the Hebrew term messiah which meant “an anointed one.” In the OT several groups of leaders (prophets, priests, and kings) were anointed as a sign of God’s choice and equipping. Jesus fulfilled all three of these anointed offices (cf. Heb. 1:2–3)

Lord -- In Judaism the Covenant name for God, YHWH, became so holy that the rabbis substituted the title “Lord,” (Adon) when reading the Scriptures because they were afraid they might take God’s name in vain (cf. Exod. 20:7; Deut. 5:11) and thereby break one of the Ten Commandments. When NT authors called Jesus “Lord” (“Kurios”) in theological contexts, they were affirming His deity (cf. Acts 2:36; Rom. 10:9–13; Phil. 2:6–11).

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And declared to be the Son of God,.... Not made as he is said to be before, when his incarnation is spoken of; nor did he begin to be the Son of God, when he was made of the seed of David, but he, the Son of God, who existed as such, from everlasting, was manifested in the flesh, or human nature: and this his divine sonship, and proper deity, are declared and made evident,

with, or "by"

[his] power; which has appeared in the creation of all things out of nothing; in upholding all things in their beings; in the government of the world, and works of Providence; in the miracles he wrought; in his performing the great work of redemption; in the success of his Gospel, to the conversion of sinners; and in the preservation of his churches and people: here it seems chiefly to regard the power of Christ in raising the dead, since it follows, and which is to be connected with this clause,

by the resurrection from the dead; and designs either the resurrection of others, as of Lazarus, and some other persons, in his lifetime, and of some at his resurrection, and of all at the last day: or the resurrection of his own body, which dying he had power to raise up again, and did; and which declared him to be, or clearly made it appear that he was the Son of God, a divine person, truly and properly God: and this was done

according to the Spirit of holiness; which may be understood of the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, who is holy in himself, and the author of holiness in the saints; and who is the declarer of Christ's sonship, partly by bearing a testimony to it in the word, and in the hearts of believers, and chiefly by being concerned in the resurrection of the body of Christ from the dead; or else by the Spirit of holiness may be meant the divine nature of Christ, which, as it is holy, so by it Christ offered himself to God, and by it was quickened, or made alive, when he had been put to death in the flesh; and which must be a clear and strong proof of his being truly the Son of God.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,   2 (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)   3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;   4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:   5 By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:   6 Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ:   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.

      In this paragraph we have,

      I. The person who writes the epistle described (Romans 1:1; Romans 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, Acts 9:15. He here builds his authority upon his call; he did not run without sending, as the false apostles did; kletos 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, 1 Corinthians 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 aphorismenoi eis ton nomon; such a one Paul had formerly been; but now he had changed his studies, was aphorismenos eis to Euangelion, a gospel Pharisee, separated by the counsel of God (Galatians 1:15), separated from his mother's womb, by an immediate direction of the Spirit, and a regular ordination according to that direction (Acts 13:2; Acts 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.

      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 (Romans 1:2; Romans 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, Romans 1:3; Romans 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 (Romans 1:3; Romans 1:3), that is, born of the virgin Mary, who was of the house of David (Luke 1:27), as was Joseph his supposed father, Luke 2:4. David is here mentioned, because of the special promises made to him concerning the Messiah, especially his kingly office; 2 Samuel 7:12; Psalms 132:11; Luke 1:32; Luke 1:33. (2.) His divine nature: Declared to be the Son of God (Romans 1:4; Romans 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,1 Peter 3:18; 2 Corinthians 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, Matthew 12:39; Matthew 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 (Romans 1:5; Romans 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, Ephesians 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,Romans 11:13; Romans 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 Romans 3:27; Romans 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,Romans 1:6; Romans 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, Jude 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 (Romans 1:7; Romans 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. Kletois 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 (Romans 1:7; Romans 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.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The circumstances under which the epistle to the Romans was written gave occasion to the most thorough and comprehensive unfolding, not of the church, but of Christianity. No apostle had ever yet visited Rome. There was somewhat as yet lacking to the saints there; but even this was ordered of God to call forth from the Holy Ghost an epistle which more than any other approaches a complete treatise on the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, and especially as to righteousness.

Would we follow up the heights of heavenly truth, would we sound the depths of Christian experience, would we survey the workings of the Spirit of God in the Church, would we bow before the glories of the person of Christ, or learn His manifold offices, we must look elsewhere in the writings of the New Testament no doubt, but elsewhere rather than here.

The condition of the Roman saints called for a setting forth of the gospel of God; but this object, in order to be rightly understood and appreciated, leads the apostle into a display of the condition of man. We have God and man in presence, so to speak. Nothing can be more simple and essential. Although there is undoubtedly that profoundness which must accompany every revelation of God, and especially in connection with Christ as now manifested, still we have God adapting Himself to the very first wants of a renewed soul nay, even to the wretchedness of souls without God, without any real knowledge either of themselves or of Him. Not, of course, that the Roman saints were in this condition; but that God, writing by the apostle to them, seizes the opportunity to lay bare man's state as well as His own grace.

Romans 1:1-32. From the very first we have these characteristics of the epistle disclosing themselves. The apostle writes with the full assertion of his own apostolic dignity, but as a servant also. "Paul, a bondman of Jesus Christ" an apostle "called," not born, still less as educated or appointed of man, but an apostle "called," as he says "separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets." The connection is fully owned with that which had been from God of old. No fresh revelations from God can nullify those which preceded them; but as the prophets looked onward to what was coming, so is the gospel already come, supported by the past. There is mutual confirmation. Nevertheless, what is in nowise the same as what was or what will be. The past prepared the way, as it is said here, "which God had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, [here we have the great central object of God's gospel, even the person of Christ, God's Son,] which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (ver. 3). This last relation was the direct subject of the prophetic testimony, and Jesus had come accordingly. He was the promised Messiah, born King of the Jews.

But there was far more in Jesus. He was "declared," says the apostle, "to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" ( ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν , ver. 4). It was the Son of God not merely as dealing with the powers of the earth, Jehovah's King on the holy hill of Zion, but after a far deeper manner. For, essentially associated as He is with the glory of God the Father, the full deliverance of souls from the realm of death was His also. In this too we have the blessed connection of the Spirit (here peculiarly designated, for special reasons, "the Spirit of holiness"). That same energy of the Holy Ghost which had displayed itself in Jesus, when He walked in holiness here below, was demonstrated in resurrection; and not merely in His own rising from the dead, but in raising such at any time no doubt, though most signally and triumphantly displayed in His own resurrection.

The bearing of this on the contents and main doctrine of the epistle will appear abundantly by-and-by. Let me refer in passing to a few points more in the introduction, in order to link them together with that which the Spirit was furnishing to the Roman saints, as well as to show the admirable perfectness of every word that inspiration has given us. I do not mean by this its truth merely, but its exquisite suitability; so that the opening address commences the theme in hand, and insinuates that particular line of truth which the Holy Spirit sees fit to pursue throughout. To this then the apostle comes, after having spoken of the divine favour shown himself, both when a sinner, and now in his own special place of serving the Lord Jesus. "By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith." This was no question of legal obedience, although the law came from Jehovah. Paul's joy and boast were in the gospel of God. So therefore it addressed itself to the obedience of faith; not by this meaning practice, still less according to the measure of a man's duty, but that which is at the root of all practice faith-obedience obedience of heart and will, renewed by divine grace, which accepts the truth of God. To man this is the hardest of all obedience; but when once secured, it leads peacefully into the obedience of every day. If slurred over, as it too often is in souls, it invariably leaves practical obedience lame, and halt, and blind.

It was for this then that Paul describes himself as apostle. And as it is for obedience of faith, it was not in anywise restricted to the Jewish people "among all nations, for his (Christ's) name: among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ" (verses 5, 6). He loved even here at the threshold to show the breadth of God's grace. If he was called, so were they he an apostle, they not apostles but saints; but still, for them as for him, all flowed out of the same mighty love, of God. "To all that be at Rome, beloved of God, called saints" (ver. 7). To these then he wishes, as was his wont, the fresh flow of that source and stream of divine blessing which Christ has made to be household bread to us: "Grace and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ" (ver. 7). Then, from ver. 8, after thanking God through Jesus for their faith spoken of everywhere, and telling them of his prayers for them, he briefly discloses the desire of his heart about them his long-cherished hope according to the grace of the gospel to reach Rome his confidence in the love of God that through him some spiritual gift would be imparted to them, that they might be established, and, according to the spirit of grace which filled his own heart, that he too might be comforted together with them "by the mutual faith both of you and me" (vv. 11, 12). There is nothing like the grace of God for producing the truest humility, the humility that not only descends to the lowest level of sinners to do them good, but which is itself the fruit of deliverance from that self-love which puffs itself or lowers others. Witness the common joy that grace gives an apostle with saints be had never seen, so that even he should be comforted as well as they by their mutual faith. He would not therefore have them ignorant how they had lain on his heart for a visit (ver. 13). He was debtor both to the Greeks and the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise; he was ready, as far as he was concerned, to preach the gospel to those that were at Rome also (ver. 14, 15). Even the saints there would have been all the better for the gospel. It was not merely "to those at Rome," but "to you that be at Rome." Thus it is a mistake to suppose that saints may not be benefited by a better understanding of the gospel, at least as Paul preached it. Accordingly he tells them now what reason he had to speak thus strongly, not of the more advanced truths, but of the good news. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (ver. 16).

Observe, the gospel is not simply remission of sins, nor is it only peace with God, but "the power of God unto salvation." Now I take this opportunity of pressing on all that are here to beware of contracted views of "salvation." Beware that you do not confound it with souls being quickened, or even brought into joy. Salvation supposes not this only, but a great deal more. There is hardly any phraseology that tends to more injury of souls in these matters than a loose way of talking of salvation. "At any rate he is a saved soul," we hear. "The man has not got anything like settled peace with God; perhaps he hardly knows his sins forgiven; but at least he is a saved soul." Here is an instance of what is so reprehensible. This is precisely what salvation does not mean; and I would strongly press it on all that hear me, more particularly on those that have to do with the work of the Lord, and of course ardently desire to labour intelligently; and this not alone for the conversion, but for the establishment and deliverance of souls. Nothing less, I am persuaded, than this full blessing is the line that God has given to those who have followed Christ without the camp, and who, having been set free from the contracted ways of men, desire to enter into the largeness and at the same time the profound wisdom of every word of God. Let us not stumble at the starting-point, but leave room for the due extent and depth of "salvation" in the gospel.

There is no need of dwelling now on "salvation" as employed in the Old Testament, and in some parts of the New, as the gospels and Revelation particularly, where it is used for deliverance in power or even providence and present things. I confine myself to its doctrinal import, and the full Christian sense of the word; and I maintain that salvation signifies that deliverance for the believer which is the full consequence of the mighty work of Christ, apprehended not, of course, necessarily according to all its depth in God's eyes, but at any rate applied to the soul in the power of the Holy Ghost. It is not the awakening of conscience, however real; neither is it the attraction of heart by the grace of Christ, however blessed this may be. We ought therefore to bear in mind, that if a soul be not brought into conscious deliverance as the fruit of divine teaching, and founded on the work of Christ, we are very far from presenting the gospel as the apostle Paul glories in it, and delights that it should go forth. "I am not ashamed," etc.

And he gives his reason: "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith." That is, it is the power of God unto salvation, not because it is victory (which at the beginning of the soul's career would only give importance to man even if possible, which it is not), but because it is "the righteousness of God." It is not God seeking, or man bringing righteousness. In the gospel there is revealed God's righteousness. Thus the introduction opened with Christ's person, and closes with God's righteousness. The law demanded, but could never receive righteousness from man. Christ is come, and has changed all. God is revealing a righteousness of His own in the gospel. It is God who now makes known a righteousness to man, instead of looking for any from man. Undoubtedly there are fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, and God values them I will not say from man, but from His saints; but here it is what, according to the apostle, God has for man. It is for the saints to learn, of course; but it is that which goes out in its own force and necessary aim to the need of man a divine righteousness, which justifies instead of condemning him who believes. It is "the power of God unto salvation." It is for the lost, therefore; for they it is who need salvation; and it is to save not merely to quicken, but to save; and this because in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.

Hence it is, as he says, herein revealed "from faith," or by faith. It is the same form of expression exactly as in the beginning of Romans 5:1-21 "being justified by faith" ( ἐκ πίστεως ). But besides this he adds "to faith." The first of these phrases, "from faith," excludes the law; the second, "to faith," includes every one that has faith within the scope of God's righteousness. Justification is not from works of law. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith; and consequently, if there be faith in any soul, to this it is revealed, to faith wherever it may be. Hence, therefore, it was in no way limited to any particular nation, such as those that had already been under the law and government of God. It was a message that went out from God to sinners as such. Let man be what he might, or where he might, God's good news was for man. And to this agreed the testimony of the prophet. "The just shall live by faith" (not by law). Even where the law was, not by it but by faith the just lived. Did Gentiles believe? They too should live. Without faith there is neither justice nor life that God owns; where faith is, the rest will surely follow.

This accordingly leads the apostle into the earlier portion of his great argument, and first of all in a preparatory way. Here we pass out of the introduction of the epistle. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness" (ver. 18). This is what made the gospel to be so sweet and precious, and, what is more, absolutely necessary, if he would escape certain and eternal ruin. There is no hope for man otherwise; for the gospel is not all that is now made known. Not only is God's righteousness revealed, but also His wrath. It is not said to be revealed in the gospel. The gospel means His glad tidings for man. The wrath of God could not possibly be glad tidings. It is true, it is needful for man to learn; but in nowise is it good news. There is then the solemn truth also of divine wrath. It is not yet executed. It is "revealed," and this too "from heaven." There is no question of a people on earth, and of God's wrath breaking out in one form or another against human evil in this life. The earth, or, at least, the Jewish nation, had been familiar with such dealings of God in times past. But now it is "the wrath of God from heaven;" and consequently it is in view of eternal things, and not of those that touch present life on the earth.

Hence, as God's wrath is revealed from heaven, it is against every form of impiety "against all ungodliness." Besides this, which seems to be a most comprehensive expression for embracing every sort and degree of human iniquity, we have one very specifically named. It is against the "unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." To hold the truth in unrighteousness would be no security. Alas! we know how this was in Israel, how it might be, and has been, in Christendom. God pronounces against the unrighteousness of such; for if the knowledge, however exact, of God's revealed mind was accompanied by no renewal of the heart, if it was without life towards God, all must be vain. Man is only so much the worse for knowing the truth, if he holds it ever so fast with unrighteousness. There are some that find a difficulty here, because the expression "to hold" means holding firmly. But it is quite possible for the unconverted to be tenacious of the truth, yet unrighteous in their ways; and so much the worse for them. Not thus does God deal with souls. If His grace attract, His truth humbles, and leaves no room for vain boasting and self-confidence. What He does is to pierce and penetrate the man's conscience. If one may so say, He thus holds the man, instead of letting the man presume that he is holding fast the truth. The inner man is dealt with, and searched through and through.

Nothing of this is intended in the class that is here brought before us. They are merely persons who plume themselves on their orthodoxy, but in a wholly unrenewed condition. Such men have never been wanting since the truth has shone on this world; still less are they now. But the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against them pre-eminently. The judgments of God will fall on man as man, but the heaviest blows are reserved for Christendom. There the truth is held, and apparently with firmness too. This, however, will be put to the test by-and-by. But for the time it is held fast, though in unrighteousness. Thus the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against (not only the open ungodliness of men, but) the orthodox unrighteousness of those that hold the truth in unrighteousness.

And this leads the apostle into the moral history of man the proof both of his inexcusable guilt, and of his extreme need of redemption. He begins with the great epoch of the dispensations of God (that is, the ages since the flood). We cannot speak of the state of things before the flood as a dispensation. There was a most important trial of man in the person of Adam; but after this, what dispensation was there? What were the principles of it? No man can tell. The truth is, those are altogether mistaken who call it so. But after the flood man as such was put under certain conditions the whole race. Man became the object, first, of general dealings of God under Noah; next, of His special ways in the calling of Abraham and of his family. And what led to the call of Abraham, of whom we hear much in the epistle to the Romans as elsewhere, was the departure of man into idolatry. Man despised at first the outward testimony of God, His eternal power and Godhead, in the creation above and around him (verses 19, 20). Moreover, He gave up the knowledge of God that had been handed down from father to son (ver. 21). The downfall of man, when he thus abandoned God, was most rapid and profound; and the Holy Spirit traces this solemnly to the end ofRomans 1:1-32; Romans 1:1-32 with no needless words, in a few energetic strokes summing up that which is abundantly confirmed (but in how different a manner!) by all that remains of the ancient world. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man," etc. (verses 22-32.) Thus corruption not only overspread morals, but became an integral part of the religion of men, and had thus a quasi-divine sanction. Hence the depravity of the heathen found little or no cheek from conscience, because it was bound up with all that took the shape of God before their mind. There was no part of heathenism practically viewed now, so corrupting as that which had to do with the objects of its worship. Thus, the true God being lost, all was lost, and man's downward career becomes the most painful and humiliating object, unless it be, indeed, that which we have to feel where men, without renewal of heart, espouse in pride of mind the truth with nothing but unrighteousness.

In the beginning ofRomans 2:1-29; Romans 2:1-29 we have man pretending to righteousness. Still, it is "man" not yet exactly the Jew, but man who had profited, it might be, by whatever the Jew had; at the least, by the workings of natural conscience. But natural conscience, although it may detect evil, never leads one into the inward possession and enjoyment of good never brings the soul to God. Accordingly, in chapter 2 the Holy Spirit shows us man satisfying himself with pronouncing on what is right and wrong moralizing for others, but nothing more. Now God must have reality in the man himself. The gospel, instead of treating this as a light matter, alone vindicates God in these eternal ways of His, in that which must be in him who stands in relationship with God. Hence therefore, the apostle, with divine wisdom, opens this to us before the blessed relief and deliverance which the gospel reveals to us. In the most solemn way he appeals to man with the demand, whether he thinks that God will look complacently on that which barely judges another, but which allows the practice of evil in the man himself (Romans 2:1-3). Such moral judgments will, no doubt, be used to leave man without excuse; they can never suit or satisfy God.

Then the apostle introduces the ground, certainty, and character of God's judgment (verses 4-16). He "will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile."

It is not here a question of how a man is to be saved, but of God's indispensable moral judgment, which the gospel, instead of weakening asserts according to the holiness and truth of God. It will be observed therefore, that in this connection the apostle shows the place both of conscience and of the law, that God in judging will take into full consideration the circumstances and condition of every soul of man. At the same time he connects, in a singularly interesting manner, this disclosure of the principles of the eternal judgment of God with what he calls "my gospel." This also is a most important truth, my brethren, to bear in mind. The gospel at its height in no wise weakens but maintains the moral manifestation of what God is. The legal institutions were associated with temporal judgment. The gospel, as now revealed in the New Testament, has linked with it, though not contained in it, the revelation of divine wrath from heaven, and this, you will observe, according to Paul's gospel. It is evident, therefore, that dispensational position will not suffice for God, who holds to His own unchangeable estimate of good and evil, and who judges the more stringently according to the measure of advantage possessed.

But thus the way is now clear for bringing the Jew into the discussion. "But if [for so it should be read] thou art named a Jew," etc. (ver. 17.) It was not merely, that he had better light. He had this, of course, in a revelation that was from God; he had law; he had prophets; he had divine institutions. It was not merely better light in the conscience, which might be elsewhere, as is supposed in the early verses of our chapter; but the Jew's position was directly and unquestionably one of divine tests applied to man's estate. Alas! the Jew was none the better for this, unless there were the submission of his conscience to God. Increase of privileges can never avail without the soul's self-judgment before the mercy of God. Rather does it add to his guilt: such is man's evil state and will. Accordingly, in the end of the chapter, he shows that this is most true as applied to the moral judgment of the Jew; that uone so much dishonoured God as wicked Jews, their own Scripture attesting it; that position went for nothing in such, while the lack of it would not annul the Gentile's righteousness, which would indeed condemn the more unfaithful Israel; in short, that one must be a Jew inwardly to avail, and circumcision be of the heart, in spirit, not in letter, whose praise is of God, and not of men.

The question then is raised in the beginning ofRomans 3:1-31; Romans 3:1-31, If this be so, what is the superiority of the Jew? Where lies the value of belonging to the circumcised people of God? The apostle allows this privilege to be great, specially in having the Scriptures, but turns the argument against the boasters. We need not here enter into the details; but on the surface we see how the apostle brings all down to that which is of the deepest interest to every soul. He deals with the Jew from his own Scripture (verses 9-19). Did the Jews take the ground of exclusively having that word of God the law? Granted that it is so, at once and fully. To whom, then, did the law address itself? To those that were under it, to be sure. It pronounced on the Jew then. It was the boast of the Jews that the law spoke about them; that the Gentiles had no right to it, and were but presuming on what belonged to God's chosen people. The apostle applies this according to divine wisdom. Then your principle is your condemnation. What the law says, it speaks to those under it. What, then, is its voice? That there is none righteous, none that doeth good, none that understandeth. Of whom does it declare all this? Of the Jew by his own confession. Every mouth was stopped; the Jew by his own oracles, as the Gentile by their evident abominations, shown already. All the world was guilty before God.

Thus, having shown the Gentile in Romans 1:1-32 manifestly wrong, and hopelessly degraded to the last degree having laid bare the moral dilettantism of the philosophers, not one whit better in the sight of God, but rather the reverse having shown the Jew overwhelmed by the condemnation of the divine oracles in which he chiefly boasted, without real righteousness, and so much the more guilty for his special privileges, all now lies clear for bringing in the proper Christian message, the. gospel of God. "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets" (verses 20, 21).

Here, again, the apostle takes up what he had but announced in chapter 1 the righteousness of God. Let me call your attention again to its force. It is not the mercy of God., Many have contended that so it is, and to their own great loss, as well as to the weakening of the word of God. "Righteousness" never means mercy, not even the "righteousness of God." The meaning is not what was executed on Christ, but what is in virtue. of it. Undoubtedly divine judgment fell on Him; but this is not "the righteousness of God," as the apostle employs it in any part of his writings any more than here, though we know there could be no such thing as God's righteousness justifying the believer, if Christ had not borne the judgment of God. The expression means that righteousness which God can afford to display because of Christ's atonement. In short, it is what the words say "the righteousness of God," and this "by faith of Jesus Christ."

Hence it is wholly apart from the law, whilst witnessed to by the law and prophets; for the law with its types had looked onward to this new kind of righteousness; and the prophets had borne their testimony that it was at hand, but not then come. Now it was manifested, and not promised or predicted merely. Jesus had come and died; Jesus had been a propitiatory sacrifice; Jesus had borne the judgment of God because of the sins He bore. The righteousness of God, then, could now go forth in virtue of His blood. God was not satisfied alone. There is satisfaction; but the work of Christ goes a great deal farther. Therein God is both vindicated and glorified. By the cross God has a deeper moral glory than ever a glory that He thus acquired, if I may so say. He is, of course, the same absolutely perfect and unchangeable God of goodness; but His perfection has displayed itself in new and more glorious ways in Christ's death, in Him who humbled Himself, and was obedient even to the death of the cross.

God, therefore, having not the least hindrance to the manifestation of what He can be and is in merciful intervention on behalf of the worst of sinners, manifests it is His righteousness "by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe" (ver. 22). The former is the direction, and the latter the application. The direction is "unto all;" the application is, of course, only to "them that believe;" but it is to all them that believe. As far as persons are concerned, there is no hindrance; Jew or Gentile makes no difference, as is expressly said, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the [passing over or praeter-mission, not] remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus" (verses 23-26). There is no simple mind that can evade the plain force of this last expression. The righteousness of God means that God is just, while at the same time He justifies the believer in Christ Jesus. It is His righteousness, or, in other words, His perfect consistency with Himself, which is always involved in the notion of righteousness. He is consistent with Himself when He is justifying sinners, or, more strictly, all those who believe in Jesus. He can meet the sinner, but He justifies the believer; and in this, instead of trenching on His glory, there is a deeper revelation and maintenance of it than if there never had been sin or a sinner.

Horribly offensive as sin is to God, and inexcusable in the creature, it is sin which has given occasion to the astonishing display of divine righteousness in justifying believers. It is not a question of His mercy merely; for this weakens the truth immensely, and perverts its character wholly. The righteousness of God flows from His mercy, of course; but its character and basis is righteousness. Christ's work of redemption deserves that God should act as He does in the gospel. Observe again, it is not victory here; for that would give place to human pride. It is not a soul's overcoming its difficulties, but a sinner's submission to the righteousness of God. It is God Himself who, infinitely glorified in the Lord that expiated our sins by His one sacrifice, remits them now, not looking for our victory, nor as yet even in leading us on to victory, but by faith in Jesus and His blood. God is proved thus divinely consistent with Himself in Christ Jesus, whom He has set forth a mercy-seat through faith in His blood.

Accordingly the apostle says that boast and works are completely set aside by this principle which affirms faith, apart from deeds of law, to be the means of relationship with God (verses 27, 28). Consequently the door is as open to the Gentile as to the Jew. The ground taken by a Jew for supposing God exclusively for Israel was, that they had the law, which was the measure of what God claimed from man; and this the Gentile had not. But such thoughts altogether vanish now, because, as the Gentile was unquestionably wicked and abominable, so from the law's express denunciation the Jew was universally guilty before God. Consequently all turned, not on what man should be for God, but what God can be and is, as revealed in the gospel, to man. This maintains both the glory and the moral universality of Him who will justify the circumcision by faith, not law, and the uncircumcision through their faith, if they believe the gospel. Nor does this in the slightest degree weaken the principle of law. On the contrary, the doctrine of faith establishes law as nothing else can; and for this simple reason, that if one who is guilty hopes to be saved spite of the broken law, it must be at the expense of the law that condemns his guilt; whereas the gospel shows no sparing of sin, but the most complete condemnation of it all, as charged on Him who shed His blood in atonement. The doctrine of faith therefore, which reposes on the cross, establishes law, instead of making it void, as every other principle must (verses 27-31).

But this is not the full extent of salvation. Accordingly we do not hear of salvation as such in Romans 3:1-31. There is laid down the most essential of all truths as a groundwork of salvation; namely, expiation. There is the vindication of God in His ways with the Old Testament believers. Their sins had been passed by. He could not have remitted heretofore. This would not have been just. And the blessedness of the gospel is, that it is (not merely an exercise of mercy, but also) divinely just. It would not have been righteous in any sense to have remitted the sins, until they were actually borne by One who could and did suffer for them. But now they were; and thus God vindicated Himself perfectly as to the past. But this great work of Christ was not and could not be a mere vindication of God; and we may find it otherwise developed in various parts of Scripture, which I here mention by the way to show the point at which we are arrived. God's righteousness was now manifested as to the past sins He had not brought into judgment through His forbearance, and yet more conspicuously in the present time, when He displayed His justice in justifying the believer.

But this is not all; and the objection of the Jew gives occasion for the apostle to bring out a fuller display of what God is. Did they fall back on Abraham? "What shall we then say that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God." Did the Jew fancy that the gospel makes very light of Abraham, and of the then dealings of God? Not so, says the apostle. Abraham is the proof of the value of faith in justification before God. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. There was no law there or then; for Abraham died long before God spoke from Sinai. He believed God and His word, with special approval on God's part; and his faith was counted as righteousness (ver. 3). And this was powerfully corroborated by the testimony of another great name in Israel (David), in Psalms 32:1-11. "For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding-place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye."

In the same way the apostle disposes of all pretence on the score of ordinances, especially circumcision. Not only was Abraham justified without law, but apart from that great sign of mortification of the flesh. Although circumcision began with Abraham, manifestly it had nothing to do with his righteousness, and at best was but the seal of the righteousness of faith which he had in an uncircumcised state. It could not therefore be the source or means of his righteousness. All then that believe, though uncircumcised, might claim him as father, assured that righteousness will be reckoned to them too. And he is father of circumcision in the best sense, not to Jews, but to believing Gentiles. Thus the discussion of Abraham strengthens the case in behalf of the uncircumcised who believe, to the overthrow of the greatest boast of the Jew. The appeal to their own inspired account of Abraham turned into a proof of the consistency of God's ways in justifying by faith, and hence in justifying the uncircumcised no less than the circumcision.

But there is more than this in Romans 4:1-25 He takes up a third feature of Abraham's case; that is, the connection of the promise with resurrection. Here it is not merely the negation of law and of circumcision, but we have the positive side. Law works wrath because it provokes transgression; grace makes the promise sure to all the seed, not only because faith is open to the Gentile and Jew alike, but because God is looked to as a quickener of the dead. What gives glory to God like this? Abraham believed God when, according to nature, it was impossible for him or for Sarah to have a child. The quickening power of God therefore was here set forth, of course historically in a way connected with this life and a posterity on earth, but nevertheless a very just and true sign of God's power for the believer the quickening energy of God after a still more blessed sort. And this leads us to see not only where there was an analogy with those who believe in a promised Saviour, but also to a weighty difference. And this lies in the fact that Abraham believed God before he had the son, being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able to perform. and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. But we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. It is done. already. It is not here believing on Jesus, but on God who has proved what He is to us in raisin, from among the dead Him who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification (verses 13-25).

This brings out a most emphatic truth and special side of Christianity. Christianity is not a system of promise, but rather of promise accomplished in Christ. Hence it is essentially founded on the gift not only of a Saviour who would interpose, in the mercy of God, to bear our sins, but of One who is already revealed, and the work done and accepted, and this known in the fact that God Himself has interposed to raise Him from among the dead a bright and momentous thing to press on souls, as indeed we find the apostles insisting on it throughout the Acts. Were it merely Romans 3:1-31 there could not be full peace with God as there is. One might know a most real clinging to Jesus; but this would not set the heart at ease with God. The soul may feel the blood of Jesus to be a yet deeper want; but this alone does not give peace with God. In such a condition what has been found in Jesus is too often misused to make a kind of difference, so to speak, between the Saviour on the one hand, and God on the other ruinous always to the enjoyment of the full blessing of the gospel. Now there is no way in which God could lay a basis for peace with Himself more blessed than as He has done it. No longer does the question exist of requiring an expiation. That is the first necessity for the sinner with God. But we have had it fully in Romans 3:1-31. Now it is the positive power of God in raising up from the dead Him that was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justifying. The whole work is done.

The soul therefore now is represented for the first time as already justified and in possession of peace with God. This is a state of mind, and not the necessary or immediate fruit of Romans 3:1-31, but is based on the truth of Romans 4:1-25 as well as 3. There never can be solid peace with God without both. A soul may as truly, no doubt, be put into relationship with God be made very happy, it may be; but it is not what Scripture calls "peace with God." Therefore it is here for the first time that we find salvation spoken of in the grand results that are now brought before us in Romans 5:1-11. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." There is entrance into favour, and nothing but favour. The believer is not put under law, you will observe, but under grace, which is the precise reverse of law. The soul is brought into peace with God, as it finds its standing in the grace of God, and, more than that, rejoices in hope of the glory of God. Such is the doctrine and the fact. It is not merely a call then; but as we have by our Lord Jesus Christ our access into the favour wherein we stand, so there is positive boasting in the hope of the glory of God. For it may have been noticed from chapter 3 to chapter 5, that nothing but fitness for the glory of God will do now. It is not a question of creature-standing. This passed away with man when he sinned. Now that God has revealed Himself in the gospel, it is not what will suit man on earth, but what is worthy of the presence of the glory of God. Nevertheless the apostle does not expressly mention heaven here. This was not suitable to the character of the epistle; but the glory of God he does. We all know where it is and must be for the Christian.

The consequences are thus pursued; first, the general place of the believer now, in all respects, in relation to the past, the present, and the future. His pathway follows; and he shows that the very troubles of the road become a distinct matter of boast. This was not a direct and intrinsic effect, of course, but the result of spiritual dealing for the soul. It was the Lord giving us the profit of sorrow, and ourselves bowing to the way and end of God in it, so that the result of tribulation should be rich and fruitful experience.

Then there is another and crowning part of the blessing: "And not only so, but also boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation." It is not only a blessing in its own direct character, or in indirect though real effects, but the Giver Himself is our joy, and boast, and glory. The consequences spiritually are blessed to the soul; how much more is it to Teach the source from which all flows! This, accordingly, is the essential spring of worship. The fruits of it are not expanded here; but, in point of fact, to joy in God is necessarily that which makes praise and adoration to be the simple and spontaneous exercise of the heart. In heaven it will fill us perfectly; but there is no more perfect joy there, nor anything. higher, if so high, in this epistle.

At this point we enter upon a most important part of the epistle, on which we must dwell for a little. It is no longer a question of man's guilt, but of his nature. Hence the apostle does not, as in the early chapters of this epistle, take up our sins, except as proofs and symptoms of sin. Accordingly, for the first time, the Spirit of God fromRomans 5:12; Romans 5:12 traces the mature of man to the head of the race. This brings in the contrast with the other Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we have here not as One bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, but as the spring and chief of a new family. Hence, as is shown later in the chapter, Adam is a head characterized by disobedience, who brought in death, the just penalty of sin; as on the other hand we have Him of whom he was the type, Christ, the obedient man, who has brought in righteousness, and this after a singularly blessed sort and style "justification of life." Of it nothing has been heard till now. We have had justification, both by blood and also in virtue of Christ's resurrection. But "justification of life" goes farther, though involved in the latter, than the end of Romans 4:1-25; for now we learn that in the gospel there is not only a dealing with the guilt of those that are addressed in it; there is also a mighty work of God in the presenting the man in a new place before God, and in fact, too, for his faith, clearing him from all the consequences in which he finds himself as a man in the flesh here below.

It is here that you will find a great failure of Christendom as to this. Not that any part of the truth has escaped: it is the fatal brand of that "great house" that even the most elementary truth suffers the deepest injury; but as to this truth, it seems unknown altogether. I hope that brethren in Christ will bear with me if I press on them the importance of taking good heed to it that their souls are thoroughly grounded in this, the proper place of the Christian by Christ's death and resurrection. It must not be, assumed too readily. There is a disposition continually to imagine that what is frequently spoken of must be understood; but experience will soon show that this is not the case. Even those that seek a place of separation to the Lord outside that which is now hurrying on souls to destruction are, nevertheless, deeply affected by the condition of that Christendom in which we find ourselves.

Here, then, it is not a question at all of pardon or remission. First of all the apostle points out that death has come in, and that this was no consequence of law, but before it. Sin was in the world between Adam and Moses, when the law was not. This clearly takes in man, it will be observed; and this is his grand point now. The contrast of Christ with Adam takes in man universally as well as the Christian; and man in sin, alas! was true, accordingly, before the law, right through the law, and ever since the law. The apostle is therefore plainly in presence of the broadest possible grounds of comparison, though we shall find more too.

But the Jew might argue that it was an unjust thing in principle this gospel, these tidings of which the apostle was so full; for why should one man affect many, yea, all? "Not so," replies the apostle. Why should this be so strange and incredible to you? for on your own showing, according to that word to which we all bow, you must admit that one man's sin brought in universal moral ruin and death. Proud as you may be of that which distinguishes you, it is hard to make sin and death peculiar to you, nor can you connect them even with the law particularly: the race of man is in question, and not Israel alone. There is nothing that proves this so convincingly as the book of Genesis; and the apostle, by the Spirit of God, calmly but triumphantly summons the Jewish Scriptures to demonstrate that which the Jews were so strenuously denying. Their own Scriptures maintained, as nothing else could, that all the wretchedness which is now found in the world, and the condemnation which hangs over the race, is the fruit of one man, and indeed of one act.

Now, if it was righteous in God (and who will gainsay it?) to deal with the whole posterity of Adam as involved in death because of one, their common father, who could deny the consistency of one man's saving? who would defraud God of that which He delights in the blessedness of bringing in deliverance by that One man, of whom Adam was the image? Accordingly, then, he confronts the unquestionable truth, admitted by every Israelite, of the universal havoc by one man everywhere with the One man who has brought in (not pardon only, but, as we shall find) eternal life and liberty liberty now in the free gift of life, but a liberty that will never cease for the soul's enjoyment until it has embraced the very body that still groans, and this because of the Holy Ghost who dwells in it.

Here, then, it is a comparison of the two great heads Adam and Christ, and the immeasurable superiority of the second man is shown. That is, it is not merely pardon of past sins, but deliverance from sin, and in due time from all its consequences. The apostle has come now to the nature. This is the essential point. It is the thing which troubles a renewed conscientious soul above all, because of his surprise at finding the deep evil of the flesh and its mind after having proved the great grace of God in the gift of Christ. If I am thus pitied of God, if so truly and completely a justified man, if I am really an object of God's eternal favour, how can I have such a sense of continual evil? why am I still under bondage and misery from the constant evil of my nature, over which I seem to have no power whatever? Has God then no delivering power from this? The answer is found in this portion of our epistle (that is, from the middle of chapter 5).

Having shown first, then, the sources and the character of the blessing in general as far as regards deliverance, the apostle sums up the result in the end of the chapter: "That as sin hath reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life," the point being justification of life now through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is applied in the two chapters that follow. There are two things that might make insuperable difficulty: the one is the obstacle of sin in the nature to practical holiness; the other is the provocation and condemnation of the law. Now the doctrine which we saw asserted in the latter part ofRomans 5:1-21; Romans 5:1-21 is applied to both. First, as to practical holiness, it is not merely that Christ has died for my sins, but that even in the initiatory act of baptism the truth set forth there is that I am dead. It is not, as in Ephesians 2:1-22, dead in sins, which would be nothing to the purpose. This is all perfectly true true of a Jew as of a pagan true of any unrenewed man that never heard of a Saviour. But what is testified by Christian baptism is Christ's death. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto his death?" Thereby is identification with His death. "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." The man who, being baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or Christian baptism, would assert any license to sin because it is in his nature, as if it were therefore an inevitable necessity, denies the real and evident meaning of his baptism. That act denoted not even the washing away of our sins by the blood of Jesus, which would not apply to the case, nor in any adequate way meet the question of nature. What baptism sets forth is more than that, and is justly found, not in Romans 3:1-31, but inRomans 6:1-23; Romans 6:1-23. There is no inconsistency in Ananias's word to the apostle Paul "wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord." There is water as well as blood, and to that, not to this, the washing here refers. But there is more, which Paul afterwards insisted on. That was said to Paul, rather than what was taught by Paul. What the apostle had given him in fulness was the great truth, however fundamental it may be, that I am entitled, and even called on in the name of the Lord Jesus, to know that I am dead to sin; not that I must die, but that I am dead that my baptism means nothing less than this, and is shorn of its most emphatic point if limited merely to Christ's dying for my sins. It is not so alone; but in His death, unto which I am baptized, I am dead to sin. And "how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Hence, then, we find that the whole chapter is founded on this truth. "Shall we sin," says he, proceeding yet farther (ver. 15), "because we are not under the law, but under grace?" This were indeed to deny the value of His death, and of that newness of life we have in Him risen, and a return to bondage of the worst description.

In Romans 7:1-25 we have the subject of the law discussed for practice as well as in principle, and there again meet with the same weapon of tried and unfailing temper. It is no longer blood, but death Christ's death and resurrection. The figure of the relationship of husband and wife is introduced in order to make the matter plain. Death, and nothing short of it, rightly dissolves the bond. We accordingly are dead, says he, to the law; not (as no doubt almost all of us know) that the law dies, but that we are dead to the law in the death of Christ. Compare verse 6 (where the margin, not the text, is substantially correct) with verse 4. Such is the principle. The rest of the chapter (7-25) is an instructive episode, in which the impotence and the misery of the renewed mind which attempts practice under law are fully argued out, till deliverance (not pardon) is found in Christ.

Thus the latter portion of the chapter is not doctrine exactly, but the proof of the difficulties of a soul who has not realised death to the law by the body of Christ. Did this seem to treat the law that condemned as an evil thing? Not so, says the apostle; it is because of the evil of the nature, not of the law. The law never delivers; it condemns and kills us. It was meant to make sin exceeding sinful. Hence, what he is here discussing is not remission of sins, but deliverance from sin. No wonder, if souls confound the two things together, that they never know deliverance in practice. Conscious deliverance, to be solid according to God, must be in the line of His truth. In vain will you preach Romans 3:1-31, or even 4 alone, for souls to know themselves consciously and holily set free.

From verse 14 there is an advance. There we find Christian knowledge as to the matter introduced; but still it is the knowledge of one who is not in this state pronouncing on one who is. You must carefully guard against the notion of its being a question of Paul's own experience, because he says, "I had not known," "I was alive," etc. There is no good reason for such an assumption, but much against it. It might be more or less any man's lot to learn. It is not meant that Paul knew nothing of this; but that the ground of inference, and the general theory built up, are alike mistaken. We have Paul informing us that he transfers sometimes in a figure to himself that which was in no wise necessarily his own experience, and perhaps had not been so at any time. But this may be comparatively a light question. The great point is to note the true picture given us of a soul quickened, but labouring and miserable under law, not at all consciously delivered. The last verses of the chapter, however, bring in the deliverance not yet the fulness of it, but the hinge, so to speak. The discovery is made that the source of the internal misery was that the mind, though renewed, was occupied with the law as a means of dealing with, flesh. Hence the very fact of being renewed makes one sensible of a far more intense misery than ever, while there is no power until the soul looks right outside self to Him who is dead and risen, who has anticipated the difficulty, and alone gives the full answer to all wants.

Romans 8:1-39 displays this comforting truth in its fulness. From the first verse we have the application of the dead and risen Christ to the soul, till in verse 11 we see the power of the Holy Ghost, which brings the soul into this liberty now, applied by-and-by to the body, when there will be the complete deliverance. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." A wondrous way, but most blessed! And there (for such was the point) it was the complete condemnation of this evil thing, the nature in its present state, so as, nevertheless, to set the believer as before God's judgment free from itself as well as its consequences. This God has wrought in Christ. It is not in any degree settled as to itself by His blood. The shedding of His blood was absolutely necessary: without that precious expiation all else had been vain and impossible. But there is much more in Christ than that to which too many souls restrict themselves, not less to their own loss than to His dishonour. God has condemned the flesh. And here it may be repeated that it is no question of pardoning the sinner, but of condemning the fallen nature; and this so as to give the soul both power and a righteous immunity from all internal anguish about it. For the truth is that God has in Christ condemned sin, and this for sin definitely; so that He has nothing more to do in condemnation of that root of evil. What a title, then, God gives me now in beholding Christ, no longer dead but risen, to have it settled before my soul that I am in Him as He now is, where all questions are closed in peace and joy! For what remains unsolved by and in Christ? Once it was far otherwise. Before the cross there hung out the gravest question that ever was raised, and it needed settlement in this world; but in Christ sin is for ever abolished for the believer; and this not only in respect of what He has done, but in what He is. Till the cross, well might a converted soul be found groaning in misery at each fresh discovery of evil in himself. But now to faith all this is gone not lightly, but truly in the sight of God; so that he may live on a Saviour that is risen from the dead as his new life.

Accordingly Romans 8:1-39 pursues in the most practical manner the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. First of all, the groundwork of it is laid in the first four verses, the last of them leading into every-day walk. And it is well for those ignorant of it to know that here, in verse 4, the apostle speaks first of "walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The latter clause in the first verse of the authorised version mars the sense. In the fourth verse this could not be absent; in the first verse it ought not to be present. Thus the deliverance is not merely for the joy of the soul, but also for strength in our walking after the Spirit, who has given and found a nature in which He delights, communicating withal His own delight in Christ, and making obedience to be the joyful service of the believer. The believer, therefore, unwittingly though really, dishonours the Saviour, if he be content to walk short of this standard and power; he is entitled and called to walk according to his place, and in the confidence of his deliverance in Christ Jesus before God.

Then the domains of flesh and Spirit are brought before us: the one characterized by sin and death practically now; the other by life, righteousness, and peace, which is, as we saw, to be crowned finally by the resurrection of these bodies of ours. The Holy Ghost, who now gives the soul its consciousness of deliverance from its place in Christ, is also the witness that the body too, the mortal body, shall be delivered in its time. "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by [or because of] his Spirit that dwelleth in you."

Next, he enters upon another branch of the truth the Spirit not as a condition contrasted with flesh (these two, as we know, being always contrasted in Scripture), but as a power, a divine person that dwells in and bears His witness to the believer. His witness to our spirit is this, that we are children of God. But if children, we are His heirs. This accordingly leads, as connected with the deliverance of the body, to the inheritance we are to possess. The extent is what God Himself, so to speak, possesses the universe of God, whatever will be under Christ: and what will not? As He has made all, so He is heir of all. We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.

Hence the action of the Spirit of God in a double point of view comes before us. As He is the spring of our joy, He is the power of sympathy in our sorrows, and the believer knows both. The faith of Christ has brought divine joy into his soul; but, in point of fact, he is traversing a world of infirmity, suffering, and grief. Wonderful to think the Spirit of God associates Himself with us in it all, deigning to give us divine feelings even in our poor and narrow hearts. This occupies the central part of the chapter, which then closes with the unfailing and faithful power of God for us in all our experiences here below. As He has given us through the blood of Jesus full remission, as we shall be saved by this life, as He has made us know even now nothing short of present conscious deliverance from every whit of evil that belongs to our very nature, as we have the Spirit the earnest of the glory to which we are destined, as we are the vessels of gracious sorrow in the midst of that from which we are not yet delivered but shall be, so now we have the certainty that, whatever betide, God is for us, and that nothing shall separate us from His love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Then, in Romans 9:1-33; Romans 10:1-21; Romans 11:1-36, the apostle handles a difficulty serious to any mind, especially to the Jew, who might readily feel that all this display of grace in Christ to the Gentile as much as to the Jew by the gospel seems to make very cheap the distinctive place of Israel as given of God. If the good news of God goes out to man, entirely blotting out the difference between a Jew and a Gentile, what becomes of His special promises to Abraham and to his seed? What about His word passed and sworn to the fathers? The apostle shows them with astonishing force at the starting-point that he was far from slighting their privileges. He lays down such a summary as no Jew ever gave since they were a nation. He brings out the peculiar glories of Israel according to the depth of the gospel as he knew and preached it; at least, of His person who is the object of faith now revealed. Far from denying or obscuring what they boasted of, he goes beyond them "Who are Israelites," says he, "to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all God blessed for ever." Here was the very truth that every Jew, as such, denied. What blindness! Their crowning glory was precisely what they would not hear of. What glory so rich as that of the Christ Himself duly appreciated? He was God over all blessed for ever, as well as their Messiah. Him who came in humiliation, according to their prophets, they might despise; but it was vain to deny that the same prophets bore witness to His divine glory. He was Emmanuel, yea, the Jehovah, God of Israel. Thus then, if Paul gave his own sense of Jewish privileges, there was no unbelieving Jew that rose up to his estimate of them.

But now, to meet the question that was raised, they pleaded the distinguishing promises to Israel. Upon what ground? Because they were sons of Abraham. But how, argues he, could this stand, seeing that Abraham had another son, just as much his child as Isaac? What did they say to Ishmaelites as joint-heirs? They would not hear of it. No, they cry, it is in Isaac's seed that the Jew was called. Yes, but this is another principle. If in Isaac only, it is a question of the seed, not that was born, but that was called. Consequently the call of God, and not the birth simply makes the real difference. Did they venture to plead that it must be not only the same father, but the same mother? The answer is, that this will not do one whit better; for when we come down to the next generation, it is apparent that the two sons of Isaac were sons of the same mother; nay, they were twins. What could be conceived closer or more even than this? Surely if equal birth-tie could ensure community of blessing if a charter from God depended on being sprung from the same father and mother, there was no case so strong, no claim so evident, as that of Esau to take the same rights as Jacob. Why would they not allow such a pretension? Was it not sure and evident that Israel could not take the promise on the ground of mere connection after the flesh? Birthright from the same father would let in Ishmael on the one hand, as from both parents it would secure the title of Esau on the other. Clearly, then, such ground is untenable. In point of fact, as he had hinted before, their true tenure was the call of God, who was free, if He pleased, to bring in other people. It became simply a question whether, in fact, God did call Gentiles, or whether He had revealed such intentions.

But he meets their proud exclusiveness in another way. He shows that, on the responsible ground of being His nation, they were wholly ruined. If the first book in the Bible showed that it was only the call of God that made Israel what they were, its second book as clearly proved that all was over with the called people, had it not been for the mercy of God. They set up the golden calf, and thus cast off the true God, their God, even in the desert. Did the call of God. then, go out to Gentiles? Has He mercy only for guilty Israel? Is there no call, no mercy, of God for any besides?

Hereupon he enters upon the direct proofs, and first cites Hosea as a witness. That early prophet tells Israel, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi were of awful import for Israel; but, in presence of circumstances so disastrous, there should be not merely a people but sons of the living God, and then should Judah and Israel be gathered as one people under one head. The application of this was more evident to the Gentile than to the Jew. Compare Peter's use in1 Peter 2:10; 1 Peter 2:10. Finally he brings in Isaiah, showing that, far from retaining their blessing as an unbroken people, a remnant alone would be saved. Thus one could not fail to see these two weighty inferences: the bringing in to be God's sons of those that had not been His people, and the judgment and destruction of the great mass of His undoubted people. Of these only a remnant would be saved. On both sides therefore the apostle is meeting the grand points he had at heart to demonstrate from their own Scriptures.

For all this, as he presses further, there was the weightiest reason possible. God is gracious, but holy; He is faithful, but righteous. The apostle refers to Isaiah to show that God would "lay in Zion a stumbling-stone." It is in Zion that He lays it. It is not among the Gentiles, but in the honoured centre of the polity of Israel. There would be found a stumblingstone there. What was to be the stumbling-stone? Of course, it could hardly be the law: that was the boast of Israel. What was it? There could be but one satisfactory answer. The stumbling-stone was their despised and rejected Messiah. This was the key to their difficulties this alone, and fully explains their coming ruin as well as God's solemn warnings.

In the next chapter (Romans 10:1-21) he carries on the subject, showing in the most touching manner his affection for the people. He at the same time unfolds the essential difference between the righteousness of faith and that of law. He takes their own books, and proves from one of them (Deuteronomy) that in the ruin of Israel the resource is not going into the depths, nor going up to heaven. Christ indeed did both; and so the word was nigh them, in their mouth and in their heart. It is not doing, but believing; therefore it is what is proclaimed to them, and what they receive and believe. Along with this he gathers testimonies from more than one prophet. He quotes from Joel, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He quotes also from Isaiah "Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed." And mark the force of it whosoever." The believer, whosoever he might be, should not be ashamed. Was it possible to limit this to Israel? But more than this "Whosoever shall call." There. is the double prophecy. Whosoever believed should not be ashamed; whosoever called should be saved. In both parts, as it may be observed, the door is opened to the Gentile.

But then again he intimates that the nature of the gospel is involved in the publishing of the glad tidings. It is not God having an earthly centre, and the peoples doming up to worship the Lord in Jerusalem. It is the going forth of His richest blessing. And where? How far? To the limits of the holy land? Far beyond. Psalms 19:1-14 is used in the most beautiful manner to insinuate that the limits are the world. Just as the sun in the heavens is not for one people or land alone, no more is the gospel. There is no language where their voice is not heard. "Yea verily, their sound went forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." The gospel goes forth universally. Jewish pretensions were therefore disposed of; not here by new and fuller revelations, but by this divinely skilful employment of their own Old Testament Scriptures.

Finally he comes to two other witnesses; as from the Psalms, so now from the law and the prophets. The first is Moses himself. Moses saith, "I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people," etc. How could the Jews say that this meant themselves? On the contrary, it was the Jew provoked by the Gentiles "By them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you." Did they deny that they were a foolish nation? Be it so then; it was a foolish nation by which Moses declared they should be angered. But this does not content the apostle, or rather the Spirit of God; for he goes on to point out that Isaiah "is very bold" in a similar way; that is, there is no concealing the truth of the matter. Isaiah says: "I was found of them who sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me." The Jews were the last in the world to take such ground as this. It was undeniable that the Gentiles did not seek the Lord, nor ask after Him; and the prophet says that Jehovah was found of them that sought Him not, and was made manifest to them that asked not after Him. Nor is there only the manifest call of the Gentiles in this, but with no less clearness there is the rejection, at any rate for a time, of proud Israel. "But unto Israel he saith, All day long have I stretched out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."

Thus the proof was complete. The Gentiles the despised heathen were to be brought in; the self-satisfied Jews are left behind, justly and beyond question, if they believed the law and the prophets.

But did this satisfy the apostle? It was undoubtedly enough for present purposes. The past history of Israel was sketched inRomans 9:1-33; Romans 9:1-33; the present more immediately is before us inRomans 10:1-21; Romans 10:1-21. The future must be brought in by the grace of God; and this he accordingly gives us at the close of Romans 11:1-36. First, he raises the question, "Has God cast away his people?" Let it not be! Was he not himself, says Paul, a proof to the contrary? Then he enlarges, and points out that there is a remnant of grace in the worst of times. If God had absolutely cast away His people, would there be such mercy? There would be no remnant if justice took its course. The remnant proves, then, that even under judgment the rejection of Israel is not complete, but rather a pledge of future favour. This is the first ground.

The second plea is not that the rejection of Israel is only partial, however extensive, but that it is also temporary, and not definitive. This is to fall back on a principle he had already used. God was rather provoking Israel to jealousy by the call of the Gentiles. But if it were so, He had not done with them. Thus the first argument shows that the rejection was not total; the second, that it was but for a season.

But there is a third. Following up with the teaching of the olive-tree, he carries out the same thought of a remnant that abides on their own stock, and points to a re-instatement of the nation, And I would just observe by the way, that the Gentile cry that no Jew ever accepts the gospel in truth is a falsehood. Israel is indeed the only people of whom there is always a portion that believe. Time was when none of the English, nor French, nor of any other nation believed in the Saviour. There never was an hour since Israel's existence as a nation that God has not had His remnant of them. Such has been their singular fruit of promise; such even in the midst of all their misery it is at present. And as that little remnant is ever sustained by the grace of God, it is the standing pledge of their final blessedness through His mercy, whereon the apostle breaks out into raptures of thanksgiving to God. The day hastens when the Redeemer shall come to Zion. He shall come, says one Testament, out of Zion. He shall come to Zion, says the other. In both Old and New it is the same substantial testimony. Thither He shall come, and thence, go forth. He shall own that once glorious seat of royalty in Israel. Zion shall yet behold her mighty, divine, but once despised Deliverer; and when He thus comes, there will be a deliverance suited to His glory. All Israel shall be saved. God, therefore, had not cast off His people, but was employing the interval of their slip from their place, in consequence of their rejection of Christ, to call the Gentiles in sovereign mercy, after which Israel as a whole should be saved. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first liven to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever."

The rest of the epistle takes up the practical consequences of the great doctrine of God's righteousness, which had been now shown to be supported by, and in no wise inconsistent with, His promises to Israel. The whole history of Israel, past, present, and future falls in with, although quite distinct from, that which he had been expounding. Here I shall be very brief.

Romans 12:1-21 looks at the mutual duties of the saints. Romans 13:1-14; Romans 13:1-14 urges their duties towards what was outside them, more particularly to the powers that be, but also to men in general. Love is the great debt that we owe, which never can be paid, but which we should always be paying. The chapter closes with the day of the Lord in its practical force on the Christian walk. In Romans 14:1-23 and the beginning ofRomans 15:1-33; Romans 15:1-33 we have the delicate theme of Christian forbearance in its limits and largeness. The weak are not to judge the strong, and the strong are not to despise the weak. These things are matters of conscience, and depend much for their solution on the degree to which souls have attained. The subject terminates with the grand truth which must never be obscured by details that we are to receive, one another, as Christ has received us, to the glory of God. In the rest of chapter 15 the apostle dwells on the extent of his apostleship, renews his expression of the thought and hope of visiting Rome, and at the same time shows how well he remembered the need of the poor at Jerusalem. Romans 16:1-27; Romans 16:1-27 brings before us in the most. instructive and interesting manner the links that grace practically forms and maintains between the saints of God. Though he had never visited Rome, many of them were known personally. It is exquisite the delicate love with which he singles out distinctive features in each of the saints, men and women, that come before him. Would that the Lord would give us hearts to remember, as well as eyes to see, according to His own grace! Then follows a warning against those who bring in stumbling-blocks and offences. There is evil at work, and grace does not close the eye to danger; at the same time it is never under the pressure of the enemy, and there is the fullest confidence that the God of peace will break the power of Satan under the feet of the saints shortly.

Last of all, the apostle links up this fundamental treatise of divine righteousness in its doctrine, its dispensational bearings, and its exhortations to the walk of Christians, with higher truth, which it would not have been suitable then to bring out; for grace considers the state and the need of the saints. True ministry gives out not merely truth, but suited truth to the saints. At the same time the apostle does allude to that mystery which was not yet divulged at least, in this epistle; but he points from the foundations of eternal truth to those heavenly heights that were reserved for other communications in due time.